Comment by myshpa | Hacker News Reader

Comment by myshpa | Hacker News Reader

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> We increased crop yields multifold already

With catastrophic effects.

https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/research-news/2...

All planetary boundaries mapped out for the first time, six of nine crossed

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/320356605_Agricultu...

Agriculture production as a major driver of the Earth system exceeding planetary boundaries

Most of it is because of animal agriculture - it uses 80% of agriculture land and about half of our crops.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...

> Could we breed trees which capture more CO2?

We don't have to breed new trees. The ones we have are enough.

We have enough space to capture 2+x more CO2 than we've released into the atmosphere since industrial revolution.

We could switch to plant-based diets and free an area the size of both Americas.

https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...

On that land a regular primeval forest, Miyawayki/Amazon/Syntropic style would grow 10x faster than regular monocultures and that would also enable the biodiversity to rebound. We'd get ourselves out of overshoot in no time (given few decades, of course).

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4

https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-opportunity-costs-food

The overshoot threatens our civilization with crop failures. The only realistic way out of it is immediate phase-out of fossil fuels and plant-based diets.

https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471

> The overshoot threatens our civilization with crop failures. The only realistic way out of it is immediate phase-out of fossil fuels

An "immediate phase-out of fossil fuels" would kill a billion people or more right off the bat. Do you not understand that, or do you simply not care?

https://www.agry.purdue.edu/ext/corn/news/timeless/images/US...

See how corn yield has increased from around 20 bushels/acre to nearly 180?

That extra 160 bushels of corn per acre is due almost exclusively to fossil fuels and other modern agricultural practices.

That extra 160 bushels is also what feeds a substantial portion of the planet.

The same is true of other crops such as wheat. In the last hundred years or so, the Kansas wheat crop has gone from 12-13 bushels per acre to well over 30 (40 in a good year).

That didn't happen with a peasant poking animal manure into the ground with a digging stick. It happened with tractors, combine harvesters, and petrochemical-derived fertilizers.

> immediate phase-out of fossil fuels

I meant it not as right now, but as soon as possible.

> See how corn yield has increased from around 20 bushels/acre to nearly 180?

> The same is true of other crops such as wheat

Just 7-10% of that corn is for human consumption, the rest is animal feed and biofuls.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/06/corn-industries-susta...

Corn based ethanol is worse for the climate than gasoline.

https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/us-corn-based-e...

Most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans - nearly half of all grain is either burned as fuel or eaten by animals

https://web.archive.org/web/20230204130304/https://www.econo...

> It happened with tractors, combine harvesters, and petrochemical-derived fertilizers.

Yes, that's the destructive part.

We should instead switch to local methods of regenerative farming, like syntropic/natural/permaculture farming, which might be more labour and knowledge intensive, but when done right have similar yields, while repairing soils and working with biodiversity, not against it.

I agree with most of what you wrote above. The ludicrous amount of resources used for growing animals for food is totally non-value adding and harmful to the environment as a whole. That said I'm not a vegetarian - my diet is based on industrila logistics - I eat the protein that the supermarket logistics chain provide to our neighbourhood.

"The only realistic way out of it is immediate phase-out of fossil fuels and plant-based diets."

The suggestion for a global plant based diet is not unfeasible. Only thing you need is to convince the elites to change to vegetarianism. One of the large scale "hari seldon" style rules of thumb are that the non-elites will generally imitate the perceived lifestyles of the elites to the best of their abilities. This is not a physics or engineering problem, but a marketing problem and hence not impossible to solve.

I disagree we can immediately phase-out fossil fuels. They are foundational to the whole global industry including agriculture. I agree we should, but this is an engineering problem that has not yet been solved.

> That said I'm not a vegetarian - my diet is based on industrila logistics - I eat the protein that the supermarket logistics chain provide to our neighbourhood.

Directly associating “protein” with animal products and implicitly assuming protein is something we should be at all worried about when there hasn’t been a report of “protein deficiency” ever are a big part of the problem.

I can’t assume this is your case but I’ve still to meet a person who brings this up and has no access to, for example, beans or lentils. A quick google search will offer many more alternatives, although it’ll also consistently bring up the fact protein is something that should hardly ever be on your mind.

You do have to actively and periodically watch your vitamins though, which we all tend to have less than what we need, and lower-than-healthy vitamins for long periods can do irreparable damage in the long term.

You do have to watch your B12 when switching to a vegetarian diet, not because animals naturally produce it but because they are generally supplemented with it; but low B12 is also pretty common in meat eaters. By the time you feel the symptoms it’s already dangerously low.

I’m not looking to attack you — I just don’t want random people reading unfounded reasons not to go vegetarian and unconsciously believing them.

> Only thing you need is to convince the elites to change to vegetarianism.

Maybe, but what others decide to do or not does not prevent individuals from doing their part. Just by changing your habits and living your life you’ll influence people. You’ll get to patiently answer honest questions, show off amazing recipes that will wipe away preconceived culinary notions, etc. Your friends, after years of seeing you well, will stop thinking “omg they must lack protein” or “they must be rich to be able to afford veggies”

Bottom-up works too, and I’d even think it’s usually the way to go with all society-scale changes. Waiting for someone else to do something generally leads nowhere good. Also, a ton of famous people are already openly vegan or vegetarian.

But, Mey gains bro, I'm bulking up, need that protein bro.

there hasn’t been a report of “protein deficiency” ever

There definitely is

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kwashiorkor

> Only thing you need is to convince the elites to change to vegetarianism

I think that abolisment of subsidies to most destructive and polluting sectors (fossil fuels, animal agriculture, fishing, ...) would get us a long way.

> They are foundational to the whole global industry including agriculture

Agree.

So we use what we have to expedite the switch to renewables and reform agriculture for sustainable production less dependent on chemicals and poisons.

The peak oil is not that far away.

Your two quotes don't follow:

> We increased crop yields multifold already

With catastrophic effects.

> Most of it is because of animal agriculture.

The animals need to be fed - a great deal of crop yield goes into making meat.

> two quotes don't follow

They do.

A significant influence on those increases was thanks to fertilizers, insecticides, and herbicides. This goes hand in hand with water pollution and biodiversity loss, exemplified by dead zones in oceans and an 80% decline in insect populations in the last few decades.

Improvements in irrigation systems have led to the depletion of our aquifers, which were filled over many millennia, and their renewal may take centuries.

Mechanization and soil management lead to soil erosion; maybe only a few decades of soil remain until we lose all of it.

Less than 50% of our crops are for human consumption; the rest is used as animal feed and biofuels.

As example most soy is used by animal agriculture.

One way to reduce the amount of soy grown is to eat more soy.

I misread that at first too, but animal agriculture. i.e. stuff grown for fodder. It's more efficient to fuel a human on food grown in the ground than on an animal fed on food grown in the ground.

(I'm not vegan or otherwise promoting absolutes, it's just easier to explain/understand in the extreme I think.)

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