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Everything you mentioned exists in a cycle, its not “lost” energy, its just converted and returned. Just like water, the consumption of water doesn’t mean it i

by dijit 1y ago

Everything you mentioned exists in a cycle, its not “lost” energy, its just converted and returned. Just like water, the consumption of water doesn’t mean it is eliminated from the water cycle.

peterashford 1y ago
Saying "its all part of a cycle" misses the point. Yes, energy and water aren’t destroyed but using 15-20x more plant matter, energy, and water for 1kg of beef compared to plant based food is still incredibly wasteful. Nature’s cycles have limits, and industrial meat production pushes them far beyond whats sustainable.
- dijit 1y ago
  Inefficiency doesn't particularly matter if it's a closed system, it only effects how much we can get out of a thing. If we need 100% efficiency yields because humans are so numerous that there can no longer by any inefficiency in the conversion of sun rays into energy fit for human consumption: then you have a point. But we're not there, so the inefficiency of food production is not particularly relevant. Where you and I will agree is that the scale of meat production is unsustainable, as evidenced by the fact that we are feeding cows fucking oil from the ground. If we could sustain a population of cattle and enough energy for human population then I don't see a problem, but that is obviously significantly lower than the scale we currently see cattle-rearing.
  - peterashford 1y ago
    Saying "inefficiency only matters if we reach system collapse" is like saying you don’t need brakes until you’re already flying off the cliff.
    - dijit 1y ago
      How can inefficiency lead to systemic collapse in a way that cannot be reversed inside of a year? We're not talking about contributing to the carbon cycle anymore, we're talking specifically about converting rays from the sun into human consumable matter. I think you've come into a reasoned conversation with an idealised take that meat consumption is inherently stupid, and this doesn't not necessarily make sense because inefficiency is totally acceptable as long as the needs of the system are met. People use python for making websites, after all, one of the least efficient languages available. People move to higher efficiency languages when the system begins to demand it.
      - peterashford 1y ago
        You have heard climate scientists talk about tipping points, right? Methane is short lived but extremely potent. Its warming effect can push systems (ice melt, permafrost thaw, ocean circulation) past irreversible thresholds. Deforestation to support meat production isn’t easily undone. Regrowing forests takes decades to centuries.
        dijit 1y ago
        Ok, so you're continuing to push the topic in a direction of methane and not inefficiency as we were discussing. I think I'll conclude the conversation here as it's clear you're just conversing from an ideological point of view. Methane is a problem, as discussed elsewhere in the thread, but the largest issue continues to be the fact we're digging up oil and feeding it to herds, you've not convinced me that this is not the largest issue, or not a larger issue than: air travel, cars etc;
        peterashford 1y ago
        Enjoy your ad hominems
thrance 1y ago
By that logic, no human activities are problematic since everything needed to sustain them comes from nature and eventually goes back to it. That's ignoring the tons of wastes generated by the beef industry, the ravaged ecosystems to make room for pastures and farms, the fuel needed to build and power the machinery to manage it all: from tractors to cargo boats to factories to trucks... The issue is that all that carbon and other mineral resources we dug up to power all of this ends up rapidly upsetting the balance the Earth settled in over the last million years. My point is that we could eat the same amount of calories by generating much less waste and needing much less space and energy.
- dijit 1y ago
  If we weren't digging carbon out of the ground then a lot of human activities would indeed not be a problem. I'm sure we can make things uninhabitable without doing that, but, largely when talking about climate change: it's the mere fact that we're unleashing significant amounts of stored energy into a closed loop ecosystem that cannot handle it. I think we're saying the same thing here.
fredrikholm 1y ago
This is overly simplified to the point of being wrong. Water usage spent on watering crops used to then raise livestock (eg. alfalfa, soy) account for some 70% or more of total water usage in regions where this type of farming is done. In arid regions (MENA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, California etc), a lot of that water is aquifer water. Aquifers take centuries, sometimes millennia to fill up. The consequences of emptying these are rivers drying up, native flora dying off, topsoil being eroded and so on. In some cases, Tehran and Mexico City being prime examples, the depletion is sufficient to cause structural changes in the ground leading to literal collapses of land. Growing food with an order of magnitude less inefficiencies means an order of magnitude less of these consequences.
- dijit 1y ago
  Soy in particular is a huge water consumer, however that is often the proposed alternative to meat consumption. I'm not sure how you wouldn't agree with me that cows are a scapegoat based on this fact alone.
  - fredrikholm 1y ago
    Because you can eat the soy directly and remove the additional land loss, water use, soil compaction, acidification, storage cost, transport cost, cooling cost, butchering cost, shipping cost etc. that comes with introducing another link in the food chain. Feed conversion ratio for beef is something like 1:6-10, and that's ignoring everything above.
  - sn9 1y ago
    Because the numbers are an order of magnitude different? [0] Water needed to produce 4 oz of soy beans: 64 gallons Water needed to produce 4 oz of beef: 463 gallons Your points about the carbon cycle are well-taken but you're ignoring the trophic pyramid for some reason. [1] Or at least I find it hard to believe you could know about one without knowing about the other. [0] https://watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/ https://watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_pyramid

by dijit 1y ago

Everything you mentioned exists in a cycle, its not “lost” energy, its just converted and returned. Just like water, the consumption of water doesn’t mean it is eliminated from the water cycle.

peterashford 1y ago

Saying "its all part of a cycle" misses the point. Yes, energy and water aren’t destroyed but using 15-20x more plant matter, energy, and water for 1kg of beef compared to plant based food is still incredibly wasteful. Nature’s cycles have limits, and industrial meat production pushes them far beyond whats sustainable.

dijit 1y ago
Inefficiency doesn't particularly matter if it's a closed system, it only effects how much we can get out of a thing. If we need 100% efficiency yields because humans are so numerous that there can no longer by any inefficiency in the conversion of sun rays into energy fit for human consumption: then you have a point. But we're not there, so the inefficiency of food production is not particularly relevant. Where you and I will agree is that the scale of meat production is unsustainable, as evidenced by the fact that we are feeding cows fucking oil from the ground. If we could sustain a population of cattle and enough energy for human population then I don't see a problem, but that is obviously significantly lower than the scale we currently see cattle-rearing.
- peterashford 1y ago
  Saying "inefficiency only matters if we reach system collapse" is like saying you don’t need brakes until you’re already flying off the cliff.
  - dijit 1y ago
    How can inefficiency lead to systemic collapse in a way that cannot be reversed inside of a year? We're not talking about contributing to the carbon cycle anymore, we're talking specifically about converting rays from the sun into human consumable matter. I think you've come into a reasoned conversation with an idealised take that meat consumption is inherently stupid, and this doesn't not necessarily make sense because inefficiency is totally acceptable as long as the needs of the system are met. People use python for making websites, after all, one of the least efficient languages available. People move to higher efficiency languages when the system begins to demand it.
    - peterashford 1y ago
      You have heard climate scientists talk about tipping points, right? Methane is short lived but extremely potent. Its warming effect can push systems (ice melt, permafrost thaw, ocean circulation) past irreversible thresholds. Deforestation to support meat production isn’t easily undone. Regrowing forests takes decades to centuries.
      - dijit 1y ago
        Ok, so you're continuing to push the topic in a direction of methane and not inefficiency as we were discussing. I think I'll conclude the conversation here as it's clear you're just conversing from an ideological point of view. Methane is a problem, as discussed elsewhere in the thread, but the largest issue continues to be the fact we're digging up oil and feeding it to herds, you've not convinced me that this is not the largest issue, or not a larger issue than: air travel, cars etc;
        peterashford 1y ago
        Enjoy your ad hominems

thrance 1y ago

By that logic, no human activities are problematic since everything needed to sustain them comes from nature and eventually goes back to it. That's ignoring the tons of wastes generated by the beef industry, the ravaged ecosystems to make room for pastures and farms, the fuel needed to build and power the machinery to manage it all: from tractors to cargo boats to factories to trucks... The issue is that all that carbon and other mineral resources we dug up to power all of this ends up rapidly upsetting the balance the Earth settled in over the last million years. My point is that we could eat the same amount of calories by generating much less waste and needing much less space and energy.

dijit 1y ago
If we weren't digging carbon out of the ground then a lot of human activities would indeed not be a problem. I'm sure we can make things uninhabitable without doing that, but, largely when talking about climate change: it's the mere fact that we're unleashing significant amounts of stored energy into a closed loop ecosystem that cannot handle it. I think we're saying the same thing here.

fredrikholm 1y ago

This is overly simplified to the point of being wrong. Water usage spent on watering crops used to then raise livestock (eg. alfalfa, soy) account for some 70% or more of total water usage in regions where this type of farming is done. In arid regions (MENA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, California etc), a lot of that water is aquifer water. Aquifers take centuries, sometimes millennia to fill up. The consequences of emptying these are rivers drying up, native flora dying off, topsoil being eroded and so on. In some cases, Tehran and Mexico City being prime examples, the depletion is sufficient to cause structural changes in the ground leading to literal collapses of land. Growing food with an order of magnitude less inefficiencies means an order of magnitude less of these consequences.

dijit 1y ago
Soy in particular is a huge water consumer, however that is often the proposed alternative to meat consumption. I'm not sure how you wouldn't agree with me that cows are a scapegoat based on this fact alone.
- fredrikholm 1y ago
  Because you can eat the soy directly and remove the additional land loss, water use, soil compaction, acidification, storage cost, transport cost, cooling cost, butchering cost, shipping cost etc. that comes with introducing another link in the food chain. Feed conversion ratio for beef is something like 1:6-10, and that's ignoring everything above.
- sn9 1y ago
  Because the numbers are an order of magnitude different? [0] Water needed to produce 4 oz of soy beans: 64 gallons Water needed to produce 4 oz of beef: 463 gallons Your points about the carbon cycle are well-taken but you're ignoring the trophic pyramid for some reason. [1] Or at least I find it hard to believe you could know about one without knowing about the other. [0] https://watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/ https://watercalculator.org/water-footprint-of-food-guide/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_pyramid https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_pyramid