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whitey delenda est posted:In general meat-talk kind of misses the forest for the trees, there's a 10:1 conversion factor to get calories into meatform regardless, and that's going to be the fundamental problem from an ecological perspective. Even assuming that you're raising animals on otherwise utterly-worthless land, it's a LOT of energy to put in and that's not counting the mechanical requirements of slaughter techniques. To speculate wildly for a bit, in addition to developing novel resource capture and remediation techniques, there's going to need to be some Meat Moderation public health campaigns in developing countries that make the anti-smoking efforts of the last 40 years look like a child's lemonade stand advertisement. I agree that less meat eating would be a good end goal, but there's still a pretty big place for grazing. I mean, there's a lot of grazing in west Texas, and a massive deer population on top of that. Obviously ever environment is different, but grazing animals are a natural part of a lot of environments, and that should be taken into account.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 17:34 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 23:48 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Sure, but it's not just the type of meat that causes the problem. For example, you could have a very dense industrial rabbit farm, with tons of rabbits being fed manufactured food pellets, or you could have a lot of cattle on marginal grazing land that isn't really good for anything else. The biggest issue is that humans tend to strongly prefer beef which is hideously inefficient. From what I understand there is a push for more chicken simply because chicken is more efficient. You get more chicken per pound of feed than you do beef. Dairy is a whole different ball game but the massive demand for beef causes all sorts of issues. Just encouraging eating anything that isn't cow would actually be a big improvement.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 17:41 |
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Yes, that's true. There's too much of a demand for beef. Not going to argue that. Still, when you make policy you have to look at a lot of different issues. There's a certain amount of beef production that's good to have (Since they eat things a lot of other animals can't.) just like there's a specific carrying capacity for every other animals. People tend to want a panacea, like "If we all ate X then it'd be rainbows." but that's rarely the case. edit: Let's take beef as an easy example. The life cycle of beef is kind of complicated, due to a number of factors. Beef's graded in the US based on it's marbling. Different grades have different life cycle requirements. Your average cow that makes steak is raised on a ranch, eating grass and hay for the first part of it's life. Then it's sent off to be finished. Cows are finished on a lot of things. This is where the grain use comes in, but it's not just grain they eat. Cows are fed a lot of by products. They can eat fermented stalks. You see a lot of ethanol and corn syrup by products being used by finishing lots. So, do we want to get people to eat less beef? Sure. But we also want to maintain a steady demand for beef, or other meats that eat the byproducts that finishing lots are using. Then not every finishing lot is going to do things the same way, so making a global policy on it all is hard, let alone a national one. That's just looking at it all from the grain input standpoint. You've got to look at waste run off, methane, and a lot of other things. It's a complicated policy issue, to say the least. For everything we eat. Not just beef. You could look at pigs, chickens, rabbits, or anything else really. One thing that'd help, in addition to a push for less red meat, and less meat in general, is a good analysis of the supply line and how it reacts to changes in the market. Even the numbers are hard to pin down. Does a cow that's fed brewery waste get counted as eating grain? It's not like they're specifically growing the grain for the cow to eat, but at the same time the cow has to eat something, so there is a noticeable demand increase from the cow that effects the prices that effects what farmers grow and how they grow it. Food's complicated. It's going to get a lot more complicated as time goes on. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 18:19 on Jan 20, 2015 |
# ? Jan 20, 2015 17:57 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Yes, that's true. There's too much of a demand for beef. Not going to argue that. Still, when you make policy you have to look at a lot of different issues. There's a certain amount of beef production that's good to have (Since they eat things a lot of other animals can't.) just like there's a specific carrying capacity for every other animals. People tend to want a panacea, like "If we all ate X then it'd be rainbows." but that's rarely the case. I'm not saying that beef is bad in and of itself just that there is too much of it. One of the major issues with food production is that people gravitate toward the "best" food. Part of the issue with food waste, especially in the developed world, is that when you have a poo poo load of options people just won't eat certain things. In the past people happily chowed down on all sorts of things that now make Americans go "gently caress, people ate that?" Even parts of the cow. How many people eat beef tongue? Blood pudding? Black sausage? Pig's feet? As much as people demand beef there are even cuts that aren't in high demand. There's also the status of it; part of eating the $20 steak is saying "I can afford this $20 steak." Buying the cheaper, more sensible steak comes with the connotation of being viewed as poor. Granted I'm kind of an odd duck in that my favorite part is the stew beef cooked in a stir fry but I digress... The hardest part is convincing people, especially the well off, to think more closely about their food choices. If you look at it Americans just don't really. It's all cheeseburgers all the time. Beef is loving everywhere and telling people they should eat less of it is met with outright hostility. I can afford beef so why the gently caress should I care about how it hurts if I eat it? If they can't afford beef then they're lesser than I am and deserve whatever problems it causes. You also see the hostility coming out when you have somebody like Michelle Obama saying "maybe we shouldn't eat so many cheeseburgers and like eat a vegetable sometimes." Some people can be swayed by that argument but more people just flat out don't care or just say "gently caress you" and keep their awful eating habits. I know it isn't all rainbows and sunshine if we all ate X and nothing but X but let's be honest, the American food system is fundamentally broken overall and the massive consumption of beef is part of it.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 18:04 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I agree that less meat eating would be a good end goal, but there's still a pretty big place for grazing. I mean, there's a lot of grazing in west Texas, and a massive deer population on top of that. Obviously ever environment is different, but grazing animals are a natural part of a lot of environments, and that should be taken into account. Totally agree, I am thinking more along the lines of I guess factory meat-eating and its institutions as they exist today. And also what Slurpee here is bringing up. ToxicSlurpee posted:
Yeah this is where I'm heading with the public health interventions. Undoing the "status" of beef specifically, and to a lesser extent meat-eating generally, as a wealth signifier is going to be incredibly challenging. It's also where this field starts to go interdisciplinary with a quickness. Looking for literature on meat eating and social history of the phenomenon is frustrating, because for whatever reason this has been a subject that loonies cotton to EN MASSE. It's like vaccines except bigger.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 18:19 |
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ToxicSlurpee posted:I'm not saying that beef is bad in and of itself just that there is too much of it. One of the major issues with food production is that people gravitate toward the "best" food. Part of the issue with food waste, especially in the developed world, is that when you have a poo poo load of options people just won't eat certain things. In the past people happily chowed down on all sorts of things that now make Americans go "gently caress, people ate that?" Even parts of the cow. How many people eat beef tongue? Blood pudding? Black sausage? Pig's feet? As much as people demand beef there are even cuts that aren't in high demand. There's also the status of it; part of eating the $20 steak is saying "I can afford this $20 steak." Buying the cheaper, more sensible steak comes with the connotation of being viewed as poor. Granted I'm kind of an odd duck in that my favorite part is the stew beef cooked in a stir fry but I digress... I expanded my post a little while you replied, and touched on that a little. That said, I'm from Texas, so pigs feet, cow stomach stew (Menudo), and a lot of those 'icky' foods are alive and well down here. Not that it discounts your point. People in the south eat those sorts of things because they're poorer, and I agree that availability tends to whittle down choices over time in the population. However, I'd disagree that America's system is broken, at least compared to a lot of the world. I think it could sure as hell be a whole lot better, but America has a lot going for it when it comes to conservation and farming. There's more the government could be doing, and I think we'll see more as time goes on. Also, you're equating a number of loud mouths and their opinions to the entire populace, and that's not the best way to look at things. whitey delenda est posted:Yeah this is where I'm heading with the public health interventions. Undoing the "status" of beef specifically, and to a lesser extent meat-eating generally, as a wealth signifier is going to be incredibly challenging. It's also where this field starts to go interdisciplinary with a quickness. Looking for literature on meat eating and social history of the phenomenon is frustrating, because for whatever reason this has been a subject that loonies cotton to EN MASSE. It's like vaccines except bigger. Tell me about it. It's drat hard to find a good article to back much of anything up any way with out getting a lot of fringe woo from all sides on the matter.
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# ? Jan 20, 2015 18:24 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:I expanded my post a little while you replied, and touched on that a little. That said, I'm from Texas, so pigs feet, cow stomach stew (Menudo), and a lot of those 'icky' foods are alive and well down here. Not that it discounts your point. People in the south eat those sorts of things because they're poorer, and I agree that availability tends to whittle down choices over time in the population. I think location and local culture also factors into it a lot as well. I live in PA and there are a lot of people who turn up their noses at all sorts of things that are perfectly edible (and, dare I say, loving delicious if made right) and outright refuse to try them. Classism is part of it in that certain foods are associated with the poor but the other issues are part of it too. Most people I've spoken to that I've told about blood sausage are absolutely horrified at the idea of eating blood. I tried it, poo poo's good, but it's tremendously difficult to find just because nobody buys it. Then you have the Amish. They'll eat practically anything and make a point of not wasting food even though they're generally not poor at all. They tend to be wealthy enough that they could afford to eat only "good" food but culturally they make a point of eating the whole loving cow if they decide to eat a cow. There are people that think that that is incredibly strange. Why would you eat X part, that's gross? Well, because X part is edible and if you cook it right it's tasty. Why would you not eat X part? A lot of America does have a strange relationship with food. I've introduced a lot of people to various Polish foods and the reactions are sometimes similar; often the ingredients are things that are dirt rear end cheap to buy and the food will look kind of icky but the poo poo is good. Haluski is one that comes to mind. The way I know to make it is basically cabbage, butter, onions, and noodles. Pretty cheap to make a whole big pot of and fantastic but I've met way too many people that won't eat it because it's not "good" food. There are some people that are also thoroughly baffled that I make a point of not eating meat most days and rarely eat beef. A typical American diet has meat with every meal which is way, way more meat than the human body needs. Well technically the human body doesn't need meat at all but that's a different story entirely.
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# ? Jan 21, 2015 23:46 |
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Yeah, although when we're talking about the food supply as a whole it's alright if some people are picky, the parts get eaten by other people in other regions. Just because all everyone in one state wants to eat are steaks doesn't mean that the entire cow isn't getting used. As far as eating meat, eh, I wouldn't want to give it up. I could probably do with eating less. I think as far as policy goes we should focus on efficiency and conservation of resources. I'm more concerned with making sure that run off from ranches isn't an issue, or the over use of water isn't going to be a problem than I am with making people eat less in the US. We aren't starving from a lack of food at this point, and I'd rather work the system into one that makes sure we won't be starving rather than preparing the population for a future with scarce food.
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# ? Jan 21, 2015 23:55 |
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I think people are heavily undervaluing marketing in this thread was when marketing shapes our reality. Plenty of humans have (and do) strongly prefer sheep and goat to beef. But beef has fantastic marketing. Lots of other less than efficient things are the same, because they both can afford to market and because they must market. Spending marketing money to make other things good could work quite well. Sure, rare ouxacan grasshoppers would retail at forty dollars a pound, but these other, almost as good grasshoppers are only ten dollars a pound. And these every day grasshoppers are only fifty cents a pound. There is already a movement to rediscover flavor in food, not to hide spoilage but to celebrate it. I think it would be easy to aggressively market towards that and include some very sustainable foodstuffs. Couple it initially with yuppie eroticism and you've got a powerful campaign. We just need someone to finance it. And that's the rub.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 00:09 |
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Shbobdb posted:There is already a movement to rediscover flavor in food, not to hide spoilage but to celebrate it. I think it would be easy to aggressively market towards that and include some very sustainable foodstuffs. Couple it initially with yuppie eroticism and you've got a powerful campaign. Botulinum is organic! It's nature reclaiming factory-processed food! Make it a part of yourself!
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 00:15 |
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Discendo Vox posted:Botulinum is organic! It's nature reclaiming factory-processed food! Make it a part of yourself! Oddly enough there are actually a lot of foods that remain perfectly edible and don't end up with botulism well beyond traditional sell by dates. There are also odd little rules about what foods are edible how long beyond their sell by dates. Depends on the food but some stuff keeps longer than the box says. Granted you can also boil meat and make it edible even if it's so rotten it has maggots. Which you can also boil and eat, apparently. Part of that looks back to Americas incredible, irrational fear of germs and tendency to sue everybody for any reason at all. Food safety standards can sometimes fly direct into the region of insanity. ToxicSlurpee fucked around with this message at 03:15 on Jan 22, 2015 |
# ? Jan 22, 2015 03:12 |
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Having worked in food safety for a number of years, you sound like you're full of poo poo. E Coli, salmonella, listeria, and tuberculosis for you raw milk assholes aren't diseases to take lightly.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 03:30 |
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I know the food labeling regs. Most expiration dates have absolutely nothing to do with them, they're voluntary aside from some patchy state laws- FDA product purity regulation is a different regime. As such, they have nothing to do with "odd little rules", "food safety standards", or America's "incredible, irrational fear of germs". That said, they're the only such metric present for most such products, and they are, for meat, dairy, and most processed fruit and vegetable products produced in the US, usually based on a lab-tested predicted average date of spoilage, plus CI, plus a safety margin. Consuming food past the listed date places you within that normal distribution. You will not be able to taste or smell the contaminant before it is present in sufficient volumes to effect you.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 03:31 |
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Yeah, food safety is one of those things you don't want to gently caress around with. We're not starving, so you won't be saving any lives by convincing people to eat spoiled food. You will, however, end up killing a non zero amount of people. The calculus doesn't add up.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 13:19 |
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Way not to read the previous paragraph and way not to understand context. Since you can't seem to handle any ambiguity in the written word, I'll help. The "it" refers not to "spoilage" but to "flavor". Better now?
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 13:39 |
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Shbobdb posted:Way not to read the previous paragraph and way not to understand context. Since you can't seem to handle any ambiguity in the written word, I'll help. The "it" refers not to "spoilage" but to "flavor". It'd be better if you could construct your sentences appropriately because that paragraph break should be used there specifically to detach the context from that of the previous graph, and there is no other way to read what you wrote. While we're not being tremendous assholes, though, I agree that the public health aspect (what you're calling marketing because that's pretty much what it is) will be formidable. Beef and Milk have powerful lobbies specifically in the United States, but I don't think "yuppies" would be an appropriate, shrinking, target. Stereotypically those people probably are already vaguely aware of the issue, and the challenge is not to arrest the behavior of those engaged in it, but to prevent that behavior from becoming established in the first place.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 15:02 |
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Yeah, that's a bad sentence right there. I think it might be missing a comma, or just not well put together. I'd probably just remove the spoilage part all together. It doesn't add anything to the sentence, and comes out of left field. You introduce spoilage and never refer to spoilage again. What purpose does it add to an otherwise functional idea of "People are discovering other flavors in food besides the traditional milquetoast western ones."? Either way, most people were responding to Toxic, not you. edit: Also, yuppies are a terrible target. They're picky, horrible eaters who would just as soon rally against efficient meat processing because it's gross and unnatural as they would rally around eating grasshoppers. Never mind the fact that grasshoppers aren't really a solution to anything. If you're that concerned about the efficiency of food then just get people to eat plant protein, which is more efficient than eating bugs. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 16:01 on Jan 22, 2015 |
# ? Jan 22, 2015 15:57 |
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Oh yes, one big exception to a lack of federal regs on expiration dates- infant formula.
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# ? Jan 22, 2015 16:47 |
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ToxicSlurpee posted:The biggest issue is that humans tend to strongly prefer beef which is hideously inefficient. From what I understand there is a push for more chicken simply because chicken is more efficient. You get more chicken per pound of feed than you do beef. Dairy is a whole different ball game but the massive demand for beef causes all sorts of issues. Just encouraging eating anything that isn't cow would actually be a big improvement. Don't generalize white Americans preference for beef onto a global population. Pork is such a big deal in China that the government has a strategic pork reserve to smooth out shocks in supply.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 00:44 |
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Peven Stan posted:Don't generalize white Americans preference for beef onto a global population. Pork is such a big deal in China that the government has a strategic pork reserve to smooth out shocks in supply. Won't need to generalize, the beef industry will project tastes onto people for us. Pork is a big deal in China because it's a big place. and for decades pork was basically and traditionally the only meat available cuz of lack of space to graze ruminants, but as it continues to westernize and import feed grains you'll see others take off.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 04:22 |
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whitey delenda est posted:Won't need to generalize, the beef industry will project tastes onto people for us. There are still other options. I mean there's a reason why KFC is more popular than McDonalds in China.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 11:16 |
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whitey delenda est posted:Won't need to generalize, the beef industry will project tastes onto people for us. A lot of old school Han people like my mom hate the taste of ruminants. You can work up a slick marketing campaign but that doesn't change long seated cultural attitudes towards beef and lamb as ethnic meats for the Halal market.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 19:14 |
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Peven Stan posted:A lot of old school Han people like my mom hate the taste of ruminants. You can work up a slick marketing campaign but that doesn't change long seated cultural attitudes towards beef and lamb as ethnic meats for the Halal market. A billion people eating more pork is less bad than a billion people eating more beef, so that's alright.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 20:16 |
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blowfish posted:A billion people eating more pork is less bad than a billion people eating more beef, so that's alright. Yeah and after some quick googling, USDA has some predictions and data saying that chicken consumption is actually picking up faster'n beef is in China. It'd be interesting if the phenomenon went in reverse, even pork is more efficient per pound of feed than beef is.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 20:24 |
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If any one wants to know anything about the nuts and bolts of the logistics of grain being shipped internationally in bulk on vessels, let me know. Just don't expect quick in depth responses immediately, life is busy. But if I see a question I'll get to it eventually, even if it takes me a week or two.whitey delenda est posted:Yeah and after some quick googling, USDA has some predictions and data saying that chicken consumption is actually picking up faster'n beef is in China. This is driving the expansion of the reefer capacity in Garden City Terminal in Georgia (Georgia has a great state run port system.) It's growing really fast, and yep Asian demand is driving it. http://www.gaports.com/PortofSavannah/GardenCityTerminal/Reefer.aspx I wouldn't expect it to slow down. They certainly aren't planning as if it's going to slow down.
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# ? Jan 23, 2015 21:11 |
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BrandorKP posted:If any one wants to know anything about the nuts and bolts of the logistics of grain being shipped internationally in bulk on vessels, let me know. Let me know. Everything. Tell me everything. I am serious. Don't tease your infoposts man, I'm getting forums-learning blueballs here.
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# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:12 |
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Peven Stan posted:A lot of old school Han people like my mom hate the taste of ruminants. You can work up a slick marketing campaign but that doesn't change long seated cultural attitudes towards beef and lamb as ethnic meats for the Halal market. One of my girlfriends' friends told me once how they only ever got their beef and lamb from Muslims (I think Hui?) and how that was a still a thing even today.
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# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:19 |
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Discendo Vox posted:Let me know. Everything. Tell me everything. I am serious. Don't tease your infoposts man, I'm getting forums-learning blueballs here. This sounds very interesting.
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# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:33 |
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BrandorKP posted:If any one wants to know anything about the nuts and bolts of the logistics of grain being shipped internationally in bulk on vessels, let me know. Would this include loss from corruption/theft? Cause I know in my home country theres a system for how each step can skim off the top without getting caught; and how much of a pain it is for everyone (or atleast the shipping company) when someone messes up/doesnt follow the procedure. (Just dont ask me to explain if you arent, I just overheard it from a distant branch of the family while at reunions.)
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# ? Feb 2, 2015 20:50 |
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Bit of a necro for my own thread to cross post an article from the ol' Climate Change thread: The current state of California agriculture is basically hosed and it's tied directly to the energy economy of large scale ecosystems. A nice object lesson that I'm sure zero people will internalize and go forward to utilize. Freshwater usage in the country is split about 40/40/20 between power generation, irrigation, and public use respectively. The touted solution of large-scale desalination plants buttressing public water systems in California only shifts the burden of that usage towards power generation: boiling or filtering salt out of water takes a lot of electricity and creates a lot of waste. Without commensurately enormous increases in (water-preserving, low-impact) energy generation, desalination is pretty well a non starter for any but the wealthiest municipalities. It also doesn't fundamentally address the problem, because you're going after the smallest fraction of general water use. It doesn't help that California makes about a third of the entire country's food. There's going to be serious shocks to produce prices on the horizon in 2 years or so if the problem isn't seriously addressed. I'm going to guess that the eventual "solution" will be something along the lines of just cannibalizing surface and aquifer freshwater sources further and further north. Too bad the snowpack in the PNW is also at record low levels this year. As an update on the work I'm doing, our work in general has been stunted pretty seriously by lovely weather here in South Carolina. It was only in the last ten days that we started accumulating sufficient degree-days to get our winter wheat past tillering stages. We're about 2 or 3 weeks of growth behind where the same plots were last year. The Southeast in general has been the only place in the country that's been colder than average all winter! And to hit the ol' D&D trifecta with this post, I just finished a journal article that invoked Agenda 21 in the first paragraph hahaha
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:11 |
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Thermometric water use can be a little deceptive though. A lot of it goes back into the source after being run through cooling ponds/towers. You can also use salt water if you need to. Not to discount how much water is used to run turbines, but it's a situation where a lot of it is recovered. Indeed, you can see how we've become more efficent with water use from generation as time has gone on, and the amount of withdraws have remained relatively constant for the past few decades. Then again, public use has a lot of recovery that could be done was well. Irrigation is probably the worst offender, particularly in very arid areas. I've never been sold on farming in arid areas. California is productive, but at a pretty big cost.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:32 |
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whitey delenda est posted:Bit of a necro for my own thread to cross post an article from the ol' Climate Change thread: I read something about underwater desalination, where the membranes are placed a thousand feet under the ocean and the pressure does most of the work. Even without that though, solar power is becoming cheaper everyday, and the power generated from that can be used to desalinate water more cleanly.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:51 |
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enraged_camel posted:I read something about underwater desalination, where the membranes are placed a thousand feet under the ocean and the pressure does most of the work. Sure, we can use all the water we desalinate to clean the mirrors and panels on the solar plants. edit: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy11osti/50900.pdf This is a good overview of the difference between withdrawing water and consumption of water for various types of power generation, with an eye towards renewable sources. Killer-of-Lawyers fucked around with this message at 21:17 on Mar 17, 2015 |
# ? Mar 17, 2015 20:54 |
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reading the last few pages, the only solutions put forward are PR campaigns within The Free Market. do you guys really think this is the best we can do to achieve food security?
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:46 |
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Xipe Totec posted:reading the last few pages, the only solutions put forward are PR campaigns within The Free Market. Obviously to achieve food security we need to ban GMOs and nuclear power.
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:48 |
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Xipe Totec posted:reading the last few pages, the only solutions put forward are PR campaigns within The Free Market. You're right, we should try full communism (TM).
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# ? Mar 17, 2015 23:54 |
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Bitcoin agroconomics. Gold doesn't tarnish- it's the only staple crop. Discendo Vox fucked around with this message at 00:41 on Mar 18, 2015 |
# ? Mar 18, 2015 00:00 |
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Discendo Vox posted:Bitcoin agroconomics. Can we get some brain marbles on this problem?!
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 00:27 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:You're right, we should try full communism (TM). A Five Year Plan sounds like exactly what our agriculture sector needs...
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 00:45 |
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# ? Apr 28, 2024 23:48 |
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Killer-of-Lawyers posted:Can we get some brain marbles on this problem?! If only there was a decentralized attention based food source. Maybe those sun worshipers have it figured out after all.
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# ? Mar 18, 2015 03:40 |