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Comment by viburnum | Hacker News Reader

I know geeks love Norman Borlaug, but there was a catch: the new high-yield varieties are dependent on fertilizers made from fossil fuels. These plants grow fast and have more carbs and less of everything else. There needs to be a second Green Revolution, this time sustainable.

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It's not a necessity that nitrogen fertilizer comes from fossil fuels.

Some of the first massive deployments of hydrogen electrolyzers are fir making ammonia fertilizer, replacing natural gas with solar-driven processes.

Also, I don't think that Borlaug is super closely associated with the fertilizer, as much as with breeeding hardier strains or shorter stalks, to prevent loss of wheat crops or rice crops, for example. For that matter, manure could ne used as fertilizer for the Green Revolution, there's no dependency on the Haber process, that was an entirely different revolution both in time and geography.

There is a reason nerds love Normal Borlaug, and that is he probably saved tons of people. Sure, maybe the food is less nutritious (a nebulous term, anyway) but we do have food.

Put another way, one might say he borrowed from the future to save the present.

I wouldn't put all the blame on him. Wouldn't be first or last time the narrowly efficiency-minded nerds and businessmen took a good idea and optimized it into a monster.

The supposed alternative, changing distribution of food rather than production of food, was a political decision that was fraught with problems. Any nation without food security soon finds that it can lose all of its other security too.

So for a lot of the criticism of the Green Revolution, which comes from a place of wanting a different political structure, but not yet being sure what that structure is, nerds like me see the "alternative" as not a real one. Politics could have saved India, but it did not, it was basic biotech and giving Indian farmers more productivity. If this is a "monster" I'd really like to see a less monstrous alternative proposed, with all the details specified. Because any alternative path sounds too monstrous to be considered by a humane being.

I don't understand your political argument at all.

Example of what I mean from Wikipedia: "Borlaug continually advocated increasing crop yields as a means to curb deforestation." This did not happen as the overproduction ended up as cattle feed and biofuel. And it isn't Borlaug's fault.

Norman Bourlag's primary breakthrough was to cross-breed to increase yields of wheat. Wheat was never supposed to be where people get their micronutrients; wheat provides a baseline of carbs and a moderate amount of protein (to supplement some other primary protein source).

Right, but around the world the green revolution crops displaced more nutritious staple foods like millet and sorghum.

Or, just have 2 billion people on the planet, instead of 8.

Such obvious truths are unfortunately incompatible with individual instincts to procreate.

Research who pollute/consume to most. One average American has the impact of many Africans, so some may have many children if they continue not to ruin the planet. And please compare the impact of top 10% richest US households vs the bottom 50%.

Quality > quantity.

An average American consumes more resources than the average African, but when measured against the science/economic output they create, the average American is still multiples of times more efficient.

Its also much easier to transition Western societies to renewable energy and EVs, which wipes out a lot of carbon emissions for example.

Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.

> Additionally, much of Africa (20%) is reliant on food aid from the West, so its not fair to assign all of the resource use to the people who are feeding them.

Its going then to come as a shock to your world-view to learn that the UK, a nuclear power, with a permanent seat at the UN, and a card-carrying member of the West, had to receive food aid as recently as December 2020 from the UNICEF to feed their children [1].

So go turn your aircon off.

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-55348047

Look at the lives of people who live in the large cities of Africa surviving on $3 a day. They consume less because they can't afford to do otherwise. They live in poverty. Their reduced per capita consumption does not stem from, as is subtly implied by these arguments, some simpler way of life that we could try to get back to if only we strived for simplicity. They just can't afford to replace their (for example) broken, hacked, and welded 30 year old bicycle rim that serves them poorly. When the opportunity arises to afford a new rim, they do it. They consume by the same processes we do.

You're welcome to take the lead and do your part to move the planet one step closer then.

I've done exactly that. I've done my part by actively deciding to not have children. By doing so I've stopped the creation of an entire tree of exponential human population growth in the form of my (lack of) descendents. It's unquestionably the most effective way an individual can reduce the negative impact of humans on the planet.

Your humorous implication that suicide would be effective has some merit, but only for individuals who have not reproduced already.

Why do people always arrive at "cull the herd" before "our way of life should change"?

Because reducing each human's consumption by X% is always going to be less effective than flattening the exponential curve of population growth. It's not even close. Especially when the global trend is towards higher per capita consumption rather than the reverse. Reusing grocery bags in the US (hey I do it too) is nothing compared to the mass modernization going on in huge areas of the world.

And "culling" (I assume you mean through violent means) isn't necessary. Simply reducing birth rates achieves the same solution.

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