[Ibon]

Sometimes its nice to back up statements with some nice clean spreadsheets

https://www.usmef.org/downloads/statist ... xports.pdf

Take a look at the change from januray 2015 to January 2016 in China in the amount of US pork exported to China 514%

You can explore the statistics published and go back for example to 2004 and compare this with 2016. For the month of January for example

Pork exports to China 2004 January 986 metric tons
Pork exports to China 2016 January 9420 metric tons.

OK you guys, go back to your coloquial and provincial discussion....

[Cog]

@dissident

You don't believe that climate change will disproportionately affect the 3rd world countries first, where survival is already balanced on a knife's edge ? Tell me more of this theory.

[vtsnowedin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'S')ometimes its nice to back up statements with some nice clean spreadsheets

https://www.usmef.org/downloads/statist ... xports.pdf

Take a look at the change from januray 2015 to January 2016 in China in the amount of US pork exported to China 514%

You can explore the statistics published and go back for example to 2004 and compare this with 2016. For the month of January for example

Pork exports to China 2004 January 986 metric tons
Pork exports to China 2016 January 9420 metric tons.

OK you guys, go back to your coloquial and provincial discussion....

[ennui2]

All you're describing is the traditional economic case for BAU. We all know there are looming external costs not factored in which are catching up with us.

[dohboi]

Ib wrote: "Most of the world eats grains and beans with small quantities of meat. For economic reasons and also cultural. And it is healthy. "

Nicely put.

As for China, yes, they, and many other populations rising out of third world status, have indeed increased their meat consumption. And diseases that go with these changes in consumption have come along with them. The thing is to start to have more and more models of 'developed country' life styles that do not include things like massive amounts of meat eating, flying, driving and consumption.

Some of us are trying to establish those, while others either sit on the side lines or pour sh!t on those trying to do something (thank for that, folks! ).

(And saying "We shouldn't worry about our meat consumption here, because the Chinese are just going to eat more meat." has the same moral standing as using Chinese as and excuse not to deal with US ff consumption and GHG emissions...basically, a Drumpf move.)

By the way: China's Vegan Population is Largest in the World

http://vegnews.com/articles/page.do?pageId=6392&catId=8

Vegan Food a Growing Trend in China

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/news/vega ... -in-china/

(Yes, those are periodicals with programs, but the wiki page seems to lend support to this claim, since, because most Chinese don't eat any dairy, being vegetarian basically means being vegan, maybe with an egg or two thrown in once in a while. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarianism_by_country
And my bro, who goes to China regularly and travels in foodie/alt ag circles there, confirms that these kinds of trends are on the rise there.)

[dohboi]

Average Chinese meat intake was a fraction of what it is today. http://www.globalmeatnews.com/Industry- ... arly-1970s

And of course many meats cause cancer, among other ailments. http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?N ... 1R089cS4-8

Not to mention kidney damage. http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science/Re ... ey-disease

OK, done feeding trolls for the day.

[dohboi]

Hard to answer incoherent questions, even if I wanted to bother to ftt.

[Newfie]

You didn't answer my question above..

How do you define "save the world."

[dohboi]

pete, what do you mean by 'based'

Including a (by Western standards) tiny amount of meat mostly as a flavoring agent in a diet is not what I would call 'meat based' any more than you would call a culture that uses turmeric as a flavoring agent a 'turmeric based' diet.

If your meaning of 'based' is 'has any tiniest amount of the substance contained in it' then almost all diets are pretty much everything-based.

Newf--I am not the one who said anything about 'save the world.'

Those are the words attributed to the UN by the author of this piece (or more likely by the publicists, since journalists almost never get to compose the titles their own articles).

My view, as I have now repeated many times (do people read these threads, or just crash in and ask brusque questions?), is that a vast reduction in most kinds of meat consumption, with other proper policies in place, would make it at least possible to adequately feed most of the current population while reducing the negative impacts on the environment (=all of us and our progeny).

And yes, again, if proper policies were in place to insure that this does not lead to a (further) population explosion, though, again as I have said above, access to food above a certain bare minimum does not necessarily correspond to extreme increases human population--otherwise the Netherlands would have one of the fastest growing populations in the world while Afghanistan would have the slowest, which is obviously not the case.

[Shaved Monkey]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')
My view, as I have now repeated many times (do people read these threads, or just crash in and ask brusque questions?), is that a vast reduction in most kinds of meat consumption, with other proper policies in place, would make it at least possible to adequately feed most of the current population while reducing the negative impacts on the environment (=all of us and our progeny).

[dohboi]

Again (and again, and again...)--we can't feed the current population on meat diets comparable to Western ones using range fed cattle alone.

Much of modern conventional ag is indeed strip mining the land, just as much modern grazing is.

Both can be done much, much better.

"Grass fed, free range cattle production on marginal land actually improves the soil"

Always? It may be possible that in some narrow instances this is the case, but it is at best a highly controversial claim promoted mostly be someone with a very shaky reputation.

"Diversity is the answer a diversity of food sources that are local sustainable and nutritious."

Yeah, so driving out other top predators, which is what ranchers generally are in favor of, is not a great idea.

"Using everything is part of the solution" Good idea, whatever form of ag or diet you choose.

"Veganism...is...a choice"

For many, of course, veganism and near veganism hasn't been a choice. It has been thrust upon them by circumstance, or is about the only thing they have known.

But because poverty in some cases has forced people to be essentially vegan does not mean that it is the wrong choice for others. Poverty forces many not to drink, or to walk a lot, or to ride a bike...but that is no proof that abstaining from alcohol or walking or biking are unnatural or bizarre or unhealthy choices form people with more means to make. Quite the opposite.

I would really like to hear an actual good argument from the other side, something that I would have to think really hard about, since I actually do like the activity of thinking. But mostly these seem to be the same old tired-out disproven claims, repeated ad nauseum. Don't ya have anything better than that??

Perhaps we have to just agree to disagree and try to get along??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vg5cwSBnyQU

[ennui2]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', '
')"Grass fed, free range cattle production on marginal land actually improves the soil"

Always? It may be possible that in some narrow instances this is the case, but it is at best a highly controversial claim promoted mostly be someone with a very shaky reputation.

[dohboi]

Yeah, I know. I've heard it all before. Cows are not buffaloes. And some lands are more resilient to the compaction of bovine hooves than others. (And really, do you want to entrust the future of the race to an idea promoted in a talk by Ted Turner?? )

Allan Savory is the other guy who has promoted this stuff. Here's one take down of it: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food ... _have.html

And a note on his background--he has advocated "culling large populations of wild animals such as elephants... His research... led to the government culling of 40,000 elephants..."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allan_Savory

Is this the genius you want to entrust the future of the earth to? Suddenly Ted Turner is looking better after all!!

.........

ETA: As a facebook friend recently reminded me: "When the Mongols attacked northern China, the population dropped from 50 million to about 9 million between the censuses taken 30 years apart."

This is the kind of thing we are likely to see repeated over and over again around the world in the coming years/decades. But with modern weapons!!

[ennui2]

Here's a book written about "Regenerative Grazing" by a VT permie. I went to one of his talks about his permaculture setup years ago.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homestea ... 9zhur.aspx

I don't really know how legit this is, but it has its acolytes. I think there's someone other than Savoy who got a fair amount of press back in the day. I forget his name but I think he showed up in an episode of Peak Moment.

As for Ted Turner, he got a LOT of bad press for saying we were headed towards a Malthusian Catastrophe. His talking points are just as doomy as ours. It's just that because he's rich that even doomers ridicule him, because ya know, because "evil'.

[dohboi]

Again, I'm not saying that I know for sure that all grazing is bad. I assume there are ways to do it that are much better than others.

But I do know that you cannot feed the world at Western rates of meat consumption on pasture raised beef.

Those who want to eat beef at that rate should be the biggest enthusiasts for other going vegan.