The Knowledge: How to Rebuild Our World From Scratch by Lewis Dartnell
Authors: Lewis Dartnell
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restoring failing land. Reacting the bone meal with sulfuric acid (see Chapter 5 on how to produce this) makes the phosphate much more absorbable for plants and so produces a far moreeffective fertilizer.In fact, the first fertilizer factory in the world was set up in 1841 to react sulfuric acid from London’s gasworks with bone meal from the city’s abattoirs and sell the “superphosphate” granules to farmers.Potassium for fertilizers is present in potash, which we will see in Chapter 5 is easy to extract from wood ashes; in 1870 the vast forests of Canada were the main source for fertilizers for Europe. Today we gather potassium and phosphorus for fertilizers from particular rock and mineral deposits, and identifying these in a post-apocalyptic world will require the rediscovery of geology and surveying.
Modern fertilizers provide an optimal balance of these three required nutrients (not unlike the carefully designed diets of top athletes). Using the more rudimentary methods discussed in this chapter, you won’t achieve yields as high as the enriched soils of today, but you will be able to preserve the fertility of the land to a good degree during the recovery period.
ONE FEEDING TEN
For a post-apocalyptic society to progress, it absolutely must secure this solid agricultural foundation. If a brutal cataclysm wipes out a great majority of humanity along with the knowledge and skills they hold, the surviving population could be knocked back to a bare subsistence existence, hanging by its fingertips on the cliff edge of extinction. It doesn’t matter how much industrial knowledge or scientific inquisitiveness persists through the apocalypse if the survivors are preoccupied with the struggle for mere survival. With no food surplus, there is no opportunity for your society to grow more complex or to progress. And because growing food is so vital, you’re much less willing to change what is tried and tested when your life depends on it. This is thefood-production trap, and many poor nations today are caught in it. Thus,post-apocalyptic society may stagnate, perhaps for generations, while the efficiency of agriculture is slowly improved until a critical threshold is surpassed when society can begin clawing its way back up to greater complexity.
On the most basic level, a growing population size means more human brains, which can find solutions to problems more quickly. But efficient agriculture offers an even more important opportunity for progress. Once basic food security is assured by efficient means, a civilization can release many of its citizens from toiling in the fields. A productive agricultural system enables one person to feed several others, who are then free to specialize in other crafts and trades. * If your brawn is not demanded in the fields, your brain and hands can be put to other uses. A society can economically develop and grow in complexity and capability only once this basic prerequisite has been met—agricultural surplus is the fundamental engine for driving the advancement of civilization. But the benefits of productive agriculture for a rapid reboot of civilization after the apocalypse can be realized only if the excess food can be stored reliably and doesn’t rot away uneaten: we’ll now turn to food preservation.
CHAPTER 4
FOOD AND CLOTHING
Burg-places broken, the work of giants crumbled.
Ruined are the roofs, tumbled the towers,
Broken the barred gate: frost in the plaster,
Ceilings a-gaping, torn away, fallen,
Eaten by age . . .
U NKNOWN EIGHTH - CENTURY S AXON AUTHOR
LAMENTING R OMAN REMAINS, “The Ruin”
COOKING IS THE ORIGINAL CHEMISTRY in our history—deliberately directing the transformation of the chemical makeup of matter. The crispy browning on the outside of a grilled steak and the golden crust of a loaf of bread are both due to a particular molecular change known as the Maillard reaction. Proteins and sugars in the food react together to create a whole host of
Modern fertilizers provide an optimal balance of these three required nutrients (not unlike the carefully designed diets of top athletes). Using the more rudimentary methods discussed in this chapter, you won’t achieve yields as high as the enriched soils of today, but you will be able to preserve the fertility of the land to a good degree during the recovery period.
ONE FEEDING TEN
For a post-apocalyptic society to progress, it absolutely must secure this solid agricultural foundation. If a brutal cataclysm wipes out a great majority of humanity along with the knowledge and skills they hold, the surviving population could be knocked back to a bare subsistence existence, hanging by its fingertips on the cliff edge of extinction. It doesn’t matter how much industrial knowledge or scientific inquisitiveness persists through the apocalypse if the survivors are preoccupied with the struggle for mere survival. With no food surplus, there is no opportunity for your society to grow more complex or to progress. And because growing food is so vital, you’re much less willing to change what is tried and tested when your life depends on it. This is thefood-production trap, and many poor nations today are caught in it. Thus,post-apocalyptic society may stagnate, perhaps for generations, while the efficiency of agriculture is slowly improved until a critical threshold is surpassed when society can begin clawing its way back up to greater complexity.
On the most basic level, a growing population size means more human brains, which can find solutions to problems more quickly. But efficient agriculture offers an even more important opportunity for progress. Once basic food security is assured by efficient means, a civilization can release many of its citizens from toiling in the fields. A productive agricultural system enables one person to feed several others, who are then free to specialize in other crafts and trades. * If your brawn is not demanded in the fields, your brain and hands can be put to other uses. A society can economically develop and grow in complexity and capability only once this basic prerequisite has been met—agricultural surplus is the fundamental engine for driving the advancement of civilization. But the benefits of productive agriculture for a rapid reboot of civilization after the apocalypse can be realized only if the excess food can be stored reliably and doesn’t rot away uneaten: we’ll now turn to food preservation.
CHAPTER 4
FOOD AND CLOTHING
Burg-places broken, the work of giants crumbled.
Ruined are the roofs, tumbled the towers,
Broken the barred gate: frost in the plaster,
Ceilings a-gaping, torn away, fallen,
Eaten by age . . .
U NKNOWN EIGHTH - CENTURY S AXON AUTHOR
LAMENTING R OMAN REMAINS, “The Ruin”
COOKING IS THE ORIGINAL CHEMISTRY in our history—deliberately directing the transformation of the chemical makeup of matter. The crispy browning on the outside of a grilled steak and the golden crust of a loaf of bread are both due to a particular molecular change known as the Maillard reaction. Proteins and sugars in the food react together to create a whole host of
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