Oh look. Richard is back having recovered from his earlier hissy fit, and he is making strange statements about turning the amazon rainforest into grasslands (a bit harsh on biodiverity and the native peoples I would have thought, if hes serious. He might just be trolling), and hes picking another fight with BPL over religion. Piotr is back giving Richard another well deserved spanking. Normal transmission has been resumed. (sarc)
nigeljsays
Adam Lea @244, yes you could probably feed the UK using traditional non industrial farming or regenerative agriculture if everyone became vegetarian. The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think, although people in the UK have reduced their consumption of red meat significantly in recent years from what Ive read. And yes there are competing demand on land area in the UK. Given climate mitigation requires planting trees I wouldnt count on extra land being available for farming.
There will be ways of making farming more environmentally friendly and maintaing sufficient productivity but I suspect it will require compromises that the purists and ideologues on either side of the debate wont like. The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity. Reduce food waste as well and it could all be done. We can have our cake and eat it.
James Charlessays
“The fuel delivery problem took the electricity out.”
The fuel delivery problem will ‘take out’ nuclear power stations?
“Rice Farmer says:
November 17, 2020 at 11:53 pm
Another problem even worse than climate change is nuclear power. Once NPPs are unable to get offsite power and diesel fuel, it’s just a matter of time until they become new Fukushima disasters. And the globe is peppered with NPPs. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.”
RC 243: Perhaps a better response would explain why Nemesis and I and Ray and so many others DESERVE ETERNAL TORTURE for not believing in your punitive and sadistic “god”.
BPL: For insisting on discussing crap like this in what is supposed to be a science blog.
Adam Leasays
252: Yes it is a case of “IF”. I’m not sure it is possible for everyone to grow their own food on the basis of how do you train everyone to become proficient in growing crops? I have an allotment but I am nowhere near a skilled enough gardener to maximise productivity whilst minimising negative impacts (e.g. not using pesticides). I’d really struggle to grow enough food to live on in the UK despite its temperate classification. There would need to be some way of people producing crops for those who cannot do it themselves.
If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens:
One advantage of being able to source food remotely is that it makes one less vulerable to local natural disasters. If the crop in one place is devastated, there are many other places that will have a decent crop.
nigeljsays
Adam Lea @255
“If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens….. (videos of typical natural disasters)…One advantage of being able to source food remotely is that it makes one less vulerable to local natural disasters. If the crop in one place is devastated, there are many other places that will have a decent crop.”
Small, local, self sufficient independent communities would presumably cooperate in natural disasters and share resources, but it could still be a mess. Look at small communities in third world countries with inadequate central or regional government to coordinate and supply backup. Its a mess with famines and all sorts of problems. The reasons are obvious.
The whole idea of small self sufficient communities is driven partly by concerns we will run out of resources and wont be able to maintain a transport system. But then the whole structure of civilisation will start to wind down and only essentials will be traded and some level of small, local and self sufficiency will emerge naturally. I’m a bit hesitant to try to impose some blueprint on society, although building ever larger more high tech cities with massive tower blocks is crazy, and regenerative farming sounds worth considering.
“And it has long puzzled me why forests are considered by definition to be superior to grasslands when grasslands sequester gobs of carbon.”
Forests have more biomass, healthy grasslands sequester more carbon into geological timeframes.
“Uh, tropical forests accumulate almost no carbon. Would we do ourselves and our planet a favor by turning the Amazon rain forest into the Amazon savannah?”
This is a stocks and flow problem. Forests contain more biomass, this means the biomass pool is larger. Removing that biomass is like taking 3 steps back (flow from the biomass carbon pool to the atmosphere), to move forward (Flow from the atmosphere to the soil).
You would be MUCH better off converting the commodity corn and soy production back to Savanna and leaving the rain forest in tropical forest!
Killiansays
252 nigelj says:
28 Mar 2021 at 1:38 AM
There will be ways of making farming more environmentally friendly and maintaing sufficient productivity but I suspect it will require compromises that the purists and ideologues on either side of the debate wont like.
Don’t insult the more knowledgable out of your own ignorance. There is no reason to categorize people as ideologues and purists in this case, particularly when you are the ideologue and do not have the knowledge, awareness, insight or open mind required to solve the problems we face.
Ignorance: 1. Adam Lea @244, yes you could probably feed the UK using traditional non industrial farming or regenerative agriculture if everyone became vegetarian.
Being vegetarian takes more land area, not less. Regenerative systems would greatly reduce the area given over to meat production because of stacking functions (functions sharing spaces); producing to meet needs, not wants (less meat production overall – even H-G groups eat about 70% vegetarian); many people prefering smaller animals for their systems (few permies I know seek to keep cows preferring smaller, more mobile animals like chocken, ducks, goats, etc., that provide more functions than cows and require less space), etc.
The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think
For you entire time on this site you have refused to acknowledge the points made by others. You insist on comparing current systems to… current systems, slightly tweaked. That is a fool’s errand bc it solves nothing. What is the point of doing so other than to serve *your* ideological stance and stubborn tendency to always go the most middle-of-the-road, non-reality based route you can? The comparison is moot and foolish if it is not a comparison with actual solutions. The comparison is current vs. regenerative, and the latter you are in no way qualified to discuss.
Secondly, you also insist on framing everything based on what people want or are willing to do when the framing is an existential crisis. Tell me, what does what we want or are willing to do to prevent a flood matter when you find yourself on top of your house waiting to be rescued? The very nature of an existential crisis is the lack of options. If you were on Hawaii in 2018 and saw lava flowing toward your home, did what you want or were willing to do matter? No. Climate change is no different. What people want or are willing to do that in no way solves the problem is moot. This is why virtually everything you have to say on these issues is moot. I have vbeen making the plea to you for YEARS to pull your head out of the ideological sand and see what *is*, not what you wish to see.
The beauty of being an INTP who gets Chaos, permaculture, etc., is anything less than seeing what is vs what I wish to see isn’t even an option, so when you post crap suggesting regenerative systems/localization/simplification advocates are “ideologues” and “purists” I am disgusted by such bigotry and ignorance. You have no excuse. These things have been explained to you far too many times for you to continue repeating such nonsense.
The delusions are yours: There is absolutely no way to maintain the current system dynamics and have it result in a regenerative fka sustainable society. This is not opinion, this is knowledge being applied – knowledge you do not have.
Given climate mitigation requires planting trees I wouldnt count on extra land being available for farming.
Food forests are farming. If you’re “planting trees”, you are badly misguided. If you are planting forests, they have much that can be eaten. If you are doing as humans have done for millennia and creating Food Forests (like the Kogi) and preferentially encouraging more of other things you can use while maintaining the structure and function of the forests, then there is no competition between forests and farming. Forests ARE farming (broadly defined as producing the food a community needs to avoid six pages of discussion of all the various forms of food production possible.)
The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity.
So, we should build a food system that is half poisonous and destructive because you cannot unblinker yourself from your middle-is-always-right ideology?
Reduce food waste as well and it could all be done. We can have our cake and eat it.
This is unintelligent. Keep poisoning the planet becuase…. nigel?
Killiansays
244 Adam Lea says:
27 Mar 2021 at 2:40 PM
I’d estimate it is theoretically mathematically possible to feed the UK without intensive industrial agriculture, but whether it could ever be realistic I would doubt it.
This is the Nigelj Hypothesis: People won’t.
As I said above, if a lava flow is going to take out your house, what you wish and want no longer applies. That is The Perfect Storm of climate, resources, ecosystem destruction.
It no longer matters what anyone wants or wishes. Only solutions matter. The transition depends on disabusing people of their wants and wishes by making them aware of the very narrow options remaining and assisting them in gaining/developing the information and skills they need to get through that narrow gap.
Killiansays
255 Adam Lea says:
28 Mar 2021 at 5:13 PM
252: Yes it is a case of “IF”. I’m not sure it is possible for everyone to grow their own food
Straw Man. Shall we avoid this approach as all it does is make conversation more difficult?
There is no reason, nor expectation, that all humans would grow all their own food. Even in a fully bucolic small agrarian community, it would be foolish for all people to grow all their own food because that would imply a lack of cooperation and interdependence – and poor design. Are all soils equal? No. Are all microclimates equal? No. Would you expect all people to have land? No. What of the need for some specialization, such as clothes or shoe production, blacksmithing, etc. What of the disabled or too elderly?
Yes, in any regenerative community everyone should be multi-skilled, but nobody is going to be all-skilled. Most people should be growing significant amounts of food in a regenerative community, but not all. Mollison, in fact, suggested only 10% *need* to be food producers, but I don’t think the true scale of resource limits was obvious in the 1980’s.
What is more accurate is to think of a community as a quilt of food with some everyone who is growing a significant garden/farming growing very diverse items (in my 1,200~1,500 sq ft garden in Detroit I had 40 different plants growing), but nobody growing everything.
on the basis of how do you train everyone to become proficient in growing crops?
I have an allotment but I am nowhere near a skilled enough gardener to maximise productivity whilst minimising negative impacts (e.g. not using pesticides).
I have suggested an intensive 5-year program to localize the food system would partly consist of rapid training of permaculturists and master gardeners in all communities who then can be the source for others – not to mentions the internet?!
Do you not think you could become a decent gardener in five years? Or ten? This is not a magical overnight shift, nor need it be. This, in fact, is perhaps the single easiest thing to accomplish in the process of transition.
I’d really struggle to grow enough food to live on in the UK despite its temperate classification.
This is nothing more than knowledge. Longer term, rising temps should extend the growing season in the UK – unless the Gulf Stream continues to slow…
There would need to be some way of people producing crops for those who cannot do it themselves.
See above.
You would not need to aske these questions if you took a permaculture course.
If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens:
Welll…… given regenerative systems reduce flooding, reduce erosion, increase bio-diversity, increase variety of foods consumed, are more resilient to drought, storms, etc., the question is, why haven’t we changed over sooner? As to the more specific point: Few natural disasters destroy all of a food shed, so this is rarely a problem. To the extent that it is, regenerative systems cannot overcome Mother Nature any more than destructive systems currently can, but they do it far better which means *less* risk, less danger, less destruction, less death. Also, you seem to be assuming localized food systems = no trade. Why?
E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot.
Say there is a flood across some counties in state Y of country X, or even through a number of states as has happened with the Mississippi a few times in recent decades, there is nothing to prevent the movement of emergency supplies from nearby locations, or even the world.
Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.
Yes, these things are all unsustainable, but the scale of them would be a tiny fraction of the resources used today for transport, stretching out the timeframe for resource depletion, and current systems can be cannibalized/recycled to have this network. In many cases it would actually be merely paring down what already exists.
etc.
nigeljsays
Interesting movie about America and the historical linkages between evangelical religion, the oil industry, politics, and anti environmentalism. About 20 minutes long.
“God $ Green. An unholy alliance. The story of how potent forces came together to mount an army of climate change skeptics in the name of God, country and capitalism.”
Another problem even worse than climate change is nuclear power. Once NPPs are unable to get offsite power and diesel fuel, it’s just a matter of time until they become new Fukushima disasters. And the globe is peppered with NPPs. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.
If grids start going down, what happens at NPPs will be the LEAST of people’s concerns. When the pipes stop delivering clean water and refrigerated food vanishes, something that might cause a cancer 10 years from now will simply not be an issue. Starving to death or dying of dysentery from contaminated water will be the problems on people’s minds.
Scott Strough: You would be MUCH better off converting the commodity corn and soy production back to Savanna and leaving the rain forest in tropical forest!
RC: Yep. But I’d also be much richer if I bet my net worth on roulette and let it ride three times, winning each time.
The question I raised blends tipping points and lost causes. The Amazon is dying. Some recent report/study estimated that its tipping point could be reached with just a bit (5%?) more senseless destruction, sealing the deal. You are correct, of course, but if the Amazon is destined to die…?
Sucks to “have” to re-engineer the planet, bickering about what to save and how much brimstone to put in the atmosphere. But that could be the reality in a few years.
A blue Arctic Ocean event might seal the deal. Lots of arguing in the near future, methinks, between those who value what we still more-or-less have and those who use discounting to prove that as long as it takes longer than 50(?) years it is best (most profitable) to entirely eradicate life from the planet.
Richard Caldwellsays
Killian: Being vegetarian takes more land area, not less.
RC: good post. Current systems are creating the metaphorical lava flow you speak of. So any analysis that compares industrial toxic omnivore agriculture as evidence for comparing (as opposed to avoiding/fixing/replacing is bound to result in a nonsensical conclusion.
I think the “lava coming towards our house” will be impossible to ignore once we get a Blue Ocean event. Hopefully enough GOPpers were culled by covid (plus normal cohort replacement) so more than half the population will not just listen to you but will demand that the powers that be either listen or get strung up.
Interesting times
EP, yeah, but humans suck at orders of magnitude. You’ve got skills and have been trained, so you get it, but folks who can’t understand the math will just shake their heads. They’ve seen the movies. Nuclear is mutant-green and that is unacceptable.
When you talk nuclear it matters not a whit that you drilled down through the math cuz they saw you coming and put on their noise-canceling headphones.
BPL,
I didn’t start the religion thing. You and Nemesis were having a spat so I chimed in to support Nemesis. But yes, it would have been better to, as Nemesis says, get some popcorn and watch the show.
nigeljsays
Killian @259
“Don’t insult the more knowledgable out of your own ignorance. There is no reason to categorize people as ideologues and purists in this case”
No offence is meant. I’m afraid you do come across as a purist and a little bit non compromising at times.
“Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
Although the study shows that a diet with a very modest amount of meat and dairy needs less land than a completely vegan diet.
Personally I think the optimal solution all things considered is a low meat diet. One reason is grasslands beef farming is good at conserving soil carbon, and some land is only really suitable for beef or sheep farming, so it seems sensible to maintain some red meat in the diet. What do you think?
“Regenerative systems would greatly reduce the area given over to meat production because of stacking functions (functions sharing spaces); producing to meet needs, not wants (less meat production overall – even H-G groups eat about 70% vegetarian); many people prefering smaller animals for their systems (few permies I know seek to keep cows preferring smaller, more mobile animals like chocken, ducks, goats, etc., that provide more functions than cows and require less space), etc.”
Good.
“The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think.”
“For you entire time on this site you have refused to acknowledge the points made by others. You insist on comparing current systems to… current systems, slightly tweaked. That is a fool’s errand bc it solves nothing. What is the point of doing so other than to serve *your* ideological stance and stubborn tendency to always go the most middle-of-the-road, non-reality based route you can? The comparison is moot and foolish if it is not a comparison with actual solutions. The comparison is current vs. regenerative, and the latter you are in no way qualified to discuss.”
Killian I’m just stating the obvious when I said “People like their meat consumption too much (to become vegetarian) I think.” Its one of those things that has to be faced and its going to be very hard to shift. However there are obvious reasons suggest we could get people to adopt at least a low meat diet, particularly red meat. Thats what I generally promote.
Its also not clear that you support vegetarianism because you alleged it uses more land than a standard diet.So maybe you could clarify.
This is a science website. All ideas should be pulled to pieces and stress tested, including new scientific ideas and things like regenerative farming. Thats what science does and we all probably need to get used to it. I participate in general media websites and I do promote regenerative farming there and defend it. Its a different environment. For example stuff.co.nz. Check for yourself.
And I always go out of my way to acknowledge at least some points other people make. For example I have said many times that regenerative farming has its merits.
“Secondly, you also insist on framing everything based on what people want or are willing to do when the framing is an existential crisis. ”
Maybe thats a bad habit of mine, and I will try to refrain in future, but again its just stating the reality, oberving their behaviour and historical trends. Its very frustrating because given the scale of the threat you would think people would be more motivated to act, but they clearly arent. I suggested previously some of the reasons why people are like this. The political and psychological reasons. The way we are hardwired to respond best to short term threats, and I suggested how these impediments could be overcome. Zebra is way more pessimistic about it than me. He appears think we are unlikely to solve the climate problem and at best will reduce it modestly for political and psychological reasons and that theres not much way around this.
“The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity.”
“So, we should build a food system that is half poisonous and destructive because you cannot unblinker yourself from your middle-is-always-right ideology?”
It’s not about that. As I pointed out previously regnerative farming looks good in every respect except I’m a bit scpetical about the productivity given that you are dramatically reducing use of pesticides and nitrates etc (from what I understand). We are lacking hard evidence regenerative agriculture would be as productive as industrial agriculture, things like multiple field trials. I think you quoted the self reporting of one single farm which doesn’t really go far enough. As such it looks more likely that regenerative farming might be at least a bit less productive and a combined system may develop that combines regenerative farming with a little bit of industrial agriculture. Dont make the pefect the enemy of the good (Voltaire).
James Charlessays
L.O.L..
I notice that you do not deny the ‘truth’ of the ‘theft’?
Once NPPs are unable to get offsite power and diesel fuel, it’s just a matter of time until they become new Fukushima disasters.
Er, no. I’m no nuclear fanboi, as my comment record attests, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to suggest that reactors will be melting down because of declining fossil fuel production. (And on multiple counts, merely the first being that such events would be foreseeable in time for reactors to shut down safely, at which point meltdowns would be impossible.)
And the linked story is even more egregiously wrong. For example, a critical claim is that ‘the IPCC ignored peak oil,’ yet AR5 has this to say:
Cumulative past production of conventional oil falls between the estimates
of the remaining reserves, suggesting that the peak in conventional
oil production is imminent or has already been passed…
For those of you who think “renewables” are the answer…
A big part of ‘the answer’ is to stop thinking that there is just ‘one’ answer. Systematic transformation always involves many interacting components. RE will be a large component, and rather an obvious one–but only one among many.
nigeljsays
Killian @261
“E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot……..Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.”
That sounds good in principle, but there are some obvious questions. For example what size would these small, localised, decentralised, self sufficient communities be in a State like California? How far apart would they be do you think?
Are you envisioning these communities be newly built greenfields developments in rural locations? Wouldn’t this basically be a return to an expanded small town America? Or would existing cities be adapted and partitioned somehow? Or would it be a combination? This later option seems likely to me.
The problem with adapting existing cities is few of them have enough spare land to be self sufficient in food which leaves a need for substantial reliance on the hinterland and transport.
Whatever form they take, over what time frame would such communities go from zero to perhaps 90% scaled up, do you think? I think you have mentioned ten years before? This would probably limit the option to just adapting existing cities. Its not enough time to build thousands of entirely new communities and their infrastructure in new locations. This would obviously be a large undertaking spanning many decades.
How would the construction of bullet trains and buses be organised? Currently they are made in massive centralised manufacturing centres, not small town America, because this is the most efficient way of doing it. Do you envision still having a few really large communities to manufacture these large vehicles? That would be a possible option, and a sensible compromise. Or would small communities each make one component then the trains are assembled somewhere? This might have potential. How would it work generally do you think?
A technology backbone of medical care and ,long distance transport, R&D, etc sounds good but I’m interested in technology at the scale of a family. Can you write a list in your own words of what electrical appliances and other items you think it would be appropriate to own? Or post a link to one? Bearing in mind that 90% reduction in use of the worlds resources you have posted suggests such a list would be quite different to what people are used to. I am not a profligate spender on technology myself, although I do have my share of gadgetry, so Im open to interesting suggestions.
There will be people resistant to such changes, judging from what I read in our media. They give numerous reasons. How do we overcome this barrier? Just telling them the world is at risk of running out of resources probably wont be enough because people are psychologically wired up to respond strongly to immediate threats not distant threats. Do people have any ideas how we incentivise people to make necessary changes?
This shows nuclear and RE at par–or par-ish at least–except for 2013.
Though I must say, I’m skeptical about the declining rates of FF subsidy shown in this analysis by the EIA, as that doesn’t accord with what I recall from some other analyses. As the article says, definitional questions abound under this topic.
A big part of ‘the answer’ is to stop thinking that there is just ‘one’ answer. Systematic transformation always involves many interacting components. RE will be a large component, and rather an obvious one–but only one among many.
So-called “RE” is an unfolding disaster. Here’s a long list of reasons that wind power should probably be tightly restricted and perhaps banished from land sites:
However, according to a Michael Bernard… taxpayers subsidies the nuclear power industry to the tune of about $4B per year.
He made some extremely questionable assumptions, e.g.
The Department of Defense (DOD) undoubtedly spends part of its $637 billion annual peacetime base budget on security for the global nuclear supply chain.
This is ridiculous. The USA has sourced almost all of its nuclear plant components domestically, and could source all uranium domestically as well if there was a need. The USA buys uranium from Kazakhstan and Australia because they are currently the low-cost producers, but the amount of commerce in uranium is trivial. My understanding is that a great deal of AU uranium production is as a byproduct of other mining, and the amount is so small that we could easily fly it in rather than moving it by surface ships which need naval protection.
nigeljsays
“They’ve seen the movies. Nuclear is mutant-green and that is unacceptable. When you (Engineer poet) talk nuclear it matters not a whit that you drilled down through the math cuz they saw you coming and put on their noise-canceling headphones.”
When younger I was very anti nuclear power, mostly out of fears about its safety and potential to make bombs. Then I read a popular science article about how it kills fewer people than virtually all other forms of generation. The data was straighforward and hard to argue with. I checked against other sources of course. If this could change my views, why not other peoples views? Yes it wont change everyone’s views because some people are very stubborn and unable to grasp even the simplest data, but I don’t think tha’ts everyone by a long way, and you don’t need 100% agreement on something to get action. Although I think the future will be a mix of nuclear power and solar, wind, hydro, etc, etc.
#1–So, prelim indications are that geese shouldn’t be raised within 50 m of a wind turbine. Wow.
#2–Ditto pigs. Double wow.
#3–A little more troubling, but highly preliminary. And it’s interesting that the badgers didn’t leave the setts near turbines. If they were stressed, it wasn’t sufficient to cause them to migrate.
#4–Unpublished, and quite apparently methodologically unsound.
#5–Same as #5, and equally worthless.
#6–Same researcher as #4 & #5, but apparently published. (Possibly a followup study?) Fine, but for a review of more recent literature on the topic, see: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40857-020-00192-4
#7–Polemic and axe-grinding, spiced by actual untruth (“overwhelming evidence”).
#8–Doesn’t actually allege a specific harm.
#9–Ditto. Its claim is merely that there *could be* as yet unknown mechanisms of harm even for sound below the hearing threshold.
#10–Either that’s a busted link, or something weird is going on with my browser…
#11–Infrasound might cause sensations of “haunting.” Now there’s an “unfolding disaster.”
#12–Quoting the actual conclusion: “Exposure to wind turbines does seem to increase the risk of annoyance and self-reported sleep disturbance in a dose-response relationship. There appears, though, to be a tolerable level of around LAeq of 35 dB. Of the many other claimed health effects of wind turbine noise exposure reported in the literature, however, no conclusive evidence could be found.”
#13–A small pilot study found that wind farm workers can suffer sleep disturbance due to noise. However, c.f., “Criticality accidents have occurred, but have only affected plant workers.” So, by E-P’s logic, apparently this study shouldn’t ‘count.’ ;-)
#14–Some people don’t like turbines closer than about 4 km, but after 5 years, they get used to them. (Yes, really!)
#15–Some people choose to sleep with earplugs in, or even add sound insulation to their home. (Oh, the horror!)
#16–A 2001 review about infrasound in general, one not even mentioning turbines.
A highly ‘curated’ collection, and most of it a decade old or more. (The most recent was from 2016, IIRC.) That was a pretty useless Gish gallop, one that certainly didn’t live up to the billing of “unfolding disaster”. But hey, at least E-P made it over the shark.
Killiansays
267 nigelj says:
30 Mar 2021 at 2:33 AM
No offence is meant. I’m afraid you do come across as a purist and a little bit non compromising at times.
No, I don’t. That’s either your bias or your failure to pay attention. I have said soooooo many times this is problem-solving, nothing more, nothing less. It’s about what must be given the facts, not about what I *want.* What do I want? Land and homes on multiple continents, to be retired already, to fly to Paris for a 7-course meal and to SF for a bread bowl filled with clam chowder, etc. I have made this point far too many times for you to repeat this. Why do you think *I* have so often suggested *you* are dishonest? It’s shit like this.
So stop repeating this shit.
“Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody.
This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant. Stop using analyses that have no consideration whatsoever of how a regenerative system functions. We aren’t keeping the current food system, no matter what, so get the fuck over it and stop using CAFO crap as the standard. I posted the nature of regenerative vs current. If you can’t understand why we can produce far more than conventional via regenerative systems by now, it’s because you don’t want to.
Again, food forests. They are self-sustaining food systems that can have up to 9 different foods/resources (lumber, e.g.) growing in the same space a typical orchard grows one. This is not rocket science.
But you ask “where do I get that from?” then say: “Although the study shows that a diet with a very modest amount of meat and dairy needs less land than a completely vegan diet.”
Do you think arguing with yourself is useful here?
Personally I think the optimal solution all things considered is a low meat diet.
Who cares what you think? How is that relevant? And how many times have you been told design is ultimately local, specific to site and conditions? There is no one answer, only the best answer at a given time in a given place for a given people. There is no cookie cutter solution and should not be. I again cite the Masai. Radical veganism says their culture should not exist. That alone shows you how morally and ethically bankrupt it is as a systemic response.
Its also not clear that you support vegetarianism because you alleged it uses more land than a standard diet.So maybe you could clarify.
I care not at all what individuals and specific communities do. That’s for them to sort. What I object to is vegetarian and vegan ideology that they are attempting to force on everyone – but you cannot and should not attempt to legislate ideology. You will always be trampling someone else’s rights and beliefs. As a systemic response, vegetarianism and veganism are maladaptive. Regenerative systems are natural systems. Human systems that do not mimic Nature are inherently maladaptive, and it is that simple. There are many points I could make, but they all rest on that single foundation.
This is a science website. All ideas should be pulled to pieces and stress tested, including new scientific ideas and things like regenerative farming. Thats what science does and we all probably need to get used to it.
Don’t attempt to imply I reject discussion of regenerative systems. I reject you ignoring what you have been told over and over and over and repeating false statements, straw men and false dichotomies. You argue via what you want to be true, not what is true. You frame everything by your assumptions, not the facts. “People want their meat!” Who cares? What matters is *can they have it in a way that does not destroy the ecosystem?* If not, love of meat is fatal. If so, it’s a better future. That is what matters. People will choose one or the other. This is not a point worth even discussing bc it is so blatantly obvious and we have been round and round and round on this. Stop. We all know it’s hard to change. That is not in any way a point that requires any discussion whatsoever, so it plays as a justification for middle roadism, which is what you are doing.
The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? No more “People won’t!” It’s a cop-out that has kept us like rats on this wheel for three years.
As such it looks more likely that regenerative farming might be at least a bit less productive and a combined system may develop that combines regenerative farming with a little bit of industrial agriculture.
See? It’s there in your words: Regenerative farming. No. Regenerative systems. I recently listed a very long list of what that includes. Stop talking about *only* farming; it’s nonsense.
Dont make the pefect the enemy of the good (Voltaire).
That phrase does not apply to an existential threat, it applies to general decision-making in a non-emergency. You are saying don’t let the survivable be the enemy of the half-assed fail, but clearly do not realize that. For example, Voltaire’s quote applies to something like building a new bridge. Maybe a community can efficiently, affordably and quickly build a 100-year bridge, but the engineer is insisting on building a 1,000-year bridge that would be 3x the cost and 3x the time. Here, yes, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
But that is not our context. Our context is the bridge is necessary for survival and there are only resources to build one bridge one time. (It’s metaphorical, so don’t come back at me with buts.) Now, the perfect is the only choice you have and the good is the enemy of long-term survival.
Killiansays
271 nigelj says:
30 Mar 2021 at 4:16 PM
Killian @261
“E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot……..Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.”
That sounds good in principle, but there are some obvious questions. For example what size would these small, localised, decentralised, self sufficient communities be in a State like California? How far apart would they be do you think?
Etc., etc.
It should be obvious by now that these are all design-level questions that can only be answered in situ. There is no magic number for size of a community, how much tech we use, etc. And you are framing it as wants. Why? The question is what is *needed* and what is *possible* over time frame T.
I have repeatedly suggested a pulled-out-my-ass assumption of 2 to 4 generations of very simple societies while we engage in R&D for off-world resource extraction and storage: Garden planet here, resources and waste there. Can we do it in one generation, do we need 10? Is it even possible? I don’t know. We need to figure that out. Simplifying now would give us the time to do just that.
Kudos to Kevin for actually having the fortitude to wade through all of E-P’s “sources” and pointing out the problems. I didn’t bother, but I probably should have. It is hard, of course, to counter such a Gish gallop, as Kevin aptly named E-P’s post.
nigeljsays
Killian @280
“The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? ”
Exactly. We have to warn people of dangers looming because people are wired up to avoid danger, and convince people of the importance of being in harmony with nature, at least as much as practically possible. But this will never be nearly enough. Ive said this before. To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters. So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies, because this is on peoples radar and people respond to relatively near term reward / punishment. Similar to basic operant conditioning. If we ignore this we are doomed.
nigeljsays
People can come up with huge lists of links attacking renewable energy and huge lists of links attacking nuclear power. I’m not sure this achieves much. Its mostly predictable anyway and I don’t read it much anymore. KMs response is good and he has a bit more stamina than me, but we have to elevate discussion above posting cherry picked lists attacking things.
prlsays
EP@277:
My understanding is that a great deal of AU uranium production is as a byproduct of other mining
Together in 2019, they produced 7661 tonnes of U3O8 [same reference], and they are all specifically uranium mines, though they may produce other ores as byproducts. I can’t find any production numbers of uranium from any other mines in Australia. Can you suggest any that would significantly overshadow the production from those mines?
“The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? ”
Exactly. We have to warn people of dangers looming because people are wired up to avoid danger, and convince people of the importance of being in harmony with nature, at least as much as practically possible. But this will never be nearly enough. Ive said this before. To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters.
Bull. This is a finding based on the present structure of society, which has the attention span of a dog with its tail on fire. But that is not the deep human wiring. In fact, pre-complexity humans based their entire lives on long-term effects of their actions.
I am human: I do so.
Learn to not just gulp down what you are spoonfed to believe. Use your head. 7 generations. That is human nature.
So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies
Like what? None of them are what you consider benefits, so the point is moot. And irrelevant. What you have yet again done is completely ignore the risks as laid out. There’s a sniper aiming at your head. They WILL fire. You do not know when. What do you do, wait to find out?
You don’t want to deal with the risks because they take you too far out of your comfort zone. Just admit that and stop wasting my time repeating these points that are useless. It doesn’t matter what you want. What matters is what is necessary. Your real problem with all this is you still don’t accept those two simple truths: The risk, the necessity to avoid exitential risk.
Until you stop denying the risks and stop making excuses for not taking a risk-based approach to messaging, you will fail to add to these conversations.
You are negotiating with Nature and she’s laughing at you.
nigeljsays
Killian @280,
K: “Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Nigelj: “Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
K: “Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody. This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant….”
Nigelj: This doesn’t change the basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet. Just look at the numbers. Lets assume we cut the quantity of meat and fat in half, so we get a very moderate meat diet. You get 1.1 acres per person for this. So this is still at least TWICE the land area required by a typical vegetarian diet. This shows how many physical resources meat based diets use. If we went vegetarian obviously more land would be available and this would help planting trees and improving the productive output of traditional forms of farming.
BUT meat based diets are nutrient dense and calorie rich, humans are omnivores by nature and beef cattle farming conserves carbon, and some land is only really of use for cattle grazing. This is as you would know , but many people don’t. So the optimal solution might be a LOW MEAT DIET.(particularly red meat) as I previously stated! And a low dairy products diet. This still increases the land area available for cropping etc, etc.
Regenerative agriculture is a separate issue to this. It would have its own influences on land area and might make more efficient use of land. But this points to the same outcome: A low meat diet. Which you appear to agree with anyway. Really that’s all I was getting at, namely what level of red meat in the diet is optimal. I would suggest a low meat diet also a “natural ” level of meat consumption consistent with what ancient peoples mostly consumed.
nigeljsays
Killian @288
Nigelj: To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters.”
K: Bull. This is a finding based on the present structure of society, which has the attention span of a dog with its tail on fire. But that is not the deep human wiring. In fact, pre-complexity humans based their entire lives on long-term effects of their actions.
Nigelj: You might be conflating how hunter gatherers respond to distant threats to how they plan for the future. Not quite the same thing, although they plan better for the future than we do. And so what if you are right? The issue is still an impediment to modern humans taking climate action and we don’t know how to change the way modern humans respond to threats psychologically, certainly not in a quick enough time frame to be useful. We don’t have some therapy or pill. We can only accept what we have and work around it as I said.
We should of course still warn people about the dangers. People aren’t COMPLETELY immune from recognising and responding to distant threats.
Nigelj: “So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies”
K “Like what? None of them are what you consider benefits, so the point is moot.”
No. For example I do see some short term benefits in regenerative farming. It can save on fertiliser costs and has other benefits.
“Your real problem with all this is you still don’t accept those two simple truths: The risk, the necessity to avoid existential risk.”
No. I see the risks, notwithstanding the fact some biologists go overboard, for example the NTE people. I’ve always been sensitive to longer term threats. I was reading Alvin Tofflers future shock book when I was a teenager. I’m simply pointing out to everyone that the majority of people are hardwired to respond most strongly to short term threats rather than longer term threats, and we better take this into account and find some work arounds to motivate them.
Richard Caldwellsays
BPL,
Yes, RE is eating nuclear’s lunch with current market rules. EP, you agree too, right?
But what if renewables had to provide from an alternative source, with nuclear getting paid, say, the same rate as a battery farm to take up the slack as needed?
And when the battery farms run out of juice we go Texas-pure capitalism.
Now who wins?
I think the answer lies with synfuels and biofuels. Both EP and I have developed biofuel systems that could supply significant biolfuel. EP, you did the math. How big a wedge did you estimate?
And synfuels are going to get cheaper and more efficient. PV paint?
I could see humanity getting by, maybe, even if the fear of nuclear kills it. In this scenario hybrid cars become critical components of the system.That’s why I designed the engine.
Killiansays
289 nigelj says:
2 Apr 2021 at 4:24 PM
Killian @280,
K: “Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Nigelj: “Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
K: “Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody. This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant….”
Nigelj: This doesn’t change the basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet. Just look at the numbers.
I’m losing patience with your dishonesty.
1. What is a meat-based diet? That phrase would mean mostly meat. Who proposes that? Nobody in the realm of sustainability issues. About the only “meat-based diet” there is is Keto and that other one where you eat like a *supposed* “caveman.” Hint: People didn’t eat mostly meat… ever. WE have always eaten omnivorously and a majority being non-meat. So get off this bullshit “meat-based” diet crap.
2. You have no imagination no matter how many times led by the nose to places where you *should* be able to think creatively. Look at the Kogi. They don’t have “farms” per se, they have areas of the jumgle the grow food IN, not separately from. They get their meat FROM the jungle, not a goddamned CAFO-fed supermarket. Now, use your damned head and extrapolate given you *know* I have said the end point for all this is small networks of communities bounded by bio-regions living WITHIN nature.
We’ve had this same effing conversation dozens of times. Just, seriously, stop talking if you can’t be honest.
prlsays
David B. Benson @287
[Olympic Dam mine] in South Australia produces, by revenue, 70% copper and only 20% uranium concentrate.
True enough, but the other two mines, Ranger & Beverly/Four Mile are only listed as mining uranium, and together have higher production of uranium than Olympic Dam, though not by much.
The three mines are generally discussed in the press here as uranium mines, though Olympic Dam is, as you say, a multi-metal mine.
Of the now-closed uranium mines in Australia, it appears the Rum Jungle, Mary Kathleen and Narbelek mines mine only, or primarily, uranium. Radium hill looks like it was primarily uranium and radium, but the ores mined there had other potentially valuable metallic components.
The Westmoreland mine is marked on the Wikipedia map of Australian uranium mines and proposed mines as “closed”, but it appears to be a planned mine (but apparently primarily for uranium).
I still think that the original contention by EP @277 “My understanding is that a great deal of AU uranium production is as a byproduct of other mining” is misleading.
nigeljsays
Myself @289, I said “regenerative farming points to the same outcome: A low meat diet.” This is because its not clear that it makes super efficient use of land. It might improve efficiency, but it needs more evidence from independent field trials. But it has enough other merits to be worthwhile.
Killian @292, at no time did I or the research quoted refer to a keto very high meat diet. Its obvious that the study quoted was on a western diet with moderately high meat consumption like the USA average, and cutting that in half with my numbers leads to a moderate meat content probably near what’s typical in Asia. A low meat diet would be a bit lower than that.
Numerous studies show diets with typical meat consumption use more land than vegetarian diets. I don’t understand why anyone would argue with that. Nobody else here is.
Scott E Stroughsays
@296 Nigelj,
The reason I have not entered into the discussion is because you are both right in a way. But Killian is more right. A properly designed regenerative ag system includes both animals and plants and far outproduces any monocrop system hands down.
Your claims are based on the highly land inefficient systems in common use today, but you actually said, “basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet.” and that’s not a universal fact. It is a highly biased conditional case based on a really poor land management paradigm. They may be true in this particular case, but that is causing land degradation worldwide at unprecedented rates. https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/?cid=nrcs142p2_054028
How many of the studies you are looking at adjusted for degraded land that can no longer be used for food? ??? It’s analogous to grading on a curve and throwing out all the bottom scores where you failed a test, so that you can improve your average and pass.
The type of Agriculture Killian is talking about restores degraded land back into productivity. There really is no comparison, hands down a profound benefit in both yields per acre without throwing away the bottom scores; and carbon sequestration among many other benefits.
Your claim is just barely true for what we have now when degraded land is ignored, but Killian’s claim is true for what happens when proper land management is used. More importantly, we don’t need to grade on a curve to make it true either.
nigeljsays
Scott E Strough @297, thanks for the comments. However I was comparing vegetarianism with a traditional sort of diet with typical meat content using the same type of farming, land management and quality of soils, otherwise it gets very confusing. No other reason than that. And on that basis vegetarian diet appears to use significantly less land than a moderate sort of meat based diet. That said I’m not promoting vegetarianism (refer 289.)You have to weigh up a whole lot of things obviously.
Regenerative agriculture may be more productive than traditional industrial agriculture, because of food forests and all that, so this would mean you can maintain a relatively high meat content diet if you wanted. All I’ve said is show me some hard proof regenerative agriculture is more productive than industrial agriculture, like independent field trials and peer reviewed published studies. If Pfizer say their vaccine works because of a, b, and c, nobody is going to accept that even if it seems soundly based. They want hard proof like clinical trials. Why should a new farming system be treated differently?
EP, you did the math. How big a wedge did you estimate?
<shrug> I wind up re-running the numbers every time because it’s easier than trying to dig up my previous work.
Using the NREL estimate of ~1 billion dry (metric) tons of biomass available per year and 45% carbon content by mass, complete conversion of all the carbon to methanol would make 1.2 billion tons of MeOH. This requires very little in the way of processing, just some water and sufficient energy to heat everything to about 1000°C which results in essentially complete conversion to a syngas of CO and H2, followed by MeOH synthesis over an alumina-supported copper catalyst. You can buy turnkey plants which do this.
With a heat of combustion of 22652 kJ/kg (9739 BTU/lb), 1.2 billion tons comes to 2.72e19 J or about 25.8 quadrillion BTU, roughly 1/4 of total US primary energy consumption. With a concerted effort to displace liquid fuels via electrification, that should do it. Also, the MeOH (or DME) provides a ready-made stockpile of energy to use in case of events like the Texas gas-delivery crisis.
I haven’t crunched numbers on the amount of energy required to do the processing and probably won’t have the time until I have another project finished. However, if anyone wants to calculate the energy required to convert 1 kg of biomass plus 0.2 kg of water to syngas at 1000°C, some of which can’t be reclaimed as heat due to the need to quench the syngas to avoid the Boudouard reaction forming CO2 and solid carbon from CO, be my guest.
Oh look. Richard is back having recovered from his earlier hissy fit, and he is making strange statements about turning the amazon rainforest into grasslands (a bit harsh on biodiverity and the native peoples I would have thought, if hes serious. He might just be trolling), and hes picking another fight with BPL over religion. Piotr is back giving Richard another well deserved spanking. Normal transmission has been resumed. (sarc)
Adam Lea @244, yes you could probably feed the UK using traditional non industrial farming or regenerative agriculture if everyone became vegetarian. The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think, although people in the UK have reduced their consumption of red meat significantly in recent years from what Ive read. And yes there are competing demand on land area in the UK. Given climate mitigation requires planting trees I wouldnt count on extra land being available for farming.
There will be ways of making farming more environmentally friendly and maintaing sufficient productivity but I suspect it will require compromises that the purists and ideologues on either side of the debate wont like. The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity. Reduce food waste as well and it could all be done. We can have our cake and eat it.
“The fuel delivery problem took the electricity out.”
The fuel delivery problem will ‘take out’ nuclear power stations?
“Rice Farmer says:
November 17, 2020 at 11:53 pm
Another problem even worse than climate change is nuclear power. Once NPPs are unable to get offsite power and diesel fuel, it’s just a matter of time until they become new Fukushima disasters. And the globe is peppered with NPPs. Be afraid. Be VERY afraid.”
http://energyskeptic.com/2020/climate-change-dominates-news-coverage-at-expense-of-more-important-existential-issues/?fbclid=IwAR29gYD6wp6KpC0UHkMbuQiOYEfcfMdU139aixAHNHHH2eirgeNs3RDcMXo
RC 243: Perhaps a better response would explain why Nemesis and I and Ray and so many others DESERVE ETERNAL TORTURE for not believing in your punitive and sadistic “god”.
BPL: For insisting on discussing crap like this in what is supposed to be a science blog.
252: Yes it is a case of “IF”. I’m not sure it is possible for everyone to grow their own food on the basis of how do you train everyone to become proficient in growing crops? I have an allotment but I am nowhere near a skilled enough gardener to maximise productivity whilst minimising negative impacts (e.g. not using pesticides). I’d really struggle to grow enough food to live on in the UK despite its temperate classification. There would need to be some way of people producing crops for those who cannot do it themselves.
If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQXKaL2iYQo&t=141s&ab_channel=Channel4News
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUWufMuidD8&ab_channel=anthonyc
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-aa-F8n-ao&t=199s&ab_channel=Channel4News
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtGNMN4tMhU&ab_channel=LiamDutton-Weatherman
or this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkpEvRpzoSY&ab_channel=Mark1333
or this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-aa-F8n-ao&t=199s
which was immediately followed by this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2-MLL6NFJ4&ab_channel=StoriesMyStyle
One advantage of being able to source food remotely is that it makes one less vulerable to local natural disasters. If the crop in one place is devastated, there are many other places that will have a decent crop.
Adam Lea @255
“If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens….. (videos of typical natural disasters)…One advantage of being able to source food remotely is that it makes one less vulerable to local natural disasters. If the crop in one place is devastated, there are many other places that will have a decent crop.”
Small, local, self sufficient independent communities would presumably cooperate in natural disasters and share resources, but it could still be a mess. Look at small communities in third world countries with inadequate central or regional government to coordinate and supply backup. Its a mess with famines and all sorts of problems. The reasons are obvious.
The whole idea of small self sufficient communities is driven partly by concerns we will run out of resources and wont be able to maintain a transport system. But then the whole structure of civilisation will start to wind down and only essentials will be traded and some level of small, local and self sufficiency will emerge naturally. I’m a bit hesitant to try to impose some blueprint on society, although building ever larger more high tech cities with massive tower blocks is crazy, and regenerative farming sounds worth considering.
China isn’t helping enough:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-china-coal-idUSKBN2BK0PZ
as coal consumption continues to increase.
@240 Richard Caldwell 26 Mar 2021 at 7:51 PM
“And it has long puzzled me why forests are considered by definition to be superior to grasslands when grasslands sequester gobs of carbon.”
Forests have more biomass, healthy grasslands sequester more carbon into geological timeframes.
“Uh, tropical forests accumulate almost no carbon. Would we do ourselves and our planet a favor by turning the Amazon rain forest into the Amazon savannah?”
This is a stocks and flow problem. Forests contain more biomass, this means the biomass pool is larger. Removing that biomass is like taking 3 steps back (flow from the biomass carbon pool to the atmosphere), to move forward (Flow from the atmosphere to the soil).
You would be MUCH better off converting the commodity corn and soy production back to Savanna and leaving the rain forest in tropical forest!
252 nigelj says:
28 Mar 2021 at 1:38 AM
There will be ways of making farming more environmentally friendly and maintaing sufficient productivity but I suspect it will require compromises that the purists and ideologues on either side of the debate wont like.
Don’t insult the more knowledgable out of your own ignorance. There is no reason to categorize people as ideologues and purists in this case, particularly when you are the ideologue and do not have the knowledge, awareness, insight or open mind required to solve the problems we face.
Ignorance:
1. Adam Lea @244, yes you could probably feed the UK using traditional non industrial farming or regenerative agriculture if everyone became vegetarian.
Being vegetarian takes more land area, not less. Regenerative systems would greatly reduce the area given over to meat production because of stacking functions (functions sharing spaces); producing to meet needs, not wants (less meat production overall – even H-G groups eat about 70% vegetarian); many people prefering smaller animals for their systems (few permies I know seek to keep cows preferring smaller, more mobile animals like chocken, ducks, goats, etc., that provide more functions than cows and require less space), etc.
The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think
For you entire time on this site you have refused to acknowledge the points made by others. You insist on comparing current systems to… current systems, slightly tweaked. That is a fool’s errand bc it solves nothing. What is the point of doing so other than to serve *your* ideological stance and stubborn tendency to always go the most middle-of-the-road, non-reality based route you can? The comparison is moot and foolish if it is not a comparison with actual solutions. The comparison is current vs. regenerative, and the latter you are in no way qualified to discuss.
Secondly, you also insist on framing everything based on what people want or are willing to do when the framing is an existential crisis. Tell me, what does what we want or are willing to do to prevent a flood matter when you find yourself on top of your house waiting to be rescued? The very nature of an existential crisis is the lack of options. If you were on Hawaii in 2018 and saw lava flowing toward your home, did what you want or were willing to do matter? No. Climate change is no different. What people want or are willing to do that in no way solves the problem is moot. This is why virtually everything you have to say on these issues is moot. I have vbeen making the plea to you for YEARS to pull your head out of the ideological sand and see what *is*, not what you wish to see.
The beauty of being an INTP who gets Chaos, permaculture, etc., is anything less than seeing what is vs what I wish to see isn’t even an option, so when you post crap suggesting regenerative systems/localization/simplification advocates are “ideologues” and “purists” I am disgusted by such bigotry and ignorance. You have no excuse. These things have been explained to you far too many times for you to continue repeating such nonsense.
The delusions are yours: There is absolutely no way to maintain the current system dynamics and have it result in a regenerative fka sustainable society. This is not opinion, this is knowledge being applied – knowledge you do not have.
Given climate mitigation requires planting trees I wouldnt count on extra land being available for farming.
Food forests are farming. If you’re “planting trees”, you are badly misguided. If you are planting forests, they have much that can be eaten. If you are doing as humans have done for millennia and creating Food Forests (like the Kogi) and preferentially encouraging more of other things you can use while maintaining the structure and function of the forests, then there is no competition between forests and farming. Forests ARE farming (broadly defined as producing the food a community needs to avoid six pages of discussion of all the various forms of food production possible.)
The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity.
So, we should build a food system that is half poisonous and destructive because you cannot unblinker yourself from your middle-is-always-right ideology?
Reduce food waste as well and it could all be done. We can have our cake and eat it.
This is unintelligent. Keep poisoning the planet becuase…. nigel?
244 Adam Lea says:
27 Mar 2021 at 2:40 PM
I’d estimate it is theoretically mathematically possible to feed the UK without intensive industrial agriculture, but whether it could ever be realistic I would doubt it.
This is the Nigelj Hypothesis: People won’t.
As I said above, if a lava flow is going to take out your house, what you wish and want no longer applies. That is The Perfect Storm of climate, resources, ecosystem destruction.
It no longer matters what anyone wants or wishes. Only solutions matter. The transition depends on disabusing people of their wants and wishes by making them aware of the very narrow options remaining and assisting them in gaining/developing the information and skills they need to get through that narrow gap.
255 Adam Lea says:
28 Mar 2021 at 5:13 PM
252: Yes it is a case of “IF”. I’m not sure it is possible for everyone to grow their own food
Straw Man. Shall we avoid this approach as all it does is make conversation more difficult?
There is no reason, nor expectation, that all humans would grow all their own food. Even in a fully bucolic small agrarian community, it would be foolish for all people to grow all their own food because that would imply a lack of cooperation and interdependence – and poor design. Are all soils equal? No. Are all microclimates equal? No. Would you expect all people to have land? No. What of the need for some specialization, such as clothes or shoe production, blacksmithing, etc. What of the disabled or too elderly?
Yes, in any regenerative community everyone should be multi-skilled, but nobody is going to be all-skilled. Most people should be growing significant amounts of food in a regenerative community, but not all. Mollison, in fact, suggested only 10% *need* to be food producers, but I don’t think the true scale of resource limits was obvious in the 1980’s.
What is more accurate is to think of a community as a quilt of food with some everyone who is growing a significant garden/farming growing very diverse items (in my 1,200~1,500 sq ft garden in Detroit I had 40 different plants growing), but nobody growing everything.
on the basis of how do you train everyone to become proficient in growing crops?
I have an allotment but I am nowhere near a skilled enough gardener to maximise productivity whilst minimising negative impacts (e.g. not using pesticides).
I have suggested an intensive 5-year program to localize the food system would partly consist of rapid training of permaculturists and master gardeners in all communities who then can be the source for others – not to mentions the internet?!
Do you not think you could become a decent gardener in five years? Or ten? This is not a magical overnight shift, nor need it be. This, in fact, is perhaps the single easiest thing to accomplish in the process of transition.
I’d really struggle to grow enough food to live on in the UK despite its temperate classification.
This is nothing more than knowledge. Longer term, rising temps should extend the growing season in the UK – unless the Gulf Stream continues to slow…
There would need to be some way of people producing crops for those who cannot do it themselves.
See above.
You would not need to aske these questions if you took a permaculture course.
If we do advocate a more localised way of living which includes food production, what happens when (for example in the UK) this happens:
Welll…… given regenerative systems reduce flooding, reduce erosion, increase bio-diversity, increase variety of foods consumed, are more resilient to drought, storms, etc., the question is, why haven’t we changed over sooner? As to the more specific point: Few natural disasters destroy all of a food shed, so this is rarely a problem. To the extent that it is, regenerative systems cannot overcome Mother Nature any more than destructive systems currently can, but they do it far better which means *less* risk, less danger, less destruction, less death. Also, you seem to be assuming localized food systems = no trade. Why?
E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot.
Say there is a flood across some counties in state Y of country X, or even through a number of states as has happened with the Mississippi a few times in recent decades, there is nothing to prevent the movement of emergency supplies from nearby locations, or even the world.
Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.
Yes, these things are all unsustainable, but the scale of them would be a tiny fraction of the resources used today for transport, stretching out the timeframe for resource depletion, and current systems can be cannibalized/recycled to have this network. In many cases it would actually be merely paring down what already exists.
etc.
Interesting movie about America and the historical linkages between evangelical religion, the oil industry, politics, and anti environmentalism. About 20 minutes long.
https://religionlab.virginia.edu/godgreen/
“God $ Green. An unholy alliance. The story of how potent forces came together to mount an army of climate change skeptics in the name of God, country and capitalism.”
James Charles @253 had to steal someone else’s argument:
If grids start going down, what happens at NPPs will be the LEAST of people’s concerns. When the pipes stop delivering clean water and refrigerated food vanishes, something that might cause a cancer 10 years from now will simply not be an issue. Starving to death or dying of dysentery from contaminated water will be the problems on people’s minds.
For those of you who think “renewables” are the answer, “Juice” is a much-needed reality check:
https://therokuchannel.roku.com/details/f37cea989567595a985448654eb690ea/juice-how-electricity-explains-the-world
Scott Strough: You would be MUCH better off converting the commodity corn and soy production back to Savanna and leaving the rain forest in tropical forest!
RC: Yep. But I’d also be much richer if I bet my net worth on roulette and let it ride three times, winning each time.
The question I raised blends tipping points and lost causes. The Amazon is dying. Some recent report/study estimated that its tipping point could be reached with just a bit (5%?) more senseless destruction, sealing the deal. You are correct, of course, but if the Amazon is destined to die…?
Sucks to “have” to re-engineer the planet, bickering about what to save and how much brimstone to put in the atmosphere. But that could be the reality in a few years.
A blue Arctic Ocean event might seal the deal. Lots of arguing in the near future, methinks, between those who value what we still more-or-less have and those who use discounting to prove that as long as it takes longer than 50(?) years it is best (most profitable) to entirely eradicate life from the planet.
Killian: Being vegetarian takes more land area, not less.
RC: good post. Current systems are creating the metaphorical lava flow you speak of. So any analysis that compares industrial toxic omnivore agriculture as evidence for comparing (as opposed to avoiding/fixing/replacing is bound to result in a nonsensical conclusion.
I think the “lava coming towards our house” will be impossible to ignore once we get a Blue Ocean event. Hopefully enough GOPpers were culled by covid (plus normal cohort replacement) so more than half the population will not just listen to you but will demand that the powers that be either listen or get strung up.
Interesting times
EP, yeah, but humans suck at orders of magnitude. You’ve got skills and have been trained, so you get it, but folks who can’t understand the math will just shake their heads. They’ve seen the movies. Nuclear is mutant-green and that is unacceptable.
When you talk nuclear it matters not a whit that you drilled down through the math cuz they saw you coming and put on their noise-canceling headphones.
BPL,
I didn’t start the religion thing. You and Nemesis were having a spat so I chimed in to support Nemesis. But yes, it would have been better to, as Nemesis says, get some popcorn and watch the show.
Killian @259
“Don’t insult the more knowledgable out of your own ignorance. There is no reason to categorize people as ideologues and purists in this case”
No offence is meant. I’m afraid you do come across as a purist and a little bit non compromising at times.
“Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071008130203.htm#:~:text=Diet%20With%20A%20Little%20Meat%20Uses%20Less%20Land%20Than%20Many%20Vegetarian%20Diets,-Date%3A%20October%2010&text=Summary%3A,this%20efficiency%2C%20new%20research%20suggests.
Although the study shows that a diet with a very modest amount of meat and dairy needs less land than a completely vegan diet.
Personally I think the optimal solution all things considered is a low meat diet. One reason is grasslands beef farming is good at conserving soil carbon, and some land is only really suitable for beef or sheep farming, so it seems sensible to maintain some red meat in the diet. What do you think?
“Regenerative systems would greatly reduce the area given over to meat production because of stacking functions (functions sharing spaces); producing to meet needs, not wants (less meat production overall – even H-G groups eat about 70% vegetarian); many people prefering smaller animals for their systems (few permies I know seek to keep cows preferring smaller, more mobile animals like chocken, ducks, goats, etc., that provide more functions than cows and require less space), etc.”
Good.
“The operative word is “IF”. People like their meat consumption too much I think.”
“For you entire time on this site you have refused to acknowledge the points made by others. You insist on comparing current systems to… current systems, slightly tweaked. That is a fool’s errand bc it solves nothing. What is the point of doing so other than to serve *your* ideological stance and stubborn tendency to always go the most middle-of-the-road, non-reality based route you can? The comparison is moot and foolish if it is not a comparison with actual solutions. The comparison is current vs. regenerative, and the latter you are in no way qualified to discuss.”
Killian I’m just stating the obvious when I said “People like their meat consumption too much (to become vegetarian) I think.” Its one of those things that has to be faced and its going to be very hard to shift. However there are obvious reasons suggest we could get people to adopt at least a low meat diet, particularly red meat. Thats what I generally promote.
Its also not clear that you support vegetarianism because you alleged it uses more land than a standard diet.So maybe you could clarify.
This is a science website. All ideas should be pulled to pieces and stress tested, including new scientific ideas and things like regenerative farming. Thats what science does and we all probably need to get used to it. I participate in general media websites and I do promote regenerative farming there and defend it. Its a different environment. For example stuff.co.nz. Check for yourself.
And I always go out of my way to acknowledge at least some points other people make. For example I have said many times that regenerative farming has its merits.
“Secondly, you also insist on framing everything based on what people want or are willing to do when the framing is an existential crisis. ”
Maybe thats a bad habit of mine, and I will try to refrain in future, but again its just stating the reality, oberving their behaviour and historical trends. Its very frustrating because given the scale of the threat you would think people would be more motivated to act, but they clearly arent. I suggested previously some of the reasons why people are like this. The political and psychological reasons. The way we are hardwired to respond best to short term threats, and I suggested how these impediments could be overcome. Zebra is way more pessimistic about it than me. He appears think we are unlikely to solve the climate problem and at best will reduce it modestly for political and psychological reasons and that theres not much way around this.
“The practical solution is to weld together the best of traditional techniques with the least environmentally destructive parts of industrial farming enough to maintain reasonable productivity.”
“So, we should build a food system that is half poisonous and destructive because you cannot unblinker yourself from your middle-is-always-right ideology?”
It’s not about that. As I pointed out previously regnerative farming looks good in every respect except I’m a bit scpetical about the productivity given that you are dramatically reducing use of pesticides and nitrates etc (from what I understand). We are lacking hard evidence regenerative agriculture would be as productive as industrial agriculture, things like multiple field trials. I think you quoted the self reporting of one single farm which doesn’t really go far enough. As such it looks more likely that regenerative farming might be at least a bit less productive and a combined system may develop that combines regenerative farming with a little bit of industrial agriculture. Dont make the pefect the enemy of the good (Voltaire).
L.O.L..
I notice that you do not deny the ‘truth’ of the ‘theft’?
#253–
Er, no. I’m no nuclear fanboi, as my comment record attests, but it’s absolutely ridiculous to suggest that reactors will be melting down because of declining fossil fuel production. (And on multiple counts, merely the first being that such events would be foreseeable in time for reactors to shut down safely, at which point meltdowns would be impossible.)
And the linked story is even more egregiously wrong. For example, a critical claim is that ‘the IPCC ignored peak oil,’ yet AR5 has this to say:
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/02/ipcc_wg3_ar5_chapter7.pdf
(p. 525)
The comment and reference read like pure FF propaganda.
#204, E-P–
A big part of ‘the answer’ is to stop thinking that there is just ‘one’ answer. Systematic transformation always involves many interacting components. RE will be a large component, and rather an obvious one–but only one among many.
Killian @261
“E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot……..Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.”
That sounds good in principle, but there are some obvious questions. For example what size would these small, localised, decentralised, self sufficient communities be in a State like California? How far apart would they be do you think?
Are you envisioning these communities be newly built greenfields developments in rural locations? Wouldn’t this basically be a return to an expanded small town America? Or would existing cities be adapted and partitioned somehow? Or would it be a combination? This later option seems likely to me.
The problem with adapting existing cities is few of them have enough spare land to be self sufficient in food which leaves a need for substantial reliance on the hinterland and transport.
Whatever form they take, over what time frame would such communities go from zero to perhaps 90% scaled up, do you think? I think you have mentioned ten years before? This would probably limit the option to just adapting existing cities. Its not enough time to build thousands of entirely new communities and their infrastructure in new locations. This would obviously be a large undertaking spanning many decades.
How would the construction of bullet trains and buses be organised? Currently they are made in massive centralised manufacturing centres, not small town America, because this is the most efficient way of doing it. Do you envision still having a few really large communities to manufacture these large vehicles? That would be a possible option, and a sensible compromise. Or would small communities each make one component then the trains are assembled somewhere? This might have potential. How would it work generally do you think?
A technology backbone of medical care and ,long distance transport, R&D, etc sounds good but I’m interested in technology at the scale of a family. Can you write a list in your own words of what electrical appliances and other items you think it would be appropriate to own? Or post a link to one? Bearing in mind that 90% reduction in use of the worlds resources you have posted suggests such a list would be quite different to what people are used to. I am not a profligate spender on technology myself, although I do have my share of gadgetry, so Im open to interesting suggestions.
There will be people resistant to such changes, judging from what I read in our media. They give numerous reasons. How do we overcome this barrier? Just telling them the world is at risk of running out of resources probably wont be enough because people are psychologically wired up to respond strongly to immediate threats not distant threats. Do people have any ideas how we incentivise people to make necessary changes?
Another straw in the wind, as Case sells its first electric backhoes:
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/29/case-announces-industrys-first-electric-backhoe-loader-ny-utilities-take-first-deliveries/
Nuclear power plants are the safest and have highest capacity factors:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2021/03/25/nuclear-power-continues-to-break-records-in-safety-and-generation/
We want to turn off coal and natural gas powered generators, not nuclear powered ones.
However, according to a Michael Bernard,
https://cleantechnica.com/2021/03/29/nuclear-security-represents-4-billion-annual-subsidy-in-us-trillion-for-fleet-for-full-lifecycle/
taxpayers subsidies the nuclear power industry to the tune of about $4B per year. How does that compare to taxpayer subsidies for other forms of generation?
#274, DBB–
Ask and ye shall receive. (Sometimes). Subsidies for various forms of energy production:
https://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2019/09/23/energy-subsidies-renewables-fossil-fuels/
This shows nuclear and RE at par–or par-ish at least–except for 2013.
Though I must say, I’m skeptical about the declining rates of FF subsidy shown in this analysis by the EIA, as that doesn’t accord with what I recall from some other analyses. As the article says, definitional questions abound under this topic.
@270:
So-called “RE” is an unfolding disaster. Here’s a long list of reasons that wind power should probably be tightly restricted and perhaps banished from land sites:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/260561143_Preliminary_studies_on_the_reaction_of_growing_geese_Anser_anser_f_domestica_to_the_proximity_of_wind_turbines
https://sciendo.com/article/10.1515/aoas-2015-0051
https://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/bitstream/handle/10023/9208/Agnew_WindTurbines_JWD_AAM.pdf
https://www.wind-watch.org/documents/wind-turbines-health-ridgelines-and-valleys/
https://vtdigger.org/2010/06/02/doctor-says-wind-turbine-noise-can-harm-health/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23117539/
https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ932840
https://web.archive.org/web/20170516013501/https://oto.wustl.edu/saltlab/Wind-Turbines
http://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=1917a491-4e41-4685-b445-4b15bb005f43
https://acousticstoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Article_7of7_from_ATCODK_8_2.pdf
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0114183
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s40201-015-0225-8
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0095069616304624
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5551191/
https://ntp.niehs.nih.gov/ntp/htdocs/chem_background/exsumpdf/infrasound_508.pdf
Nuclear energy has no known ill effects on public health. Criticality accidents have occurred, but have only affected plant workers.
@274:
He made some extremely questionable assumptions, e.g.
This is ridiculous. The USA has sourced almost all of its nuclear plant components domestically, and could source all uranium domestically as well if there was a need. The USA buys uranium from Kazakhstan and Australia because they are currently the low-cost producers, but the amount of commerce in uranium is trivial. My understanding is that a great deal of AU uranium production is as a byproduct of other mining, and the amount is so small that we could easily fly it in rather than moving it by surface ships which need naval protection.
“They’ve seen the movies. Nuclear is mutant-green and that is unacceptable. When you (Engineer poet) talk nuclear it matters not a whit that you drilled down through the math cuz they saw you coming and put on their noise-canceling headphones.”
When younger I was very anti nuclear power, mostly out of fears about its safety and potential to make bombs. Then I read a popular science article about how it kills fewer people than virtually all other forms of generation. The data was straighforward and hard to argue with. I checked against other sources of course. If this could change my views, why not other peoples views? Yes it wont change everyone’s views because some people are very stubborn and unable to grasp even the simplest data, but I don’t think tha’ts everyone by a long way, and you don’t need 100% agreement on something to get action. Although I think the future will be a mix of nuclear power and solar, wind, hydro, etc, etc.
#276, E-P–
#1–So, prelim indications are that geese shouldn’t be raised within 50 m of a wind turbine. Wow.
#2–Ditto pigs. Double wow.
#3–A little more troubling, but highly preliminary. And it’s interesting that the badgers didn’t leave the setts near turbines. If they were stressed, it wasn’t sufficient to cause them to migrate.
#4–Unpublished, and quite apparently methodologically unsound.
#5–Same as #5, and equally worthless.
#6–Same researcher as #4 & #5, but apparently published. (Possibly a followup study?) Fine, but for a review of more recent literature on the topic, see: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40857-020-00192-4
#7–Polemic and axe-grinding, spiced by actual untruth (“overwhelming evidence”).
#8–Doesn’t actually allege a specific harm.
#9–Ditto. Its claim is merely that there *could be* as yet unknown mechanisms of harm even for sound below the hearing threshold.
#10–Either that’s a busted link, or something weird is going on with my browser…
#11–Infrasound might cause sensations of “haunting.” Now there’s an “unfolding disaster.”
#12–Quoting the actual conclusion: “Exposure to wind turbines does seem to increase the risk of annoyance and self-reported sleep disturbance in a dose-response relationship. There appears, though, to be a tolerable level of around LAeq of 35 dB. Of the many other claimed health effects of wind turbine noise exposure reported in the literature, however, no conclusive evidence could be found.”
#13–A small pilot study found that wind farm workers can suffer sleep disturbance due to noise. However, c.f., “Criticality accidents have occurred, but have only affected plant workers.” So, by E-P’s logic, apparently this study shouldn’t ‘count.’ ;-)
#14–Some people don’t like turbines closer than about 4 km, but after 5 years, they get used to them. (Yes, really!)
#15–Some people choose to sleep with earplugs in, or even add sound insulation to their home. (Oh, the horror!)
#16–A 2001 review about infrasound in general, one not even mentioning turbines.
A highly ‘curated’ collection, and most of it a decade old or more. (The most recent was from 2016, IIRC.) That was a pretty useless Gish gallop, one that certainly didn’t live up to the billing of “unfolding disaster”. But hey, at least E-P made it over the shark.
267 nigelj says:
30 Mar 2021 at 2:33 AM
No offence is meant. I’m afraid you do come across as a purist and a little bit non compromising at times.
No, I don’t. That’s either your bias or your failure to pay attention. I have said soooooo many times this is problem-solving, nothing more, nothing less. It’s about what must be given the facts, not about what I *want.* What do I want? Land and homes on multiple continents, to be retired already, to fly to Paris for a 7-course meal and to SF for a bread bowl filled with clam chowder, etc. I have made this point far too many times for you to repeat this. Why do you think *I* have so often suggested *you* are dishonest? It’s shit like this.
So stop repeating this shit.
“Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody.
This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant. Stop using analyses that have no consideration whatsoever of how a regenerative system functions. We aren’t keeping the current food system, no matter what, so get the fuck over it and stop using CAFO crap as the standard. I posted the nature of regenerative vs current. If you can’t understand why we can produce far more than conventional via regenerative systems by now, it’s because you don’t want to.
Again, food forests. They are self-sustaining food systems that can have up to 9 different foods/resources (lumber, e.g.) growing in the same space a typical orchard grows one. This is not rocket science.
But you ask “where do I get that from?” then say: “Although the study shows that a diet with a very modest amount of meat and dairy needs less land than a completely vegan diet.”
Do you think arguing with yourself is useful here?
Personally I think the optimal solution all things considered is a low meat diet.
Who cares what you think? How is that relevant? And how many times have you been told design is ultimately local, specific to site and conditions? There is no one answer, only the best answer at a given time in a given place for a given people. There is no cookie cutter solution and should not be. I again cite the Masai. Radical veganism says their culture should not exist. That alone shows you how morally and ethically bankrupt it is as a systemic response.
Its also not clear that you support vegetarianism because you alleged it uses more land than a standard diet.So maybe you could clarify.
I care not at all what individuals and specific communities do. That’s for them to sort. What I object to is vegetarian and vegan ideology that they are attempting to force on everyone – but you cannot and should not attempt to legislate ideology. You will always be trampling someone else’s rights and beliefs. As a systemic response, vegetarianism and veganism are maladaptive. Regenerative systems are natural systems. Human systems that do not mimic Nature are inherently maladaptive, and it is that simple. There are many points I could make, but they all rest on that single foundation.
This is a science website. All ideas should be pulled to pieces and stress tested, including new scientific ideas and things like regenerative farming. Thats what science does and we all probably need to get used to it.
Don’t attempt to imply I reject discussion of regenerative systems. I reject you ignoring what you have been told over and over and over and repeating false statements, straw men and false dichotomies. You argue via what you want to be true, not what is true. You frame everything by your assumptions, not the facts. “People want their meat!” Who cares? What matters is *can they have it in a way that does not destroy the ecosystem?* If not, love of meat is fatal. If so, it’s a better future. That is what matters. People will choose one or the other. This is not a point worth even discussing bc it is so blatantly obvious and we have been round and round and round on this. Stop. We all know it’s hard to change. That is not in any way a point that requires any discussion whatsoever, so it plays as a justification for middle roadism, which is what you are doing.
The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? No more “People won’t!” It’s a cop-out that has kept us like rats on this wheel for three years.
As such it looks more likely that regenerative farming might be at least a bit less productive and a combined system may develop that combines regenerative farming with a little bit of industrial agriculture.
See? It’s there in your words: Regenerative farming. No. Regenerative systems. I recently listed a very long list of what that includes. Stop talking about *only* farming; it’s nonsense.
Dont make the pefect the enemy of the good (Voltaire).
That phrase does not apply to an existential threat, it applies to general decision-making in a non-emergency. You are saying don’t let the survivable be the enemy of the half-assed fail, but clearly do not realize that. For example, Voltaire’s quote applies to something like building a new bridge. Maybe a community can efficiently, affordably and quickly build a 100-year bridge, but the engineer is insisting on building a 1,000-year bridge that would be 3x the cost and 3x the time. Here, yes, the perfect is the enemy of the good.
But that is not our context. Our context is the bridge is necessary for survival and there are only resources to build one bridge one time. (It’s metaphorical, so don’t come back at me with buts.) Now, the perfect is the only choice you have and the good is the enemy of long-term survival.
271 nigelj says:
30 Mar 2021 at 4:16 PM
Killian @261
“E.g., if we imagine, as I have suggested, a relatively bucolic localized existence is necessary for humanity, *but* using the minimum possible non-renewable resources to maintain a hi-tech backbone of medical care, long-distance transport, international communications (largely for information sharing), necessary energy, and R&D, then your concern is moot……..Imagine towns having only necessary transport (could be anything from bicycles with carts to horses and wagons to a minimal trolley) connected to other communites via walking, horses, trolleys, boats or light rail, all connected to larger hubs with connections to, say, bullet trains or river/ocean transport.”
That sounds good in principle, but there are some obvious questions. For example what size would these small, localised, decentralised, self sufficient communities be in a State like California? How far apart would they be do you think?
Etc., etc.
It should be obvious by now that these are all design-level questions that can only be answered in situ. There is no magic number for size of a community, how much tech we use, etc. And you are framing it as wants. Why? The question is what is *needed* and what is *possible* over time frame T.
I have repeatedly suggested a pulled-out-my-ass assumption of 2 to 4 generations of very simple societies while we engage in R&D for off-world resource extraction and storage: Garden planet here, resources and waste there. Can we do it in one generation, do we need 10? Is it even possible? I don’t know. We need to figure that out. Simplifying now would give us the time to do just that.
This is my concept for how we make those decisions: https://twitter.com/PermResInitDet/status/1370782329984020482/photo/1
E-P 286: So-called “RE” is an unfolding disaster.
BPL: Yes, it’s a disaster because its continued growth is sealing the grave of nuclear.
And E-P goes on to quote a plethora of “sources” proving his point, very few of which are from peer-reviewed science journals.
Kudos to Kevin for actually having the fortitude to wade through all of E-P’s “sources” and pointing out the problems. I didn’t bother, but I probably should have. It is hard, of course, to counter such a Gish gallop, as Kevin aptly named E-P’s post.
Killian @280
“The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? ”
Exactly. We have to warn people of dangers looming because people are wired up to avoid danger, and convince people of the importance of being in harmony with nature, at least as much as practically possible. But this will never be nearly enough. Ive said this before. To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters. So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies, because this is on peoples radar and people respond to relatively near term reward / punishment. Similar to basic operant conditioning. If we ignore this we are doomed.
People can come up with huge lists of links attacking renewable energy and huge lists of links attacking nuclear power. I’m not sure this achieves much. Its mostly predictable anyway and I don’t read it much anymore. KMs response is good and he has a bit more stamina than me, but we have to elevate discussion above posting cherry picked lists attacking things.
EP@277:
As of 2020: “There are three operating uranium mines in Australia: Ranger in Northern Territory, Olympic Dam in South Australia, and Beverley with Four Mile in South Australia.”
https://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/countries-a-f/appendices/australia-s-uranium-mines.aspx
Together in 2019, they produced 7661 tonnes of U3O8 [same reference], and they are all specifically uranium mines, though they may produce other ores as byproducts. I can’t find any production numbers of uranium from any other mines in Australia. Can you suggest any that would significantly overshadow the production from those mines?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympic_Dam_mine
in South Australia produces, by revenue, 70% copper and only 20% uranium concentrate.
284 nigelj says:
1 Apr 2021 at 4:54 PM
Killian @280
“The question that is worth asking is, assuming whatever vision of the future is under discussion, *how* do we get people to change? ”
Exactly. We have to warn people of dangers looming because people are wired up to avoid danger, and convince people of the importance of being in harmony with nature, at least as much as practically possible. But this will never be nearly enough. Ive said this before. To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters.
Bull. This is a finding based on the present structure of society, which has the attention span of a dog with its tail on fire. But that is not the deep human wiring. In fact, pre-complexity humans based their entire lives on long-term effects of their actions.
I am human: I do so.
Learn to not just gulp down what you are spoonfed to believe. Use your head. 7 generations. That is human nature.
So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies
Like what? None of them are what you consider benefits, so the point is moot. And irrelevant. What you have yet again done is completely ignore the risks as laid out. There’s a sniper aiming at your head. They WILL fire. You do not know when. What do you do, wait to find out?
You don’t want to deal with the risks because they take you too far out of your comfort zone. Just admit that and stop wasting my time repeating these points that are useless. It doesn’t matter what you want. What matters is what is necessary. Your real problem with all this is you still don’t accept those two simple truths: The risk, the necessity to avoid exitential risk.
Until you stop denying the risks and stop making excuses for not taking a risk-based approach to messaging, you will fail to add to these conversations.
You are negotiating with Nature and she’s laughing at you.
Killian @280,
K: “Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Nigelj: “Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
K: “Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody. This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant….”
Nigelj: This doesn’t change the basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet. Just look at the numbers. Lets assume we cut the quantity of meat and fat in half, so we get a very moderate meat diet. You get 1.1 acres per person for this. So this is still at least TWICE the land area required by a typical vegetarian diet. This shows how many physical resources meat based diets use. If we went vegetarian obviously more land would be available and this would help planting trees and improving the productive output of traditional forms of farming.
BUT meat based diets are nutrient dense and calorie rich, humans are omnivores by nature and beef cattle farming conserves carbon, and some land is only really of use for cattle grazing. This is as you would know , but many people don’t. So the optimal solution might be a LOW MEAT DIET.(particularly red meat) as I previously stated! And a low dairy products diet. This still increases the land area available for cropping etc, etc.
Regenerative agriculture is a separate issue to this. It would have its own influences on land area and might make more efficient use of land. But this points to the same outcome: A low meat diet. Which you appear to agree with anyway. Really that’s all I was getting at, namely what level of red meat in the diet is optimal. I would suggest a low meat diet also a “natural ” level of meat consumption consistent with what ancient peoples mostly consumed.
Killian @288
Nigelj: To summarise, humans are wired up psychologically to respond most strongly to relatively short term threats not longer term environmental disasters.”
K: Bull. This is a finding based on the present structure of society, which has the attention span of a dog with its tail on fire. But that is not the deep human wiring. In fact, pre-complexity humans based their entire lives on long-term effects of their actions.
Nigelj: You might be conflating how hunter gatherers respond to distant threats to how they plan for the future. Not quite the same thing, although they plan better for the future than we do. And so what if you are right? The issue is still an impediment to modern humans taking climate action and we don’t know how to change the way modern humans respond to threats psychologically, certainly not in a quick enough time frame to be useful. We don’t have some therapy or pill. We can only accept what we have and work around it as I said.
We should of course still warn people about the dangers. People aren’t COMPLETELY immune from recognising and responding to distant threats.
Nigelj: “So we have to get around this problem by also focusing on the wider short term benefits of change policies”
K “Like what? None of them are what you consider benefits, so the point is moot.”
No. For example I do see some short term benefits in regenerative farming. It can save on fertiliser costs and has other benefits.
“Your real problem with all this is you still don’t accept those two simple truths: The risk, the necessity to avoid existential risk.”
No. I see the risks, notwithstanding the fact some biologists go overboard, for example the NTE people. I’ve always been sensitive to longer term threats. I was reading Alvin Tofflers future shock book when I was a teenager. I’m simply pointing out to everyone that the majority of people are hardwired to respond most strongly to short term threats rather than longer term threats, and we better take this into account and find some work arounds to motivate them.
BPL,
Yes, RE is eating nuclear’s lunch with current market rules. EP, you agree too, right?
But what if renewables had to provide from an alternative source, with nuclear getting paid, say, the same rate as a battery farm to take up the slack as needed?
And when the battery farms run out of juice we go Texas-pure capitalism.
Now who wins?
I think the answer lies with synfuels and biofuels. Both EP and I have developed biofuel systems that could supply significant biolfuel. EP, you did the math. How big a wedge did you estimate?
And synfuels are going to get cheaper and more efficient. PV paint?
I could see humanity getting by, maybe, even if the fear of nuclear kills it. In this scenario hybrid cars become critical components of the system.That’s why I designed the engine.
289 nigelj says:
2 Apr 2021 at 4:24 PM
Killian @280,
K: “Being vegetarian takes more land area, (than a typical meat based diet) not less. ”
Nigelj: “Where did you get that from? It’s is not what the latest science says as follows. “A person following a low-fat vegetarian diet, for example, will need less than half (0.44) an acre per person per year to produce their food,” said Christian Peters, M.S. ’02, Ph.D. ’07, a Cornell postdoctoral associate in crop and soil sciences and lead author of the research. “A high-fat diet with a lot of meat, on the other hand, needs 2.11 acres.”
K: “Again, false dichotomy. First, a Straw Man: High fat with a LOT of meat. Who the hell here is suggesting that? Nobody. This is what “scientists” do when they either are biased or ignorant….”
Nigelj: This doesn’t change the basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet. Just look at the numbers.
I’m losing patience with your dishonesty.
1. What is a meat-based diet? That phrase would mean mostly meat. Who proposes that? Nobody in the realm of sustainability issues. About the only “meat-based diet” there is is Keto and that other one where you eat like a *supposed* “caveman.” Hint: People didn’t eat mostly meat… ever. WE have always eaten omnivorously and a majority being non-meat. So get off this bullshit “meat-based” diet crap.
2. You have no imagination no matter how many times led by the nose to places where you *should* be able to think creatively. Look at the Kogi. They don’t have “farms” per se, they have areas of the jumgle the grow food IN, not separately from. They get their meat FROM the jungle, not a goddamned CAFO-fed supermarket. Now, use your damned head and extrapolate given you *know* I have said the end point for all this is small networks of communities bounded by bio-regions living WITHIN nature.
We’ve had this same effing conversation dozens of times. Just, seriously, stop talking if you can’t be honest.
David B. Benson @287
True enough, but the other two mines, Ranger & Beverly/Four Mile are only listed as mining uranium, and together have higher production of uranium than Olympic Dam, though not by much.
The three mines are generally discussed in the press here as uranium mines, though Olympic Dam is, as you say, a multi-metal mine.
Of the now-closed uranium mines in Australia, it appears the Rum Jungle, Mary Kathleen and Narbelek mines mine only, or primarily, uranium. Radium hill looks like it was primarily uranium and radium, but the ores mined there had other potentially valuable metallic components.
The Westmoreland mine is marked on the Wikipedia map of Australian uranium mines and proposed mines as “closed”, but it appears to be a planned mine (but apparently primarily for uranium).
I still think that the original contention by EP @277 “My understanding is that a great deal of AU uranium production is as a byproduct of other mining” is misleading.
Myself @289, I said “regenerative farming points to the same outcome: A low meat diet.” This is because its not clear that it makes super efficient use of land. It might improve efficiency, but it needs more evidence from independent field trials. But it has enough other merits to be worthwhile.
prl @293 — the
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranger_Uranium_Mine
is closed, so it appears that the press is misleading and Engineer-Poet isn’t so far off.
Killian @292, at no time did I or the research quoted refer to a keto very high meat diet. Its obvious that the study quoted was on a western diet with moderately high meat consumption like the USA average, and cutting that in half with my numbers leads to a moderate meat content probably near what’s typical in Asia. A low meat diet would be a bit lower than that.
Numerous studies show diets with typical meat consumption use more land than vegetarian diets. I don’t understand why anyone would argue with that. Nobody else here is.
@296 Nigelj,
The reason I have not entered into the discussion is because you are both right in a way. But Killian is more right. A properly designed regenerative ag system includes both animals and plants and far outproduces any monocrop system hands down.
Your claims are based on the highly land inefficient systems in common use today, but you actually said, “basic facts that a meat based diet uses more land than a vegetarian diet.” and that’s not a universal fact. It is a highly biased conditional case based on a really poor land management paradigm. They may be true in this particular case, but that is causing land degradation worldwide at unprecedented rates.
https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/soils/use/?cid=nrcs142p2_054028
How many of the studies you are looking at adjusted for degraded land that can no longer be used for food? ??? It’s analogous to grading on a curve and throwing out all the bottom scores where you failed a test, so that you can improve your average and pass.
The type of Agriculture Killian is talking about restores degraded land back into productivity. There really is no comparison, hands down a profound benefit in both yields per acre without throwing away the bottom scores; and carbon sequestration among many other benefits.
Your claim is just barely true for what we have now when degraded land is ignored, but Killian’s claim is true for what happens when proper land management is used. More importantly, we don’t need to grade on a curve to make it true either.
Scott E Strough @297, thanks for the comments. However I was comparing vegetarianism with a traditional sort of diet with typical meat content using the same type of farming, land management and quality of soils, otherwise it gets very confusing. No other reason than that. And on that basis vegetarian diet appears to use significantly less land than a moderate sort of meat based diet. That said I’m not promoting vegetarianism (refer 289.)You have to weigh up a whole lot of things obviously.
Regenerative agriculture may be more productive than traditional industrial agriculture, because of food forests and all that, so this would mean you can maintain a relatively high meat content diet if you wanted. All I’ve said is show me some hard proof regenerative agriculture is more productive than industrial agriculture, like independent field trials and peer reviewed published studies. If Pfizer say their vaccine works because of a, b, and c, nobody is going to accept that even if it seems soundly based. They want hard proof like clinical trials. Why should a new farming system be treated differently?
RC @291:
<shrug> I wind up re-running the numbers every time because it’s easier than trying to dig up my previous work.
Using the NREL estimate of ~1 billion dry (metric) tons of biomass available per year and 45% carbon content by mass, complete conversion of all the carbon to methanol would make 1.2 billion tons of MeOH. This requires very little in the way of processing, just some water and sufficient energy to heat everything to about 1000°C which results in essentially complete conversion to a syngas of CO and H2, followed by MeOH synthesis over an alumina-supported copper catalyst. You can buy turnkey plants which do this.
With a heat of combustion of 22652 kJ/kg (9739 BTU/lb), 1.2 billion tons comes to 2.72e19 J or about 25.8 quadrillion BTU, roughly 1/4 of total US primary energy consumption. With a concerted effort to displace liquid fuels via electrification, that should do it. Also, the MeOH (or DME) provides a ready-made stockpile of energy to use in case of events like the Texas gas-delivery crisis.
I haven’t crunched numbers on the amount of energy required to do the processing and probably won’t have the time until I have another project finished. However, if anyone wants to calculate the energy required to convert 1 kg of biomass plus 0.2 kg of water to syngas at 1000°C, some of which can’t be reclaimed as heat due to the need to quench the syngas to avoid the Boudouard reaction forming CO2 and solid carbon from CO, be my guest.
Here are some links about farming and fishing:
https://bravenewclimate.proboards.com/thread/731/more-less-farming-warming-world