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The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

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Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#211

Post by Scoundreller »

throwaway821909 wrote: post #149
elzbardico wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are not able to digest cellulose, it doesn't matter if it takes 100, 1000 units of plant calories to create one of meat. This criticism against meat only works for grain-fed beef, for grass-fed animals it makes no sense at all.

I suppose it gets more complicated though because in at least some cases, we could plant human-edible food where the grass is and still come out ahead (after taking into account that it's harder to grow pretty much anything than grass)

Iunno, I really don’t do anything to the apple tree other than trim branches (which I sell or give away to bbqers depending on my mood). Every couple years it yields a huge crop (and some years gets completely defoliated by disease, but I’m lazy and just let nature take its course).

People love non-commercial applewood.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#212

Post by wollsmoth »

ProAm wrote: post #107

Isn't this one of the reasons why farm subsidies exist in the US? Paying farmers not to farm so in time of need or emergency we can produce more? (In addition to not over farming soil and depleting it permanently, keeping the price of food in a range to support farmers livelyhood)

yeah, we could possibly engage some of that latent capacity.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#213

Post by jtbayly »

dang wrote: post #97
EddieDante wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your local zoning board might object. I live in PA, and one of the neighborhood vigilantes immediately ratted me out to the local government when I started growing corn, squash, and beans in my backyard while raising a couple of chickens for eggs.

> one of the neighborhood Karens Please keep that sort of slur off HN. We don't need it here, and you don't need it to make your substantive points.

Dear dang,

A Karen is no more an inappropriate slur than many other useful words and phrases that are negative, such as goody-two-shoes, busybody, bully, crank, etc.

I don’t see how it helps to ban negative words.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#214

Post by namdnay »

Comevius wrote: post #65

What nobody understands is that this is not happening strictly because of the war or the drought, but because of the fragility of the global food system, which simply cannot bear any shocks. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/2/02... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1712-3 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/19/banks-... We either fix this or we simply won't have a global…

> What nobody understands is that this is not happening strictly because of the war or the drought, but because of the fragility of the global food system, which simply cannot bear any shocks.

Your logic seems strange: "he didn't die because of a car crash, he died because his car didn't resist being smashed into a tree"

Sure, any system could be made more or less fragile, and you could argue that making it less fragile would have lessened the impact, but you can't say that "this is not happening because of the war" - of course it is

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#216

Post by Merad »

sbf501 wrote: post #103
bell-cot wrote: post #28

Tip from an old geezer: Plant Your Victory Garden Now! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victory_garden

This is really hard, I had four 8x4 raised beds (all I could fit) for 5 years. The amount of space and time it takes to produce enough food to replace actual meals for more than just a few times in the summer is absolutely astonishing (unless you like squash all the time). I grew tomatoes, kale, squash, onions, lettuce and peppers. It tasted great, and got some salads and side dishes out of it, but that was about it.…

100%. Growing up my parents were hardcore gardeners (arguably smalltime farmers) with about 2 acres of farmland and an additional 2 acres of fruit trees. We'd eat pretty heavily out of the garden from the late spring through the fall, and would have potatoes, apples, canned/frozen goods through much of the winter... but it was an enormous amount of work. In the spring and summer basically any time that it was viable to work in the garden on the weekends or in the evenings, we were out working in the garden.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#217

Post by postalrat »

UnFleshedOne wrote: post #182
paganel wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Re 4., that's doable if the West renounces some of its existing economic sanctions against Russia, the Russians themselves have said as much recently. It probably won't happen because the West doesn't like to see itself as being involved in the war (in a way similar to what Russia thinks about itself) and will try to resort to "Russia should unlock the blockade purely on humanitarian grounds!", which, of course, is t…

Another option for #4 is supplying enough long range anti-ship rockets to sink whole russian fleet in black sea. They can't bring in more ships, because turkey is blocking the entrance.

Triggering world war 3 would also help reduce the population which could reduce co2 emissions and food requirements. Killing a few birds with one stone.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#218

Post by namdnay »

CamelCaseName wrote: post #72
SKILNER wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you follow The Economist they consistently have very clever artists.

The Economist is the only news publication I pay for, I do wish they were more economics focused (as opposed to politics, though of course the two are fundamentally intertwined). Any other publications (paid or free) I should be looking at?

really? at least 50% of any given issue is concentrated on business/eocnomics. A few weeks back half the magazine was a deep dive into the expanding role of central banks

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#219

Post by lovich »

paganel wrote: post #192
jakewins wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hypothetically, if the west actually wanted to give up sanctions in return for clearing the blockade.. why, in what universe, could they possibly expect Russia to stand by its word? Russia said for six months they were simply conducting exercises and had no intention of invading whatsoever. Why should anyone believe they would clear the blockade if sanctions lift?

If they don't stand by their word then they can re-impose the sanctions, it's as simple as that. > Why should anyone believe they would clear the blockade if sanctions lift Because at some point the West will have to sit at the negotiating table with Russia.

> Because at some point the West will have to sit at the negotiating table with Russia.

Do they? What does Russia have that will force them to the negotiating table? The damage to this years harvest is already done and the supply chains will likely have figured themselves out by next year

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