$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'L')iebig's law says that the necessity in least supply sets the carrying capacity, not energy/food. It could be water, air, arable land, topsoil, biodiversity, of even nitrogen.
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PeakOil is You
Liebig's law is an invention
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Re: Rebuttal
by EnergySpin » Fri 23 Dec 2005, 11:45:22
Not exactly; Liebig , who is aka The Father of Fertilizers was concerned with one particular situation i.e. the dependance of rate of growth of plants on nutrients. It has nothing to do with topsoil or biodiversity.
I am aware that modern ecologists tried to re-interpret the law, but this is just another subtle attempt to prove they are as legit as physics. Unfortunately for the non-physicists among us, nothing is as legit as physics and we have to live with it.
In any case, the original law concerned concentrations of nutrients; since the earth is a closed system, the material basis of nutrients are not lost to space but rather end up in sea. A source of energy (nuclear, or solar or whatever) can be used to reclaim them from the inorganic world. Even though I do not agree with most what Dezakin says, he is right on this one: couple nuclear power stations to generate electricity with greenhouses and access to sea water and you are set as far as food generation is concerned.
In fact there is a commercial activity (seawatergreenhouse) which has tested the idea i.e. electricity+sea water+greenhouses = high yield numbers in places that could not support agriculture. Cornel's agricultural department has done some great work with "next generation greenhouses". The only thing that is really required for this to work, is a source of inorganic material (3% sea water will do) and electricity to make it fly. Let the plants and the bugs do the rest.
"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
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EnergySpin - Intermediate Crude
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Re: Rebuttal
by MonteQuest » Fri 23 Dec 2005, 11:51:08
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'L')iebig's law says that the necessity in least supply sets the carrying capacity, not energy/food. It could be water, air, arable land, topsoil, biodiversity, of even nitrogen.
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Not exactly; Liebig , who is aka The Father of Fertilizers was concerned with one particular situation i.e. the dependance of rate of growth of plants on nutrients. It has nothing to do with topsoil or biodiversity.
I am aware that modern ecologists tried to re-interpret the law, but this is just another subtle attempt to prove they are as legit as physics. Unfortunately for the non-physicists among us, nothing is as legit as physics and we have to live with it.
Ecology is bunk? Yeah, right. Dismiss a complete branch of science.
A Saudi saying, "My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet-plane. His son will ride a camel."
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MonteQuest - Expert
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Re: Rebuttal
by EnergySpin » Fri 23 Dec 2005, 12:15:32
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergySpin', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MonteQuest', 'L')iebig's law says that the necessity in least supply sets the carrying capacity, not energy/food. It could be water, air, arable land, topsoil, biodiversity, of even nitrogen.
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Not exactly; Liebig , who is aka The Father of Fertilizers was concerned with one particular situation i.e. the dependance of rate of growth of plants on nutrients. It has nothing to do with topsoil or biodiversity.
I am aware that modern ecologists tried to re-interpret the law, but this is just another subtle attempt to prove they are as legit as physics. Unfortunately for the non-physicists among us, nothing is as legit as physics and we have to live with it.
Ecology is bunk? Yeah, right. Dismiss a complete branch of science.
Missed the point of the post completely. In any case, what I tried to say in that post is that the ecologists tried to reach the status of physicists and try to invent laws that are claimed to have the same status as physical laws. Economists, doctors (yes even us), sociologists have tried to do the same thing, which would be amusing if not pathetic, because all these sciences are working with constructs that are detached from the ones universal laws are based on (quantum mechanics, gravity, EM etc). The legitimacy of the Liebig "law" (a macroscopic law) can be traced to metabolic pathways, enzyme kinetics and ultimately the law of coservation of mass. Other ecological "laws" will never be so lucky; they are formulated on the basis of observations valid only within a small /narrow boundary. Most of population biology for example is based on such laws, which explains the failure of simple exponential laws, logistic curves and other more complex DDEs to capture the complexity of naturally occuring populations.
A litl bit of history now:
Liebig was a physical chemist IIRC who was concerned with one particular problem; his viewpoint was a newtonian one (looking for a material explanatory basis of the rate of plant growth) and the success of his viewpoint (and the law-of-the-minimum) , is evident in the "NPK" fertilizer industry. Its re-interpretation in terms of topsoil+pests etc is fine example of linear extrapolation, and inability to think in a craddle-to-grave fashion.
The Liebig law regarding plants (which are usually considered to be on top of the food chain/web) only says that certain nutrients have to be provided for optimal/fast growth. It says nothing about topsoil (at least directly) or about greenhouses. In fact my preferred way of growing edible plants is in greenhouses; one needs far less land to grow the same amount of food, leaving more land for nature. Of course one needs energy for all that, so it is time for nuclear to pick up the tab.
"Nuclear power has long been to the Left what embryonic-stem-cell research is to the Right--irredeemably wrong and a signifier of moral weakness."Esquire Magazine,12/05
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
The genetic code is commaless and so are my posts.
