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Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

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Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You'd think that people would have realized this after Europe avoided mass death from Russian gas being cut off only because the winter was mild.

Interesting way to frame "Russian gas being cut off" instead of "most likely US orchestrated biggest ally to ally sabotage in history". I'm still mad about it, yes. Germany's dependence on Russian gas was a terrible thing, but risking my livelihood for 4D geopolitics chess is much worse.

Germany's dependence on Russian gas was (failed) 4D geopolitical chess in itself. I'm mad at that.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#352
post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's actually a CO2-equivalent (CO2e) tax, which includes a range of other gasses. E.g., 1kg of methane is 25kg CO2e Your pig farmers must be thrilled.

I had to look it up, Denmark is allegedly a world leader in pig farming exports. You make a really interesting point that I feel like garners more discourse. https://agricultureandfood.dk/danish-agriculture/agriculture... .

Denmark is also THE world leader in pork consumption.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US, we have sextupled 155mm shell production. If war breaks out, you need to feed people, maintain roads, build vehicles, etc.

Europe has a huge coastline, it's impossible to blockade. If war breaks out, it's better to shift workers from agriculture to war-related production, and import food from places that are not at war, such as South America. Food produced in Europe is basically a luxury. For every kilogram of beef produced in Denmark, you can buy 2.5 kg of Argentinian beef.

Let me see... Well, there was this thing in the past, called WW2, it was a WW, because well, Germany for example didn't want France buying Brazillian agricultural products, and sunk Brazillian ships using submarines. Thus making Brazil join the war.

Right now Lula wants to form a coalition with Russia, so what makes you think, in case of war, Brazil would keep selling to the EU? Maybe because USA would threathen Brazil? In that case they would focus on feeding themselves, and not the EU still.

In the entirety of human history, a base war tactic is Siege. What makes you think nobody will try it again?

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#354
post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that can be sustained in international crisis: farming that is a house of cards highly dependent on international supply chains of fertilizer, feedstock and fuel won't help you all that much under blockade.

No-one mentions this when food security is discussed. The farmers here in NL use the security excuse too but absolutely no-one mentions that their food production is directly dependant upon the import of magnitudes higher tonnage of feedstock - soya from Brazil - than the meat / dairy it produces. Then I'm not even looking at the fertilizers / chemicals which are also imported.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belaruskali comes to mind...

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#355
Climate obsessed people are probably in it for the right reasons but are hysterically annoying from any third party perspective. Keep telling people that cow burps are what is driving bad weather and you can keep being baffled that "deniers" hate any of the solutions you come up with there after. People hate pollution across the board, people hate theoretical models of climate effects based on research divorced from reality that predict weather in 30 years to be a doomsday scenario because of something so obviously mundane while ignoring outsourcing manufacturing to china and india to bus, boat and flight. At this rate we may one day in our lifetime be able to have all the pigs and cattle raised in china and fly them on business class to europe in order to fight the weather via carbon credits.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be fine, I believe. Just in terms of land-use, livestock is several times less efficient than other kinds of agriculture for the same food output. So a shift from meat to other food crops would be a net win, even as it frees up land for other purposes. Many farmers will receive a one-time payment on land sales and some will use this windfall to subsidise their transition from growing livestock to more envir…

>Just in terms of land-use, livestock is several times less efficient than other kinds of agriculture for the same food output. This assumes that the land is equally usable for both activities. Many times, it isn't: a lot of land that's good enough for grazing cows doesn't have enough water available for growing plants that people want to (or can) eat. People can't eat grass. This probably isn't an issue in Denmark,…

Cows are extremely inefficient (2% conversion) at converting calories to meat, so putting cows on that land is also an inefficient use of that land. And land with bad yield for crops also has bad yield for cows and the grass they eat and the water they need. I don't see the proposition being made in these claims.

Cows are so inefficient that we don't need to use marginal land at all to grow food. The majority of arable land is already used for cows yet they produce a disproportionately small amount of food. Weening off cows is a good thing.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#358

I've seen a bit of confusion regarding this. First, it's 10% of Denmark's total land area, which is roughly equivalent to 15% of farmland area. Second, the conversion of farmland area into nature and forests is mainly for improving water quality, as excess nitrogen from agriculture has essentially killed the rivers and coastal waters through oxygen depletion from algae. Regarding global warming and CO2, the area conv…

So effectively offshoring carbon production to places that don’t care?

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Just in terms of land-use, livestock is several times less efficient than other kinds of agriculture for the same food output. This assumes that the land is equally usable for both activities. Many times, it isn't: a lot of land that's good enough for grazing cows doesn't have enough water available for growing plants that people want to (or can) eat. People can't eat grass. This probably isn't an issue in Denmark,…

It also ignores that animals produce the manure that is used to fertilize soil to grow crops in.

We use manure because it's coming out of the gills of the animal ag industry, not because it's necessary to enrich crop soil.

Just because plastic bags are ubiquitous doesn't mean it's the only nor best way to carry items around, nor that we'd lose the ability to transport goods if they were phased out, nor that they don't come at a cost despite perceiving them as free.

Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest

#360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes with quite a lot of compensation and subsidies, so they're less angry than you might expect. Also, an important note here is that they were part of the negotiations, and as such were part of the agreement which was proposed to the parliament. All that being said, you're right, they're not exactly thrilled with the government adding taxes and monitoring them more.

So you tax them for CO2 and then subsidize them for the same reason? How does help anyone else than salaries for tax and subsidy administrators?

Not exactly. I'll just copy a reply I made further down: in 2030, a tax will be introduced of 120 DKK (~16€) / ton CO2e, which linearly increases each year until it reaches 300 DKK (~40€) / ton CO2e in 2035. However, the farmers can get subsidies for changing their practices and adopting new technologies, in order to reduce their emissions. I.e., the government will give you money to change your production, so you can minimize the carbon taxes you have to pay. There are more technicalities to how it works, but that's the gist of it. The important part is that the goal is to transition to new technologies and production methods, which reduces emissions per unit food produced.
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