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What Will Happen in the 2020s

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Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#611

Post by rhinoceraptor »

nl wrote: post #592
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It takes basically no resources to graze cattle on grasslands. Plus, as a bonus it sequesters carbon and creates topsoil.

Grass fed cattle produces more methane than grain fed thoug (and methane is a much worse greenhouse gas). But it does (possibly) help sequesters carbon. The truth is that it's hard to tell which is better, but neither is great environmentally. it’s hard to say whether grass-fed or grain-fed beef is better for the Earth – in part because they’re both pretty bad. “No matter how you slice it,” he wrote, “eating beef wil…

Methane is short lived in the atmosphere. Also, North America historically had about 300 million ruminants, before human intervention: bison.

The other issue is we’re basically running out of topsoil. Modern agriculture is an extractive process, and the result is we have maybe 60 years left until the topsoil is gone and we can’t grow any more crops.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#612

Post by rhinoceraptor »

zaphirplane wrote: post #610
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lions, sharks and polar bears are also very strong, on a carnivorous diet. What does that says about human nutrition? Absolutely nothing.

How about gorillas they are 4-9 times stronger than a human on a vegetarian diet (some termites and ants) and they are pretty close to humans genes wise

We’re also about 60% similar to bananas by genome.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#613

Post by nl »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #611
nl wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Grass fed cattle produces more methane than grain fed thoug (and methane is a much worse greenhouse gas). But it does (possibly) help sequesters carbon. The truth is that it's hard to tell which is better, but neither is great environmentally. it’s hard to say whether grass-fed or grain-fed beef is better for the Earth – in part because they’re both pretty bad. “No matter how you slice it,” he wrote, “eating beef wil…

Methane is short lived in the atmosphere. Also, North America historically had about 300 million ruminants, before human intervention: bison. The other issue is we’re basically running out of topsoil. Modern agriculture is an extractive process, and the result is we have maybe 60 years left until the topsoil is gone and we can’t grow any more crops.

Indeed, methane is shorter lived than CO2 on the atmosphere. Taking that into account:

The 20-year global warming potential of methane is 84.[5][6] That is, over a 20-year period, it traps 84 times more heat per mass unit than carbon dioxide (CO2) and 32 times the effect when accounting for aerosol interactions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#614

Post by joyjoyjoy »

chii wrote: post #490
cc439 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We will see an economic depression, also caused by energy problems. The current quantitative easing is actually the first sign of the problems with energy: One of the only realistic takes in this thread. The current, generationally low price of oil is built entirely upon the output of North American fracking. Fracking is the most capital intensive business on earth at the moment and most players are actually losing…

america has an interest in making fracking viable, since it's a technology that not many nations can employ (without the involvement of american firms anyway). Fracking also allows america to place economic pressure to some countries like Russian (by lowering the price of their primary export). Given the above, it will be unlikely for interest rates to grow in the next decade - since doing so has no advantages (excep…

"Fracking also allows america to place economic pressure to some countries like Russian (by lowering the price of their primary export)."

I read about a different Russian interpretation: The increased gas consumption and gas infrastructure is good since it increases the dependence on gas. Fracking won't last and in the end Russian Gas companies will be the last man standing.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#615

Post by bergie »

gfodor wrote: post #531
cable2600 wrote: post #521

>6/ Plant based diets will dominate the world by the end of the decade. Eating meat will become a delicacy, much like eating caviar is today. Much of the world’s food production will move from farms to laboratories. GMO Frankenfood made in labs hasn't been proven safer than regular meat in peer reviewed studies yet. Eating all plants like potatoes in The Martian have to take multi-vitamins as well. It is boring to ea…

It’s a fallacy when making ten year predictions to assume nothing will change in order to lead to the prediction. Presumably for the idea of plant based diets to dominate, there will need to be an available substitute for meat which is competitive economically and in taste.

It might be enough to force near prices to include their environmental impact. I think that's what the post says about meat becoming like caviar. So it would still be available, just way too expensive for every day meals.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#616

Post by blaser-waffle »

vnorilo wrote: post #527
kmlx wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Tesla didn't just produce cars that are better for the environment, they made them awesome in every other way as well. as a former tesla owner, i dispute both of these assumptions. > ... lab-grown meat ... tesla builds cars. cars are a recent human invention. cattle on the other hand is a product of millions of years of evolution. i think it will take a bit more time to get lab meat that is as good as the real thin…

On the other hand, those million years of evolution did not select specifically for ”delicious and nutritious”.

I disagree. Evolution has created signals -- "tasty" -- for things that are good for us. Fats, salts, and sugars are comparatively rare in a wild environment, and thus they taste good.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#617

Post by ovi256 »

cesarb wrote: post #330
Symmetry wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? The Banquiao Dam failure killed something like an order of magnitude more people than Chernobyl. And there was the recent Oroville Dam incident which didn't kill anyone but it came pretty close to failing catastrophically.

> Is the asymmetric risk really any worse than hydro-electric, though? Yes. You are only looking at the immediate damage. After the dust settles, with a worst-case nuclear accident you have a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time; after a worst-case hydroelectric accident, you have mostly only water and mud, and can start rebuilding almost immediately.

>a heavily contaminated area which cannot be resettled for a long time

That's only with modern risk-avoiding-at-all-costs safety standards. The initial plans for handling Chernobyl, the worst fallout nuclear incident, was to cleanup - which they did - and resettle soon afterward the cleaned up area - which they did not. And now we have that useless extended exclusion zone - a monument to giving in to our fears.

Those plans were made before the incident by medical physicists. They were then modified by the party to suit political realities on the ground. Even the authoritarian URSS knew how far it could push people.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#619

Post by nobrains »

danans wrote: post #312
nobrains wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Muslims, 24% of the world's population, have the following requirements to eat meat: - They sacrifice a goat (or sheep, cow, camel, etc.) once a year on Eid. - They sacrifice a goat, etc. upon every baby's birth. - They are encouraged to sacrifice an animal for atonement, blessings and other reasons. Read more here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_sacrifice#Islam I don't think animal consumption is going down th…

The vast majority of those Muslims are in poorer countries (think Indonesia and Bangladesh, and not Saudi Arabia), and could never afford to eat meat in the daily quantities eaten in the West, the Gulf, and increasingly in the wealthier population of China. Their regular diet consists largely of cereal grains, legumes, vegetables, and small amounts of meat to supplement, and even that is mostly cheaper to produce/acq…

Well, that's an interesting angle, i.e their consumption of meat can be looked as a one time / 2 times a year treat at special occasions, with non-meat products for the rest of the year.

Re: What Will Happen in the 2020s

#620

Post by balt_s »

yesenadam wrote: post #511
wincy wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn’t help that I get headaches when I eat my garden grown tomatoes. No such reaction to eating a ribeye. How tall will my children grow up to be on a plant based diet? I want my children to grow up to be stronger than those around them.

>How tall will my children grow up to be on a plant based diet? I want my children to grow up to be stronger than those around them. Well, oxen manage to be strong as an ox on a 100% plant-based diet. Giraffes get pretty tall too.

> oxen manage to be strong as an ox on a 100% plant-based diet

What an absurd analogy; cheetahs eat a 100% meat-based diet and they're very fast.

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