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Soil: The world beneath our feet

theguardian.com

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Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#21

Post by carapace »

photochemsyn wrote: post #6

Closed-system farming, where basically everything is recycled - nutrients, water, biomass (except what goes onto people's tables) - is theoretically possible and this article describes what looks like a successful system. This is also the kind of thing you'd need on a large spaceship or Martian colony (where human feces/urine would also need to be recycled). However, the increase in labor needed shouldn't be underest…

> However, the increase in labor needed shouldn't be underestimated. Some automation is likely possible with advanced robots, but this would mean a much larger fraction of the population would be involved in agriculture, perhaps as much as 10X as are currently employed.

I don't think it would be so radical. For one thing, only about 1% of us work in agriculture now, so even if it takes 10x that's still only 10%.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#23

Post by soheil »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #20
soheil wrote: post #12

> Without a radical change in the way we eat, by 2050 the world will need to grow around 50% more grain. Is that the only way? What if we grow grains that need 50% less water? This article is mind numbingly preachy and ignores that technology can and always has been at the forefront of human progress. Yes, if we wake up one day in 30 years and find that we have made 0 technological progress then we will need 50% more…

It's not the only way. We could keep eating grain but stop the multiplication of humans on the planet. But technology won't solve the problem that if human eating habits stay on the current trajectory, they will eat 50% more grain. I get it that this is not what you meant. But the progress of technology, while you can rely on it getting somewhere, is unpredictable. It'd be foolish to count on it without considering c…

I know it's good to always hedge against risk. But to hedge against technological progress is shorting humanity as a whole and is a dark place to go. Arguments of type "let's reduce population" nonetheless stem from that line of thinking as you eluded to.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#24

Post by vixen99 »

rhn_mk1 wrote: post #20
soheil wrote: post #12

> Without a radical change in the way we eat, by 2050 the world will need to grow around 50% more grain. Is that the only way? What if we grow grains that need 50% less water? This article is mind numbingly preachy and ignores that technology can and always has been at the forefront of human progress. Yes, if we wake up one day in 30 years and find that we have made 0 technological progress then we will need 50% more…

It's not the only way. We could keep eating grain but stop the multiplication of humans on the planet. But technology won't solve the problem that if human eating habits stay on the current trajectory, they will eat 50% more grain. I get it that this is not what you meant. But the progress of technology, while you can rely on it getting somewhere, is unpredictable. It'd be foolish to count on it without considering c…

Stop the multiplication of humans sounds authoritarian. Is that how you meant it? A recent experiment along those lines didn't go so well. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-...

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#25

Post by rhn_mk1 »

vixen99 wrote: post #24
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the only way. We could keep eating grain but stop the multiplication of humans on the planet. But technology won't solve the problem that if human eating habits stay on the current trajectory, they will eat 50% more grain. I get it that this is not what you meant. But the progress of technology, while you can rely on it getting somewhere, is unpredictable. It'd be foolish to count on it without considering c…

Stop the multiplication of humans sounds authoritarian. Is that how you meant it? A recent experiment along those lines didn't go so well. https://www.npr.org/2021/06/21/1008656293/the-legacy-of-the-...

I didn't mean this as authoritarian, I meant is as the only alternative answer to the question as it was asked.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#26

Post by hosh »

bmitc wrote: post #4

This is a great article. I forgot where I read it, but someone basically said that we need to stop treating soil as just dirt. I have found out through my research that replacing invasive species and lawns with native plants and also composting organic waste, leaves, and twigs and returning that to your lawn are two of the best things a single person or group of persons can do to thwart climate change. Organic materi…

Every year, landsats measuring soil temperature shows a spike in temperature at around spring planting. And this is because commercial agriculture kills off the soil in order to plant a single crop, maximized on yield. And every year, the soil fertility gets worse, because the ecology of fungi and microbes are not established or accumulating in the soil. It’s just planting on dirt.

It’s not just nutrients. Living soil retains water, and regulates the release of water That has an impact on the microclimate.

Going one step further, planting _edible_ native plants yields useful resources for humans, and helps decentralize food production systems. Add onsite composting and greywater.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#27

Post by dls2016 »

boredumb wrote: post #10
pesfandiar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What level of magnification would you consider decent in a microscope?

you really only need 10x or 25x. https://www.tiktok.com/@madscientistken This guy does live streams almost nightly and I've found myself entranced more than I'd like to admit.

This rocks. I wood chipped a portion of my lawn and now grow fruit/berries there. Every morning after the kids get on the bus I walk around, pull some weeds and dig into the chips and dirt to see what's going on down there. Very relaxing.

This article and tiktok make me want a microscope.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#28

Post by rhn_mk1 »

soheil wrote: post #23
rhn_mk1 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the only way. We could keep eating grain but stop the multiplication of humans on the planet. But technology won't solve the problem that if human eating habits stay on the current trajectory, they will eat 50% more grain. I get it that this is not what you meant. But the progress of technology, while you can rely on it getting somewhere, is unpredictable. It'd be foolish to count on it without considering c…

I know it's good to always hedge against risk. But to hedge against technological progress is shorting humanity as a whole and is a dark place to go. Arguments of type "let's reduce population" nonetheless stem from that line of thinking as you eluded to.

I don't see how hedging about development of a particular technology is a bad thing. We have expected CPUs to get faster, but it didn't get there. Some people were presumably hedging against it, and now we've routed around this with multi-core computers.

People might have expected flying cars, yet they didn't come to be. Instead, quick communication has been solved by the Internet.

The world has many ideas, and they can be explored simultaneously, but we also must face the possibility of failure in case we paint ourselves into a corner, like we just did with the global warming. I find broad exploration rather optimistic compared to being single-minded about something happening in the future.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#29

Post by nemo44x »

soheil wrote: post #12

> Without a radical change in the way we eat, by 2050 the world will need to grow around 50% more grain. Is that the only way? What if we grow grains that need 50% less water? This article is mind numbingly preachy and ignores that technology can and always has been at the forefront of human progress. Yes, if we wake up one day in 30 years and find that we have made 0 technological progress then we will need 50% more…

It’s a ridiculous article that proposes we use poor countries to cultivate fermented gruel for fats and protein and then rely on a radical farming method that struggles to replicate anywhere outside the handsome farmers small plot of land.

If you were to ask experts 50 years ago if you’d be able to feed todays population with their methods they’d say no. But we engineered methods to not only do this but annihilate global starvation. All without having to eat fermented gruel.

Re: Soil: The world beneath our feet

#30

Post by tastyfreeze »

soheil wrote: post #12

> Without a radical change in the way we eat, by 2050 the world will need to grow around 50% more grain. Is that the only way? What if we grow grains that need 50% less water? This article is mind numbingly preachy and ignores that technology can and always has been at the forefront of human progress. Yes, if we wake up one day in 30 years and find that we have made 0 technological progress then we will need 50% more…

Modern farming results in a lot of rainfall runoff. Healthy soil infiltrates and absorbs rainfall. The water then slowly makes its way to waterways and aquafers. We can use far less water by having healthy soil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rbSWey0pOg

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