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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%

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

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