June 1, 2011

We are spending billions of dollars and no small amount of imagination trying to reach a planet whose air would kill us in minutes. Mars isn’t just a world without plants. It’s a preview of the atmosphere Earth would have if photosynthesis ever stopped.

“The diets we eat today have less nutritional density than what our grandparents ate, even if we eat the same thing,” said Kristie Ebi, a professor at the University of Washington’s Center for Health and the Global Environment.

Recent instability in the Middle East is once again pushing energy markets higher, and fertilizer prices often follow closely behind. Nitrogen fertilizers in particular remain heavily tied to natural gas and petroleum inputs.