Agriculture was a bad idea / Ackerbau war eine schlechte idee

"When populations around the globe started turning to agriculture around 10,000 years ago, regardless of their locations and type of crops, a similar trend occurred: The height and health of the people declined [...]
"Many people have this image of the rise of agriculture and the dawn of modern civilization, and they just assume that a more stable food source makes you healthier," Mummert says. "But early agriculturalists experienced nutritional deficiencies and had a harder time adapting to stress, probably because they became dependent on particular food crops, rather than having a more significantly diverse diet."[...]
"I think it's important to consider what exactly 'good health' means," Mummert says. "The modernization and commercialization of food may be helping us by providing more calories, but those calories may not be good for us. You need calories to grow bones long, but you need rich nutrients to grow bones strong."" (via ScienceDaily)

In this recent review of old and new data, the theory that with the "invention" of agriculture, human health declined and has not returned to its previous state until now (and even then only in parts) is backed up once again. Numerous books and articles have been written on this, one of the most famous ones is Jared Diamonds "The worst mistake in the history of the human race". These were heavily criticized, but recent studies like this one show mounding evidence of this version of the history of agriculture.

Dies ist eine weitere Studie zum Thema Ackerbau und Gesundheit und wie zahlreiche Studien zuvor ist das Ergebnis eindeutig: Mit der "Erfindung" des Ackerbaus litt die Gesundheit der Bauern gravierend. Erst im 20. Jhd wurde zumindest einigen der Mängel entgegengewirkt. In den letzten 20-30 Jahren erschienen zahlreiche Bücher und Artikel zu dem Thema, die allesamt stark kritisiert wurden (z.B. Jared Diamonds "The worst mistake in the history of the human race") , doch in letzter Zeit häufen sich Studien die diese Version der Geschichte des Ackerbaus festigen.

Nitrogen fertilizer does not pay off / Stickstoffdünger lohnt sich nicht

"The study, carried out by 200 experts from 21 countries and 89 organizations, estimates that the annual cost of damage caused by nitrogen across Europe is £60 billion to £280 billion (€70 billion to €320 billion), more than double the extra income gained from using nitrogen fertilizers in European agriculture." (via ScienceDaily)

So why exactly are "we" still using all that nitrogen fertilizer???

Warum nochmal verwenden "wir" dann den ganzen Stickstoffdünger, wenn die Kosten und Folgekosten die dadurch entstehen doppelt so hoch sind wie der Gewinn?

8000 years of climate change / Die Klimakatastrophe begann vor 8000 Jahren

"Jed Kaplan is putting forward a new interpretation of the history of humans and their environment. This professor at EPFL and his colleague Kristen Krumhardt have developed a model that demonstrates the link between population increase and deforestation. The method enables a fairly precise estimate of human-origin carbon emissions before the advent of industrialization. The story of our influence on the climate began with the first farmers. [...] 'They have been having an influence [on the climate] for at least 8000 years.'
[...]
They show, for example, a first major boom in carbon emissions already 2000 years before our era, corresponding to the expansion of civilizations in China and around the mediterranean." (via Science Daily)

Looks like human civilization is linked to carbon emissions right from the beginning of agriculture. Deforestation was the first major impact before things really picked up with the discovery of fossil fuels. This was suspected for a while now, this recent study shows that the influence of traditional (eurasian) agriculture was anything but marginal though, despite the low populations at that time.

Landwirtschaft erzeugt Klimawandel. Das war wohl schon vor 8000 Jahren so als sie zuerst angewandt wurde. Je größer die Zivilisationen der Zeit wurden umso mehr Kohlendioxid gelangte in die Atmosphäre und mit der Entdeckung fossiler Brennstoffe ging es dann so richtig los. Der Einfluß früher Landwirtschaft auf das Klima ist schon länger bekannt, jetzt wurden aber genauere Berechnungen angestellt und es zeigt sich, daß der Einfluß traditioneller (eurasischer) Landwirtschaft trotz der geringen Bevölkerung deutlich höher war als bisher angenommen.