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Nitrogen sourcing is a sufficiently tough problem.

This blog post by Ron Shigeta is one of the most well written macro posts on the topic that I’ve read.  

Here’s why:

• Nitrogen is important for farming.
• The Haber Bosch process unlocked our ability to source Nitrogen. 
• Before the Haber Bosch, Nitrogen production and sourcing was much more difficult.
• In other words, we can think about Nitrogen as one of the limiting mission critical ingredients to civilization.
• The Haber Bosch process was instrumental in increasing planet population. 
• As we produce nitrogen rich fertilizer to pour into agriculture, it runs off into the ocean and kills our other food supply, fish.
• Nitrogen rich fertilizer impeding our fish supply is a bad thing.

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This video does a great job of explaining everything about Phosphorus and why it’s relevant to our population size.