31–40 of 244 posts
56 million acres are Indian reservations and should probably be marked as such.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot less impressive when you recognize most grazing land isn't much good for anything else.
It is a pretty significant diversion of land from a natural state though. Cattle grazing, thought it isn’t an ecological disaster like dam building, is quite different than leaving the land untouched. Plus, a good portion of the country’s good farmland is diverted to growing feed for those animals. Think of it like: how many acres have been changed from a natural ecosystem to an artificial one for meat eating.
I wonder what the economics would be of doing without the feed and feedlots? There would be somewhat less cattle I presume.
That graphic at the end is a great way to explain how much area is used for our meat eating habit. Think of all the land which is not being used for... anything else. We are truly ecologically privileged to be able to create such a huge impact in order to eat meat. Incredible.
Go look at the land that's being used as open range pasture out west. If it was not being used for grazing cattle, it would not be used for anything anyway. Most of it was buffalo country two hundred years ago, so it's not like it's really changed.
The modern cow is not, especially when time on feed lots and eventual transportation pre-post slaughter are factored in. Modern cattle are after all, part of an industry which pollutes in addition to the cows themselves, while bison just lived and died on the plains.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It would be great for sequestering carbon dioxide (in the form of trees), which is really what most of it probably should be used for. Instead we're depleting the topsoil, using up all our non-renewable water, and poisoning the oceans. All for basically no reason.
>using up all our non-renewable water What are you talking about? Places in the midwest and eastern part of the west that get plenty of rainfall every year?
Today about 27% of the irrigated land in the entire United States lies over the aquifer, which yields about 30% of the ground water used for irrigation in the United States.[5] The aquifer is at risk for over-extraction and pollution. Since 1950, agricultural irrigation has reduced the saturated volume of the aquifer by an estimated 9%. Once depleted, the aquifer will take over 6,000 years to replenish naturally through rainfall.[6]
How about a private company (Weyerhaeuser) owning 12.4 million acres of timberlands. It's about twice the size of Maryland!
The very last line is what bothers me the most:
"since 2008 the amount of land owned by the 100 largest private landowners has grown from 28 million acres to 40 million, an area larger than the state of Florida."
That much land-wealth locked up by a handful of individuals seems like yet another knock against economic mobility. At one time people feared that sort of wealth concentration could mean a return of the aristocracy and was slowed somewhat through estate taxes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not really, because it’s not near any jobs.
Isn't that a bit of a catch-22 though? It's not near any jobs because... there's no one out there. Why would you start a business there?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A lot less impressive when you recognize most grazing land isn't much good for anything else.
It is a pretty significant diversion of land from a natural state though. Cattle grazing, thought it isn’t an ecological disaster like dam building, is quite different than leaving the land untouched. Plus, a good portion of the country’s good farmland is diverted to growing feed for those animals. Think of it like: how many acres have been changed from a natural ecosystem to an artificial one for meat eating.
It's not like we invented grazing animals in a lab. The Great Plains were teeming with millions of buffalo before, and we have cattle on them now.
Sure that's different but it's reasonable to note that a lot of this land looks and basically is pretty much the same as it was before modern ranching.
How about a private company (Weyerhaeuser) owning 12.4 million acres of timberlands. It's about twice the size of Maryland!
Growing timber like Weyerhaeuser does should probably be counted as cropland. They grow mono-culture trees the same way most farmers grow corn, but instead of harvesting every year it's every couple decades. The very last line is what bothers me the most: "since 2008 the amount of land owned by the 100 largest private landowners has grown from 28 million acres to 40 million, an area larger than the state of Florida."…