#fossil soil

William Catton and other peak oil writers think that our numbers overshot in 1800 CE. That year stands in as the beginning of the fossil fuel age. We began to produce increasing amounts of food by using reserves of energy that were nonreplicating, nonrenewable. I agree that the year 1800 marks a change in human culture and consumption that has been profoundly destructive. But I would push the beginning of the drawdown age back about ten thousand years, to the beginning of agriculture. What I am proposing is the concept of fossil soil. Soil is an ancient biological reserve that we have been destroying ever since we became dependent on annual grains.