181–190 of 394 posts
Not in a way I feel I can directly action. Not in a way that many children don't have bigger problems than saving the whales. Just sad.
I hope people share this feeling.
I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per... https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis... https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per... The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to So…
> All due to runaway global warming acidifying the ocean with CO2. Doesn't an increase in water temperature release CO2 from the water, because warm water binds less CO2 than warm water? I remember this as one of the many serious effects of accerlating global warming (more CO2 in the atmosphere heats up global temperatures, thereby heats up ocean water, which releases even more CO2). As CO2 acidifies water shouldn't…
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>A science fiction style solution is going to be the only way to feed the world. I get what you are saying, I just want to clarify: we can feed everybody now, but mostly with vegetables. But yes, shared resources like ocean fish are under too much pressure right now. I feel as though it will take a major worldwide collapse of the fishing industry before there is better enforcement and treaties.
As a resident of a first world country I stopped eating all seafood about 15 years ago. It seems unethical to support over-fishing if I have plenty of other good food to eat.
In a happy coincidence, some of the healthiest fish are also some of the most sustainable fish.
With the way the human population is expanding and the rising income of 3rd world nations we are really going to look at a major increase in both genetically engineering food stock to be larger and more nutritious as well as ramping up lab grown meat. Conservation is clearly not going to work as so many nations ignore it anyway and quite often regulations lack teeth due to the fear of killing an industry. Its difficu…
> While I wish organically growing food and conservation was the answer, its unfortunately not. I recently had a lengthy discussion with some friends about their support of a solidary organic farm, where you pay a flat fee per month and get a box of whatever they have in that week. It's really hard for most people to understand that things like these are not sustainable and that it's purely a luxury product. Terms li…
They are successful but are not capable of replacing 100% of the grocery needs. And vegetables only appear in the summer and can be subject to infestations or random die offs... although there is significant canning that takes place throughout the summer for the winter months. Growing a diverse amount vegetables to support 25-50 people is surprisingly more complex than raising livestock (unless you just want to eat lots of zucchini and squash ;-).
However, there are many well documented small co-ops in Portland that I can refer you to if you want to ask them questions. These are very small farms, and in many cases people buy their shares of well in advance, and some have even become store-fronts rather than pickups.
Here are examples of places within a 15 minute drive of where I live:
When I used to eat meat I would buy half a cow with some friends friends. You could go visit the cow throughout the year:
https://www.foodbevg.com/US/Scappoose/393417489771/All-Natur...
This place exploded in popularity in the past 7 years. It used to be two guys and you would order chickens months in advance and pick them up a day after the slaughter, now I can just walk into their store and they have a growing staff:
https://www.marionacres.com/order
Similarly:
https://www.kookoolanfarms.com/
This dairy was a kickstarter, and I get milk, cream, and eggs from them year round, its fantastic.
Lastly, Sauvie Island just outside portland has an enormous farm community where half of the year one can purchase all manner of fruits vegetables through multiple farmers market stands.
Again though: it is only for part of the year, year round veggies are damn hard without large industrial apparatus. Unless you like pickled things.
It can be done, but it takes a village. Seriously.
I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per... https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis... https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per... The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to So…
"I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech." - Which industries (and organizations) are you still in at this point?
Right now I am working with a guy in the solar industry, doing handyman work around his house until we come out of quarantine. It's hard work physically, but I find my mental health has recovered and my motivation and work capacity have never been higher.
I'm basically living the ending of the movie Office Space and searching for spiritual meaning. I donate plasma to make rent, and am looking into apps like Bacon (Uber for hourly jobs) as a way to transition out of obligation-based employment. Work should be a straight-up time-for-money exchange. Taking advantage of our work ethic and patriotism, saddling us to someone else's vision of meaningful work, is one of the great travesties undermining the American Dream. I learned this the hard way moving furniture for 3 years in my early 20s to support my web business because "someone has to do it". No, someone doesn't have to do it. Stand up for yourself and leave if your job stinks. Let the free market adjust wages to what they should be, double or quadruple what they are now. Don't get suckered into indentured servitude.
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> I sure wish a tech billionaire would do something about this. I've noticed in tech that a common hope that people in tech hold is that "the billionaires", in their infinite wisdom and generosity, will pull magical solutions out of their hats and save us all. Like you mention later, yeah, right. > one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech Not an option I've considered much, but it's almost tempting.
It's because we can no longer rely on our governments to act responsibly or arrive at a solution. We now have to rely on the world's billionaires and their generosity for help.
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Some farmed fish (like tilapia) can live on a variety of things, including soy and corn pellets. Algae, which can be used for many things - human consumption, farmed animal/fish feed and even fuel - can also be farmed sustainably. I think we urgently need global legislation and enforcement of rules, as well as satellite monitoring to stop overfishing. World leaders need to work together on this. Marine ecosystems may…
In fact, tilapia from Vietnam and China are fed pig feces and packed in ice made from polluted water, which is why it's so dangerous to eat them. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/consumers-eating-feces-taint...
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> Society just wont change to support it. Maybe this is just me, but I would happily change my diet to be around 50% Soylent or other meal replacement if the cost was cheaper. Currently I eat around 2400 calories a day, with Soylent that costs me $20 a day. I can get Chipotle for ~$15 per day, and between the two Chipotle clearly wins on taste. From what I can tell meal replacements are often far more environmentally…
What about people who enjoy eating? Cheese, meat, vegetables, wine, etc? Let's not forget eating is a pleasurable activity, not only a source of energy and protein.
some people enjoy pedophilia, but we don't accommodate them because we've decided that it's too damaging for society.
I'm shocked that the article didn't mention this, but the mass die-offs we're seeing are because the world's coral reefs will be dead by 2050: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/environment-90-per... https://www.businessinsider.com/great-barrier-reef-could-dis... https://www.forbes.com/sites/trevornace/2020/02/24/70-90-per... The effect of this is that 500 million pacific islanders will be forced to flee to So…
I sure wish VOTERS would "do something" about this, where "something" = vote for the party/parties that actually champion or at least acknowledge the importance of dealing with AGW/CO2 increasing vs actively denying and supporting continuing the current anti-free market policies destroying so much future beauty and potential. This should have been so straightforward, we want net neutral CO2 ASAP and then net negative as soon as feasible, so all that's needed is to legislate that emitting a ton of CO2 (or equivalent) is priced at the cost of rapid industrial removal of a ton of CO2+margin. We could just make all our energy usage net neutral in a matter of months/years by finally establishing a Free Market there and then let humanity sort out the best way to reduce the cost of that. But instead it's a mixture of full denial or, even more frustrating, so-called "greens" bitching about other people's luxury energy usage and engaging in worthless moralizing bullshit about $Cause_Of_The_Day (like Ebil Big Tech) rather then just working to deal with the problem as efficiently as possible and focusing moral arguments purely on the harm of AGW.
>Their inaction on countless fronts, in fact their complacency in undermining progress on environmental causes in global politics, is one of the thousand reasons I got out of tech.
I'd say the inaction on countless fronts of people like you who just shove all responsibility off onto nameless godkings rather then actually internalize that democracy means we're responsible as well has been a far bigger threat. Tech has been relatively green, and far more active at green efforts then most industries. It's ludicrous to see you pinning so much on "tech billionaires" vs, say, oil/coal billionaires.
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You have a point here, yup. Some vegetables are luxury food, and less efficient than cattle. Replacing nature with monocultures is a problem. If we stop eating cattle for that, there is not moral room to keep eating chocolate, for example. Or coffee
Based on some rough napkin calculations, the caloric efficiency by land of broccoli is about the same as industrial meat. Optimizing diet for land efficiency probably does not produce healthy diets. You can find strong evidence for this trade-off in the changes of average human health at the advent of agriculture.
Not even close. Did you forget to consider the inputs into meat?
If you want to check against someone else's math, here's a paper that claims we can increase global calorie availability by 70% by shifting crops grown for animal feed (40% of crops in USA btw) to crops grown for human consumption: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034...