Please use this thread to discuss the above referenced chapter of How the World Really Works: The Science Behind How We Got Here and Where We're Going by Vaclav Smil.

In Chapter 2, Smil explains that food production is mainly dependent on two kinds of energy: the natural energy from the sun and artificial energy from fossil-fuels. This energy has not changed over the years, but the amount of food produced certainty has changed and the rapidity of that change has been very impressive. He drives home these points with vivid examples. What, on average, took 10 minutes to produce 200 years ago, in recent years can take only 2 seconds. This improvement has been brought about by sophisticated machinery and that machinery consumes fossil fuels. And, of course, to promote this optimal growth of crops, agrochemicals are a must consuming even more fossil fuels.

Smil also examines animal meat and the energy required for us to consume it. He provides us with more examples: a roasted chicken costs 300-350 ml of crude oil, 210-250 mL/kg for bread, and two skewers of medium-sized wild shrimp require 0.5-1 liters of diesel. And that’s only the beginning. Before the food arrives at our table it goes through many phases: marketing, packaging, transportation, wholesale, retail service, household food storage, and preparation.

We learn that while some of the wealthier countries encouraged large scale veganism in an effort to decarbonize, others, such as Brazil, increased meat consumption. The author states that there are opportunities for decarbonization by decreasing, to some extent, the use of fossil fuels and creating and using more renewable energy. He also suggests we reduce our crop and animal production, and the energy subsidies that go along with it by finding more ways to solve the huge problem of waste. However, these are not desirable way to fix the problem of reducing carbon emission in low-income countries, where food access for many disadvantaged families remains precarious.

Thanks, LevV, for your good summary of Ch. 2 and its main points. I was unable to find a "thank this person" button. Since I have been incommunicado for two weeks I also appreciate you moving the discussion along.

The basic point made, that productivity has soared, is critical. Anthropologists look at surplus, the amount of food a food producer can produce beyond his own household needs, as a strong indicator of the possibilities for a culture and economy. In the modern world, post-1960 let us say, this is so large that food supply no longer functions as a restriction on material well-being. As Smil observes, the well-off of the industrialized countries no longer need to worry about having enough food, but only about having healthy food and interesting culinary options.

A secondary point, also rather well made, is also important to the larger picture. Meat is much more resource-intensive than grain, with beef being far more, pork considerably more, and chicken rather economical by comparison with those two. So, as the cows tell us on the Chik-Fil-A billboards, "Eat chikin".

There are a couple of important fuzzy spots, however. First, Smil notes the use of fossil fuel-derived artificial fertilizers without discussing how much they contribute, or don't, to global warming. I do not know the answer, but I have a sense that use of fossil fuels as feedstocks for fertilizer and plastics throws much less of the carbon into the atmosphere than if they were burned. So it is not really helpful to lump together the two uses of carbon chains.

Second, his measurement of efficiency using production per farmer is somewhat skewed. There are actually a range of options for increasing land productivity, and the more intensive use of fertilizers and other chemicals tends to be favored except in the land-rich countries of Canada, the US, and Australia. Countries with more workers than land, especially Japan and China, use this "chemical package" with a much lower use of machinery per kg of harvest. Since machinery equates to the burning of fossil fuels (at least so far), the option of a chemical package suggests that his overall point, equating productivity with fossil fuel burning, has been exaggerated (although if chemical production and use puts as much CO2 into the atmosphere as burning does, my point is moot.)

This particularly bothered me when he made a few sideswipes at the possibilities for substituting away from fossil fuel use. It is likely to be true that we can't have modern levels of productivity without chemical fertilizers. Biochar and nitrogen fixation may represent some challenge to this, but in the end the fertilizers which drove the Green Revolution (and the advanced grain breeding in Europe, N. America and Japan that led to it) will very likely still be needed to support the world's population. But that does not mean tractors can't be run like electric cars and trucks, and tractors are, I suspect, the real emitters of GHGs in agriculture.

Thanks Harry and Lev. Harry, on your question about fertilizers and climate, a good source is https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-doe ... te-change/

My obsession with climate policy remains relentless. I cited Smil in an issues paper I wrote for the Healthy Planet Action Coalition. My paper is Moral Perspectives on Climate Policy.

My concern with Smil remains that he offers no solutions, and even appears oblivious to the problem that the inability to prevent warming threatens economic collapse. Given his premise that we can't stop emitting greenhouse gases, we have a moral obligation to deploy methods that can mitigate their effects.

Robert Tulip wrote: ↑Tue Mar 07, 2023 11:40 pm Thanks Harry and Lev. Harry, on your question about fertilizers and climate, a good source is https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-doe ... te-change/

I appreciated the wealth of information. I did not find a direct answer to my question, but I feel the perspective is much more complete. Clearly the chemical production of nitrogen fertilizers releases very significant GHG amounts. Smil is not mistaken in concluding that we will have to use some source of energy to continue to feed humanity adequately.

Smil does not give more than a sentence or two to the possibility that improved catalysts could significantly reduce the energy required. What are rhizomes doing if not catalyzing a reaction? I must insist that in the next decade there will be breakthroughs cutting the "exo" energy needed by half or more. Our knowledge of materials science and of biological processes is too advanced for any other outcome. Sure would like to see evidence that the NSF is on the case, though.

Robert Tulip wrote: My concern with Smil remains that he offers no solutions, and even appears oblivious to the problem that the inability to prevent warming threatens economic collapse. Given his premise that we can't stop emitting greenhouse gases, we have a moral obligation to deploy methods that can mitigate their effects.

We have plenty enough greenhouse gases still coming, even with our best efforts, that the moral obligation is there. Of course it should have as much implication for putting in place incentives for reduced GHG emissions, in order to coax the myriad innovations out of the woodwork, as for mitigation methods.