Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is exactly what should not happen. Meat is great, especially when grass fed.
Meat from grass-fed cows emit more GHG per kg than industry-framed meat. Industry farming is efficient.
Source?
Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
471–480 of 481 posts
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#472Earlier quoted context omitted.
Currently the public subsidizes the agriculture industry by paying for the consequences of the industry's carbon emissions. Also, that subsidy distorts industry choices in favor of carbon. The industry might be accustomed to profiting from the subsidy, but that doesn't make them entitled to it! And certainly the industry has had plenty of time to anticipate and adjust to the problems of carbon emissions.
Governments pay to keep food at the cheapest point possible to ensure stability. a fed population doesn't kill their governments. Agriculture is not a regular industry; its a national security issue Farming is not a profitable endeavor. There would be a lot less financial advisors in the world otherwise. A carbon tax will either drive up prices or reduce suppliers, increasing prices. Reducing farmland will require mo…
give the carbon tax revenue to consumers to offset that the price of food now reflects it's true cost. people can still afford to eat and food producers would actually be incentivized to reduce emissions.
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#473Earlier quoted context omitted.
So, what are you proposing? Just do nothing about climate change, as we have done before, and have worse social consequences in the near future rather than now? Denmark is more at risk from rising sea levels than other countries ( https://cphpost.dk/2023-02-17/news/rising-sea-levels-threate... ), so they want to do something about it.
not OP, but how about some technology innovation instead of governance and taxation? the effect of taxing farmers as though they were some kind of vanity industry will be similar to what nationalizing farms has done in prior schemes like this. it creates a national dependency on imported food from countries that do not bankrupt their farmers, and suddenly (shocked!) the entire Danish food supply crosses the borders t…
I think subsidies could help buying the technology, taking them out would be disastrous.
Farms, at least in Europe, are in the majority family owned. Same for those working in them, mostly those that are part of the family [1].
It's difficult being a farmer. You are much more at the will of nature than any other industry. Your effort takes a long time to bear fruit (think olives, for example, you do not have fruit for 4~years if you're lucky, and you don't want the oil from a younger tree (lesser phenols, etc...). You have to wait YEARS before you get anything to market. And, there have been many fires in southern Europe...).
All in all, it's indeed difficult to invest in machinery, new technology, etc...
[1] https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/web/products-eurostat-news/w/d...
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#474Earlier quoted context omitted.
What technological innovation do you think farming could adopt, that it hasn't already...? They don't operate with simple machinery. They regularly use some of the most complicated systems that mankind can build, such as satellite systems, chemical analyses, etc. Governance is needed, where progress does not occur naturally.
invent, not adopt. that's the difference between government and industry, government doesn't invent anything except problems to manage. reality is, governments want smallholding farmers out of the business and to replace them with agribusinesses because it's a process of de-kulakizing their subjects. it has nothing to do with science or environment at all. I think maybe a war over this stuff will give us the reset we…
My country went through a process similar of dekulakization. Our industries and farms haven't recovered ever since then.
This is similar in some ways, but not at all the same.
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#475Earlier quoted context omitted.
Denmark does not have to stand alone thanks to the EU.
That may change in the future if the populist parties gain more traction in the eastern EU.
Then they can chop the trees down and make furniture or building materials and sell them to pay for agricultural re-expansion..
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#476Earlier quoted context omitted.
> A growing population require food. Sure, but Europe's not growing. It is purely in "shrink forever" mode. This is easily measured, any time fertility drops below 2.1 that's what happens. But ignore that a moment, what if you wanted to depopulate Europe? This might be a good policy for that. Get the timing just right, and it's not even a genocide... food shortages that don't starve anyone just encourages the last fe…
Have past instances of 2.1 fertility also had increased lifespan and immigration?
There have never been past instances. We had a much higher fertility rate, then it just plummeted. It hit 2.1 and plunged below that moments later.
Increased lifespans will soon come to an end, but even if magically they could remain you'd just end up on a planet where everyone's too old to have children anymore, and human extinction is locked in. Every second fertility rate's below 2.1, there are fewer people of reproductive age and within your own lifetime there won't even be enough of those to sustain a world population in the tens of millions if suddenly they switched back to 2.1 (and they won't). This is doomsday. But be sure to have fewer children to reduce your carbon footprint.
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#477Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#478No they won't. If they started tomorrow planting 100,000 trees a day, and never took a single day off, they would finish up in 2052. What kind of nursery can even grow 100,000 saplings of conifer a day? https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-climate-deniers-pl...
Using seedballs, you could conceivably plant 1B trees in just a couple months by dropping the seedballs from airplanes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bBbU4MQftc8
That’s not planting a tree.
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#479Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it pencil out though? You go from more farmers making less profit and getting subsidy to smooth things over and then they go ahead and spend most of that back in the economy running the business presumably. And the other situation is no subsidy, fewer players as they have to take what little profit there is and spend it more on overhead, and presumably less money reinvested in the local economy overall because o…
That's only true if you ignore that the government can spend that money on something else. And the successful farmers are actually net tax payers. Compare subsidies to farmers, all farmers are highly inefficient farming with no exports. No great public transport system and roads with potholes. To: No subsidies. Highly efficient farmers that export. Fantastic bus connection and roads in the whole countryside. > take w…
This becomes a race to the bottom quickly. Why should the government invest any money at all in new york or california if that same dollar goes so much further doing literally anything at all in omaha or detroit? Its cheaper after all no?
Re: Denmark will plant 1B trees and convert 10% of farmland into forest
#480Earlier quoted context omitted.
How does having such a large surplus that you’re an exporter of food jive with national security? It sounds like they already produce more than enough. Exposing food production entirely to market forces is, as you point out, a bad idea.
> How does having such a large surplus (...) You should educate yourself. Europe imports around 40% of the agricultural production it consumes. The "surplus" is referenced in economical value and reflects luxury exports such as wine, which is hardly what keeps Europe alive in case of all-out war. The whole point of Europe's common agricultural policy is food security including an event of all-out war. Your comments s…
Wouldn't it be a beautiful world if wine could keep Europe alive in case of an all-out war