>>11656392As far as I am aware there is a herd of elephants in the room, but the only one I am qualified to speak about is soil science.
Taken as a whole, and ignoring minor exceptions, the world's soils are fucked.
Over the past 100 years humans have been doing a a number of stupid short sighted things with regards to agricultural soils. I could tell you all the juicy details but I think your eyes would glaze over. Soil science is neither sexy or exciting.
Basically it boils down to poor management practices, placing short term profit in front of sustainability. We have been trying to squeeze too much production out of the soils. Removing the natural nutrients and supplementing them with artificial fertilizers. At the same time we have severely impacted the soil structure and greatly reduced the diversity and numbers of soil micro flora and fauna. We have also been losing huge amounts of soil to erosion ( water and wind ), diminishing what is essentially a finite supply.
As a result most of the world's soils are now like an empty sponge. We have to add fertilizers to get a decent crop. This is not an option anymore just to boost production, its now a necessity.
Not only does the damage continue every year, but its also irreversible. Providing we have energy sources which remain consistently cheap we can manage, and some technological advances, particularly in genetic modification to food crops, will offset the damage, at least in terms of quantity produced. But the problem is the soils are now incredibly fragile. We have taken the resilience out of their ecosystems. As time goes on over the next 100 years the degradation, especially the soil structure, will get worse and there is not much we can do about it. Eventually we reach a point where the calorie value of the energy and fertilizers we apply are not returned in the produce grown on the soil. Farming will become a net loss. It may not look like a desert but to all production values it essentially is.
