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How America Uses Its Land

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Re: How America Uses Its Land

#91

Post by jaggederest »

davidw wrote: post #74
craftyguy wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yea, clearly gp has never ventured out into some of this. There are gems here for hiking/backpacking, and preserving wildlife/watersheds, and much more than just feeding cows.

Yes, but some of it... it's really just like this: https://goo.gl/maps/rQjoQWY9Svu It doesn't support many cattle, but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'. Cattle do need to be managed so as to allow the native species (sage grouse for instance) to thrive.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#92

Post by Turing_Machine »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #36
pathseeker wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

Sure, that's why huge aquifers are shrinking and causing subsidence. 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 deplete…

> Today about 27% of the irrigated land

"Irrigated land" is not the same as "farmed land".

The vast majority of farming is done in places where irrigation is rare.

About 53 million acres of farm land in the United States is irrigated, but there are about 257 million acres under cultivation.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#93

Post by Turing_Machine »

bscphil wrote: post #57
pitaj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most grazing land was not cleared by people. It's just land that people graze their cattle on. Most of it is plains, and was never heavily forested. Also, when grass is eaten it absorbs much more carbon dioxide, so the grazing of the cattle is beneficial. Are you suggesting a better use of the land is for humans to plant a bunch of trees on it?

I think the usual claim is that almost any other use at all would be better for the environment than cattle grazing.

That's kind of a bizarre statement, since (as others have noted) the land was historically used by grazing bison, a creature so closely related to domestic cattle that they can even interbreed with them with a substantial amount of success.

The same is true of similar grasslands elsewhere in the world. Lots of grazing animals, which support a smaller population of predators (including humans).

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#94

Post by Turing_Machine »

GW150914 wrote: post #28
pitaj wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most grazing land was not cleared by people. It's just land that people graze their cattle on. Most of it is plains, and was never heavily forested. Also, when grass is eaten it absorbs much more carbon dioxide, so the grazing of the cattle is beneficial. Are you suggesting a better use of the land is for humans to plant a bunch of trees on it?

Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster. I’ve read about seaweed being used to curb their, um, “output” yet unless thst comes into widespread use the state of affairs is grim. Grazing isn’t beneficial, it’s just a way to turn sequestered carbon into methane-belching cattle. Either we need to rapidly enact means to reduce those emissions with dietary additives, or we ne…

> Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster.

The bison that lived there before had identical gut bacteria, and it doesn't seem to have caused an "environmental disaster". Why not?

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#95

Post by PakG1 »

jaggederest wrote: post #91
davidw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but some of it... it's really just like this: https://goo.gl/maps/rQjoQWY9Svu It doesn't support many cattle, but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'. Cattle do need to be managed so as to allow the native species (sage grouse for instance) to thrive.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

I believe so. Other organisms don't really seem to have a concept of value, which would imply they're willing to make trades. Any organism that gathers things seems to hoard at best without any idea what it would trade for what it's hoarding.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#96

Post by knuththetruth »

komali2 wrote: post #66
bscphil wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the usual claim is that almost any other use at all would be better for the environment than cattle grazing.

I don't understand why - better being "more natural," right? Those plains have been feeding grazing animals for millennia, what should we do differently?

They were feeding grazing animals, but without all the massive externalities associated with industrial agriculture, from antibiotic resistance to its impact on climate change.

If you’re also of an ethical mindset similar to someone like Peter Singer, the “cultivation” of animals for slaughter is not something one should favor.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#97

Post by knuththetruth »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #94
GW150914 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster. I’ve read about seaweed being used to curb their, um, “output” yet unless thst comes into widespread use the state of affairs is grim. Grazing isn’t beneficial, it’s just a way to turn sequestered carbon into methane-belching cattle. Either we need to rapidly enact means to reduce those emissions with dietary additives, or we ne…

> Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster. The bison that lived there before had identical gut bacteria, and it doesn't seem to have caused an "environmental disaster". Why not?

Because for most of their history, they weren’t accompanied by the massive carbon and methane emissions of their human counterparts’ industrialization? Seems self-evident.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#98

Post by rebuilder »

Turing_Machine wrote: post #94
GW150914 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster. I’ve read about seaweed being used to curb their, um, “output” yet unless thst comes into widespread use the state of affairs is grim. Grazing isn’t beneficial, it’s just a way to turn sequestered carbon into methane-belching cattle. Either we need to rapidly enact means to reduce those emissions with dietary additives, or we ne…

> Unfortunately the methanogens in a cow’s gut mean that they’re an environmental disaster. The bison that lived there before had identical gut bacteria, and it doesn't seem to have caused an "environmental disaster". Why not?

Because there were much fewer bison than there now are cows, and because the atmosphere wasn't already being pumped full of CO2, methane etc. by humans.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#99

Post by hueving »

jaggederest wrote: post #91
davidw wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but some of it... it's really just like this: https://goo.gl/maps/rQjoQWY9Svu It doesn't support many cattle, but that's about all you can do with it, and there are better places for 'outdoor activities'. Cattle do need to be managed so as to allow the native species (sage grouse for instance) to thrive.

I'm pretty sure the Oregon high desert is really good at being high desert. Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

>Does the Mojave have to be useful to humans to be a valuable thing?

Yes, humans are the only creatures we know of with the concept of valuing land.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#100

Post by rebuilder »

mrep wrote: post #46
ceejayoz wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole forest doesn't die at once, the dead trees' biomass doesn't all break down at once, and said biomass largely gets incorporated into new seedlings that spring up in the now-open space.

Yeah, but they continually die in a cycle such that the overall CO2 levels never really get stored long term as it is all temporarily stored in the trees.

All storage is temporary, in the end - the question is, how much time can we buy?
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