Given that 80% of all agricultural land is used to feed and raise animals
that’s not a given, though. about 93% of all soybeans are used by humans, but about 77% of the cropweight is fed to animals. how can this be reconciled? because we press about 85% of the soybeans for oil, and the byproduct is fed to animals. so we can’t say 77% of the land used to grow soybeans is used for animals. 93% is for humans. this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole.
edit:
and it should come as no surprise that poore-nemecek has also infected this link as well.
Fair enough. The whole world changing their diet in a short time frame is a fictional scenario with many unknowns anyway. We might as well use some of the area and convert it from soy to palm oil or lower our overall food oil usage, if we are changing our diet anyway.
this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole
My focus is more on the ethical side, trying to point out that the system as a whole is abusing and exploiting innocent beings for economical gain. That the way we feed ourselves has a huge ecological impact, however large it may be exactly, is more of a side note.
poore-nemecek is bad science that misused LCA data and drew wild conclusions by, as i said, myopically distilling disparate studies with disparate methodology into discrete datapoints. we cannot rely on this methodology to understand the industry.
that’s not a given, though. about 93% of all soybeans are used by humans, but about 77% of the cropweight is fed to animals. how can this be reconciled? because we press about 85% of the soybeans for oil, and the byproduct is fed to animals. so we can’t say 77% of the land used to grow soybeans is used for animals. 93% is for humans. this myopic focus on distilling all facets of the industry into discrete datapoints fails to understand the system as a whole.
edit:
and it should come as no surprise that poore-nemecek has also infected this link as well.
Fair enough. The whole world changing their diet in a short time frame is a fictional scenario with many unknowns anyway. We might as well use some of the area and convert it from soy to palm oil or lower our overall food oil usage, if we are changing our diet anyway.
My focus is more on the ethical side, trying to point out that the system as a whole is abusing and exploiting innocent beings for economical gain. That the way we feed ourselves has a huge ecological impact, however large it may be exactly, is more of a side note.
Care to elaborate?
poore-nemecek is bad science that misused LCA data and drew wild conclusions by, as i said, myopically distilling disparate studies with disparate methodology into discrete datapoints. we cannot rely on this methodology to understand the industry.