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I think an important question is how much slack does the system need? Such huge overproduction of food seems wasteful until there's a risk of famine. As the ef
by ksdale 7y ago
I think an important question is how much slack does the system need?
Such huge overproduction of food seems wasteful until there's a risk of famine. As the effect of coronavirus on supply chains is currently demonstrating, there are potentially giant hidden costs to maximizing efficiency at a certain point in time.
I agree with drastically decreasing meat consumption, but food production in general is, AFAIK, a relatively minor portion of total greenhouse emissions (especially everything that is not meat and especially compared to how important food is sustaining human life).
- dev_tty01 7y agoActually, Agriculture, Forestry, and Other Land Use is 24% of global greenhouse gas emissions (2010 numbers). That is second only to Electricity and Heat Production at 25%. So it isn't relatively minor, but it is, as you point out, an important activity. At least according to this source... https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
- ksdale 7y agoThanks for this! I think I saw a graph where food production was only 9% and so was quite a bit smaller than the categories of industry, transportation, and electricity, but that could have been American rather than global. For the sake of this discussion, it seems odd to include forestry with agriculture, but in any case agriculture is a more substantial part of global emissions than I thought.