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Comment by ZoomerCretin | Hacker News Reader

I’d be interested to know how oil consumption and the industries it supports are responsible for the lack of famines and lower maternal mortality rates typically credited to policy changes (farm subsidies), and the advancement of medicine and hygiene standards.

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The agricultural revolution is responsible for both low child mortality and the lack of famines. Pesticides, herbicides, artificial fertilizers and motorized farm implements are the reasons why humanity has been able to grow exponentially over the last 1.5 centuries, why famines have lessened and why better nourishment lead to fewer child deaths (with a small helping of better hygiene). All that is dependent on coal and oil.

Much of our food is fertilized by energy-intensive synthetic fertilizers which are often created by fossil-fueled energy and almost always moved to the field and applied by internal combustion engines. That same ICE equipment is used to harvest and transport food. Oil is used in plastics which are used extensively in both food distribution and medicine/hygiene products.

The majority of fertilizer used in the world is the result of the Haber–Bosch process[0] and that requires fossil fuels. Without the ammonia from this process, crop yields globally would drop like a stone.[1 see graph, world population vs. ammonia production]

[0]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

[1]http://sites.psu.edu/shelbyfosterportfolio/wp-content/upload...

It was a little thing called the Industrial Revolution and the rise of automation that it enabled. That was all sparked by the use of coal as an energy source, and later oil. Without coal and oil, we would all be toiling away on primitive farms still, having ten children and losing four of them before the age ofe 3.

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