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We produce more resources than we could ever consume in the least sustainable ways possible. (mander.xyz)
submitted 5 months ago by to c/science_memes@mander.xyz
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[–] 36 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (16 children)

It's not the growth of ethanol (maize) and animal feed (soybeans) producing crops on the last 30 years, highly fucking inefficient and produced in the worst way possible, not even that pasture uses A LOT more land than agriculture while being a lot less energy dense, both using a lot more water than producing direct food, it's the poors.

Edit: And also, beef is the major cause for deforestation too:

the graph for deforestation causes

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  • [–] 9 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 child)

    Also: animal ag uses 80% of all arable land with most of it destined for grazing land (which a lot of (rain-)-forest had to be razed for) while only producing 17% of global calories and 38% of global proteins. The rest comes from human edible plants. A global switch to a plant based diet would reduce land usage from 4 to 1 billion. It's still possible to re-wild grazing lands.

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  • [–] 20 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (13 children)

    1. It doesn't have to be one or the other, we can tackle multiple solutions simultaneously.

    2. Developing nations have proven to increase their carbon footprints over time, e.g. China, so the fact that they're the fastest growing populations on earth is a serious issue we can address with solutions such as: empower women's rights and advancing access to education and upward mobility in society. That was the same exact solution that the UN came to in their meeting in Cairo, Egypt in 1994.

    EDIT: 3. less people consume less beef also

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  • [–] 27 points 5 months ago (12 children)

    Producing beef is the most inefficient way to produce food, in both use of space and water, and energy. We don't need to impose things on people if humanity reduces its beef consumption.

    If we cut beef consumption by half, literally oligarchs would not have an economic reason to deforest the Amazon, because of the price drops. But no one wants to do that.

    Developing nations have proven to increase their carbon footprints over time, e.g. China, so the fact that they're the fastest growing populations on earth is a serious issue

    You're conflating a lot of words, gives an example for China, while Chinas population is not growing even (or will start to diminish on some years), associating different things into the same sentence is hard to pick what exactly you're talking about, China or Africa (the last place where population growth is happening at large beyond the 2.1 fertility rate).

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  • [–] 11 points 5 months ago

    Beef is heavily subsidised either by giving money directly to the producers, or letting them get away with pollution (or deforestation in places like Brazil) and using terrible food and/or drugs for their product.

    Without subsidies I'm pretty sure beef wouldn't be affordable even in rich countries.

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  • [–] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

    This mix of "things that are possible/reasonable" and "things that are wildly speculative" is interesting.

    Producing beef is the most inefficient way to produce food, in both use of space and water, and energy.

    Reasonable/possible

    We don’t need to impose things on people if humanity reduces its beef consumption.

    Wild speculation / nonsensical.

    This is not at all how large societies have worked, in any time period, ever.

    While it might be technically true, it's missing a whole bunch of steps in the middle for it to be a practicality.

    If we cut beef consumption by half, literally oligarchs would not have an economic reason to deforest the Amazon, because of the price drops. But no one wants to do that.

    • Palm Oil
    • Real Estate
    • Mineral Speculation
    • Wood

    And that was just off of the top of my head.

    Oligarchs gonna oligarch, removing one revenue source isn't going to suddenly kill interest in the amazon, with it's abundant resources and space.

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  • [–] 8 points 5 months ago (1 child)

    While it might be technically true, it's missing a whole bunch of steps in the middle for it to be a practicality.

    As I said in my comment:

    But no one wants to do that.

    And about this:

    And that was just off of the top of my head.

    Beef is the major factor in the amazon, by a large margin, as in my original comment. Palm Oil is not a significant part in Brazil, nor real state. Mineral is mainly in Roraima, but not as big as beef, because it's based on small operations, there are a lot of sources on this for gold mining and the local Yanomami indigenous population that fights agains this (as this is done on their land).

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  • [–] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

    If you’re going to cherry pick at least cherry pick from the text being mentioned.

    Your whole comment was :

    If we cut beef consumption by half, literally oligarchs would not have an economic reason to deforest the Amazon, because of the price drops. But no one wants to do that.

    and wasn’t the comment to which i was responding.

    Beef is the major factor in the amazon, by a large margin, as in my original comment. Palm Oil is not a significant part in Brazil, nor real state. Mineral is mainly in Roraima, but not as big as beef, because it’s based on small operations, there are a lot of sources on this for gold mining and the local Yanomami indigenous population that fights agains this (as this is done on their land).

    Cool story, still irrelevant to my point which was:

    Oligarchs gonna oligarch

    Create a revenue vacuum (like removing the biggest value stream in a region) and oligarchs gonna oligarch right in and expand another value stream to make up the difference.

    I’m not advocating for this to happen, I’m saying that expecting beef reduction to remove oligarchs from the amazon is unrealistic.

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  • [–] 4 points 5 months ago* (6 children)

    They also sell the rainforest lumber, but lifestyle changes aside we should always pursue a lower total population via lower birthrates until we can restore natural order.

    China was a developing nation a long time ago, and since 1700 their population has grown 11x over, and now they produce more emissions and utilize more landmass than any other nation on earth.

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  • [–] 3 points 5 months ago* (3 children)

    Wrong place, my bad

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  • [–] 1 point 5 months ago

    Producing beef is the most inefficient way to produce food, in both use of space and water, and energy.

    I'm sure that I can come up with something less efficient

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