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Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

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Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#361

Post by Schroedingersat »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #346
pencilguin wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hint: you do not need to eat any meat to get plenty of protein.

That's not a "hint", meat is a desirable food, a very good source of protein, can be a good income for poor farmers and can be raised in places that aren't suitable for cropping. But even if you set aside meat, modern lifestyles necessitate the killing of other life. Take your protein-rich plant food, for example. Do you know how modern cereal and vegetable farming is carried out? The idea is basically to create a ho…

You don't need absolution, just reduction.

If the option is eating cows that eat some grass and feed from a couple of acres of desolation vs. eating beans and grains from a quarter acre of desolation, then the option is obvious. You can still eat the tenth of the cows that can survive on the grass alone.

Reducing the desolation and increasing the yield by building an ecosystem rather than monocrop is better, but that is a harder transition.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#363

Post by garren »

generalizations wrote: post #325
fnimick wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The natural world also involves species consuming their entire food supply and then going extinct. Or polluting their ecosystem until they are unable to survive. I would hope we are intelligent enough to avoid that. Meat eating is contributing to both.

Not the first. Sounds like we're not consuming our entire food supply, but rather generating more as we need it. And there's a lot of other things besides cow farts contributing to global warming, which can have a much bigger effect for much less effort than making the world vegetarian.

Clearing huge swaths of Brazilian rainforest, “the lungs of the planet”, to make way for cattle seems like a pretty significant contributing factor though, would you agree? Less demand for meat, less demand for eliminating large pieces of a rather important natural carbon sink.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#364

Post by Claudus »

arcticbull wrote: post #229
eyko wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What gets me is that over a quarter of that (26% as of 2010 by USDA's estimates) is simply thrown away.

Quoted post unavailable.

My grandmother had a plum bush about 12 feet high that would produce thousands of plums every year. We would eat a few hundred, but about 90% would be “wasted”. Of course, they rotted back into the soil and provided nourishment for other living things.

Luckily, the bush is dead now, and all that food is no longer being wasted.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#365

Post by throwawaylinux »

Schroedingersat wrote: post #361
throwawaylinux wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not a "hint", meat is a desirable food, a very good source of protein, can be a good income for poor farmers and can be raised in places that aren't suitable for cropping. But even if you set aside meat, modern lifestyles necessitate the killing of other life. Take your protein-rich plant food, for example. Do you know how modern cereal and vegetable farming is carried out? The idea is basically to create a ho…

You don't need absolution, just reduction. If the option is eating cows that eat some grass and feed from a couple of acres of desolation vs. eating beans and grains from a quarter acre of desolation, then the option is obvious. You can still eat the tenth of the cows that can survive on the grass alone. Reducing the desolation and increasing the yield by building an ecosystem rather than monocrop is better, but that…

I have to say it takes some chutzpah for a person to just out and say their level of consumption is the correct amount and someone else's is not.

Sure you can eat the beans and grains instead. You can also stop driving, stop heating and cooling your house, stop buying computers and phones and cars, stop air travel, live in a small apartment you share with several other people.

I don't have a problem with the idea of reducing environmental footprint or moving consumption patterns to more efficient products. Great ideas. What I have a problem with is making choices for or passing moral judgement on other people.

Your lifestyle results in the death of life and animals, and you do not do everything physically possible to minimize that, therefore you simply do not have that moral high ground. If killing animals is "wrong", then we are all wrong. "Oh but I try to minimize" is not an defense because you are minimizing according to what is convenient or valuable to you. You'll accept some killing of animals because you fly to Europe once a year or have a smartphone or heat your house and that's okay, but somebody who chooses to eat more meat than you would prefer?

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#366

Post by [deleted] »

mandmandam wrote: post #148
nemo44x wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha that’s great! Hopefully we continue to see these numbers as increase as a leading indicator of a wealthy and well fed society.

From your perspective, you just made a smart comment that adds wider context on this issue. From mine, it's something of a cosmic horror that people can think like this and be proud of themselves. We are wreaking havoc on the Earth and all life on it; strip mining it to the bone for the shallowest purposes. And some people have this strange glee about it... It's Lovecraftian to me. Like cultists worshipping death and…

[deleted]

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#367

Post by shortstuffsushi »

arcticbull wrote: post #289
notch656a wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fail to see the connection between raising prices and better affordability/access of food for the poor. Certainly you could make food as valuable as, say gold, and most would be loath to waste a single gram of it.

If they're throwing out 40% of the food they buy, then raising prices slightly and not throwing out 40% of the food should be accessibility-neutral no? Instead of buying 2 milks and throwing 1 milk out, you buy 1 milk for 2X the price and throw out 0 milk. At the end of the day you still drank 1 milk for the same effective price. They already have significantly more than they need. Americans already pay less as a per…

It seems the year 2022 is a sort of "experiment" in terms of testing this theory. Food prices have inflated ~10% this year, nice round number although lower than your suggested "2x the price." Do you think this resulted in less waste?

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#368

Post by arcticbull »

Claudus wrote: post #364
arcticbull wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

My grandmother had a plum bush about 12 feet high that would produce thousands of plums every year. We would eat a few hundred, but about 90% would be “wasted”. Of course, they rotted back into the soil and provided nourishment for other living things. Luckily, the bush is dead now, and all that food is no longer being wasted.

How much fertilizer, pesticide, labor and water from underground was applied to this bush? Were the fruits diverted to landfill after or composted? How much fossil fuel was used to transport the plums from her back yard to a sort facility, to a grocery store, to someone’s house and then back to the landfill? Landfills btw emit significant quantities of methane that are not present in aerobic composting.

This is a silly response that misses the forest for the trees if you will.

It beggars belief that the difference between industrial agriculture and ornamental plants is lost on you. Especially since my focus was on animals not plants - with a particular focus on water use.

Your average grandmother by the way (in the 70s), wasted 50% as much food as the average American wastes today so it might be worth a follow-up conversation with gammy about why that was.

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#369

Post by arcticbull »

xyzzyz wrote: post #329
arcticbull wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they're throwing out 40% of the food they buy, then raising prices slightly and not throwing out 40% of the food should be accessibility-neutral no? Instead of buying 2 milks and throwing 1 milk out, you buy 1 milk for 2X the price and throw out 0 milk. At the end of the day you still drank 1 milk for the same effective price. They already have significantly more than they need. Americans already pay less as a per…

> At the end of the day you still drank 1 milk for the same effective price. Why don't then people just buy 1 milk today at today price instead of buying 2 and throwing one away? They'd still have drunk 1 milk, but for half effective price. Why aren't people already doing that? People often make fun of economists with their very specific mathematical models of perfectly round customers, production functions, etc. The…

If you wanted an answer to your question you could google “sources of food waste USA” however if you’d like to make a proper counterpoint instead of a glib remark I’m all ears :)

> They'd still have drunk 1 milk, but for half effective price. Why aren't people already doing that?

I think I've already mentioned expiration dates and education around them, no? [1] My secondary argument is that people value things that are cheap less, and are more likely to waste them.

[1] https://www.npr.org/2022/07/28/1114335397/expiration-dates-l...

Re: Wild mammal biomass has declined by 85% since the rise of humans

#370

Post by Schroedingersat »

throwawaylinux wrote: post #365
Schroedingersat wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need absolution, just reduction. If the option is eating cows that eat some grass and feed from a couple of acres of desolation vs. eating beans and grains from a quarter acre of desolation, then the option is obvious. You can still eat the tenth of the cows that can survive on the grass alone. Reducing the desolation and increasing the yield by building an ecosystem rather than monocrop is better, but that…

I have to say it takes some chutzpah for a person to just out and say their level of consumption is the correct amount and someone else's is not. Sure you can eat the beans and grains instead. You can also stop driving, stop heating and cooling your house, stop buying computers and phones and cars, stop air travel, live in a small apartment you share with several other people. I don't have a problem with the idea of…

If you're consuming 19x as many resources than someone else, and the sustainable level is 10% of the current level, then demanding they reduce their 5% share to a 1% share is not just arrogant, unfair, and greedy. It also doesn't do anything to solve the problem.

Your implicit thesis is that you should not be held to account to do the extremely easy things if anyone else is asserting their right to exist at all is transparent reprehensible.

> You can also stop driving, stop heating and cooling your house, stop buying computers and phones and cars, stop air travel, live in a small apartment you share with several other people.

If I already do all those things (with the exception of a second hand phone I use with a 10yo monitor when I need a desktop). Then do I get to tell you to maybe drive a slightly smaller SUV or stop opposing renewable energy?

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