The Four Horsemen
Part One – The White Horse
There have been a lot of theories proposed about the Ride of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. Dispensationalists claim that the White Horse is the Antichrist, and we’ll all be raptured before he rides. Others claim that it has already happened, or that it’s just allegory – fantastic literature written for the amusement of scholarly scholars.
Ultimately, the reason will be that we are short-sighted, sinful and foolish.
The longer reason will be the implosion of our ability to feed eight billion people. This collapse began long before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but has now accelerated due to the key position held by Ukraine and Russia in the export of food and fertilizer. Countries that must import food to feed their people will starve when they can’t meet the prices that grain exporters will demand.
Towards the beginning of this catastrophe, wealthy countries will have enough to eat, while the poor will starve. Eventually, as the process accelerates, the poorest countries will be torn apart by angry parents who cannot feed their starving children, and then the wealthier countries will suffer from discontent. As this collapse in food production continues, famine-related diseases will sweep through poor countries as immune systems fail due to hunger.
All of this could have been avoided, but we chose to ignore the obvious.
What is so obvious?
Natural gas is in decline, and we refused – or are unable – to find an alternative way to manufacture the nitrogen fertilizer that we use. Without natural gas, we cannot create enough fertilizer that would help farmers grow enough food to feed eight billion people. And, in the hundred years since we discovered the Haber Process, we have not found a better way of creating fertilizer.
No comments:
Post a Comment