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America Is Using Up Its Groundwater Like There’s No Tomorrow
(www.nytimes.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2023
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That is the way humans have always been and it is not just the USA. I will be dead before the worst affects hit is the justification many think but few are willing to express. Around the world ground water is being used at rates that are thousands of time faster than replenishment.
When the water runs out, mass starvation will soon begin.
But it's not everyone, not always. In Europe we started sustainable forest management in the 18th century, so for at least a couple hundred of years people are acting differently. Why?
Yeah but it started after Europe was basically logged to the ground for wood or agriculture.
Or a big drop in animal agriculture and biofuels
That will also happen but it will not stop the hunger.
Food exports will dry up as countries hold their food for their own people (See: India's ban on rice exports) and the countries that cannot feed their own populations will implode.
The Arab spring started as protests over a jump in food prices.
To think that getting rid of those two things is a silver bullet is naive.
People like to shit on animal agriculture. However, you have to consider that only about 3% of the earth’s entire surface is suitable for agriculture, and even less to grow most of the crops we eat. Animals can be raised on land that’s not suitable for crops. It spreads out where we use our water, which is a good thing. Animal agriculture also gives us a plethora of goods besides just meat, and again, it’s goods from land that otherwise we cannot farm.
As with all things in life, there are better and worse ways to go about it, but animal agriculture isn’t ruining the planet in itself.
Secondly, the problem with biofuels is it should be replaced with nuclear, and getting hungry isn’t going to change that, a lot of people are just going to die from starvation and violence directly caused by starvation.
Let's stop to think about this. The US is farming water intensive crops in the desert. Iowa and surrounding states, some of the best farmland in the world, grows a shitload of corn to make ethanol to add to ICE engine fuel. The energy return on investment is minimal and ethanol trashes small engines that usually aren't designed to run on it.
We could stop farming in the desert and use our premier farm land to grow food instead of for making low quality ICE fuel. We should be phasing out ICE engines as much as possible anyway, so we can get a double whammy here.
I’m not disagreeing with that at all.
Animal agriculture is not ruining the planet itself, yes.
But
Animal Agriculture emits nearly 60% of greenhouse gases from food production.
What proportion of total co2 emissions stem from food production?
About 30% of global co2 emissions come from food production.
the last numbers i saw from fao were closer to 20%
About half of production between that and crops? That’s actually not bad. Not bad besides the total, but that’s a good split imo