Modern agriculture is the use of land to convert petroleum into food.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the reliance of modern agriculture on petroleum products for food production.
Albert Allen Bartlett's statement underscores the paradox within modern agriculture, where the production of food is heavily dependent on petroleum, an unsustainable resource. It emphasizes the need to rethink agricultural practices and their environmental impacts, urging a transition towards more sustainable methods that do not rely on fossil fuels.
In practice
In a lecture on environmental science, this quote can be used to discuss the impact of fossil fuels on food systems.
'Smart growth' destroys the environment. 'Dumb growth' destroys the environment. The only difference is that 'smart growth' does it with good taste. It's like booking passage on the Titanic. Whether you go first-class or steerage, the result is the same.
We keep, in science, getting a more and more sophisticated view of our essential ignorance.
The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.
If a sect does officially insist that its structure of belief demands that evolution be false, then no compromise is possible. An honest and competent biology teacher can only conclude that the sect's beliefs are wrong and that its religion is a false one.
The Press, Watson, is a most valuable institution, if you only know how to use it.
Even your chin is made up of exploded stars.
We live in a time when the words impossible and unsolvable are no longer part of the scientific community's vocabulary. Each day we move closer to trials that will not just minimize the symptoms of disease and injury but eliminate them.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.