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The value of conservation can't be overstated. "Waste Not, Want Not" is always a good policy.
But organizations like this Global Footprint Network pervert the concept with lies and outlandish solutions that detract from their own credibility and repel those who could be positively influenced by more wisely stated educational efforts.
Arguments against their lies:
Food- meat is a highly concentrated form of nutrition compared to plants and can be grown on marginal land unsuited for crops. It takes more petroleum to raise and ship veggies than meat. Meat animals are grown on pastureland that simulates (or uses) natural prairie. Growing plants for food destroys natural, bio-diverse ecosystems.
Population- not really a lie, per se, but population control is a cornerstone of the agenda of the One World, totalitarian movement. Dehumanizing.
Energy- reducing carbon footprint has exactly no empirical evidence to support its benefit on the environment and is on shaky theoretical ground as a benefit. The downside of curtailment of fossil fuels on economic, health and convenience factors is huge.
Cities- ??? They make a statement completely unsupported by fact or even theory.
"In countries like the United States, a rampant over-consumption is eating up our resources faster than the planet can replenish them, and the debt to the planet is being paid through climate change, drought and wildlife extinction, Feldstein added."--- The climate is not changing any faster than is natural. There is no more drought than usual. (they're apparently incorrectly equating local lack of good drinking water with drought) and species are not going extinct any faster than in earlier years, despite the oft-repeated myth of "a sixth extinction." We've lost only 200 species in the last 400 yrs. (look it up.)
Everybody knows that some resources (notably fossil fuels) are completely non renewable. In the case of non renewable resources, we would “overshoot” immediately after 12:00 AM on Jan 1.
Farming and animal husbandry have been going on for millennia; as far as I know those practices are sustainable (although the petroleum-dependent parts of it certainly aren’t).
Everybody knows that some resources (notably fossil fuels) are completely non renewable. In the case of non renewable resources, we would “overshoot” immediately after 12:00 AM on Jan 1.
Farming and animal husbandry have been going on for millennia; as far as I know those practices are sustainable (although the petroleum-dependent parts of it certainly aren’t).
I've yet to find any natural resource that is in danger of depletion in the next century or so. Even fossil fuels, when considered as a whole, will be available for centuries.
I was really concerned about the depletion of petroleum. Until early in this century, petroleum reserves were on schedule to be depleted within 100 yrs. Given that modern industrial food production is so dependent on ICEs, and that our population, 7.5 B and growing, is dependent on continued industrially produced farm yields, depletion of oil would mean a more or less sudden drop in the carry capacity-- that would lead to massive starvation, social instability, crisis etc etc.
BUT (and we have a big but here) fracking has opened up enough petroleum & natural gas supply to last many centuries.
Everybody knows that some resources (notably fossil fuels) are completely non renewable. In the case of non renewable resources, we would “overshoot” immediately after 12:00 AM on Jan 1.
Farming and animal husbandry have been going on for millennia; as far as I know those practices are sustainable (although the petroleum-dependent parts of it certainly aren’t).
We raise animals now in very different manner than we did for the previous 5000 years. The intensive confinement systems we are currently using may not be sustainable. If those structures lose electricity, animals begin to die within minutes.
... If those structures lose electricity, animals begin to die within minutes.
That may be a bit of an exaggeration. Even the tilapia grown in tanks relying on electric pumps for aeration would have many hours before they suffocated. Loss of electricity would be an inconvenience for the producer but would hardly affect cattle, swine, sheep or chickens at all.
CAFOs have only been around for about 50 yrs and are economically efficient, a major reason our meat is so inexpensive, but we could survive nicely without them, producing our protein the way we did prior to 1965.
It's common for the TreeHuggers to lament that modern ag technology is not sustainable, but that's clearly not true. All living things depend on the cyclic nature of the factors upon which they live-- carbon cycle, nitrogen cycle, water cycle etc. The weakest link there is the dependence of hi yield ag on commercially produced fertilizer, fixing N into NH3 via the Haber process, an energy intensive process using methane... but then, there's too much methane in the air anyways, right?
Tilapia my live a while, pigs and chickens start dying within a couple of minutes. A house full of dead chickens isn't a fun place to clean. How well the microeconomics work isn't the question. Cotton in the arid west makes economic sense when water is available and cheap, but aquifers have finite capacity. In science world we call that unsustainable even if you currently can make a buck doing it. l
Tilapia my live a while, pigs and chickens start dying within a couple of minutes. l
??? You're going to have to explain that one. You must be talking about chickens & pigs with polio requiring Iron Lungs to breathe.
And 70% of the planet is covered with water. We just need to get rid of the regulations that make reverse osmosis economically unfeasible. Israel has been selling excess fresh water produced this way to the Arabs for the past several yrs.
Oh boy, here we go again. Population increases are unsustainable. And, we are witnessing one of the greatest of extinctions due to our greed, stupidity and laziness. Sheesh. We have messed with the planet enough.
??? You're going to have to explain that one. You must be talking about chickens & pigs with polio requiring Iron Lungs to breathe.
And 70% of the planet is covered with water. We just need to get rid of the regulations that make reverse osmosis economically unfeasible. Israel has been selling excess fresh water produced this way to the Arabs for the past several yrs.
It's impossible to explain things to you. You are immune to education. It is none the less true that ventilation is absolutely critical in intensive animal confinement facilities.
Oh boy, here we go again. Population increases are unsustainable. And, we are witnessing one of the greatest of extinctions due to our greed, stupidity and laziness. Sheesh. We have messed with the planet enough.
Funny.
Verify these statements yourself. It's easy with a search engine:
-there are one million species on Earth
-the average "life expectancy" of a species is one million yrs
-ergo, we can statistically expect one species to go extinct each year.
-in fact, however, we have documented the extinction of only 200 species in the last 400 yrs, and most of those were more than a century ago. (ie- rate of o.5/yr-- less than expected.....Don't confuse local eradication due to habitat loss with extinction.
In the "great extinctions" 70-90% of species were lost, including whole genera and even phylla. The so called Sixth Extinction is a myth used to advance the Watermelon Agenda.
ps/ We're not talking about sustaining population growth, only sustaining food production. Population growth can usually be described with the logistic equation (the N-K Model) and a maximum population is eventually attained at the carrying capacity- the point at which the birth & death rates are equal and in balance with resource availability.
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 06-15-2018 at 09:17 AM..
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