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Comment by starbase | Hacker News Reader

Whoa. You believe that soil and aquifer issues will lead to society's destruction in a matter of decades? What evidence supports that belief?

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> You believe

Not just me, this is the mainstream business-as-usual expectation. Collapse of breadbasket regions tends to be a Very Bad Thing.

What did you think "unsustainable" meant anyway?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...

https://theconversation.com/farmers-are-depleting-the-ogalla...

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adh2458

> will lead to society's destruction

Technically by "self-destruct" I mean that the agriculture system destroys itself, by somehow undermining its own mechanisms of support. How much of 'society' gets pulled down with it? That's up to us to decide.

Are you aware that less than 6% of US farmland is irrigated, and only half of irrigated farmland (3% of total) uses groundwater?

97% of our farmland uses no groundwater. None.

If US lost 3% of its agricultural output tomorrow, we'd still be growing more food than we can possibly eat; still be filling our cars with a mix of gasoline and corn liquor as we do today.

Perhaps I should have asked this question instead: Is there any evidence that would cause you to change your belief that society is on the brink of collapse, or is that belief unfalsifiable like religious faith?

What about total amount of viable farmland? How much of that amount do those 6% constitute?

How much of farmland is situated close to cities (main cause of aquifer deterioration)? Would that farmland still have enough water after aquifers are caput?

My takeaway was that 97% of US farmland would be unaffected by aquifer collapse. The 3% that would be affected (and that's assuming every aquifer in the country goes dry, which is not at risk of happening) those farms might become completely nonviable, or they might be able to shift to less water intensive crops and methods. In either case, aquifer collapse is not a significant threat to our food supply.

Nonetheless, it is prudent to preserve those water sources.

re: farms near cities, I think it varies a lot by region. Growing thirsty crops near LA is going to be a lot harder than near Houston.

Soil erosion and other forms of degradation is bound to affect billions of people until 2050 [1].

Groundwater degradation is just as bad of an issue - in the US [2], in Europe [3] and APAC regions [4]. The sole exception is Africa, but if they follow the same pathway as everyone else in exploiting and managing it, it's not going to be sufficient [5].

[1] https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/lln-20... (full report: https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LLN-...)

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/08/28/climate/groun...

[3] https://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/environment-and-conserv...

[4] https://www.asiapathways-adbi.org/2022/11/the-invisible-wate...

[5] https://phys.org/news/2023-03-africa-aquifers-scarcity.html

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