Fertilizer shortages worldwide resulting in massive famines all over the developing world, energy shortages that are affecting critical utilities supplies in the developing world... Sounds good, amirite?
The upshot is it could accelerate the development of smaller local fertiliser factories running on solar power. There’s a few that have been built and demonstrated. If we start to build them in large numbers hopefully the costs will become reasonable.
That’s for nitrogen. Sulphur is another matter. I suppose in the long term we should just adapt food production to what can actually be sourced sustainably and locally.
7 million people per year die prematurely from air pollution alone. Are you suggesting we should just keep killing those people indefinitely instead?
Those 7 million lives were apparently never worth fixing things for; now maybe we can shift away from a fossil fuel-driven economy and cut back on a lot of that pollution, and maybe save a ton of lives in the long run.
Yes it is horrible that people are going to die from famines, no one is arguing against that, but maybe it will result in shifting our economy to something where people don't die of famines and also don't die of air pollution.
We have to evolve ways -- or bring back ways -- of making our agriculture less petroleum dependent. But short of a shock of this nature, we are not going to do any research in that direction because of trillions of dollars of investments in that way of doing business and in their vested interests. The oil will start flowing soon enough, but this is the defibrillation that the world needed, even if it didn't want it.
That’s for nitrogen. Sulphur is another matter. I suppose in the long term we should just adapt food production to what can actually be sourced sustainably and locally.