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Reducing Rice’s Carbon Footprint
- selimthegrim 7y agoI wish they’d work on the arsenic problem Arkansas rice has too
- ryanmercer 7y agoThat's more a soil contamination problem than a rice problem.
- coryrc 7y agoRice does absorb much more arsenic from the environment than other crops, so maybe it could be engineered to do that less. In the meantime, we should have stricter standards on arsenic content.
- ryanmercer 7y agoI imagine engineering it to absorb less of a given substance would almost certainly cause it to absorb less of things it needs as well. Besides, if editing plants were that easy, we'd have C4 rice already.
- selimthegrim 7y agoI don't know if C4 rice would help with this but there's another carbon related rice problem on the horizon https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-department-climate-change-1376413 https://www.politico.com/story/2019/06/23/agriculture-depart...
- ceedan 7y agoGreat read - really interesting stuff
- emoticoji 7y agoInteresting article. Meat, cheese and eggs have the highest carbon footprint. Fruit, vegetables, beans and nuts have much lower carbon footprints. In my opinion all of them are serious problems that need some kind of solving. Figures from the Environmental Working Group’s Meat Eater’s Guide and the EPA’s Guide to Passenger Vehicle Emissions show that rice is ranked on 10th position out of 16 and it has a 2.7 CO2 Kilos Equivalent and a 6 Car Miles Equivalent.
- tracker1 7y agoGrazing animals are the best way to fight desertification. It doesn't have to be cattle (sheep, goats and other grazing animals help)... grazing rotation helps dramatically. Beyond this benefit, which should not be underestimated, I consider them factories from changing low density nutritional sources where I cannot practically get what I need into higher density nutritional sources. I'm not saying it's a net positive or negative. But, for the most part, the cattle aren't raised as responsibly as possible, and beyond that, the benefits aren't accounted for. We can do better without vilifying meat. I say this as I cannot handle legumes and am very diabetic. I just cannot handle protein sources that are higher in carbohydrate, or refined proteins from legumes (which is most vegetable protein). I do well on mostly eggs, meat and some cruciferous veg. And even eggs, I sometimes have issues with soy fed.