Hacker News Reader

> We had meat and heating before petrol, why would you expect it to go away?

We had _some_ meat before petrol (when my parents were kids in the 1950s, sundays were special because they had meat, the 18th century won't have been better). And since the start of the industrial revolution, world population has increased about sevenfold.

View on HN

"Industrial revolution" is a loose concept, it started at different time in different places and didn't really become runaway before mass petrol.

For us colder northern countries, population didn't change that much since the coming of petrol. Maybe 1,5x increase in all. Definitely not sevenfold.

The industrial revolution is the point at which we began to use a lot of fossil fuel, first coal and later petrol. It may be different times in different places but it's more or less equivalent to the "before petrol" I was replying to. That was also different times in different places.

And I bet those colder northern countries import much of their meat these days, so it's not much use to make this about local matters only.

You can probably try to outlaw international meat trade. Still, colder countries are okay-ish for cattle actually, and you can grow chickens pretty much anywhere.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com