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Culture War Roundup for the week of September 16, 2024

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why the hell haven't we seen catastrophic impacts to our ecology and agriculture?

Fossil fuels. Fossil-fuel based fertilisers allow us to largely ignore the damage we've done to the environment, and fossil-fuel powered farming vehicles and techniques give us even more energy to make up for it. Petroleum-based agriculture is hideously inefficient compared to traditional farming techniques (because this caused confusion on here in the past, I am using efficiency to refer specifically to calories in vs calories out), but petroleum is such a dense source of energy that for the short-term period where we have access to them we can inflate the global population to thoroughly unsustainable levels. We've just been throwing oil and energy at the problem, which is why we haven't actually noticed.

because this caused confusion on here in the past, I am using efficiency to refer specifically to calories in vs calories out

Now, if only we could get you to stick to that definition of efficiency when talking about nuclear power.