And They Made a Desert: 80 to 90% Drop in Nutrients in Food

Stumbled across this lovely chart the other day.

The core fact that most people, including the folks in the “best every world” Panglossian movement (like Pinker), don’t seem to understand is that even if they were right (questionable), the prosperity we have is based on burning down our own house.

“Sure is hot! Hottest it’s ever been!”

Yup. Sure is.

We have vastly reduced our supplies of various non-renewable resources. We have destroyed many species, leading to a loss of biodiversity, which may threaten food chains. In addition, every species we kill is one whose genetic code is lost to us, and we won’t even know what treasures we have lost when we genuinely become able to safely make direct genetic changes.

We have used up large amounts of sinks–places we can store pollution and excess production. We have run down aquifers so much that many of them will never recover. We have poisoned ground water. Fish stocks are down eighty to ninety percent as well, and the Great Barrier Reef is dying. It will not be saved.

And yes, we have destroyed the nutrient value of the soil (where we haven’t just let it blow away), so much so that eighty to ninety percent of some nutrients are missing. No wonder we have a vast incidence of chronic disease that our grandparents and great-grandparents didn’t: We’re effectively starving, while getting fat off of empty calories.

The Industrial Era has been the Era of Locusts. We think we’re rich, but most of what has been happening is that we’re consuming resources far faster than they can be replaced. Meanwhile, we’re poisoning ourselves and the earth; shattering ecosystems which we do not know how to repair (or even understand), and altering Earth’s climate cycle (we should be moving towards an Ice Age).

This is crazed behaviour. This is the behaviour of children who have no self-control at all. Even when we know what we are doing is destructive, we keep doing it, like some kid gorging on cake ’til s/he pukes.

The super-optimists are fools. Yes, it is possible we’ll get out of this, but it’s not possible if we keep telling ourselves that the hole we’ve dug is no big deal. “Why can’t I see the sky anymore, Papa?”

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