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Recent Posts
- Trump & Project 2025 want to destroy energy efficiency & raise your utility bills
- The only congressional hearing on Peak Oil was in 2005
- Tom Murphy Stubborn Expectations (on population)
- NIMBY Hydrogen production
- Can Geothermal power replace declining fossil fuels?
- Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth
- Why coal was only created once
- Failed Nations
- We have a date for the zenith of civilization: 2025-2026
- Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
- Spermageddon: Sperm is declining around the world
- Thorium nuclear bombs and reactors have too many challenges
- Who Killed the Electric Car & more importantly, the Electric Truck?
- President Carter’s energy solutions 1977
- Peak Menhaden
Category Archives: Soil
The 10th planetary boundary: Salt
Preface. In 2009, Johan Rockström proposed that there were nine planetary boundaries we must not cross. In 2023, Richardson et al found that 6 of the 9 boundaries had been transgressed: Climate change CO2 and radiative forcing, Biosphere integrity, land … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Planetary Boundaries, Pollution, Soil
Tagged biodiversity, existential threat, salt
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China is destroying itself
Preface. China has been destroying itself for many decades now. In Mao’s “great leap forward” about 35 to 50 million are estimated to have died from starvation from 1958 on, as you’ll read in my book review of” Shapiro J … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Hazardous Waste, Mining, Soil
Tagged agriculture, chairman mao, mining, soil erosion
1 Comment
Dust Bowl 2.0 – they’re coming back!
Preface. Two forms of soil erosion may bring back the Great Depression Dustbowls. The first is that Great Plains grasslands have been replaced with corn crops to grow ethanol, which have increased the amount of dust 100% over the past … Continue reading
Posted in Soil
Tagged biocrust, climate change, corn, cryptobiotic soil, dust, dustbowl, ethanol, water
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Corn for ethanol & soy for biodiesel tremendously destructive
In the news: Cullen A (2024) Corn Belt fertilizer is killing the Gulf of Mexico. Washington Post. About 30 percent of the nitrogen applied for raising corn is lost to water, and much of it right now is draining off … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Peak Food, Pesticides, Soil, Water Pollution
Tagged aquifer depletion, biodiesel, corn, erosion, ethanol, pollution, soybeans, topsoil
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Soil salinity and erosion
Preface. Civilizations fail when their soils are ruined or eroded. One way conquerors made sure that those they enslaved during wars was to salt their land and burn their homes so they had nowhere to escape to. Erosion is an … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Topsoil, Scientists Warnings to Humanity, Soil
Tagged erosion, food, salinity, soil, topsoil
2 Comments
Climate change impacts on agriculture
Preface. There are three articles below on this topic. Plus these articles in the news: Nakagawa T et al (2021) The spatio-temporal structure of the Lateglacial to early Holocene transition reconstructed from the pollen record of Lake Suigetsu and its … Continue reading
Posted in BioInvasion, Drought & Collapse, Extreme Weather, Food production, Heat, Peak Topsoil, Soil, Water, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged climage change, disease, erosion, food production, pests, soil, water, weeds
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Peak Sand
Preface. With world peak oil production in 2018 so far (Peak oil is here!) it looks like peak sand won’t be the main factor in the fall of our fossil-fueled civilization. After all, oil makes all materials and activities possible, … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Concrete, Peak Sand, Soil
Tagged biodiversity, concrete, ecosystem destruction, food loss, peak sand, shoreline erosion
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Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
Preface. Before the fossil fuel age began, about 80 to 90% of people farmed to make a living. Since the end of the oil age will send us back to the past, farmland and farmers will once again comprise … Continue reading
Posted in Overpopulation, Peak Food, Soil
Tagged agriculture, peak food, population, sprawl
5 Comments
Using manure for fertilizer in the future – it won’t be easy
Preface. At John Jeavons Biointensive workshop back in 2003, I learned that phosphorous is limited and mostly being lost to oceans and other waterways after exiting sewage treatment plants. He said it can be dangerous to use human manure without … Continue reading
Posted in Life Before Oil, Soil, Waste, Water Pollution
Tagged eutrophication, excrement, fertilizer, manure, phosphorus, sewage, water
8 Comments
Book review of Dirt: the erosion of civilization
Preface. On average civilizations collapsed after 800 to 2,000 years because they’d destroyed their topsoil, some of it caused by deforestation to grow more food, make metals, ceramics, glass and other objects requiring high heat, which fossils provide today. Today, … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Peak Food, Soil
Tagged agriculture, erosion, peak food, peak soil, soil
4 Comments