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And people will still say that the meat/dairy industry aren’t a plague
What? There are lots of legitimate complaints about the meat and dairy industries, but almost all that land being used for them is arid, rocky wasteland that has a cow wander over it twice a year. That’s not actually even on the list of problems with those industries.
Ugh, I accidentally deleted my previous comment when trying to edit, sorry for the double reply.
Original reply:
You think that the amount of land being dedicated to making food for livestock dwarfing the amount of land dedicated to feeding people is not a legitimate complaint?
Edit: eyeballing it, we use twice as much land (and as a result, water, energy, etc used in the farming process) making food for livestock (ie, food for what will become food) as we do making food for us
No. No. That’s completely wrong. That’s not what I think, because it doesn’t make any sense. There are no crops that can be effectively and cheaply grown in rocky, arid wasteland. If we weren’t using it to let cattle graze, it would be wild land being grazed by buffalo instead. Now, maybe you could argue that would still be better, but it wouldn’t be growing food for humans any more efficiently. Buffalo aren’t actually any more efficient than cattle at producing meat, and nobody’s hauling water up to into the high Rockies to irrigate rocks. That’s not a real thing that people would be doing if cattle weren’t grazing there.
There is a dedicated section for “pasture/range” which is the grazing space you’re talking about. I am not talking about that. I’m talking about the section for “livestock feed” which is crop growth.
That’s fair. I guess I misunderstood. Sorry. Yeah, it would be nice if that part were smaller. It’s still not a perfect one to one comparison. Feed crops do actually tend to use less other resources. Sometimes a lot less, depending on the crop you’re comparing them to, but yeah, it’s a lot of land that could be growing things for humans, and there’s more of it than there needs to be. Sorry. You are right about that.
All good, glad we smoothed that over :)
it’s not actually clear how much of that land is exclusively for growing animal feed, and how much of that land is being attributed to animal feed, which is also used for human food. for instance, a soybean is only about 20% oil. about that much is used by humans. The other 80% of the soybean is a byproduct of pressing for oil called soy cake. that soy cake is fed to livestock, but if it weren’t fed to livestock, it would be industrial waste. is 80% of soybean land use to grow food for livestock? no. 100% of it is used to grow food for people, and food for livestock. and we feed cottonseed to cattle, but cotton isn’t grown for cottonseed: it’s grown for textiles. is that land being attributed? I’ve read the article is carefully as I can, and it doesn’t seem to make this nuance at all.
You think that the amount of land being dedicated to making food for livestock dwarfing the amount of land dedicated to feeding people is not a legitimate complaint?
Gotta see one of these with parking.
It would be a subset of “urban commercial”, right? Somewhere in the range of half to three-quarters of it?
Depends how these are defined. Public parking or on-street parking are likely in a different category, not to mention people’s driveways.
is Alaska included? or are we just ignored because of our small population?
Probably ignored as that would skew the data making think that the US is still one big wilderness.
No, we use it to vote.
Get rid of livestock
I would love to flip the railroad usage and cow pasture usage.
Also, mfs drinking too much corn syrup.
beautiful
theresa tiny part thats for maple syrup
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So nice of the 100 largest land owning families to have the same amount of land as the entire urban or rural housing population of the rest of the country. I assume it’s to fatten themselves up for the rest of us just like the cows.
When do we get to eat them again?
Shit I’m hungry now I’ll start the smoker
Very interesting! Now do one for EU, please.
This makes my eyes bleed
Can we put the 100 largest landowning families in Florida, then saw it off from the rest of the country?
no need to saw, when invasive species and the ocean is taking over. because florida loves to import all the illegal exotic animals, they got plenty reptiles, giant snails, giant rats. the latter 2 both carry nasty parasites.
Giant rats? I don’t believe they exist
Shit, there are landlords in the snails?
Defense is a surprisingly large use of land. How is that? Can anyone explain the most land intensive uses of the Armed Forces? Like tank training areas maybe?
Mikitary bases are pretty big. Air force, army, national guard, naval air stations, naval bases, there is a lot going on there.
Can’t forget that military bases are communities where people live, too. Not just barracks and mess halls for individuals, but there are full neighborhoods and shopping centers for families.*
*My knowledge on this is limited, I just remember visiting a family member on base when I was younger.
This is correct
It seems a little inefficient to put all the airports together
Its really not so bad once you get over the 12 hour drive.
God I miss living in the west.
Man that guy Urban needs so many houses… What does he even do with them all?
