Over the last decade or so, chemical fertilizers are being used increasingly in third world countries. This is a good thing in some ways and a negative thing in other, perhaps more important ways.
First of all, it is good that poorer, undereducated people are able to use modern technology to increase harvests and more food is a good thing. Especially in these places where people are having trouble getting nutrition. Nutrition is getting more and more difficult to produce for the growing populations, so it's a good thing that they're able to produce more food.
One negative consequence of this increase is that there is more chemical run-off of fertilized water from the fields, into waterways, which eventually reach the ocean. Phosphorous, Nitrogen and Potassium, the major elements of chemical fertilizers, are important elements for healthy plant growth. Unfortunately, when suspended in water, they are also useful for growing algae. Algae in the ocean or in large bodies of water, reduce evaporation from those bodies of water.
If large portions of the ocean were to get covered over with algae, then our planet could become a desert planet. I would expect the temperatures to continue rising, and for the atmosphere to dry out. Less cloud cover means less light is reflected back out into space, so that the problem is self-compounding. Many of the problems that are due to carbon debt behave similarly. The problem causes other problems which exacerbate the problem even more.
My take on the problem is that we need educated people to get involved with managing these land resources. If there is a limited quantity of arable land in the world, and it's getting more and more important to our growing population, then why is it being managed by the poorest, most uneducated people on the planet? I have seen some efforts by Bill Gates and others to educate these people, but it seems like it's mostly geared towards getting them to use the fertilizers, rather then getting them to use sustainable farming techniques to grow more food without the negative impacts associated with modern fertilization techniques.
So, the idea of FutureHope is to address problems like this with a solution, or a possible solution, or somehow to present a way of thinking about the problem that is geared toward coming up with a solution, so that readers of the book will be thinking about how to solve the problems, or how they could be solved, and maybe even to think about how they can be part of the solution.
ReplyDeleteSo, for instance, fertilizer run-off in under-industrialized nations by uneducated farmers is a world problem. There is no economic incentive for anyone to give a flying f... about it. Unfortunately, it is a very real problem and one that effects our planet very intensely. I personally don't want to live in a world where the oceans are covered with thick green blankets of smothering green.
So,
Education is a very possible solution. Also, since the industry is essentially external, it should be possible to change the industry to use earth-safe fertilizers (no chlorine), and to include education about increasing bio-matter in the soil.
ReplyDeleteFunding education is a difficult situation, since educated, multi-lingual people have very little incentive to venture into places like africa or rural china to explain how and why these farmers should be aware of issues like fertilizer run-off.
Also, there is no guarantee that any of the farmers will listen, since they're already low on labor, and most sustainable farming techniques are more labor intensive then the old industrial way of farming.
Fortunately for all of us the problems that are exacerbated by this kind of activity will in all likelihood eventually make it impossible for all these poor farmers to continue living on their land, so that if it is possible to farm at all, it will have to be done by giant machines and all the poor farmers will be forced into concentration camps or underground slum-cities or something.
All this futuristic rambling is not intended to be factual. It is an imaginational exercise aimed at writing a book about how to manage factors that are effecting global climate change. Perhaps it is time to start a website specifically for this exercise.