this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2024
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I'm sorry, but I didn't see anything about the nitrogen cycle in the link you posted. What do you mean by "exceeding the planetary boundaries significantly"? I'm not very familiar with "planetary boundaries" as an ecological theory, and the site doesn't seem to expand on their methodology to a significant degree, or maybe I'm just not looking at the right pages.
Right..... But do we actually expect that to happen? You seem to be focused on the physical possibility and the science behind the problem, when my argument has been entirely policy based.
If we had the political will, or if we were motivated as nations to help our fellow man, I wouldn't be worried in the first place. My concern isnt that this is some unsolvable and inevitable problem, but that governments will respond to this problem in the easiest and most profitable way. By ignoring it and allowing big AG to create a natural monopoly over an artificially inflated scarcity.
You can only push so much nitrogen and phosphor into the biological cycle w.o. having grave side effects. Acidification, erosion of soil microbiomes, eutrophication of water bodies...
The current amount of fertilizers used are killing the environment and through this reducing crop yields.