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We dedicate globally 40 mil. km2 of land to meat & dairy production, 39 mil. km2 to forests and just 1.5 mil. km2 to urban and built-up lands [0]. Switching to

by myshpa 4y ago

We dedicate globally 40 mil. km2 of land to meat & dairy production, 39 mil. km2 to forests and just 1.5 mil. km2 to urban and built-up lands [0]. Switching to plant-based foods (at least removing beef & dairy from our diets) would free up 30 mil. km2 of land. We can have enough plant-based dairy and proteins to feed the population many times over, simultaneously decrease our carbon footprint, stop anthropogenic extinction and increase housing availability. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-graphic-1536x971.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/01/Global-land-use-g...

rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago
I was a vegan for 10 years, now I only eat meat. I bought into the sustainability argument for a long time. I will not return to a plant based food diet -- and many people will agree with me, often quite aggressively. Eating beef is so important that I will spend my last dollar buying that expensive hamburger. What I am trying to say is your line of coercion is a waste of time and doomed to fail. You cannot force dietary habits on people with an argument of sustainability. I don't care if the planet ends, I just want my damn steak, and that is a primal urge far stronger than sustainability ethics.
tengbretson 4y ago
You think the housing problem we're facing would be alleviated by putting apartment buildings in my cattle pasture?
everforward 4y ago
While there are arguments like that for going vegetarian, it doesn't really apply here. The US still has plenty of land that could be used for housing that currently isn't used at all. Last I checked, I think there's even currently enough housing for everyone in the US. The problem is that the land and houses aren't where people want to live, because of jobs or family or etc. E.g. Detroit has a bunch of cheap and open housing. Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. Carbon footprint arguments are fair, but a change in diet is unlikely to change the cost of living in San Francisco, New York, LA, etc.
- myshpa 4y ago
  > Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. This does not apply in central Europe. Real estate market in Europe is severely constrained now. There is a demand overhang (for every property you've got hundreds of interested buyers) for family housing (I'm not monitoring situation in other markets) even in rural areas, at the same time all villages/cities are limiting new construction by zoning and/or building regulations. My suspicion is that increasing the area of land intended for urban construction should decrease the house prices and increase their availability.
midislack 4y ago
Please stop it. The pasture land out in the country isn't suffering from a housing shortage. The mega cities simply need more high density housing as always.
- myshpa 4y ago
  I didn't study that plan for too long, but I don't think it's about mega cities only. There is a tendency to limit expansion of villages/cities into surrounding areas for some decades now (in Europe, not sure about US). And that surrounding areas would be (mostly) agricultural land. Many young people have trouble buying places to live in because the prices are too high - in some areas houses cost multiples than few decades ago (inflation adjusted). Mega cities/high density housing are a solution for a crowded world without remote work/work from home, concentrating people into as small area as possible, not without its cons, of course. Single family housing on the other hand (usually) offers higher quality of life, and is more desirable (for many, at least). And for that the solution may be creating new cities/suburban areas, therefore we would need to allocate more land, land not currently used for housing, of which we have plenty - although the current political/administrative notion is that we don't have where to expand, because agriculture land is sacred/not to be touched/built on. P.S. I know the article is about US and I'm talking mostly about Europe. But European politicians have a tendency to copy down US policies in quick succession, so my comment may be relevant. P.P.S. To say it clearly, I don't think that helping new homeowners to get into debt by providing down payment assistance (for housing units overpriced because of existing regulation) is better than lowering prices of said properties by changing zoning/building rules.
  - midislack 4y ago
    Just saying it's boorish to always insert your wishes that people stop eating meat or reduce their intake when it's not even tangential to the discussion. Everybody's totally sick of it, this site doesn't allow religious proselytizing nor should it allow every single discussion to be side tracked into an argument about sustainability, eating the bugs, living in pods, and the like. There is NO housing crisis in the broader US. Just in the large mega cities and their bedroom communities. Many places suffer from a LACK of residents actually. We all learned how Zoom works because of COVID and some folks took that to heart and moved away from the big cities. In certain areas housing is booming. In others, it's seeing a decline. NYC has seen almost 2 million residents leave in the last 2 years.

by myshpa 4y ago

rfd4sgmk8u 4y ago

I was a vegan for 10 years, now I only eat meat. I bought into the sustainability argument for a long time. I will not return to a plant based food diet -- and many people will agree with me, often quite aggressively. Eating beef is so important that I will spend my last dollar buying that expensive hamburger. What I am trying to say is your line of coercion is a waste of time and doomed to fail. You cannot force dietary habits on people with an argument of sustainability. I don't care if the planet ends, I just want my damn steak, and that is a primal urge far stronger than sustainability ethics.

tengbretson 4y ago

You think the housing problem we're facing would be alleviated by putting apartment buildings in my cattle pasture?

everforward 4y ago

While there are arguments like that for going vegetarian, it doesn't really apply here. The US still has plenty of land that could be used for housing that currently isn't used at all. Last I checked, I think there's even currently enough housing for everyone in the US. The problem is that the land and houses aren't where people want to live, because of jobs or family or etc. E.g. Detroit has a bunch of cheap and open housing. Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. Carbon footprint arguments are fair, but a change in diet is unlikely to change the cost of living in San Francisco, New York, LA, etc.

myshpa 4y ago
> Rural areas could probably have 10x the current population density without touching agriculture. This does not apply in central Europe. Real estate market in Europe is severely constrained now. There is a demand overhang (for every property you've got hundreds of interested buyers) for family housing (I'm not monitoring situation in other markets) even in rural areas, at the same time all villages/cities are limiting new construction by zoning and/or building regulations. My suspicion is that increasing the area of land intended for urban construction should decrease the house prices and increase their availability.

midislack 4y ago

Please stop it. The pasture land out in the country isn't suffering from a housing shortage. The mega cities simply need more high density housing as always.

myshpa 4y ago
I didn't study that plan for too long, but I don't think it's about mega cities only. There is a tendency to limit expansion of villages/cities into surrounding areas for some decades now (in Europe, not sure about US). And that surrounding areas would be (mostly) agricultural land. Many young people have trouble buying places to live in because the prices are too high - in some areas houses cost multiples than few decades ago (inflation adjusted). Mega cities/high density housing are a solution for a crowded world without remote work/work from home, concentrating people into as small area as possible, not without its cons, of course. Single family housing on the other hand (usually) offers higher quality of life, and is more desirable (for many, at least). And for that the solution may be creating new cities/suburban areas, therefore we would need to allocate more land, land not currently used for housing, of which we have plenty - although the current political/administrative notion is that we don't have where to expand, because agriculture land is sacred/not to be touched/built on. P.S. I know the article is about US and I'm talking mostly about Europe. But European politicians have a tendency to copy down US policies in quick succession, so my comment may be relevant. P.P.S. To say it clearly, I don't think that helping new homeowners to get into debt by providing down payment assistance (for housing units overpriced because of existing regulation) is better than lowering prices of said properties by changing zoning/building rules.
- midislack 4y ago
  Just saying it's boorish to always insert your wishes that people stop eating meat or reduce their intake when it's not even tangential to the discussion. Everybody's totally sick of it, this site doesn't allow religious proselytizing nor should it allow every single discussion to be side tracked into an argument about sustainability, eating the bugs, living in pods, and the like. There is NO housing crisis in the broader US. Just in the large mega cities and their bedroom communities. Many places suffer from a LACK of residents actually. We all learned how Zoom works because of COVID and some folks took that to heart and moved away from the big cities. In certain areas housing is booming. In others, it's seeing a decline. NYC has seen almost 2 million residents leave in the last 2 years.