Comment by moremetadata | Hacker News Reader

Comment by moremetadata | Hacker News Reader

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No they can poop on the field, but what you are lacking in many fields today is any form of shelter beit from trees or some other type of building for adverse weather conditions. Once the pasture got wet, with too many animals on it got destroyed, turned into mud and then you got your mini dustbowls.

Animals will seek shelter if its available, but fields are a man made thing, much of the planet used to be covered in trees but the agrarian society started off this planets deforestation, which is being repeated in parts of the world today like the Amazon.

Not only that but that shed poop besides being compostable also served as a source of fire fuel which is still used today in parts of Africa.

Ideally we would have plenty of pasture for animals to graze on, because even dairy herds will go and get milked when they want and not when the farmer schedules. This is a behaviour that's been seen in some dairy factory farms with automated milkers, the elephant in the room is we dont have enough planet earths in which to feed todays human and pet population unless we go all vegetarian or ramp up the production of lab grown meat.

In 2008 a US lifestyle needed 4 or 5 planet earths, today some suggestions put that as high as 8 planet earths, where as UK and Europe have remained mainly the same, ie a UK lifestyle needs 2.5 planet Earths and a European lifestyle needs 2 planet Earths.

That's the elephant in the room!

I think we're mixing a lot of different things there and moving from one thing to the next.

I like decomposing things. Not in the poop rotting sense but in the divide and conquer sense.

    1. Wet pasture with too many animals can destroy the pasture.

Sure. Put less animals. Also, make better pasture, i.e. pasture that is not grazed down to 1/4" with almost no protective function of the grass/roots. Move the animals well before it reaches that level and you prevents dustbowls in different ways. One of them being that the sun can't actually reach the soil. You basically never want sun touching bare soil on your pasture.

    2. Shelter

Now this is very true. And it's bad for the animals if they have no shelter. They heat up beyond levels that are healthy for them and they will use more water, which both increases your water needs as well as your labour needs to get water to them. Or resource inputs to lay pipe to get the water to them, which requires maintenance etc. I guess you get the point / know already. So yes, divide the huge fields into smaller fields that are lined with trees that the animals can naturally gravitate towards when needed.

    3. Poop as fuel

The poop as fuel is collected wherever it happens to turn up. Which in said parts of Africa can be on a large dustbowl.

    4. Not enough earths

I think this is overstated sometimes. Yes, if we use the US farming practices it's probably true. There are alternatives. Unfortunately I don't know the name. I saw this documentary on a flight quite a while ago.

Basically many of these parts of Africa that can't feed themselves were able to do so just fine before the westeners arrived and removed all the trees and made fields out of everything. Now it's barren earth. There was that one guy who - over lots of years and twists and turns I don't remember exactly any more - who figured out that the trees they bulldozed are not actually gone. The root system is still there. Below the surface and if you protect the tiny branches that appear from time to time from animals these grow back into beautiful trees that create shade for people, animals and further growth. He basically went around the villages, talking to elders that still remember the old times, making them his allies to teach children and younger adults to care for the tiny trees and to nurture them back to full growth / life. That was quite a while ago and it works. Many many villages can now feed themselves again.

All that to say: they basically went from a situation where even 10 "earths" worth of the situation they had would not have sufficed, a single earth worth of properly managed trees and ecosystem is perfectly capable of feeding them.

> Sure. Put less animals. So how do feed the Human population? Either force everyone to become vegetarian to free up the land or start reducing the population through stealth means, reducing lifestpans or invest in new technologies which can regreen the deserts as seen in places like Ethiopia or the deserts in the middle east?

Fish stocks are already not as abundant and the temperate shifts seen in the oceans is affecting fish stock in territorial waters. During the mini ice age which ended in 1857(^), the colder water saw cod stock which is highly temperature sensitive (likes 7DegC water) move down towards the UK. (^)This is why the media show global warming starting from this point in time.

Stealth means, GM crops like soy beans which have reduced omega3 content to reduce the soy beans going rancid as quickly, mean the neutrophil immune system in humans and lifestock feeding on this will be rendered less effective due to less omega3 intake. Ergo more drugs needed, great for chemical companies, and makes me wonder why govt's even bother!?!

>Yes, if we use the US farming practices it's probably true.

Global Warming. Despite the fact that CO2 levels mean more for vegetation and less need for fertilisers, because the co2 level on this planet have been way way higher, I think over double what they are today, the difference with the past, is humans need more space so that homeostasis with co2 levels and vegetation is broken.

Personally, I dont know why more isnt spent pumping desalinated water into the deserts especially considering the solar cells that could provide shelter for deserts, around the Sahara or the middle east. Would the reflection of solar cells affect the upper atmosphere much? I dont know, but cant be any more disruptive than ionosphere heaters pushing the ionosphere out into space causing leo satellites to crash to earth when they encounter atmosphere in their path.

>a single earth worth of properly managed trees and ecosystem is perfectly capable of feeding them.

Provided the human population is managed. Its only exploded in line with the discovery of oil, before then the human population was either under a billion or arond a billion or two.

    So how do feed the Human population?

If you mismanage the resource you have, you will not be able to feed said human population. A dustbowl feeds 0 people. This is what happens in said parts of Africa. The well managed pasture or well managed tree'd Africa feeds whatever number > 0 it feeds. Bulldozing it all may feed some more people initially, especially w/ petroleum based fertilizer, causing population growth. Until it turns into said dustbowl and now you have an African country that is dependent on imports to survive and people are still suffering and dying of hunger. That's also what I meant with the single earth being capable of feeding these people. With the dustbowl American bulldozers created in Africa, they are dependent on imports of corn and rice and wheat. With trees growing again they can graze livestock and plant traditional millet that is well adapted to their parts of the world and feed themselves again.

    Stealth means ... great for chemical companies

I'd first go with Occam's Razor here. The simplest answer is probably that it's not a conspiracy but pure and simple greed. That's also where people like Gabe Brown might be able to get to people. While it creates healthy soil and is "good for the environment", in the talks I've seen he specifically touts the profits he's making with his methods. This might be the one 'trick' that works in the end.

    I dont know why more isnt spent pumping desalinated water into the deserts

I've like to come back to the previous exhibit of Occam's Razor and money and greed. None of that seems like it's particularly cheap, effective - what would 'flooding the desert' actually do? - or making any money.

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