4 ms·
Maybe the ultimate proxy measurement is the pursuit of human economic productivity at the expense of longevity of our planet. Contrived example, human need foo
by a_c 4y ago
Maybe the ultimate proxy measurement is the pursuit of human economic productivity at the expense of longevity of our planet.
Contrived example, human need food to survive. We need food, efficiently, since there are so many of us. So we need efficient farming. Efficient means smallest amount of land to produce most biomass (plant, animal). To that, we need single purpose farmland and artificial feeds, fertilizer and pesticide. To have single purpose farmland, we purge the land from all life form, aka killing all plants and animals. To have artificial stuff, we need energy. To have energy, we expense fossil energy. To have fossil energy, we, the earth, started capturing sun energy millions of years ago.
Meanwhile, some farmer right now is roaming their cow and chickens on a "unindustrialized" land. The cow graze on the pasture, the chicken eat the bugs, their droppings feed the grass, the stomping excites the earthworm, the earthworms aerates the land, the grass captures the sunlight, the sunlight feed everyone, in a perfect balance. 0 GDP generated.
I think it is mentioned in the Omnivore Dilemma [1] that, to produce 1 unit energy in food, we are using 14 unit of fossil fuel energy and 3% of workforce. Before the industrial age (200ish year ago), the ratio is 1 unit of energy to 2 unit of sun energy and 90% of workforce.
Efficiency? Check. Quality of life? Check. All numbers show that we are improving
1. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109.The_Omnivore_s_Dilemma https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3109.The_Omnivore_s_Dile...
- 4h53n 4y agoIf we went with latter we would need more land to feed same number of people. There is more "nature" when we leave the forest as is and not cut it down to, to convert it to a poorly run "human land". > There were more cereal calories per person in 2020 than in 1992. And this abundance was brought about without massive increases in the area being farmed. While industrial emissions rocketed, emissions due to land-use change fell by a quarter. We were able to more than triple our output in that period. https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/a-lot-can-be-done-to-adapt-farming-to-near-term-climate-change https://www.economist.com/special-report/2022/11/01/a-lot-ca...
- agalunar 4y agoIronically, we're not very efficient at all with our land usage today. Nearly 60% of global agricultural land is used for beef (either for pasture or for growing feed) and yet it accounts for only 2% of our calories. And about 50% of all food is wasted – simply thrown away.
- Filligree 4y agoI doubt it affects your central claim, but do note that a lot of pasture land is unusable for anything else.
- Aicy 4y agoUnfortunately, in practice, the opposite is true. We grow food, such as grains, just to feed it to cattle which has 1% of the calorie efficiency. For example in the EU 63% of arable land is used to grow animal feed rather than food directly for humans.
- pksebben 4y agothat's an optimization error of another stripe - thrown away or not, the beef gets sold and FarmCo makes money