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The Coming Food Catastrophe

economist.com

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Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#291

Post by xdennis »

paganel wrote: post #203
namdnay wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the west" exactly? Japan? New Zealand? Finland? Tunisia? A better term would be liberal democracies, but that wouldn't have quite the same "both sides are the same" ring to it, would it? Russia isn't waging an economic war against anyone. A dictator tried to invade his democratic neighbour, he failed, and now the other democraties are cutting him out of their club

Mostly the US, with some UK mixed in. > A better term would be liberal democracies If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise. > "both sides are the same" ring to it They are definitely not the same, they have obviously different values. Again, Putin has said as much, he's the one fighting for a multi-polar worl…

> Again, Putin has said as much, he's the one fighting for a multi-polar world with multi-polar values, so to speak. I think the same holds for Xi, in China.

Great pole there! /s The West may have it's problems, but Putin is trying to resurrect the same pole that was led at one point or another by Hitler, Stalin, Mao. The world doesn't need that again.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#292

Post by walleeee »

sva_ wrote: post #190
mbg721 wrote: post #91

If you're in the West, it doesn't hurt to buy a couple big bags of rice from the local Indian market, and have some dried or canned beans handy, and cycle through them as you cook. A pallet of bottled water and a bag of charcoal don't hurt either. A dumb power outage or a downed wire or a tornado or something is much more likely than Red Dawn, but you'll still be happy to have all that.

I recently looked into how much rice I'd need to survive for a year. The results were fairly surprising. A kilogram of uncooked rice only provide you with about 3500 kcal, less than you'd use in 2 days of time (for the average human). So you'd need quite a lot of rice. Beans are similar, they just have more protein (not a complete protein though). I concluded that while it is definitely advisable to have some number…

Right, its always a good idea to have short term reserves but it's way more important to build out local and regional resilience and a less vulnerable, more robust, diverse food supply

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#294

Post by bequanna »

Gordonjcp wrote: post #282
bryanlarsen wrote: post #144

The article actually has four solutions at the bottom. Compared to the severity of the problem, all four solutions are surprisingly simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple and straightforward. 1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol. 2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel. 3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories! 4. Break the Black…

3. If you can figure out how to eat grass, you'll be rich.

1. and 3. are the same thing: Corn.

The trouble is that it is pretty damn tough to pivot from corn to some crop meant for direct human consumption. The machinery and infrastructure we have in place to grow, transport, and process corn is almost unimaginable in size.

A pivot like this would require incredible gov't subsidies and take decades.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#295

Post by colechristensen »

ncpa-cpl wrote: post #281
colechristensen wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are special varieties of corn you can grow for ethanol, but you don't have to, the ethanol plants do not require it. There are required varieties and practices for growing corn intended for direct human consumption (i.e. making cornmeal or breakfast cereal). Most corn though goes to animal feed, industrial uses (corn starch, syrup, etc), or export. (source: am a 5th generation corn farmer)

Hi! Just wanted to ask, are the cultivars or varieties for corn for human food, ethanol and corn for cattle feed different?

Each seed company provides a large number of options, some of them for specific uses, some of them not so much.

The main differences are days to maturity, resistances to a variety of things, and nutrition content.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#296

Post by JaimeThompson »

ncpa-cpl wrote: post #239
Scoundreller wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least the FCC protects your ability to put up a satellite dish (and “An antenna that is designed to receive local television broadcast signals.”) If they hated my garden and chickens, they’re really gonna hate my 40’ Rohn and guidewires!

> 40' Is it for shortwave or ham radio?

If they can't have chickens pigs are totally out.

I'm sorry

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#297

Post by gcheong »

toolz wrote: post #241
gcheong wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was she griping about with the garden? Chickens I can understand if there are smell complaints. In San Francisco you are allowed to keep them but there are rules about the number you can have and the minimum distance their enclosure can be to any neighbors window, etc. But squash? That’s really an odd thing to complain about.

backyard chickens don't have a smell, that's only once you start mass producing them in a factory. The same way yours or your neighbors dogs, that produce substantially more feces than a chicken, don't cause neighborhood wide odor.

I was probably just interpreting the ordinance requirements of a minimum distance of 20 feet from any neighbor’s door or window as having to do with smell when I read it.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#298

Post by anonAndOn »

tut-urut-utut wrote: post #253
namdnay wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is "the west" exactly? Japan? New Zealand? Finland? Tunisia? A better term would be liberal democracies, but that wouldn't have quite the same "both sides are the same" ring to it, would it? Russia isn't waging an economic war against anyone. A dictator tried to invade his democratic neighbour, he failed, and now the other democraties are cutting him out of their club

I agree Putin is some kind of dictator, but are you really calling Ukraine democracy? Then you can also call North Korea democracy.

>are you really calling Ukraine democracy

Isn't it strange how Russian money kept trying to prevent it from becoming so and yet, it kept becoming one?

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#299

Post by filoeleven »

corrral wrote: post #240
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the neighborhood vigilantes immediately ratted me out to the local government Better than your previous phrasing, but try again; if the action that they took was to report you to the government then they are the opposite of a vigilante by definition.

The original word (which: I can't keep up, is that really bad now? When did that happen, last week?) made more sense, really. "Vigilante" is way off from it.

It was always a bad shorthand. The word you are after is “busybody,” perhaps with some preceding adjectives to indicate malicious intent.

Re: The Coming Food Catastrophe

#300

Post by komadori »

corrral wrote: post #240
yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of the neighborhood vigilantes immediately ratted me out to the local government Better than your previous phrasing, but try again; if the action that they took was to report you to the government then they are the opposite of a vigilante by definition.

The original word (which: I can't keep up, is that really bad now? When did that happen, last week?) made more sense, really. "Vigilante" is way off from it.

I don't think it's right to co-opt and despoil that name of doubtless many real people, so if there is a pushback against using "Karen" as an insult then I'm in favour of it. That said, this is first time I've seen anyone else say anything against it. Perhaps I also can't keep up? ;-)
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