work in progress
Well-Known Member
If that commandment is still in effect, then the religion is irrational and has evil consequences for the whole world.
Now, doesn't that tell you something? The only reason the Earth is able to support twice as many people as it could during the 1960's, is because more sophisticated agricultural technology made increased crop yields possible. But, it has to be noted that the Green Revolution also made it necessary to transition to mechanized, intensive agriculture. The doubling and tripling of crop yields was made possible by the mass adoption of using nitrogen-fixing fertilizers all over the world. But no consideration was given for what the environmental impacts of this process would be. And it looks like the chickens are just coming home to roost right now:
Feeding humankind now demands so much nitrogen-based fertilizer that the distribution of nitrogen on the earth has been changed in dramatic, and sometimes dangerous, ways
Massive introduction of reactive nitrogen into soils and waters has many deleterious consequences for the environment. Problems range from local health to global changes and, quite literally, extend from deep underground to high in the stratosphere. High nitrate levels can cause life-threatening methemoglobinemia ("blue baby" disease) in infants, and they have also been linked epidemiologically to some cancers. Leaching of highly soluble nitrates, which can seriously contaminate both ground and surface waters in places undergoing heavy fertilization, has been disturbing farming regions for some 30 years. A dangerous accumulation of nitrates is commonly found in water wells in the American corn belt and in groundwater in many parts of western Europe. Concentrations of nitrates that exceed widely accepted legal limits occur not only in the many smaller streams that drain farmed areas but also in such major rivers as the Mississippi and the Rhine.
Fertilizer nitrogen that escapes to ponds, lakes or ocean bays often causes eutrophication, the enrichment of waters by a previously scarce nutrient. As a result, algae and cyanobacteria can grow with little restraint; their subsequent decomposition robs other creatures of oxygen and reduces (or eliminates) fish and crustacean species. Eutrophication plagues such nitrogen-laden bodies as New York State's Long Island Sound and California's San Francisco Bay, and it has altered large parts of the Baltic Sea. Fertilizer runoff from the fields of Queensland also threatens parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with algal overgrowth.
Whereas the problems of eutrophication arise because dissolved nitrates can travel great distances, the persistence of nitrogen-based compounds is also troublesome, because it contributes to the acidity of many arable soils. (Soils are also acidified by sulfur compounds that form during combustion and later settle out of the atmosphere.) Where people do not counteract this tendency by adding lime, excess acidification could lead to increased loss of trace nutrients and to the release of heavy metals from the ground into drinking supplies.
Excess fertilizer does not just disturb soil and water. The increasing use of nitrogen fertilizers has also sent more nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Concentrations of this gas, generated by the action of bacteria on nitrates in the soil, are still relatively low, but the compound takes part in two worrisome processes. Reactions of nitrous oxide with excited oxygen contribute to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere (where these molecules serve to screen out dangerous ultraviolet light); lower, in the troposphere, nitrous oxide promotes excessive greenhouse warming. The atmospheric lifetime of nitrous oxide is longer than a century, and every one of its molecules absorbs roughly 200 times more outgoing radiation than does a single carbon dioxide molecule.
Yet another unwelcome atmospheric change is exacerbated by the nitric oxide released from microbes that act on fertilizer nitrogen. This compound (which is produced in even greater quantities by combustion) reacts in the presence of sunlight with other pollutants to produce photochemical smog. And whereas the deposition of nitrogen compounds from the atmosphere can have beneficial fertilizing effects on some grasslands or forests, higher doses may overload sensitive ecosystems.
When people began to take advantage of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, they could not foresee any of these insults to the environment. Even now, these disturbances receive surprisingly little attention, especially in comparison to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet the massive introduction of reactive nitrogen, like the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, also amounts to an immense--and dangerous--geochemical experiment.
Fertilizer nitrogen that escapes to ponds, lakes or ocean bays often causes eutrophication, the enrichment of waters by a previously scarce nutrient. As a result, algae and cyanobacteria can grow with little restraint; their subsequent decomposition robs other creatures of oxygen and reduces (or eliminates) fish and crustacean species. Eutrophication plagues such nitrogen-laden bodies as New York State's Long Island Sound and California's San Francisco Bay, and it has altered large parts of the Baltic Sea. Fertilizer runoff from the fields of Queensland also threatens parts of Australia's Great Barrier Reef with algal overgrowth.
Whereas the problems of eutrophication arise because dissolved nitrates can travel great distances, the persistence of nitrogen-based compounds is also troublesome, because it contributes to the acidity of many arable soils. (Soils are also acidified by sulfur compounds that form during combustion and later settle out of the atmosphere.) Where people do not counteract this tendency by adding lime, excess acidification could lead to increased loss of trace nutrients and to the release of heavy metals from the ground into drinking supplies.
Excess fertilizer does not just disturb soil and water. The increasing use of nitrogen fertilizers has also sent more nitrous oxide into the atmosphere. Concentrations of this gas, generated by the action of bacteria on nitrates in the soil, are still relatively low, but the compound takes part in two worrisome processes. Reactions of nitrous oxide with excited oxygen contribute to the destruction of ozone in the stratosphere (where these molecules serve to screen out dangerous ultraviolet light); lower, in the troposphere, nitrous oxide promotes excessive greenhouse warming. The atmospheric lifetime of nitrous oxide is longer than a century, and every one of its molecules absorbs roughly 200 times more outgoing radiation than does a single carbon dioxide molecule.
Yet another unwelcome atmospheric change is exacerbated by the nitric oxide released from microbes that act on fertilizer nitrogen. This compound (which is produced in even greater quantities by combustion) reacts in the presence of sunlight with other pollutants to produce photochemical smog. And whereas the deposition of nitrogen compounds from the atmosphere can have beneficial fertilizing effects on some grasslands or forests, higher doses may overload sensitive ecosystems.
When people began to take advantage of synthetic nitrogen fertilizers, they could not foresee any of these insults to the environment. Even now, these disturbances receive surprisingly little attention, especially in comparison to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Yet the massive introduction of reactive nitrogen, like the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels, also amounts to an immense--and dangerous--geochemical experiment.
There are another 3 billion people living on Earth -- every one of them needs food, energy, shelter + whatever available resources are necessary to produce the luxuries they decide to add to their lives. All of this comes from a planet that cannot expand to suit the needs and desires of an expanding population -- but, is actually declining in both renewable, and non-renewable resource availability. So, we are adding more people at the very time when the planet is losing capacity to provide the same level of resources. How is it logical to even consider that this situation can go on without leading to catastrophe -- most likely, the same sort of catastrophes that have caused the fall of past civilizations, or the extinction of once flourishing, isolated animal populations.
