U.S. Droughts Predicted to Be the Worst in 1,000 Years

Post by alexqgb » Sat, Feb 14, 2015, 9:51 PM UTC

fredup wrote: post #99

alexqgb wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The degree to which agribusiness in CA has been able to block any and all rational water regulation in the legislature is simultaneously awful and encouraging. Awful, because oh my god just look; the way they're handling this resource is demonstrably terrible. Encouraging because we are so amazingly far away from running an efficient enterprise. I suspect the Israelis could farm for a century using the same amount of…

It is certainly an exaggeration. A more accurate number could be 7-9 years. Israel uses 1016 million m^3 of water [1] or about 800,000 acre feet on agriculture per year. While studies have shown that California as a whole could save 5.6-6.6 million acre feet per year while maintaining productivity and the same acreage farmed [2]. It is a bit more difficult to restrict the number to the central valley, but the central…

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Feb 15, 2015, 9:42 PM UTC

code_duck wrote: post #51

Retric wrote: post #3

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The US produces several times more food than we need. A single acre can easily produce enough food for a small family and we have 408 million acres under cultivation. Corn is something of a super star at 8,250 lb. of corn per acre. However, we end up feeding most of this to animals which drastically reduces overall efficiency. So, sure we are going to spend a lot of effort maximizing food production. But a 50% drop i…

One area the U.S. could definitely focus on is reducing food waste. Restaurants throw away a lot of food that was perfectly good 4 days prior. The habits of people here regarding food waste is significant, too - I have a friend who will go to Taco John late at night, get six tacos, three potato things, 10 packets of sauce, eat two tacos and a potato thing and leave the rest to waste in his kitchen counter. He sees it…

Post by dredmorbius » Sun, Feb 15, 2015, 9:45 PM UTC

MiguelHudnandez wrote: post #53

Daishiman wrote: post #28

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Current meat consumption is unsustainable anyway; it wasn't going to last.

Lab-grown meat should bring costs down (both in raw resource usage and in the market), enough that I expect it to nearly completely replace traditional meat. I expect in 50 years, the only "real" meat, like from a slaughtered animal, will be eaten on special occasions, or by the wealthy. Sort of like the internal combustion engine "saving the horse." Lab-grown meat would eventually allow for lower cost with superior…