281–290 of 380 posts
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Well, to be more specific: literally any handbook about statistics will explain the difference between correlation and causation.
And what does that have to do with anything I said?
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The energy, land, and water required to produce 1 lb of beef is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of chicken, which in turn is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of the average vegetable. Not only that, but methane emissions from cattle contribute to climate change. About a third of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US are from livestock. Not saying…
None of those things have anything to do with the discussion though, which is developing nations torching natural ecosystems. Neither my beef nor my car is in any way a factor in this. Also, your comparison is disingenuous. A pound of beef or chicken contains far more calories and protein than a pound of any vegetable. And grass fed beef actually requires less energy to produce than vegetables.
for the car : just stop using a car, that'll be better for the environment.
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"We only have one small planet to live on, and we are destroying it." We're not destroying the planet, we're destroying our habitat, and the habitat of those animals unfortunate enough to live at the same time as us. The planet is going to be just fine, it's us who's going to suffer. I love this quote from George Carlin: "The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tect…
OK, I'll say it. That is a stupid statement. I've seen that "planet will be fine" line too many times. Here is the truth: the main purpose of that line is to hide the wrongdoing. The planet is not just a rock in space. It includes the environment and everything that is there. When we destroy that, we are destroying the planet itself.
Except... not? Altering, or even completely destroying the biosphere is not nearly the same thing as destroying the planet. Mass extinction events have occurred in the past, in terms of history on a planetary scale the anthropecene's mass extinction is nothing new.
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Well, to keep things simple : - CO2, as a greenhouse gas, increase the Earth surface temperature - This temperature increase causes droughts/floods/other extreme meteorological events - Lands that used to be arable aren't anymore, because of these events. - People need to feed themselves, so they need new lands. - They burn forests, wipe out ecosystems, and kill millions of animals in the process.
But that hasn't happened. These people did not lose land from "extreme meteorological events". They simply exhausted the stored fertility in the soil, and it is cheaper to burn another chunk of forest than it is to purchase fertilizer. A hypothetical scenario that could happen in the future does not explain the actual scenario that the article we're discussing is about.
You'll have a hard time in this world if you believe that every problem has a single source...
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Well, war is good for the war racket, but generally not good for trade in the vast majority of other goods.
Globalization is in full swing drastically more than it was during large-scale wartime. Hard to imagine a world war happening in that context
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Huh. I've heard carrying capacity estimates range from 10 to 150 billion. http://outsideinradio.org/shows/2018/10/11/so-over-populatio... Maybe population theorists are wrong and you are right it's more like 5, or whatever your number is. It's just hard to know, since Malthusianism has such a terrible track record, adamantly predicting apocalypse for two hundred years. They continue to make failing predictions: https…
Carrying capacity is related to quality of life and technology. With very poor quality of life, Earth could probably carry quite a large number of people. But why build such a world? Why is 100 billion people packed in tenements, living off hydroponic slop better than 2 billion experiencing nature, breathing free and having the option of traditional or modern lifestyles?
I'd rather live now than during the black death, or in ancient times when 90% of humanity had to devote their entire lives to food production. In contrast, 90% of the phds who have ever lived are alive right now. We have freed people to do great things.
I can't speak for a society with 100 billion. I know that its inventiveness would be so far beyond our comprehension that such a society might not lack any particular experience. As long as we're talking about science fiction level hypotheticals of population, maybe it would build a Dyson sphere, maybe they would master human photosynthesis, who knows.
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I think that's making the assumption that having 100 billion livestock + the current human population is sustainable. Even if that were the case, humans consume a lot more resources than animals living on factory farms.
I think the point was that if humans were vegetarians we wouldn't need 100B livestock. And since a cow needs quite a lot more food than humans do, if we could transition 1:1 to a human-edible crop then we have plenty of food to support humans. Other resources are a separate issue, of course.
I agree with the assertion that humanity is more sustainable (all other things being equal) vegan or vegetarian rather than omnivorous, but it's going to far to suggest we could just swap in humans for livestock.
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The energy, land, and water required to produce 1 lb of beef is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of chicken, which in turn is several times greater than the resources required to produce 1 lb of the average vegetable. Not only that, but methane emissions from cattle contribute to climate change. About a third of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US are from livestock. Not saying…
None of those things have anything to do with the discussion though, which is developing nations torching natural ecosystems. Neither my beef nor my car is in any way a factor in this. Also, your comparison is disingenuous. A pound of beef or chicken contains far more calories and protein than a pound of any vegetable. And grass fed beef actually requires less energy to produce than vegetables.
I'm starting to believe that you aren't arguing in good faith, in part because your statements are just thrown out there without any evidence or citation. Sure, a pound of beef or chicken contains more protein or calories than a pound of vegetables. But that's a nonsensical and misleading claim - many more pounds of vegetables went into producing that pound of beef and chicken. Many of those calories, by the way, were exhausted by the metabolic processes of those animals too. A much more efficient utilization of resources would involve just using those vegetable calories directly.
[1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/194008291300600...
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> You're fixating on CO2 when the problem the article talks about is clearly environmental destruction. Canada and the US produce all of our own beef. Exactly, environmental destruction caused by the beef industry, an incredibly inefficient process if you compare the land and water requirements vs other types of protein. > There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production. This is a huge blanke…
>Exactly, environmental destruction caused by the beef industry Not in Canada or the US. We have vast prairies that used to be inhabited by millions of bison. Now a fraction of it is inhabited by cattle instead. >water requirements vs other types of protein. How is temporarily using local water in the US, which is returned to the natural water cycle, causing deforestation in South America or Africa or Asia? >This is…
No one single ranch is necessarily causing problems. It's a collective issue. No single person needs to withdraw enough water from the well to run it dry, a town can do it one cup at a time without anyone intending to cause his neighbor to go thirsty.
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Most of what you said is relevant and correct, but: >Medical Marijuana is becoming legal in just about every state in the USA. Feel like this was just thrown in there. I don't see how wasting millions of gallons of water on a useless plant is representative of the human population taking sacrifices to luxuries in order to prolong the life of the planet. In fact - it sounds like quite the opposite. >AR & VR will hopef…
Medical marijuana to my knowledge is typically grown in a hydroponic system indoors. It's one of few plants priced high enough to make this worth it. My hope is that it can improve the tech & bring the prices down so that more crops can be grown indoors. A lot of companies have tried this on fruits & vegetables. I'm not aware of many that have been very successful yet due to the high price of this growing method but…