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How America Uses Its Land

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Re: How America Uses Its Land

#221

Post by insensible »

freeflight wrote: post #204
rayiner wrote: post #48

The one third being used for cows is misleading. Pasture is basically the Bureau of Land Management’s default use for the vast swaths of federal land. It’s like “here is this land, you’re allowed to graze on it with a permit.” That doesn’t produce that many cows—it’s more about politics and the fact that much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass. The real land use from growing meat comes from the…

> much of the land is good for little else besides growing grass I wonder how much about that could be changed with a large scale permaculture [0] approach? There must be something useful able to grow there? From there you can maybe bootstrap a long-term ecological change of the region into something with lusher vegetation. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permaculture

Not even that hard to do, basically add some swales on contour and some trees along those swales, then graze in between the rows of trees. This guy is doing it in Wisconsin: https://www.acresusa.com/restoration-agriculture

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#222

Post by insensible »

Aloha wrote: post #75
StillBored wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Texas raising property taxes as such isn't the answer. Rather capping the amount a single owner/organization can claim in ag/etc exemptions, while making it easier for small 20 acre farms to claim the exemption. Right now what you have is the richest land owners paying the lowest rates, while owners of tiny suburban/rural lots get murdered. For example, I give you a few pieces of the 6d ranch, located on…

No one is doing any commercially meaningful farming (not even for a small business) on 20 acres. Consider for grazing use 2-6 acres per cow is needed. 4 cows, isnt even a blip. Nor can you farm most crops meaningfully on 20 acre plots either. On lot 1, most of the taxed value is derived from the improvements, not the land itself.

Intensive veggie growers ("intensive" means "scaled-up home garden") can make 6 figures on 1.5-2 acres. Selling higher-margin crops direct to customers puts a lot of money in the farmer's pocket.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#223

Post by baybal2 »

xapata wrote: post #219
baybal2 wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What useful things does the US federal government do with all that land?

Prevent ecological destruction.

Can you formulate this in a less meaning-amorphous phrase. "Prevent ecological destruction" in this context can mean every thing imaginable.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#224

Post by xapata »

baybal2 wrote: post #223
xapata wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prevent ecological destruction.

Can you formulate this in a less meaning-amorphous phrase. "Prevent ecological destruction" in this context can mean every thing imaginable.

Yes, I can. But I think it's clear enough already, especially in contrast to the supremely vague assertion about economic ethics.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#225

Post by davidw »

Hupriene wrote: post #186
bunderbunder wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nowadays, an alternative, and possibly greater, source of economic value might be as a carbon sink. I'm curious if some of this pasture land might be more heavily forested if it weren't being grazed. Out where my folks live in Colorado, for example, it's striking to see how anything that's anywhere close to flat enough for cattle to walk on is scrubland, but the sides of the mountains are well-forested. I'm no ecolog…

That might be true, but to establish that state we'd have to kill off the native grazers. People tend to forget that before we had vast herds of domestic cattle in the western plains we had vast herds of bison, antelope, etc.

Indeed. Above, I mentioned the sage grouse. Those don't do well in areas where juniper trees have encroached. They like the wide open plains of sage.

https://www.earthfix.info/news/article/juniper-trees-sage-gr...

And juniper trees aren't exactly a 'forest' like most people would think of one.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#226

Post by baybal2 »

xapata wrote: post #224
baybal2 wrote: post #223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you formulate this in a less meaning-amorphous phrase. "Prevent ecological destruction" in this context can mean every thing imaginable.

Yes, I can. But I think it's clear enough already, especially in contrast to the supremely vague assertion about economic ethics.

It is not clear to me.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#227

Post by gamblor956 »

avoutthere wrote: post #138
Shivetya wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a better map would be to show how much land is in private hands versus held by Federal and State governments. I bet people would be shocked, see this article from 2016 [1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/01/federal...

I've never understood how the federal government holding all of this land has held up in court. What is the constitutional justification for this?

Governments can own property too...in capitalist economy government is just one of many market participants.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#228

Post by zip1234 »

conanbatt wrote: post #198
francisofascii wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is morally wrong to buy up tons of land, then forbid others to walk across it. Land should be for everyone, not just for a select few, especially since land was not created by the owner.

All land owners could forbid others from walking across, that is indifferent if you have 1 land-owner or a million. That's the origin of rent: becoming a land-owner makes you one of the forbidders.

In the UK, there are public byways and footpaths, which allow a specific right of way through private land. Often times it is a path through a farmer's field or such. The US could establish similar rules.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#229

Post by jpadkins »

sorrymate wrote: post #211
jpadkins wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What about the gigantic consumption of water this implies? The water isn't destroyed. It goes right back into the ecosystem. The planet surface is 70% water. We aren't running out of water. > how many people could we feed? The US could probably feed the entire world with meat, with unlimited energy / $$. People going hungry is not a food production problem, it's an economic and logistic problem. If we use plant bas…

Sure, 70% of the earths surface is water. 97.5% being salt water and 2.5% being fresh water. You can't use sea water to irrigate agriculture. You can't drink sea water from the faucet. Additional money/ cost and work would be need to make the water drinkable. Please consider that many states like California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, water is a valuable resource. And yes, we are running out of cheap drinkable water. Th…

desalination exists. the key word in is cheap. It's an economic and energy problem, not a water resource problem. They get water from Colorado because its cheaper than desalination. Once it's not, they will get water from the ocean.

also, all water requires money / energy to process before we drink it or use it on crops. It's just a matter of much money / energy you use depending on the source.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#230

Post by komali2 »

chrisweekly wrote: post #67
komali2 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you hit the nose on the head with your final point - if hunting was the only way to get meat, there'd be a hell of a lot more meat being eaten. I'm not sure that anybody here is recommending that literally every person hunts their meat though, or that it should be the only way to get meat, so what's the point of talking about scale?

> "if hunting was the only way to get meat, there'd be a hell of a lot more meat being eaten" I think you meant __less__, not more, yeah?

Correct, and it's too late to edit :(
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