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How America Uses Its Land

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Re: How America Uses Its Land

#81

Post by DareRight »

jmspring wrote: post #42
hirundo wrote: post #30

> More than one-third of U.S. land is used for pasture ... There’s a single, major occupant on all this land: cows. Not here. I live on cow range land, but the cattle are outnumbered by elk. The elk hunting industry here is larger than the cattle industry. Every third local seems to be a hunting guide, and many of those are cow growers too. This seems to me to be a very positive thing that should be encouraged. Inste…

I live in a rural community where within the county and neighboring counties, cattle is a big deal. That said, the cows up here are fat and happy and have space to roam. Compare to the cattle pastures in the central valley where the cows are skinny and kept in small areas with limited space to roam. One thing that surprised me moving up here, and this is something I didn't realize re: laws around food, availabiliyt o…

Just ask the Bundy's

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#82

Post by poulsbohemian »

tcbawo wrote: post #18

How about a private company (Weyerhaeuser) owning 12.4 million acres of timberlands. It's about twice the size of Maryland!

Comparing their ownership to a state sounds like a lot, until you realize that Maryland is 12,400 square miles and that 12.4 million acres is really only 19,400 square miles (if my math is correct). Just a reminder that Alaska is 665,384 square miles by itself. So put in those terms, over the entire land mass of the US, Weyerhaeuser doesn't look so out of balance.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#83

Post by adventured »

jdietrich wrote: post #45
pathseeker wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Cattle grazing, thought it isn’t an ecological disaster like dam building, is quite different than leaving the land untouched. Leaving the land untouched is even more 'ecologically privileged' than using it to make expensive food. >Plus, a good portion of the country’s good farmland is diverted to growing feed for those animals. Growing feed (hay/grass) is much easier than growing things like almonds. If a farmer co…

Given the colossal and uneven levels of subsidies in US agriculture, I'd be reluctant to draw any conclusions about what the market is willing to bear.

US agriculture subsidies are not colossal in fact. They're about $20-$25 billion per year. They shouldn't exist at all ideally, however given the immense size of the US agriculture market, and how critical it is to keeping hundreds of millions of people alive, it's hardly a concerning sum.

By contrast, EU farm subsidies in a smaller economy are three times that size. If the US farm subsidies are colossal, I'm not sure what you'd call 3x colossal.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#84

Post by Swizec »

hirundo wrote: post #72
freddie_mercury wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in a developing country. People regularly kill animals to eat. They will have chickens, ducks, rats, fish, turtles, dogs, and pigs that they raise and eat. There is no "communing with nature". There is no "paying the blood price". There is certainly no "greater love and understanding of nature" or "meaning in their lives". It is just eating, living, surviving.

Suicide rates tend to be lower in developing countries. Don't you think that lifestyle is part of the reason? https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/535557fc6bb3f78245a35...

To quote a smart person I know: “Yeah, sure, you could give up, but then who’s gonna feed the kids?”

When your life is hand to mouth, there’s not a lot of room left for suicidal stuff. Too busy surviving. Especially if there’s people depending on you.

Even if you’re suicidal, you don’t have the luxury to go through with it. And even if you’re depressed, you don’t have the luxury to give into it. Because if you do, then you don’t eat and neither do yiur kids. No choice but to keep going.

Life’s fun like that.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#85

Post by Alex3917 »

windows_tips wrote: post #60
bscphil wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having people travel to hunt the meat they eat doesn't scale, though, at all. It's quite simply not possible to use it as a way to improve land use and reduce climate change. Suggestions like yours can be good, but they don't recognize the scale of the changes that are needed. It's the equivalent of trying to get people to buy hybrids to stop climate change - even if everyone could do it, it wouldn't make a dent in t…

>I wonder if, faced with this choice, most people would not simply become vegetarians. Probably not if they had to forage all their foods at current densities.

There is plenty of land that could be used for well-managed forest gardens. Bali is an example of a modern economy where people can forage a lot of their calories that way.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#86

Post by DareRight »

torpfactory wrote: post #14
gweinberg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot less impressive when you recognize most grazing land isn't much good for anything else.

It is a pretty significant diversion of land from a natural state though. Cattle grazing, thought it isn’t an ecological disaster like dam building, is quite different than leaving the land untouched. Plus, a good portion of the country’s good farmland is diverted to growing feed for those animals. Think of it like: how many acres have been changed from a natural ecosystem to an artificial one for meat eating.

I could take you on a 100 mile ride through my neck of the woods right through dozens of ranchers' grazing grounds and I bet you'd see less than a dozen cows. There's nothing artificial about it. The land is still very natural. Oh. Except for the car we'd be driving in and the road and the four towns we'd pass through. But the BLM land is very much in it's natural state.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#87

Post by freddie_mercury »

bscphil wrote: post #56
hirundo wrote: post #30

> More than one-third of U.S. land is used for pasture ... There’s a single, major occupant on all this land: cows. Not here. I live on cow range land, but the cattle are outnumbered by elk. The elk hunting industry here is larger than the cattle industry. Every third local seems to be a hunting guide, and many of those are cow growers too. This seems to me to be a very positive thing that should be encouraged. Inste…

Having people travel to hunt the meat they eat doesn't scale, though, at all. It's quite simply not possible to use it as a way to improve land use and reduce climate change. Suggestions like yours can be good, but they don't recognize the scale of the changes that are needed. It's the equivalent of trying to get people to buy hybrids to stop climate change - even if everyone could do it, it wouldn't make a dent in t…

> I wonder if, faced with this choice, most people would not simply become vegetarians.

I expect that most people would quickly find that killing animals isn't that hard, that billions of people still do it today, and that natural disasters & wars have clearly shown that people can and do adapt quickly, doing things they never thought possible.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#89

Post by StillBored »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #79
StillBored wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Texas raising property taxes as such isn't the answer. Rather capping the amount a single owner/organization can claim in ag/etc exemptions, while making it easier for small 20 acre farms to claim the exemption. Right now what you have is the richest land owners paying the lowest rates, while owners of tiny suburban/rural lots get murdered. For example, I give you a few pieces of the 6d ranch, located on…

You pay $15,000 / year in property taxes on a lot less than 1 acre? Is that normal for Texas?

Yes, see my other comment above for a (random) single family home adjacent to the 6d ranch on .3 acres.

Texas is a low tax state if your a billionaire, or business, everyone else is fscked.

Re: How America Uses Its Land

#90

Post by icantdrive55 »

poulsbohemian wrote: post #79
StillBored wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Texas raising property taxes as such isn't the answer. Rather capping the amount a single owner/organization can claim in ag/etc exemptions, while making it easier for small 20 acre farms to claim the exemption. Right now what you have is the richest land owners paying the lowest rates, while owners of tiny suburban/rural lots get murdered. For example, I give you a few pieces of the 6d ranch, located on…

You pay $15,000 / year in property taxes on a lot less than 1 acre? Is that normal for Texas?

That seems like a lot of Tax?

These counties take what they can I guess?

Right now I picture the sun setting, while going to to get a money order to pay my property taxes. On the way there I get a $350 for going 40 in a 35 mph zone, and a then a $59 parking ticket, with a $15 contest fee.

"I'm paying the Revenue Squads wage too?"

Yes--I'm as bad as Hell, by Howard Jarvis

(And there's a bunch of people here who blame his Prop for CA problems?)

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