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Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

bbc.com

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Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#181

Post by seanwilson »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #177
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

"lab based meat will save us at some point in the future and then I'll probably switch if they're indistinguible from real meat" Why isn't that the answer? Nobody wants to be out of the animal husbandry business more than the meat producers do. Even if they haven't realized it yet.

> Why isn't that the answer? Nobody wants to be out of the animal husbandry business more than the meat producers do. Even if they haven't realized it yet.

Because lab based meat isn't here yet:

- You can't buy it in supermarkets or for cheap, and I haven't heard a realistic timeline for when this is going to change.

- Is there going to be realistic lab based cuts of steak, duck, pork and chicken? Whole chickens? Lab based ground beef is one thing but lab based versions of everything the public wants is another.

- Beyond burgers and similar are already here which some people say are as good a beef burgers, yet there isn't a stampede to change over by either consumers or manufacturers. Why would lab based meat be different? I can see people demanding the "real thing" on principle.

We don't have time to wait when climate change is here now. Lab based meat is not a solution if it takes decades to make an impact. People that say they'll switch from real-meat when lab based meat is here are essentially saying they'll change when they don't have to change anything.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#182

Post by runarberg »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #164
runarberg wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This comment is currently being downvoted, seemingly only for political reasons. It provides a clearly stated opinion not hostile towards anybody. I guess the HN crowd is not the once who like to hear that carbon tax might actually be a good solution.

Dang, I thought it was because I said “market based” and “market forces”. I can’t tell if I’m too left wing or too right wing.

That is actually the reason I was surprised to it being downvoted. The comment gives both right wing and left wing solutions. But it’s not being downvoted any more, so I guess HN-ers are now reading the full answer, instead of hitting that down arrow as soon as they see a praise for a tax.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#183

Post by atweiden »

chongli wrote: post #130
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients. Second…

> I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients.

I don't follow — I get my protein mostly from grains and a small amount of legumes. In Australia, about 2/3rds of all crop production is grown as animal feed, and 90% of the food given to farmed chickens and pigs are grains [1].

> Second of all, you can raise livestock like cattle, sheep, and goats on extremely rough terrain. Good luck growing soybeans on a bunch of jagged cliffs. Those areas may be highly inefficient in terms of land area per gram of protein, but it’s not going to be productive farmland otherwise.

And you can grow crops inside vertical farms within urban areas.

[1] https://www.veganaustralia.org.au/impact_of_a_vegan_agricult...

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#184

Post by adrianN »

chongli wrote: post #130
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients. Second…

You can raise livestock on rough terrain, but the vast majority of the world's livestock is not raised like that. Meat prices would explode if we did that. You don't have to ban all meat to get most of the effect, not everyone has to become vegan. Livestock are part of a healthy agriculture; for example by turning waste into manure. Grazing is also important for maintaining certain biomes.

What we need to stop is industrial meat production. Americans eat nearly 100kg of meat per year. How about we reduce that to 25kg like in Turkey for a start. That's still a steak per week.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#185

Post by unicornporn »

chongli wrote: post #130
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients. Second…

Inefficiency of meat and dairy production and land use were major arguments for switching to a vegan diet (when I did so) 20 years ago.

Others have chimed in with data, so here's today's anecdotal evidence: today I'm surrounded by fields and farmland. Fields make up roughly 60% of land. 20% of this land houses cattle and 80% grows barley which no human will ever consume. It's only grown for the cattle

I think it comes as no surprise that less land could produce more food for humans if the crops didn't have to pass through the cattle.

Some farmers not far from here are growing quinoa. It has a very good nutritional profile and offers a more effective use of land.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#186

Post by abootstrapper »

runarberg wrote: post #83
philips wrote: post #14

How are people on Hacker News changing their behavior around food and energy consumption? And besides individual action what community action have you taken? Personally I have found myself on a similar path to Peter Kalmus[1]. Before having kids I did what I could: didn’t own a car, commuted by bike, composted, minimized fashion/tech consumption, etc. On the other hand my career required significant plane travel for…

I stopped trying to fix the climate disaster on my own a long time ago. There is nothing you can do to save us from the climate disaster. The illusion of green lifestyle only serves to push the responsibility from the actual polluters over to the consumer. While polluters (including those that marked high polluting consumer products on mass scale) are not made to pay for their pollution (e.g. by carbon tax) they will…

You said it yourself. You can’t fix climate change on your own. Neither by personal conservation or political stumping. It will take a majority of us to solve climate change.

Like any movement for societal change, you have to accept you can’t do it alone. But you must still do your part. Do it by leading by example, voting, and campaigning for change. Don’t give up! Focus on what you can control.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#187

Post by jl6 »

mac01021 wrote: post #152
jl6 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I adopted a mostly plant-based diet. It’s very effective in terms of impact reduction, and most people can do it easily with minimal lifestyle sacrifice (compared to things like giving up flying and driving and aircon).

Most people in the world (and probably even in the us) eat a lot of meat but never fly.

It’s a matter of degree. Eating “a lot” of meat is worse than a little flying. But I personally think giving up meat is much less of a personal sacrifice than giving up international travel.

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#188

Post by sizzle »

ubertoop wrote: post #143
seanwilson wrote: post #117

50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products: https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million k…

The unfortunate reality is that mankind as we know it, probably developed to the level it did, in part due to the consumption of meat. Meat is absolutely PACKED with bioavailable nutrients in a way that most plant products simply aren't. Add to that, the growing evidence that much of the plant material we're eating may have inflammatory side effects of consumption. The point I am making is that a solution isn't a sol…

Have a source for that inflammatory plant claim? It's news to me..

Re: Wildlife in ‘catastrophic decline’ due to human destruction, scientists warn

#189

Post by roenxi »

sanjay_316 wrote: post #101
roenxi wrote: post #100

I live in a city. We've exterminated every animal except cats and dogs, which we've modified with a multi-millennium breeding program to suit our desires. Pretty much every surface is covered in concrete, all the plants are curated by humans. As far as the eye can see is a totally artificial biosphere. This is where pretty much all the humans live. Most of the people who get worried about wildlife decline live here t…

There’s room outside the cities. Even cities require farms at the very least, which — while not wilderness — are not concreted over. Wilderness is good for mental health, clean air, and having options in the case of a collapse of our artificial ecologies of food crops.

There isn't anything especially natural happening on a farm either, they are artificial environments to the same extent as a city. There isn't going to be anything there that isn't being managed by humans.

And if our artificial crops collapse we're doomed. Nature can't support the population levels we've reached.

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