End of Abundance | 3. Hitting Walls

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]on to end of abundance part three. So in part two I explained how society was already kind of on schedule to start experiencing declining access to fossil fuels which would have serious consequences for the potential of modern agriculture to continue. Now we're exploring the flip side of that where we're kind of damned if we do, damned if we don't because what we were using the fossil fuels for anyway was destroying the planet. Uh, and so no matter what, and this goes back to that limits the growth chart, there simply was no way that we were going to be able to continue producing the current level of agricultural yields. And so now we're going to look into the other reasons for that. And starting with the living components of a functional agricultural system who are being erased, healthy soil that is fertile enough to support healthy plants, which is what we would hope to be able to count on in the future to eat, consists of a whole thriving ecosystem. So at the microbial level, you have bacteria that are breaking down molecules and making the nutrients more accessible to plants.

[00:01:12]Fungi are doing that, too. Plus, they're enabling the plants to communicate with each other. You also have uh analids and insects acting as decomposers as well.

[00:01:22]And so that's vital because they turn organic matter into a form that it can be cycled back through the circle of life. And without them, things would kind of just die and then they would decompose. But they would do it in a manner that the like the chemically the end product wouldn't be as supportive to plants. It could even be phytotoxic like toxic to them. And then also above ground we of course have pollinators uh as well as pests or sorry not pests predators predators who prey on pests.

[00:01:58]So this is like an adolescent of a ladybug. It looks like a little crocodile. And snakes can take care of vos in your gardens. Um, the lady beetles as well as some others will eat like aphids and stuff that would otherwise suck the moisture and liquids out of tomatoes and plants like that and make them wither. So, you really need all of this balance. But, of course, what we're doing, oh, and I'll also mention here this fact that one tablespoon of healthy soil would contain 75,000 species of bacteria, 25,000 species of fungi, a thousand species of prozzoa, and 100 species of nemode. Uh, and that's just species. And then it's not like you have one individual from each species.

[00:02:40]There's several members of each or individuals from it in there as well. So really, but of course that's only in healthy soil and that's not what we have anymore in a lot of places. Uh, and of course a lot of our activities are eroding all of this. So when we till that destroys their habitats and probably like their bodies and crushes them. um when we're spraying with chemicals, all of that is wiping this life out and that's where we get ourselves into a dustable situation.

[00:03:09]Again, we've determined that in the US, five crops are facing pollinator limitation, which I'll explain. So, they did a study in recent years where they tested seven different crops that are dependent on pollination by insects because not all of them are. A lot of crops are windpollinated. But they looked at almonds, apples, blueberries, cherries, watermelons, and pumpkins. And they looked at 131 locations across the US and part of Canada. And they determined that five out of those seven listed were subject to pollinator limitation.

[00:03:43]Which means that if there were more pollinators present, like when they bring them in artificially, it bumps up the amount of yields that you get, which means that the yields are actually lower than they would otherwise be because there are fewer insects flying around. like we're already getting to a point where the population of insects which is dropping is setting the bar of productivity for those crops. So for a while there were potentially like more insects than you needed more than enough more pollinators than you needed and so even as their population was dropping it wasn't affecting the yields of those crops because somebody would get around to it and pollinate that plant. Now, because the workforce is so low, the output is actually now starting to be impacted in fall. Um, and so what you have here is I mentioned in my previous presentation that what we do in the US is we have honeybee hives that we truck around the nation. Um, and the the living conditions for those bees are awful. I wrote a whole paper about it. But then in China, even though they like to say that everything's fine over there, they have people pollinating the trees because all of the chemicals that they use killed all the insects. And so now they need to send the humans out into the fields with little paint brushes to climb up in the trees and go flower by flower and make sure these might I'm not even going to try to guess what that is.

[00:05:11]Um but to make sure it sets some kind of fruit. Um and I have to think that I'm like, "Wow." Okay. So, it's a it's a it's an environment where it was deadly for the insects.

[00:05:22]You're probably not addressing the thing that made it deadly to the insects in the first place. And now you're sending your people out there. Actually, this reminds me, there's another chart that I have that's not in here where they tested the urine levels of chemicals for people. And like, US isn't great, but China is by far the worst. Like, everyone is just walking around with like all these pesticides and stuff in their bodies and peeing it out. Next up, lithosphere. I don't actually know if this counts as lithosphere. Uh the geologists can let me know, but I what I mean is that it's I'm talking about the soil. A little piece of trivia that continues to float around and is a favorite of people I feel like when they start to learn about how depleted all of our resources are is this idea that we have 60 harvests left. I remember hearing it myself. Um but I tried to look into like what are the origins of that? And I'm actually in agreement with our world and data, which I've mentioned before. I'm usually very skeptical of their findings because they're trying to bury the truth. Um, but in this case, I agree that there isn't enough of an evidence basis to be saying this. Um, and I think that if you are spreading a message, you know, I support it letting everyone know how what bad shape we're in, but you need to make sure that you're actually using good data. So, uh, the the origins of this, as far as I can tell, in 2010, some professor at the University of Sydney, John Crawford, mentioned it in an interview for some newspaper, like someone was asking him about the state of the soil, and he was like, "Yeah, we only got like 60 harvests left, but it didn't link to any studies by him." So, if somebody else wants to look into it, John Crawford would have been before from before 2010 an assessment of soil quality and ideally globally. Um, and then that potential falsehood lived on and by 2014 an official from the UN was quoting it in a speech because it's it's a real zinger. It like makes an impression on your audience. And then it popped up in the uh the documentary Kiss the Soil with Woody Harelson, I believe, who was the host of that. So yeah, though I wouldn't put a lot of faith in that one, but I do know that for the US average, and I do trust this because I found the assessment, we're building soil at a rate of 0.1 millimeters a year, but eroding it at a rate of.5 million millimeters a year.

[00:07:43]That means you make it disappear over time. [laughter] So that's not good. And then also, this is crazy. 24 to 46, they're not sure there's a big margin there. Um, of the USA corn belts cultivated area, which is like most of our farmland. If you remember from my previous presentation, I had that map where it was like neon green where most of the acreage of farmland is. There's our corn belt and we're mostly going corn in this country.

[00:08:10]that much percent somewhere between about a quarter and a half is devoid of an A horizon. I have a diagram here of this is from talking so much I've been recording all day. Um the you have the soil horizons and the a horizon is basically the top soil like when you think of you should never say dirt. dirt is devoid of life. But um what we think of when we think of like the ground and the soil like that's the A horizon and it according to the study is just gone.

[00:08:41]Like it's not even like oh it's poor quality. We just need to add some more compost and stuff like it's just you're down to the the B which is pretty much very little organic matter and mostly minerals. So, uh, if true, that's crazy.

[00:08:58]And that means that you don't have a lot to work with cuz that's not great in terms of like texture.

[00:09:06]Uh, I don't know if you can like amend that in a good amount of time. And like that is most of the land that we would be relying on if we had to become self-reliant as a country. So uh oh another consequence of the fact that we are killing off all the life in the ground above the ground destroying the quality of the soil. By the way pores matter. I meant to mention that. So like ideally soil is like a sponge with a whole bunch of pores in it. And then that way it can trap water and air and nutrients molecules in that way because that's where the roots of the plants need to be able to access them. Whereas if you press out all of the pores by destroying the health of the soil and then driving over it with machinery, then it's kind of just like a brick and uh there's it's no good. It's no good for the plants. And so one thing is between that and climate change because um as we release more CO2 emissions into the atmosphere, plants are actually becoming less nutritious. Uh so they did some assessments and from both one looked at the 1970s up through the '9s and another one took the 30s to the 80s and in both cases you saw a decline in all of these different vitamins in minerals in major vegetables. I think one may have been global and the other one was specific for the UK and then even though food doesn't have nutrients in it what it does have is microlastics.

[00:10:36]And a study found that well first of all you're probably ingesting them because they're inside the food. That's one thing but also microplastics are reducing yields of these major crops wheat, rice, and corn uh by up to 14%.

[00:10:51]So that's not good. And you don't really hear people talking about that aspect of microplastics. They're reducing our crops.

[00:10:59]And the reason that the microplastics or the way that they're inhibiting growth is that it's kind of like cholesterol in your veins. Those little particles build up in the xylem and the phe of the plants and so they're just blocking the flow of water and nutrients and plants bodies are kind of like ours and if you cut off their circulation they're not going to thrive. Uh then what we have here final thing in my lithosphere section kind of is you know it's groundwater. Uh being able to water and irrigate your crops actually gives you a major boost in yields. And so suddenly if you can no longer access the water to irrigate, you're going to see your yields drop. Uh and so fortunately in the blue that's their groundwater is rising. But in the brown it's being depleted. They're using it up faster than it is getting replenished by precipitation. So, it's not good news.

[00:11:57]And now, the one that we all just cannot wait to hear about, climate change. It is not hard as long as you dare to look to find headlines of how climate is impacting our crops around the globe.

[00:12:08]And so, the ones that I have here are from 2024, 25, and this year so far.

[00:12:14]Although, obviously, we have yet to find out what the Super Elino is going to do.

[00:12:19]So, I've got stuff from Europe. The UK is facing food shortages and price rises after extreme weather. Elsewhere in Europe, it's saying it's a critical time farmers struggle through driest spring in a century uh than in America. The US beef prices reach a record high as cattle industry struggles to keep costs down. Uh the amount of cows, I guess specifically beef cattle in the US has been dropping since the 70s. Uh part of it is because climate change is making it harder to grow food for them and if you can't feed your cows, you don't have cows. Uh and then also there's this article from Time magazine about it says America's young farmers are burning out. I quit too. But if you actually read the article, he mentions that one of the things is that like climate change kept destroying his crops so he couldn't make money. Uh and then this year there was another freeze in Florida. Where was that on this presentation? That was the last presentation where I showed the map and I showed like actually our fruit only comes from a few states in this country and so Florida is one of them and it got hit with a freeze and uh so that destroyed a lot of the blueberries. I think it's almost all of them everywhere.

[00:13:28]Um and then in uh Asia, Indonesian farmers count the cost as rain washes out the Java durian harvest. Uh also in Korea, floods and failed harvests. Uh and then Africa floods, failed harvests, a region on the brink. So that's uh West Africa and then southern Africa as well.

[00:13:50]Looking at drought and hunger came up in my feed today because the algorithm was like, "We heard you like crop failures."

[00:13:58]And I was like, "Thank you, YouTube.

[00:14:00]This is a perfect way to illustrate the next point that I want to make, which is that it doesn't take a totally extreme event that destroys other parts of our infrastructure to damage crops. So, you know, I think that when we think of climate change, we're envisioning a wildfire, a crazy flood, tornadoes, storms, blizzards, whatever. But with crops, it could also just be that like it's a little bit chilly when it's already supposed to be warmer or there's just like a little bit too much rain and so the ground is soggy. Like things that as a person who if you're just like driving to your office job, it wouldn't be intense enough for you to notice, but like the plants are noticing. And so, uh, in this story, in my dear home state of New Jersey, there was a freeze and there's a lot of trees that are already in bloom. And when it's cold, it makes those flowers drop off. And then it's like, well, there goes the harvest we were going to have later this year. So, that impacted peaches, apples, pears, and asparagus, which I wouldn't not have guessed. Um, and also in our state of New York, uh, we're big for apples, and our apples got hit in a lot of cases. I don't know. I talked to two people and her two two out of two was destroyed. I don't know if that's a good sample size.

[00:15:22]Uh and it kind of reminds me I'd like to tell my friend she um she's collapsware and on days that get her thinking about how climate change is coming for us all, she'll text me and uh but she only does that on days when there's a really big heat wave. and good supportive friend that I am, I take that opportunity to remind her that the kind of weather that's going to destroy us is actually happening on a lot of days. Now, when it comes to predicting the future impacts of climate change, it gets a little bit trickier, but let's take a look at it.

[00:15:52]Over on my Substack, I tried to collect all of the reports that I could that seem to have anything substantial to say to try to piece together like what does it actually mean for how much food there's going to be. So, here are some highlights of what I found. There have been articles out there saying that we're in for another dust ball soon because of the poor soil quality out west. And so according to this one assessment, what that would mean is 30% less wheat, 40% less soy, and 40% less corn. Another study said that as we pass 2C, which I expect will happen around the middle of next decade, uh, our losses to pests are going to increase because I would imagine that that's both because under stronger heat, plants have weaker immune systems just because they're like overwhelmed and also because warmer temperatures tend to support pest breeding because when you have a cold winter, it'll typically it'll kill a lot of the pests that are like hibernating in a sense in the soil.

[00:16:52]That doesn't happen anymore once you start getting warm mild winters. It just their the window of time when it is safe for them to be out and about and completing their life cycles and breeding expands. Um so anyway the we would see pest pressure increase 46% for wheat, 19% for rice and 31% for maize.

[00:17:14]And here I would just caution you to remember that that's not like we're losing 40% of the wheat. It's that however much pest pressure there was on wheat before that's going to increase times 1.46. So if I had 100 tomatoes and before one plant per those 100s would be lost to pests. Now it's like one and a half plants are going to die because of some kind of infection. So it depending on what the starting number is this result might not actually be so dire. Uh and then this is a study about the risk of multi-bread basket failure. It's the one that Jem Bendelle cited in in his book, I believe, but also maybe in his paper, the deep adaptation paper that made a splash where he said that he predicts that already this decade we're going to have a multi-bread basket failure. And his reason for saying that um is that past well, I'll first explain this and then I'll get into it. So first of all, the definition of a bread basket failure is when the farm or this group of farms in those regions that tend to feed the world when they produce at less than 75%. So it doesn't mean that the crop there's nothing growing.

[00:18:35]It just means that you're not at your personal best. and then risk of multiple. That means that you're just seeing this happen in more than one place because there's just a handful of places in the world as we saw in the previous videos map where we're growing most of our calories. So multiple bracket basket and then for example for corn at the base rate before there was any global warming in any given year you already had a 6% rate of failure. It just happens sometimes for some reason in one region they're just unlucky. uh then once we get past 1.5 or say we already have gotten past 1.5 now in any given year there is a 40% risk and then at 2C you're already at a 54% risk. So it was the biggest impact in terms of raising the risk is already now baked in that we're at 1.5. It's going to continue to inch up but we're like already solidly there in it being a strong possibility. And so Jem Bendel's calculation was that well if we passed 1.5 in 2024 and from now on because I think we were just below it for 2025 but like we're averaging 1.5 at this point and now of course with the superno that's going to boost the temperature. We're at that place where it's at least a 40% chance.

[00:19:56]And if you got 40% chances, like it's going to happen in the next few years. So that's what he's figuring.

[00:20:06]A few more bits of textheavy information slides. Um, one study was looking at RCP6, which would imply 3.7 degrees of warming by 2100, which a few of you might argue is too optimistic. But anyway, what they determined that at that temperature, when it comes to tropical staple crops, which is cassava, rice, sweet potato, sorghum, taro, and yam, we would lose give or take 2.3% of those crops. And then for the staple crops that I'm much more familiar with, potato, soybean, wheat, and maize, we would lose about 11% give or take 24% of those. So, that could be as much as a third.

[00:20:49]um once we get to that 3.7 then general information and this is sounding extreme I mean I guess it's it's like these um these consequences just start to take hold at these temperatures they're not like in full force yet but anyway for livestock 25° centigrade or 77 Fahrenheit is when they start to get uncomfortable but as the heat increases past there uh cows you see they lose weight their milk has less protein and fat I think. Yeah, both of those. And then pigs and chickens can't sweat, so they're they get like organ failure and just all of the livestock die. Uh, and then for crops and plants at it's at 30° C where you need to worry or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, they start to wither and struggle. Uh and then another study determined that for every 1°ree Celsius of heating, their projection is that annual global production would decline if we're measuring by calories uh by 5.5 * 10^ the 14th power kilo calories. Uh and of course that didn't mean anything to me. So, I divided it by the equivalent of a year's worth of calories uh based on a 2,00 calorie diet, which might also be a little bit too generous. Like, I you could make it amount to it could feed more people if you're putting on people on a stricter diet. But anyway, what I got based on 2,000 calories, especially if you're going to be working hard, you need at least 2,000 uh is going to be 7.5 million people's worth of crops. So that would be the shortfall for every 1.C degree of heating, which this is kind of what I was saying in my first episode 2.

[00:22:34]It's like on the one hand, that's a lot of people now who were not going to have food for them, but on the other hand, it is only less than.1% of our whole population. So it is simultaneously and I think it's important to make the distinction between like yes huge tragedy but also if you want to be picturing what let's say okay per one degree of heating so I think um if we'll probably add okay well right now we're let's say we're at 1.5 we'll probably be at 2.5 by 2040 early 2040s and so if you're trying to figure out what that'll look like um I don't necessarily would think it would be accurate, at least not for that reason alone to be picturing extinction, right? There's a big difference or like just everyone in the streets just crawling because they're all just dying of starvation. Like dramatic difference and I I know my imagination goes towards that latter image. And so here we have this one study that determined that it wouldn't quite be that. Okay. Final thing to consider when it comes to impacts of climate change on crops in the future is this report from the institute and faculty of actuaries which are like risk management people in the UK. Uh if you watch planet critical or listen to it with Rachel Donald this was the interview with Sandy Trust. Uh, I saw that they recently published an updated report, although I haven't looked at it. I probably didn't say anything too different. Um, but this map map was pretty striking.

[00:24:17]And again, because I care to get legitimate data, I decided to look into the source for these maps because what I've seen sometimes, at least when um what is it like especially reporters like the Guardian, their headline or even the text, the body of the report will misrepresent what the study actually says. Um I've seen that. I saw where they were talking about there was one headline where it said a global water crisis is going to imperil half of our crop yields by 2050.

[00:24:46]But then if you read the report or you go to the report and then you go to the end notes and then that links you to another thing and that links you to another thing like the original data didn't actually say that. So here this is a fun one. I have the report there the original one on the left or the final one that I was looking at. I traced that back to this other one from Chattam House and the University of Exitor and whatever the security blind spot which then where they um cited their reference again took me to this OECD report from 2021 except it doesn't exist anymore. So some intern messed up. But anyway, I'm going to take a look at this map for you. All right.

[00:25:24]So what are we looking at here? We've got a map that shows us the impact that it would have on crops if we assume uh that the world in this depicted here is already at the point of 2.5 degrees warming and the AMO is off. It says and of course I assume that by off they mean that it has collapsed. And when we say that it's collapsed we mean that the strength of it as shown in this chart on the right is below a rating of six. So the embaka is weakening over time gradually and we're already going to feel the effects of that over the coming years and decade or two or whatever and then at a point which here looks like at the earliest it's showing like 2075 even in the most dramatic situation um is when it has slowed enough that we're like okay boom it's over the finish line now it's collapsed you know um so make I mean to me that doesn't seem like those two things are compatible like I don't think that the AMO is going to have crossed that line in the same decade that we're at 2.5 degrees of warming.

[00:26:27]That like that's a weird combination for me. But anyway, um the bluer it is, the more crops production is falling and the greener it is, these climate effects are giving production a boost. And I don't know about you, but when I look at this chart, I see a whole lot of blue. like it looks like a lot of regions are experiencing decreases in their suitability for these major crops of wheat, corn and rice and not very many of them are coming in to replace that as you know becoming more suited and better more hospitable to growing food. So on that positive note we've got one more episode to go.