This is one of my major concerns with the global stability of agriculture. The projections of yield losses due to climate change are significant and economically impactful, but they’re not something we’re incapable of planning around. But if we deplete all the aquifers there’s the possibility of a swift and catastrophic collapse. In India, cities are sinking due to rapid groundwater extraction. Things have the potential to get very ugly very quickly if management doesn’t improve.
It’s fun how everytime I learn about a new climate catastrophe I assume it’s like crop failure and then it turns out it’s “city wide sinkhole, to not do crop failure”
Yeah, considering tradeoffs is important. And this would be a problem even if climate change wasn’t part of the picture; aquifer depletion is happening because capitalism is demanding production cycles faster than the capacity of natural resources (soil and water) to regenerate. We could easily stay within those cycles if we (say it with me, class) reduce wastage, overproduction, and animal agriculture, but that would mean lower profits
This is one of my major concerns with the global stability of agriculture. The projections of yield losses due to climate change are significant and economically impactful, but they’re not something we’re incapable of planning around. But if we deplete all the aquifers there’s the possibility of a swift and catastrophic collapse. In India, cities are sinking due to rapid groundwater extraction. Things have the potential to get very ugly very quickly if management doesn’t improve.
It’s fun how everytime I learn about a new climate catastrophe I assume it’s like crop failure and then it turns out it’s “city wide sinkhole, to not do crop failure”
Yeah, considering tradeoffs is important. And this would be a problem even if climate change wasn’t part of the picture; aquifer depletion is happening because capitalism is demanding production cycles faster than the capacity of natural resources (soil and water) to regenerate. We could easily stay within those cycles if we (say it with me, class) reduce wastage, overproduction, and animal agriculture, but that would mean lower profits
Haha oops we depleted the topsoil and drained the ground water 🤷