11–20 of 267 posts
> Common bird time series in Europe have shown a general decline in abundance between 1980 and 2016 (−25.4% ± 2.8) In case anyone else was skimming through to find over what time period this occurred.
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
> The problem: both approaches drastically reduce agricultural productivity. We're overproducing anyway, with massive environmental followup issues. Switching to less meat would free up a lot of grain production and help get nitrate runoff from all the poo used as fertilizer under control, but that's politically untenable and the markets would just adapt to import more Brazilian meat grown on burned-down rainforest f…
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
And another side effect of subsidies is that it counteracts development aid sent to places that the EU competes with on farmed products. Instead of boosting their economies by importing stuff from those countries we kill their exports with subsidized local produce and then spend a lot on development aid. And fragile economies in Africa of course create all sorts of collateral issues including wars and refugees. All to protect local farmers so they can produce things like sugar beet so we can have subsidized local sugar production instead of just importing that from outside Europe.
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
Say I would really like to be part of pushing towards this in some way. Maybe through volunteering, by making a career adjustment (I'm full stack engineer) or going back to studying for a bit. What can I do?
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
There is noticeable quantitative difference.
People 40+ and older remember from their childhood how car's windshield, lamps and grille were covered with dead insects every time you took long drive outside cites. Today you can drive small country roads for a day and get only small number of insects.
It used to be that you could walk in the garden and count easily 10-20 ladybugs eating aphid's from your planted flowers. My mother used fight aphids by spraying vinegar soap mix. Today the exact same spot with same flowers has no aphid problem and very few ladybugs.
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There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
> The problem: both approaches drastically reduce agricultural productivity. We're overproducing anyway, with massive environmental followup issues. Switching to less meat would free up a lot of grain production and help get nitrate runoff from all the poo used as fertilizer under control, but that's politically untenable and the markets would just adapt to import more Brazilian meat grown on burned-down rainforest f…
Edit: Regarding meat from Latin Amerca, where exactly do you think all the raw materials forbthe vegan, processed stuff in our super markets come from? Like imported meat, from burned down rain forest areas, ranging from Latin America to Asia.
There are also quite convincing studies that show even worse declines for insect populations, again mostly due to industrialized farming techniques and the widespread use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides. The standard approach in the EU to work against this really worrying trend is to a) bring more and more land under some form of protection and remove it from agricultural production and b) increase the share o…
I think, and I have to admit I don't have any current numbers on that, that Europe is actually producing more food than we currently need. So cutting backnon industrial agriculture, ranging from grains to meat, so covering all sorts of foodstuffs, can only be a good thing, for people, the environment and animals.
Some geeks here are coming up with sci-fi ideas of producing food in vertical farms, or underwater, why don't we start by simply using existing techniques?