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When this technology finally gets there, and I see no reason to think it won't eventually, it will change the world so dramatically. The amount of land and wate
by eloff 4y ago
When this technology finally gets there, and I see no reason to think it won't eventually, it will change the world so dramatically. The amount of land and water we won't need to raise animals or food for animals it's staggering. The amount of meat the world consumes will double by the end of the century (will it? I made that up). As the world gets richer, people eat more meat. Combine that with a rising population and the amount of land we need for livestock dwarfs the remaining agricultural land we'll need (again, I made that up, but it could be true.)
We could rewild huge parts of the Earth, returning the habitat to nature.
- ars 4y agoOnly if it's cheaper. They said the same thing about plant based meat - and it hasn't because it's more expensive.
- 411111111111111 4y agoPretty sure it's not more expensive. People that are willing to buy vegan are just generally richer and more likely to be able to spend more. Thus the prices are artificially inflated by market segmentation. At least where I'm from the companies make way more profit from their vegan substitutes then their equivalent meat products.
- jokethrowaway 4y agoI agree that making the same volume of food is probably cheaper if you're processing vegan only ingredients - but if you look at the amount of nutrients / $, vegan substitutes are nowhere close to meat
- 411111111111111 4y agoThat's honestly highly unlikely. These animals consume the same products the vegan alternatives are made with... for months or years, depending on the animal. It might be true in places without massive animal farms, but that's usually connected to more human attention which would make it even more unlikely.
- wtetzner 4y ago> These animals consume the same products the vegan alternatives are made with... How many people are living off of grass?
- 411111111111111 4y agothe quantity of animals is way too high for them to be fed with grass, as that would turn into a logistical nightmare. It's usually a special feed, which is composed of corn, often bones and other substances.
- orestarod 4y agoThat animals convert grass and plants in general to meat is undeniable. But I think the issue is, livestock is generally fed with human grown plants, which could be fed directly to humans and save a lot of energy (food and water) wasted in the process, because the amount of calories, for example, that you take off meat is nowhere near the calories contained in the food the animal consumed during its lifetime. Now, regarding if nutrients are missing from a plants only diet, that's another matter.
- was_a_dev 4y agoPlant based meats are 1) Still not real meat, hence is only considered by a limited target consumer 2) Is still relatively new to the mass-market. Hence still isn't at it's lowest price point.
- disintegore 4y agoMy understanding is that subsidies also drive down the cost of meat quite drastically.
- glial 4y agoThey could market this like crazy to the eco-conscious crowd.
- robbomacrae 4y agoTo add to the other points being made... meat is subsidized and doesn't include the cost of the externalities. It's hard to imagine that in the long run, plant based meat or lab grown meat will be more expensive than growing, feeding, and looking after animals.
- reddit_clone 4y agoAgreed. Lobbies won't let the current system go for a very long time. If Tobacco industry can hang on, Meat industry is not going away any time soon. Also a change of this kind can come only gradually, if at all. We can't just tell all the farmers to go and take a Python bootcamp.
- jcampbell1 4y agoGrowing meat in an ultra-sterile environment using complex biologics, some of which the current source is to extract them from animals. I’d bet on fusion becoming mainstream first.
- eloff 4y agoFrom first principles, it should be eventually.
- randomdata 4y ago> We could rewild huge parts of the Earth Probably not without radically changing how we grow plants for human consumption, assuming we still eat plants and don't move to an all-meat diet. Looking over the data for the area I farm, according to government figures, 36% of the cropland is used for animal food. Most farmers here grow a rotation of soybeans, corn, edible beans, and wheat. The edible beans and wheat are intended for direct human consumption. I couldn't find an exact breakdown for soybean use, but on my farm ~60% of the soybeans are intended for direct human consumption and ~40% for animal consumption. I imagine that is not atypical. Corn is primarily intended for animal consumption. A little back of the napkin math and you get somewhere around 35% of the output after a four year rotation on my farm being intended for animal consumption, which is effectively what the real world data also shows. The rotation is important to maintaining soil health and keeping disease at bay. I don't see that going away, save further technical advancement, so you'd probably just see the corn shift to something like biofuels if animals weren't eating it to maintain the rotation to grow the human food.
- TedDoesntTalk 4y ago> you get somewhere around 35% That still has to be in the millions or billions of acres globally. No?
- ender341341 4y agoI think the rest of what that post is saying is that 35% is an important part of soil maintenance (ie avoiding another dust bowl). Though I do think with testing we should still be able to drastically reduce the amount of land needed, though likely not exactly 1:1 with previous animal consumption.
- randomdata 4y agoBillions, it would appear. But that doesn't necessarily mean that billions of acres can be taken out of service. While local conditions don't perfectly extrapolate to the world, remember that 100% of my acres grow human food when observed over the span of more than one year. The 35% animal food production seen in a single year is the outcome of the crop rotation. Certainly, I'd be far more profitable if I could reliably grow beans for human consumption over and over and over, but Mother Nature is a harsh mistress.
- jokethrowaway 4y agoI think you're overestimating that, probably because of vegan propaganda. Eg. A lot of the water you use for animals turns into milk or pee (or sweat?), and goes back to the cycle of water. I don't like posting videos but this one goes through several points: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g
- CaptainNegative 4y agoLiterally no one worth a mention was saying the animal slaughter industry adds or removes water from the water cycle in meaningful quantities. The issue with their water usage is in the redirection of the limited fresh water sources into the virtually unlimited saltwater oceans, or pollutes it beyond the point of usability for any form of life.
- chrisco255 4y agoThe limit on fresh water is a local problem. Maybe that's an issue in California during dry years, but not in North Carolina or Iowa, which are subject to completely different rainfall patterns.
- wtetzner 4y agoAnd one of the problems in California is how much water almonds use.
- CaptainNegative 4y agoYup, drupes and nuts account for about 10% of California's water usage, behind only domestic animal agriculture (~30%) and feed exported for foreign animal agriculture (~15%). None of these belong in the desert, if anywhere.
- mkconor 4y agoBut neither of those places has the diversity or scale of California’s agricultural system—it’s one of the most reliable suppliers of the food on America’s plate. And that’s why California’s water problem is a local problem for most Americans.
- wincy 4y agoI doubt it, considering the demographic problems and the end of globalization, we’re likely to see about two billion people starve in most of our lifetimes, mostly in East Asia. It’s going to be a rough ride.
- eloff 4y agoI don't see that happening. I see the opposite of that happening.
- helloworld11 4y agoPeople have been predicting this mass starvation of poor people in X parts of the world since before even Paul R. Ehrlich opened his mouth. In his book "the population bomb" he claimed it would be because of overpopulation. Now that we've seen trends indicating all the opposite on that front, the new fad is apparently blaming it on climate change. Either way, forgive me for being extremely doubtful. While its true that past catastrophes averted are no guarantee of future catastrophes averted, modern history has shown a remarkable tendency towards people heading off the worst of a given doom scenario before it becomes reality. Add to that the observable tendency of people to emotionally be attracted to particularly awful predictions even if their behavior indicates them as believing otherwise in practice, and the the skepticism about most doom scenarios like the one you mention is a good idea. All data in our world today across the board indicates improving human standards of living and this has been going on for a long time. No concrete evidence shows a trend in the opposite direction to anywhere near a severe enough degree to assert the starvation of billions, or even millions. Problems exist, sure, and there are many dangerous environmental trends, but even these don't concretely establish anything like what you describe.
- luxuryballs 4y agoSounds like eating real meat is going to become a wealthy person thing.
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- virtualritz 4y ago> As the world gets richer, people eat more meat. Living in central Berlin (Mitte), one of the most expensive parts of the city, it feels the opposite is happening. Everything here is vegan or vegetarian at least. Even a steak place next door to where I live has vegan plates. On that note: it made me sad that all the dramatic changes you listed omitted the suffering of animals.
- eloff 4y agoWhat it feels like and the story the data tell are two different things. The data is unambiguous, the richer the country, the higher the per-capita meat consumption. Meat consumption in the world is rising rapidly.
- BoorishBears 4y agoThat's because you're likely part of the disconnected 1%, even if you're nowhere near that relative to others in your country. People think of robber barons twirling the mustaches when they picture the 1%, but for global topics, the 1% even includes people who are considered "poor" by western standards. And, like the robber barons twirling mustaches people picture for their local 1%, you can't extrapolate any good data off of them. - People in the west are so wealthy that choosing to be vegan has become a status symbol, but when you hear "world gets richer", you need to be picturing people who can't afford a choice. Both my parents grew up in villages where beef was like a few-times-a-year luxury, and of course as their villages have gotten more and more modernized, newer generations can't even imagine such a thing. Now their country has KFCs...
- virtualritz 4y agoI think you misread my comment. It was meant exactly as written. "It feels". It is factually not so and I didn't contest the OPs assertion. However, many things that are now common where adapted by the broad populace because they wanted to copy/be as fancy as the 1%. On of the most prominent examples is probably the British accent. ;)
- 4y ago