population control

[flyingfish]

Why would it be sad if chimps and gorillas went extinct? Isnt that how evolution works? If chimps and gorillas cannot adapt to human encroachment then arent they not fit to pass on their genes and survive? Wouldnt it be a good thing to get rid of animals that cannot adapt? Other animals adapt just fine to human civilization. If these creatures cannot do the same, doesnt it not show nature in action? They are threatened by humans and can adapt or fight yet they do neither. You can make an argument that the quicker they die the better since we can use the land all the endangered species are on to benefit mankind instead of creatures that would care less if it was us that was near death. Just remember that if we were threatened with extinction, no ape or any living creature under just about any circumstances will feel sorry for us humans. So what is so important about preserving genetically inferior animals that slow human progress? Because they look cute? Seems like a silly reason to curtail our own populations and to stop survival of the fittest in nature.

Why would it be sad? These species are our closest relatives. There is evidence that they have minds. It would be very sad if they ceased to exist, just as it would be very sad if human beings went extinct. Or for that matter other species.

I think it would be a tragedy if we destroyed products of billions of years of evolution, just so that we can have more of us.

Evolution is not a directed process to the top. Being more fit doesn’t even have to mean being more complex. The way we’re headed, the only species that might end up being able to survive alongside us is the all mighty cockroach.

 

[gamewell45]

The main question that I have and I haven’t seen it addressed in here yet (tho’ maybe i missed it) is: How many people can the planet support until its resources are depleted? I’m sure there is a finite number of people before starvation, etc occurs.

thoughts anyone?

 

[Calliso]

I don’t think you can demonstrate that we can feed more people on a purely vegetarian diet, given that about 1/3 of the land mass will only grow grass, which people can’t digest. That’s why people in the great plains and the Eurasian steppes have livestock that can turn grass into protein. Add to that the fact that not all grain crops are human consumeable, but are fed to animals.

Of course fossil fuels will eventually run low, including the untapped offshore and arctic oilfields, the untapped gas fields in the U.S., the essentially untapped oil and gas in the South China Sea, the untapped shale oil in the west and the untapped “methane ice” in the arctic and on the sea floors. Well, and I guess uranium could be considered a “fossil fuel” of sorts inasmuch as it has been decaying in the ground a long time. It willl be awhile before it all runs out.

And how much of that land used to grow grain for animals could be used to grow something edible by people? Not to mention all the water use, since not only do you need to account for the water used to grow the food the animals eat…obviously they need to drink as well. I mean sure if all our meat was purely grass fed then it might be far more effecient then it is now…but like the vegetarian thing…probably not gonna happen. I donlt know about the other things you mentioned but as I understand it shale oil is very expensive to extract so there is that to look at too. I like the idea of nuclear energy though…much cleaner then fossil fuels…*by the way uranium I dontl think can be considered a fossil fuel…Oil and coal are called fossil fuels because they come from long dead fossiled plants and animals

 

[Calliso]

A meme is just a word for some set of cultural beliefs, practices, ideas. People use the analogy of biological evolution, to talk about how beliefs are passed on, how they compete with each other etc. (So say, a religion with a mandate to go out and spread the word might fare better in the long run that a religion without such a mandate, and after a time you might find the world dominated by such religions.)

Beliefs are not passed through biological genes. Your parents’ beliefs matter to an extent, and they will try to pass them on to you (especially if their beliefs contain within them the direction to instruct children likewise), but an individual will also “inherit” the beliefs of the culture they’re raised in (which for modern people includes the internet).

I don’t understand why you are so hostile to this measurement, except that it doesn’t coincide with your beliefs that it’s possible given today’s technology to provide everyone with a first world lifestyle if only governance was better.

I mean, the only “measure” of biocapacity that I’ve ever seen from the other side has been dividing the surface area of the State of Texas by the surface area occupied by a human being, which is just laughable and I want to pull my hair out every time someone mentions how many people can fit into Texas.

It’s not an absolute measure, since it assumes current technology (but that can cut both ways, we might end up improving technology and increasing biocapacity, but we might also run out of fossil fuels before we come up with better or even viable alternatives, so it would decrease.)

I hear you on the Texas thing… it seriously makes me want to bang my head against the nearest wall.

 

[Calliso]

The main question that I have and I haven’t seen it addressed in here yet (tho’ maybe i missed it) is: How many people can the planet support until its resources are depleted? I’m sure there is a finite number of people before starvation, etc occurs.

thoughts anyone?

I think that question is hard to answer because well it depends on a lot of stuff. But lets put it this way I have yet to hear a good argument for how the earth could support an american lifestyle for 7 billion people. At least sustanibly…I mean our species could possibly be here for at least the next several thousand years. And we can;t guarentee we would find another planet that we could travel to in that time. Heck our best bet in that case unless we find some way to travel over the speed of light…would probably be ships of people migrating across space. And eventually the descedents of the people who orginally left earth would hopefully reach the new planet.

 

[kelvinf]

… I have yet to hear a good argument for how the earth could support an american lifestyle for 7 billion people…

That will never be necessary. The world does not need an american (credit card) lifestyle for 7 billion people. (Fortunately)

 

[Ridgerunner]

I don’t understand why you are so hostile to this measurement, except that it doesn’t coincide with your beliefs that it’s possible given today’s technology to provide everyone with a first world lifestyle if only governance was better.

I mean, the only “measure” of biocapacity that I’ve ever seen from the other side has been dividing the surface area of the State of Texas by the surface area occupied by a human being, which is just laughable and I want to pull my hair out every time someone mentions how many people can fit into Texas.

It’s not an absolute measure, since it assumes current technology (but that can cut both ways, we might end up improving technology and increasing biocapacity, but we might also run out of fossil fuels before we come up with better or even viable alternatives, so it would decrease.)

No. Your beliefs require (among other things) the assumption that mismanagement and misgovernance is somehow inherent to human existence; a manifestly false proposition. Your “scientific basis” assumes current technology, like the African grubbing out 1/10 of an acre of sorghum with a stick. It assumes mismanagement and misgovernance. I say it is inappropriate to assume mismanagement for the purpose of reducing populations, when people are capable of good management. I say that’s particularly wrong when most populations (the majority) are in declines ranging from the merely troubling to the disasterous.

Do you really believe there are no alternatives to relying on the currently exploited fossil fuel supplies? I don’t see how you could when, for example,this country actively discourages exploration and exploitation of quantities of (yes) fossil fuels outweighing what is currently being exploited. I don’t see how you could when, for another example, everybody knows there is a lot of gas and oil in the South China Sea that nobody goes after to speak of because three countries dispute the rights to it; two of whom have warred against each other in the past. And, sure, “methane ice” needs to be further studied. But there’s more of that than there is in the known natural gas reserves worldwide. And much of natural gas is not being exploited because environmentalists object to “fracking”.

I’ll grant, as my friend in the business said, that nobody is likely to go after some of those resources while oil is still so easy to simply pump out of the ground. But that doesn’t mean no one ever will. Time was when nobody drilled on the continental shelf either.

Just so you know, resource savings are ongoing, even as we speak. There are a number of ways to reduce dependence on fossil fuel based fertilizers, for example. Some have only recently been studied sufficiently to be “brought online” in any significant way.

I don’t think this really is a matter of hecs/person according to some formula that assumes primitiveness. I think it’s more a matter of believing in mankind and not believing in mankind. Some believe humans are a blight on the earth. I don’t.

 

[Ridgerunner]

And how much of that land used to grow grain for animals could be used to grow something edible by people? Not to mention all the water use, since not only do you need to account for the water used to grow the food the animals eat…obviously they need to drink as well. I mean sure if all our meat was purely grass fed then it might be far more effecient then it is now…but like the vegetarian thing…probably not gonna happen. I donlt know about the other things you mentioned but as I understand it shale oil is very expensive to extract so there is that to look at too. I like the idea of nuclear energy though…much cleaner then fossil fuels…*by the way uranium I dontl think can be considered a fossil fuel…Oil and coal are called fossil fuels because they come from long dead fossiled plants and animals

Okay. I’ll wait for you to tell me how much land used to grow grains for animals could be used to grow something people can eat. Keep in mind that a lot of the grain grown for animals is not human consumable. Some, of course, is used for ethanol. Some is used to make liquor. (Brewer’s grain is cheap. I feed it to wean calves with. But I doubt you would want to eat it.) Some is used to make products that are not used for food of any kind.

Notwithstanding that I use brewer’s grain to wean with (I could use alfalfa, bermuda or caucasian bluestem, but brewer’s grain is cheaper) grain-fed beef is a matter of taste preference. Americans like grain-fed beef. Australians prefer totally grass fed. But you need to realize that most cattle in the U.S. are either never grain fed or, if they are, are grain fed only for a short time. 120 days for a prime steer is just about the max. Anymore, it’s less, in actual practice. Personally, I prefer grass-fed, but that’s me.

A full-grown cow or bull will, in the summertime, drink fully 20 gallons of water per day. That’s a lot. Less in the winter, of course. But as I said above, in my part of the country, we get four feet of rain per year. I have hilltop ponds (no drainways necessary) that never go dry, just from the rain that falls directly on them. I water other stock from creeks and springs. Now, if I don’t catch that rainfall in ponds and if the cattle don’t drink from creeks and springs, where do you think that water goes? Some of it goes into the limestone formations underground (which is where the creeks and springs come from). Most of it goes down the springs into creeks, thence into a fairly substantial river, thence to the Mississippi and thence to the sea.

So, can you give me any good reason why my cattle should not drink 20 gallons of water per day?

I will tell you as well that years ago people farmed this country, or tried to. It was very unproductive, not economically viable,and (due to the terrain) very hard on the land, the springs and the creeks. It also encouraged horrendous flooding downstream. So now, it’s all pretty much pasture and trees. The grass holds the soil and enriches it, as do the trees. Wildlife thrive. Flooding has decreased a great deal. Water tables remain charged because the grass holds it so it can sink in more. The spring and creek water is clean enough to drink. At least I drink it without ill effect.

I rotate my cattle in such a way that they never overgraze anyplace.

So, can you give me any good reason why my cattle should not eat the grass?

Yes, I know uranium is not what people think of as “fossil fuel”, but neither is “fossil water” “fossil water”, though all kinds of people use that term. And, when you think about it, oil is not really fossilized either. Uranium is in the ground. It was once more radioactive than it is now, and it decays into lead over time. So in that sense I think of it as “fossil fuel”.

 

[flyingfish]

Your “scientific basis” assumes current technology, like the African grubbing out 1/10 of an acre of sorghum with a stick. It assumes mismanagement and misgovernance.

Well, my impression was that it assumes the best available technology and generates an upper bound (i.e would assume that the African actually has top of the line stuff if they don’t).

Either way, the main problem with this measurement is that current methods are not sustainable. Even if there is more oil than we know of, there is still a finite amount of it.

Here’s an interesting article: ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text

simply put: For most of the past decade, the world has been consuming more food than it has been producing. After years of drawing down stockpiles, in 2007 the world saw global carryover stocks fall to 61 days of global consumption, the second lowest on record.

“Agricultural productivity growth is only one to two percent a year,” warned Joachim von Braun, director general of the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, D.C., at the height of the crisis. “This is too low to meet population growth and increased demand.”

Yet with world population spiraling toward nine billion by mid-century, these experts now say we need a repeat performance, doubling current food production by 2030.

In other words, we need another green revolution. And we need it in half the time.

Today, though, the miracle of the green revolution is over in Punjab: Yield growth has essentially flattened since the mid-1990s. Overirrigation has led to steep drops in the water table, now tapped by 1.3 million tube wells, while thousands of hectares of productive land have been lost to salinization and waterlogged soils. Forty years of intensive irrigation, fertilization, and pesticides have not been kind to the loamy gray fields of Punjab. Nor, in some cases, to the people themselves.

The green revolution’s legacy of tainted soil and depleted aquifers is one reason to look for new strategies. So is what author and University of California, Berkeley, professor Michael Pollan calls the Achilles heel of current green revolution methods: a dependence on fossil fuels. Natural gas, for example, is a raw material for nitrogen fertilizers. “The only way you can have one farmer feed 140 Americans is with monocultures. And monocultures need lots of fossil-fuel-based fertilizers and lots of fossil-fuel-based pesticides,” Pollan says. “That only works in an era of cheap fossil fuels, and that era is coming to an end. Moving anyone to a dependence on fossil fuels seems the height of irresponsibility.”

**So far, genetic breakthroughs that would free green revolution crops from their heavy dependence on irrigation and fertilizer have proved elusive. Engineering plants that can fix their own nitrogen or are resistant to drought “has proven a lot harder than they thought,” says Pollan. **Monsanto’s Fraley predicts his company will have drought-tolerant corn in the U.S. market by 2012. But the increased yields promised during drought years are only 6 to 10 percent above those of standard drought-hammered crops.

Himalayan glaciers that now provide water for hundreds of millions of people, livestock, and farmland in China and India are melting faster and could vanish completely by 2035. **In the worst-case scenario, yields for some grains could decline by 10 to 15 percent in South Asia by 2030. Projections for southern Africa are even more dire. In a region already racked by water scarcity and food insecurity, the all-important corn harvest could drop by 30 percent—47 percent in the worst-case scenario. All the while the population clock keeps ticking, with a net of 2.5 more mouths to feed born every second. **That amounts to 4,500 more mouths in the time it takes you to read this article.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Well, my impression was that it assumes the best available technology and generates an upper bound (i.e would assume that the African actually has top of the line stuff if they don’t).

Either way, the main problem with this measurement is that current methods are not sustainable. Even if there is more oil than we know of, there is still a finite amount of it.

Here’s an interesting article: ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/06/cheap-food/bourne-text

National Geographic was such an interesting magazine to read back when it simply provided factual descriptions of the various places in the world, back before it became a propaganda vehicle.

Just a few observations from the article:
-It wasn’t farming the commons that ended importation of food in England in the 19th century. Importation never ended. Not then, not now.
-Any article that relies on dramatic anecdotes is automatically to be discounted. From the article:

"Walking through the narrow dirt lanes past pyramids of dried cow dung, Singh introduces Amarjeet Kaur, a slender 40-year-old who for years drew the family’s daily water from a hand pump in their brick-hard compound. She was diagnosed with breast cancer last year. Tej Kaur, 50, also has breast cancer. Her surgery, she says, wasn’t nearly as painful as losing her seven-year-old grandson to “blood cancer,” or leukemia. Jagdev Singh is a sweet-faced 14-year-old boy whose spine is slowly deteriorating. From his wheelchair, he is watching SpongeBob SquarePants dubbed in Hindi as his father discusses his prognosis. “The doctors say he will not live to see 20,” says Bhola Singh.

There’s no proof these cancers were caused by pesticides."

The article goes on, however, to strongly suggest that they were anyway. Very sad. Very dramatic. No substance.

As to the “expected” nine billion by mid century or the “expected” ten billion by the end of the century (curious if taken together), it must be remembered again that most of the world, including India, is not replacing its population. To reduce that nine billion, you really are going to have to stop births or kill those already born. Population bombers aren’t going to be able to do either one.

This population bomb stuff began with Paul Ehrlich, who was spectaculy wrong. For instance, he said this in 1968:

“India couldn’t possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980.” I have yet to meet anyone familiar with the situation who thinks that India will be self-sufficient in food by 1971."

Of course, India did become self-sufficient in food despite the population increase.

While we’re trading speculations and anecdotes, and before one or the other of us just gets bored with it, since neither is going to convince the other, I would like to share this anecdote, which is at least illustrative in a small way how I see all this “we’re running out of resources” business.

Evidently University of Maryland professor Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich were fond of debating each other about whether the world was, or was not, running out of resources. Simon argued that it isn’t. Ehrlich, of course, famously argued that it was. They decided on a wager to demonstrate the point of view of each.

Simon had Ehrlich choose five of several commodity metals. Ehrlich chose 5 metals: copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Simon bet that their prices would go down. Ehrlich bet they would go up.

The basket of goods, costing $1,000 in 1980, fell in price by over 57% over the following decade. As a result, in October 1990, Paul Ehrlich mailed Julian Simon a check for $576.07 to settle the wager in Simon’s favor.

We might speak again, flying fish, depending on our time and interest levels (but not tonight). But that’s where you and I are, old buddy. I’m not a betting man, and I doubt wagering is tolerated on CAF, but if that was not the case, I would make a bet with you.

Oh, just as an aside. I remember some 25 years ago when my grandfather retired and sold off his cattle herd. Being an eager pupil of such things at the time, I remembered the prices he received for his feeder steers. Those prices returned again, from the downside, in February of this year. I’ll admit, they’re higher now, by about 8 cents/lb for feeders. I predict they’ll go up some more this year, slowly, then spike in 2011 unless this government makes this recession worse, which it might. Two years after the spike, three at the absolute most, they’ll go down again unless this government makes the dollar even more worthless than it is now, which it might. Trust me. Don’t be long in cattle futures in 2012.

 

[Calliso]

Okay. I’ll wait for you to tell me how much land used to grow grains for animals could be used to grow something people can eat. Keep in mind that a lot of the grain grown for animals is not human consumable. Some, of course, is used for ethanol. Some is used to make liquor. (Brewer’s grain is cheap. I feed it to wean calves with. But I doubt you would want to eat it.) Some is used to make products that are not used for food of any kind.

Notwithstanding that I use brewer’s grain to wean with (I could use alfalfa, bermuda or caucasian bluestem, but brewer’s grain is cheaper) grain-fed beef is a matter of taste preference. Americans like grain-fed beef. Australians prefer totally grass fed. But you need to realize that most cattle in the U.S. are either never grain fed or, if they are, are grain fed only for a short time. 120 days for a prime steer is just about the max. Anymore, it’s less, in actual practice. Personally, I prefer grass-fed, but that’s me.

A full-grown cow or bull will, in the summertime, drink fully 20 gallons of water per day. That’s a lot. Less in the winter, of course. But as I said above, in my part of the country, we get four feet of rain per year. I have hilltop ponds (no drainways necessary) that never go dry, just from the rain that falls directly on them. I water other stock from creeks and springs. Now, if I don’t catch that rainfall in ponds and if the cattle don’t drink from creeks and springs, where do you think that water goes? Some of it goes into the limestone formations underground (which is where the creeks and springs come from). Most of it goes down the springs into creeks, thence into a fairly substantial river, thence to the Mississippi and thence to the sea.

So, can you give me any good reason why my cattle should not drink 20 gallons of water per day?

I will tell you as well that years ago people farmed this country, or tried to. It was very unproductive, not economically viable,and (due to the terrain) very hard on the land, the springs and the creeks. It also encouraged horrendous flooding downstream. So now, it’s all pretty much pasture and trees. The grass holds the soil and enriches it, as do the trees. Wildlife thrive. Flooding has decreased a great deal. Water tables remain charged because the grass holds it so it can sink in more. The spring and creek water is clean enough to drink. At least I drink it without ill effect.

I rotate my cattle in such a way that they never overgraze anyplace.

So, can you give me any good reason why my cattle should not eat the grass?

Yes, I know uranium is not what people think of as “fossil fuel”, but neither is “fossil water” “fossil water”, though all kinds of people use that term. And, when you think about it, oil is not really fossilized either. Uranium is in the ground. It was once more radioactive than it is now, and it decays into lead over time. So in that sense I think of it as “fossil fuel”.

Ok I just skimmed this post so this will be quick. But I am not sure where I said cattle shouldn;t drink water and eat grass? I think they should. But assuming you are feeding them grain they are going to take more water then lets say just growing the grain. I dont know how much land exactly could be used to grow human food. I can;t seem to find some unbiased info about it. I mean I know much of the grassland isn;t suitable but I can imagine that some of the land used to grow food for animals…and I am not just talking cattle here either I imagine that at least some of it could be used to grow food for humans. Also while in some areas water shortages might not be a problem in some areas some areas donlt have endless fresh water supplies. Actually I donlt think any do but some have more then others.

But I did find this amusing. And it is probably yet one of the many reasons why we wonlt see this land used for something other then growing food to feed food animals. pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/images/pyramid.jpg to put it simply money.

 

[Janet1983]

I mean, the only “measure” of biocapacity that I’ve ever seen from the other side has been dividing the surface area of the State of Texas by the surface area occupied by a human being, which is just laughable and I want to pull my hair out every time someone mentions how many people can fit into Texas.

Sorry that’s where I live and that’s why I choose Texas for an example… I might as well say that we could fit into one of the states of India, but who would know where that is? The thing is that if we would all move to Texas, just imagine how much room there would be for agriculture and renewable energies… If we spread out evenly and everybody gets their little windmill and solar panels we would still have enough room apart from the fact that we seem to love large cities… Did you see how much unused land there is? Ever driven through Wyoming or Montana? Or the Dakotas? New Mexico? Idaho? Nebraska? It’s not only Texas, though there is a whole lot of nothing here too…

 

[Calliso]

Sorry that’s where I live and that’s why I choose Texas for an example… I might as well say that we could fit into one of the states of India, but who would know where that is? The thing is that if we would all move to Texas, just imagine how much room there would be for agriculture and renewable energies… If we spread out evenly and everybody gets their little windmill and solar panels we would still have enough room apart from the fact that we seem to love large cities… Did you see how much unused land there is? Ever driven through Wyoming or Montana? Or the Dakotas? New Mexico? Idaho? Nebraska? It’s not only Texas, though there is a whole lot of nothing here too…

Once again it is not about space. I mean if we are all living in one area who is going to be growing the food. Not to mention what about fresh water. What about waste management. It is a lot more complicated then just simply saying we have a lot of space.

So if we are all living in one area who is going to grow our food and stuff.

 

[Janet1983]

Once again it is not about space. I mean if we are all living in one area who is going to be growing the food. Not to mention what about fresh water. What about waste management. It is a lot more complicated then just simply saying we have a lot of space.

So if we are all living in one area who is going to grow our food and stuff.

Well everybody is saying we are running out of space. No we aren’t. We could fit all into Texas and still have room to spare. If we can fit all into Texas we can easily distribute all around the world and use the space we got for agriculture etc. Saying that we can fit all into Texas is just to show that we are not that many. Nobody actually means to say that we should all move to Texas…
Did you know that we could even make use of our trash? There is a guy (I forgot where but a German TV show portrayed him) who has his own island from plastic bottles he picked up along the beach. He keeps making that thing larger and larger and he even grows trees on top of it…
If we just use our heads and use what we have we can easily fit more people onto this planet without getting into trouble.
Overpopulation? Well if it’s too crowded where you are, move… Try Alaska (1.2 people per square mile) or Wyoming (5.4 people per square mile) or maybe Montana with 6.5 people per square mile… My cousin says Wyoming is really nice and if you don’t have a problem with the cold North Dakota is a real nice spot too (9.3 people per square mile)… the airport in their capital is so small that you can’t put a large dog kennel in most of their planes…

 

[tjm190]

Well everybody is saying we are running out of space. No we aren’t. We could fit all into Texas and still have room to spare. If we can fit all into Texas we can easily distribute all around the world and use the space we got for agriculture etc. Saying that we can fit all into Texas is just to show that we are not that many. Nobody actually means to say that we should all move to Texas…
Did you know that we could even make use of our trash? There is a guy (I forgot where but a German TV show portrayed him) who has his own island from plastic bottles he picked up along the beach. He keeps making that thing larger and larger and he even grows trees on top of it…
If we just use our heads and use what we have we can easily fit more people onto this planet without getting into trouble.
Overpopulation? Well if it’s too crowded where you are, move… Try Alaska (1.2 people per square mile) or Wyoming (5.4 people per square mile) or maybe Montana with 6.5 people per square mile… My cousin says Wyoming is really nice and if you don’t have a problem with the cold North Dakota is a real nice spot too (9.3 people per square mile)… the airport in their capital is so small that you can’t put a large dog kennel in most of their planes…

Space is one of several resources that people need. We happen to have a bunch of it. Not so for food, energy, and clean water. In fact, even current levels of food production can not be sustained as our beloved Ogallala is being drained. And of course, a lack of fossil fuels and petroleum based fertilizers won’t help either.

 

[Janet1983]

Space is one of several resources that people need. We happen to have a bunch of it. Not so for food, energy, and clean water. In fact, even current levels of food production can not be sustained as our beloved Ogallala is being drained. And of course, a lack of fossil fuels and petroleum based fertilizers won’t help either.

Who needs fertilizer? Just take the parts you don’t need after a harvest of wheat (i.e. straw) and mix it with the cow dung… then you mix it in with the soil and add some chalk and you’re good. It has worked for ages, why would you need some of that high tech stuff if the good old methods work just as well?
What doesn’t work just as well is energy… There you have a great way to use areas that you can’t farm on… try farming in Death Valley… But a solar power plant fits just well there.
And if you worry about being a leech so the ground, go ahead and switch up the crops every season and have rest periods in between… that has worked well too for generations.
Clean water? If we wouldn’t pump all of our chemicals in… well there is always the possibility of filtration. I wouldn’t drink the water out of my tab without a good filtration… We don’t have clean drinking water everywhere in the US, but filtration is something the German scouting groups learn and you can get an idea in biology class… that’s why most springs are beautifully clear… they are filtered by the ground.
Fossil fuels? We’re working on that aren’t we? The electric cars don’t look all that silly anymore and the hybrids look like they are gaining speed too… I’m pretty sure that the electric cars will win the race on the long run. Apart from that I believe that we are not as bad off as they want to make us believe… I believe they are trying to push the prices for oil…

 

[Ridgerunner]

Ok I just skimmed this post so this will be quick. But I am not sure where I said cattle shouldn;t drink water and eat grass? I think they should. But assuming you are feeding them grain they are going to take more water then lets say just growing the grain. I dont know how much land exactly could be used to grow human food. I can;t seem to find some unbiased info about it. I mean I know much of the grassland isn;t suitable but I can imagine that some of the land used to grow food for animals…and I am not just talking cattle here either I imagine that at least some of it could be used to grow food for humans. Also while in some areas water shortages might not be a problem in some areas some areas donlt have endless fresh water supplies. Actually I donlt think any do but some have more then others.

But I did find this amusing. And it is probably yet one of the many reasons why we wonlt see this land used for something other then growing food to feed food animals. pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/images/pyramid.jpg to put it simply money.

Most grain cropland depends on rainfall, not irrigation. So, while the increased amount of water it takes to grow the grain that is fed to livestock would undoubtedly be there, it might simply run off it it doesn’t go into growing grain. In any event, the water in grain crops dessicates out into the atmosphere, just as it would if the water uptake was by grass.

Your pyramids are interesting, and make a person wonder. Since beef growing is not subsidized at all, the subsidies in the pyramid on the left must be going into dairying.

Well, I’ll take that back in part. There are things that might be considered indirect subsidies of raising beef, but they’re all aimed at environmental preservation or improvement, not raising beef per se. For example, a rancher can obtain tree seedlings at very low cost if he wants to plant them on his ranch for shade, erosion control or “just because”. And some do that. Ranchers can get partial subsidies to establish “non-stream” water systems. But that’s environmental in its aim, though it might indirectly improve the efficiency of the rancher’s operation.

One interesting aspect of all this (and it might seem silly) is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t raise very many goats. Americans, generally, do not favor goat meat, though most Hispanics and Middle Easterners very much do. Goats are extremely efficient meat producers and, to my knowledge, are never fed grain. One of the big problems with them is the upsurge in predators that environmental protections have engendered during the last couple of decades. The worst among the predators, and the most widespread, are coyotes. There used to be bounties on them, but those have been removed. They are not protected, but they are so prolific they pretty much prevent the raising of goats (also sheep) in many places that would be otherwise well suited to them. Cattle can protect themselves (and almost always their calves as well) effectively against coyotes. I have seen them do it.

Goats are, I am told, quite profitable, though most of their meat is exported to those parts of the world where meat is harder to come by. I suppose if one wanted to raise the high-grade protein available to the world, one would reinstate bounties on coyotes. That, of course, is pretty unlikely. But those who are worried about the world’s food supply, and who realize that grasslands can’t be used for grain for the most part, and who do not want grain fed to livestock, should be clamoring for reinstitution of the bounties on coyotes.

I’m serious.