161–170 of 188 posts
Would someone confirm my understanding that rice fails to germinate above 34C, and that most rice is grown in equatorial regions hovering around 32C? Given the +1.5C in the IPCC report, the loss of suitable land for a food crop as important as rice seems like something we should be actively talking about.
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> the cost of meat should be priced to also cover external costs of water and harm to the environment I think that should apply to everything, and not just meat. Air travel, vegetables, plastic, you name it. > I think that there should be a tax on meat that directly supported research and infrastructure for water and energy efficient farming, lower cost desalinization, etc. I don't agree with that. As long as you pay…
Nuts definitely consume a lot of water, but your usage link compares per kg. When you adjust for calories it tells a different story, e.g. Almonds [0] have around 3x more calories per kg than Steak [1]. [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/323294/n... [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/746763/n...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the cost of meat should be priced to also cover external costs of water and harm to the environment I think that should apply to everything, and not just meat. Air travel, vegetables, plastic, you name it. > I think that there should be a tax on meat that directly supported research and infrastructure for water and energy efficient farming, lower cost desalinization, etc. I don't agree with that. As long as you pay…
Nuts definitely consume a lot of water, but your usage link compares per kg. When you adjust for calories it tells a different story, e.g. Almonds [0] have around 3x more calories per kg than Steak [1]. [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/323294/n... [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/746763/n...
For most people suffering from malnutrition worldwide their biggest problem probably isn't getting enough calories but rather getting enough protein and vitamins and so on.
Getting calories in the rich countries is more of an anti problem. Many people take in too many calories, because there's too little protein in the foods they eat (so they have to eat more of it, giving them too many calories). Protein dilution.
Would someone confirm my understanding that rice fails to germinate above 34C, and that most rice is grown in equatorial regions hovering around 32C? Given the +1.5C in the IPCC report, the loss of suitable land for a food crop as important as rice seems like something we should be actively talking about.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The solution is precisely the opposite: dial down energy use (from all sources - industry, consumerism, travel etc) in the parts that consume too much. The solution to the risk of societal decline is to force society to decline? No. The solution is to make clean energy (solar, nuclear, etc.) abundant to the point that everyone has more energy available than they know what to do with. We have the scale to change the c…
Fossil fuels have energy densities far in excess of anything except nuclear energy. There is no way for the world to continue consuming as much energy as it is today, with current technologies, but without burning more fossil fuels. There is no fast enough solution to sequester carbon. Remember that, to avoid the bad effects of global warming (1 degree warming), we should have stopped net production of CO2 into the a…
The only thing really that can overcome this massive temptation that fossil fuels pose right now (until renewables become abundant enough), is strict worldwide regulation to limit and ultimately prohibit their use.
The problem is a political one. As long as there's no worldwide regulation and as long as renewable technology isn't competitive in comparison to fossil fuels every single person is incentivized to use fossil fuels, because deep down modern life is based upon manipulation stuff at will through the use of energy. The more energy is available to the individual, the more options they've got. Let's not fools ourselves by pretending, renewables are already able to replace fossil fuels so that every single person on the planet can just switch and continue enjoying the convenience of using massive amounts of energy in their daily life and only use renewable energy instead. Renewables are not competitive yet.
But the technology exists. The infrastructure just hasn't been built yet.
As most people probably know by now, a rather small proportion of the world's desert land could suffice to generate enough electricity to supply the whole world with energy. If this energy were stored in the form of let's say Methanol, it could be transported relatively easily by ship all over the world (I don't see a worldwide electrical power grid ever being powerful and fail safe enough to transfer all the energy where it's needed).
The technology is all there but it's a political challenge to make the transition.
> plastic crap
Yep, agree ... there's sooo much plastic crap.
But I guess buildings are a bigger issue compared to that. Concrete. There needs to be a cultural/architectural shift towards either concrete buildings that last much longer or don't get torn down and rebuilt because the aesthetics aren't favoured anymore or buildings made from wood.
Buildings shouldn't be built to last and enable comfortable living for like 40 but rather 250 years.
To enable people to make the decision to actually build in this way would require to politics to set the incentives right. To require architectural designs to be assesed from a long term sustainability perspective with the long term cost being included in the price. If wood is too costly in comparison to concrete, people will simply continue building with concrete.
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Nuts definitely consume a lot of water, but your usage link compares per kg. When you adjust for calories it tells a different story, e.g. Almonds [0] have around 3x more calories per kg than Steak [1]. [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/323294/n... [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/746763/n...
You're right, comparing just the weight doesn't tell the whole story. However, the same is true for calories. I think you should consider a kg of "weighted average" beef and not just steak, as steak tends to be lean. You would also have to take into account nutrients. That's why I'm not a huge fan of just comparing how much water different food need. Things are more complex than that.
I’d have a hard time believing that overall eating fewer animals resulted in higher water usage (since those animals had to eat plants to grow), but would be interesting to see data on it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> the cost of meat should be priced to also cover external costs of water and harm to the environment I think that should apply to everything, and not just meat. Air travel, vegetables, plastic, you name it. > I think that there should be a tax on meat that directly supported research and infrastructure for water and energy efficient farming, lower cost desalinization, etc. I don't agree with that. As long as you pay…
Nuts definitely consume a lot of water, but your usage link compares per kg. When you adjust for calories it tells a different story, e.g. Almonds [0] have around 3x more calories per kg than Steak [1]. [0] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/323294/n... [1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/746763/n...
Sorry for being off topic here: I get pushback on this opinion from my friends, so I expect this to be an unpopular opinion here also: the cost of meat should be priced to also cover external costs of water and harm to the environment. I enjoy a steak once or twice a month, so I am not talking from a vegan-purity perspective. I think that there should be a tax on meat that directly supported research and infrastructu…
Maybe that would have some kind of effect, but what exactly?
Greenhouse gas emissions by sector:
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
> Energy: 73.2%
> Agriculture, forestry and land use: 18%
> Waste: 3.2%
> Industry: 5.2%
Each piece of the pie is further broken down and so you can see that, for example:
> Agriculture etc > Livestock & manure: 5.8%
> Energy > Food and tobacco: 1%
The majority of emissions comes from burning fossil fuels. Additionally, fossil fuels produce gases that were buried in the soil for aeons, whereas meat production produces gasses most of which are re-absorbed by the soil. See carbon cycle:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_cycle
To be more specific, as the article says:
> Livestock & manure (5.8%): animals (mainly ruminants, such as cattle and sheep) produce greenhouse gases through a process called ‘enteric fermentation’ – when microbes in their digestive systems break down food, they produce methane as a by-product. This means beef and lamb tend to have a high carbon footprint, and eating less is an effective way to reduce the emissions of your diet.
So cutting down on meat is an effective way to reduce the contribution to greenhouse gas emissions of your diet. Your largest contributions are your (direct or indirect) use of fossil fuels.
Furthermore, the majority of eemissions in meat production come from ruminants. Chicken and pork should are not ruminants and you should probably exclude them from your taxation suggestion.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're right, comparing just the weight doesn't tell the whole story. However, the same is true for calories. I think you should consider a kg of "weighted average" beef and not just steak, as steak tends to be lean. You would also have to take into account nutrients. That's why I'm not a huge fan of just comparing how much water different food need. Things are more complex than that.
Agreed - I think it would be better to just compare an overall diet of someone eating more plants vs less plants, then sum up their water usage. I’d have a hard time believing that overall eating fewer animals resulted in higher water usage (since those animals had to eat plants to grow), but would be interesting to see data on it.
I agree, that would be a better way to compare diets.
> I’d have a hard time believing that overall eating fewer animals resulted in higher water usage (since those animals had to eat plants to grow), but would be interesting to see data on it.
I agree too, but I don't think water falling from the sky on non-arable land is the same as using potable water for agriculture. I think those two should be counted separately.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe. There's a non-zero chance that when younger millenials come to power, they will hunt down oil company insiders and force them to flee to Argentina.
Will they? Like when the hippies came to power it was all flowers and rainbows. Those in power are rarely the ones who started out as political radicals, at least on the conservative side.