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Utopia Talk / Politics / Food in the Anthropocene
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 16 17:48:22
http://www...S0140-6736(18)31788-4/fulltext

(perhaps behind a freewall)

Executive summary
Food systems have the potential to nurture human health and support environmental sustainability; however, they are currently threatening both. Providing a growing global population with healthy diets from sustainable food systems is an immediate challenge. Although global food production of calories has kept pace with population growth, more than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume low-quality diets that cause micronutrient deficiencies and contribute to a substantial rise in the incidence of diet-related obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases, including coronary heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. Unhealthy diets pose a greater risk to morbidity and mortality than does unsafe sex, and alcohol, drug, and tobacco use combined. Because much of the world's population is inadequately nourished and many environmental systems and processes are pushed beyond safe boundaries by food production, a global transformation of the food system is urgently needed.
The absence of scientific targets for achieving healthy diets from sustainable food systems has been hindering large-scale and coordinated efforts to transform the global food system. This Commission brings together 19 Commissioners and 18 coauthors from 16 counties in various fields of human health, agriculture, political sciences, and environmental sustainability to develop global scientific targets based on the best evidence available for healthy diets and sustainable food production. These global targets define a safe operating space for food systems that allow us to assess which diets and food production practices will help ensure that the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Paris Agreement are achieved.

• View related content for this article
We quantitatively describe a universal healthy reference diet to provide a basis for estimating the health and environmental effects of adopting an alternative diet to standard current diets, many of which are high in unhealthy foods. Scientific targets for a healthy reference diet are based on extensive literature on foods, dietary patterns, and health outcomes. This healthy reference diet largely consists of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and unsaturated oils, includes a low to moderate amount of seafood and poultry, and includes no or a low quantity of red meat, processed meat, added sugar, refined grains, and starchy vegetables. The global average intake of healthy foods is substantially lower than the reference diet intake, whereas overconsumption of unhealthy foods is increasing. Using several approaches, we found with a high level of certainty that global adoption of the reference dietary pattern would provide major health benefits, including a large reduction in total mortality.
The Commission integrates, with quantification of universal healthy diets, global scientific targets for sustainable food systems, and aims to provide scientific boundaries to reduce environmental degradation caused by food production at all scales. Scientific targets for the safe operating space of food systems were established for six key Earth system processes. Strong evidence indicates that food production is among the largest drivers of global environmental change by contributing to climate change, biodiversity loss, freshwater use, interference with the global nitrogen and phosphorus cycles, and land-system change (and chemical pollution, which is not assessed in this Commission). Food production depends on continued functioning of biophysical systems and processes to regulate and maintain a stable Earth system; therefore, these systems and processes provide a set of globally systemic indicators of sustainable food production. The Commission concludes that quantitative scientific targets constitute universal and scalable planetary boundaries for the food system. However, the uncertainty range for these food boundaries remains high because of the inherent complexity in Earth system dynamics.
Diets inextricably link human health and environmental sustainability. The scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food systems are integrated into a common framework, the safe operating space for food systems, so that win-win diets (ie, healthy and environmentally sustainable) can be identified. We propose that this framework is universal for all food cultures and production systems in the world, with a high potential of local adaptation and scalability.
Application of this framework to future projections of world development indicates that food systems can provide healthy diets (ie, reference diet) for an estimated global population of about 10 billion people by 2050 and remain within a safe operating space. However, even small increases in consumption of red meat or dairy foods would make this goal difficult or impossible to achieve. Within boundaries of food production, the reference diet can be adapted to make meals that are consistent with food cultures and cuisines of all regions of the world.

============

Triggered?
jergul
large member
Wed Jan 16 17:51:31
Key messages

1 Unhealthy and unsustainably produced food poses a global risk to people and the planet. More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death and morbidity. Moreover, global food production is the largest pressure caused by humans on Earth, threatening local ecosystems and the stability of the Earth system.

2 Current dietary trends, combined with projected population growth to about 10 billion by 2050, will exacerbate risks to people and planet. The global burden of non-communicable diseases is predicted to worsen and the effects of food production on greenhouse-gas emissions, nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, biodiversity loss, and water and land use will reduce the stability of the Earth system.

3 Transformation to healthy diets from sustainable food systems is necessary to achieve the UN Sustainable Development Goals and the Paris Agreement, and scientific targets for healthy diets and sustainable food production are needed to guide a Great Food Transformation.

4 Healthy diets have an appropriate caloric intake and consist of a diversity of plant-based foods, low amounts of animal source foods, unsaturated rather than saturated fats, and small amounts of refined grains, highly processed foods, and added sugars.

5 Transformation to healthy diets by 2050 will require substantial dietary shifts, including a greater than 50% reduction in global consumption of unhealthy foods, such as red meat and sugar, and a greater than 100% increase in consumption of healthy foods, such as nuts, fruits, vegetables, and legumes. However, the changes needed differ greatly by region.

6 Dietary changes from current diets to healthy diets are likely to substantially benefit human health, averting about 10·8–11·6 million deaths per year, a reduction of 19·0–23·6%.

7 With food production causing major global environmental risks, sustainable food production needs to operate within the safe operating space for food systems at all scales on Earth. Therefore, sustainable food production for about 10 billion people should use no additional land, safeguard existing biodiversity, reduce consumptive water use and manage water responsibly, substantially reduce nitrogen and phosphorus pollution, produce zero carbon dioxide emissions, and cause no further increase in methane and nitrous oxide emissions.

8 Transformation to sustainable food production by 2050 will require at least a 75% reduction of yield gaps, global redistribution of nitrogen and phosphorus fertiliser use, recycling of phosphorus, radical improvements in efficiency of fertiliser and water use, rapid implementation of agricultural mitigation options to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, adoption of land management practices that shift agriculture from a carbon source to sink, and a fundamental shift in production priorities.

9 The scientific targets for healthy diets from sustainable food systems are intertwined with all UN Sustainable Development Goals. For example, achieving these targets will depend on providing high-quality primary health care that integrates family planning and education on healthy diets. These targets and the Sustainable Development Goals on freshwater, climate, land, oceans, and biodiversity will be achieved through strong commitment to global partnerships and actions.

10 Achieving healthy diets from sustainable food systems for everyone will require substantial shifts towards healthy dietary patterns, large reductions in food losses and waste, and major improvements in food production practices. This universal goal for all humans is within reach but will require adoption of scientific targets by all sectors to stimulate a range of actions from individuals and organisations working in all sectors and at all scales.

==========

Triggered!
Average Ameriacn
Member
Wed Jan 16 18:33:29
First they take away our guns, then our burgers!
McKobb
Member
Wed Jan 16 18:44:31
Ain't gonna happen.
kargen
Member
Wed Jan 16 19:43:01
I hope you dug this up from some decades old archive. We've known for a long time bad food makes us fat and all food uses some kind of resource.

Is this UN project going to end up like UNICEF where millions of dollars in funds goes missing or is misappropriated time and time again?

Sure we need to work to conserve water and all kinds of other stuff but the UN isn't the answer.

Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 00:12:57
Are you ready to cut down your consumption pf whale meat and sea food? Your were proscribing this a couple of years ago, have you realized that fishing fleets vacuuming the oceans isn’t sustainable?
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 00:40:20
Kargen
The study was released a few hours ago. Its not even 12 hours old.

Nimi
Whales are outside of the scope of the study.
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 00:46:22
"Fish" consumption is however under target in all regions of the world.

"Figure 1 Diet gap between dietary patterns in 2016 and reference diet intakes of food"

That dovetails nicely with my understanding. The issues with seafood relates to industrial practices more than it does actual per capita consumption.

jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 00:52:35
http://www.bbc.com/news/health-46865204

A BBC story about the study.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 01:21:21
You need a study to figure it out?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 01:29:59
The labratory meat will be cheaper and mass produced before billions of people change their eating habits. There are alot of idiotic assumption in these models, one being that all land currently used for agricultur is suitable for anything but pasture. When they are not, that means cutting down woodlands and turning wildlands into arable land for cultuvation.
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 03:14:19
Nimi
Yes, we needed the study. Quantifying properely is good.

CO2 from meat production follows a hockey stick. Production based on grazing is low impact and gives the 10 grams of beef per day per person for 10 billion people.

The "idiotic" assumption would thus be that food production currently being given animals be instead used for human consumption (so less soy bean production and more kidney bean production).

The other assumption is that we cannot increase the amount of agricultural land currently used.

It could very well be that synthetic proteins have their place. It depends on the input needed (it making little difference if 10 kg soy beans need to pass through a cow to make a kg meat, or if the the same ratio is gained manufacturing the proteins sythetically).

The study assumes significant improvement in production practices. Which could cover anything from eating insects, to offal (cows do have many parts we used to eat more of), so synthetically produces meat surrogates.

In sum: the only idiotic assumption I see is yours in thinking the study is easy to nitpick.
kargen
Member
Thu Jan 17 03:36:17
They need to reconsider nuts. Some varieties of nuts use almost as much water as beef does.

We have a better chance of terraforming and colonizing another planet than getting the planet to switch to that diet.

The PBS article doesn't mention it but about the only way to increase food production without increasing land use will be by utilizing genetically modified crops. My guess is the same people generating this study are the ones that have been spreading doom and gloom about genetically modified foods so that will be tough for them to swallow.
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 03:56:48
Kargen
The main thing is to stop using farmland to feed cattle.

A serving of almonds consumes 23 gallons of water (the thirstiest of all nuts). A serving of beef consumes 625 gallons.

GM plays a part in "significant improvement in production practices" Monocultures however do not.

You are demonstrating the value of such studies. So many misconceptions.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 06:25:32
lol no. Grassland used for pasture are not all suitable for growing things other than what grows there for cows to eat. Not all animals are fed soybeans and corn (another assumption that is false) and they are certainly not fed this all year.

”The other assumption is that we cannot increase the amount of agricultural land currently used.”

Read again.
We can increase the size of arable land, at the expense of whatever is growing on the land suitable for cultivation. That is what I said. Rice for instance staple food suitable for certain environment. You can’t grow wheat and potatoes everywhere. This is the level of understanding you had when I tried to explain the fate of the reduction of different biomes to enclaves, ”byt what about the northern parts of Sweden? The ecosystems are recovering.” LOL :)

I have exceeded my care budget.
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 06:57:01
lol. Learn to read.

Grassland used for pasture is what allows meat production at all in the recommendations.

The study does not suggest repurposing grazing land.

You exceeded your comprehension budget way before your care balance.

Also, searching the archives indicates a high care factor.

You are such an emo.
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 06:59:43
"We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply" (some other source).

Are you starting to get the picture?
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 07:12:15
The study could easily tied in other aspects.

The fact is, the agro-industrial complex is operating with lots of exceptions from best practices.

Simply enforcing ethical standards on animal treatment and removing polution exceptions would go a long way in bringing beef production down to sustainable levels.

I am not against mass production per se, but not all animals are well suited. It is far easier to humanely treat poultry than it is cattle.
hood
Member
Thu Jan 17 07:26:39
Why does jergul try to be so toxically masculine? He needs to watch a Gillette commercial.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 10:06:28
Hood
According to the theory it is to make of for lacking ability. It fits nicely with someone who thinks you need the archives to remember a conversation 2 months ago. lol :)
Sam Adams
Member
Thu Jan 17 11:14:41

"We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply" (some other source).

Thats what industrial corn is for, duh
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 11:24:45
Sammy
Duh indeed. Nimi was struggling with the idea that cattle consumed anything other than grass, while in fact, less than 1/3rd of their feed come from grazelands.

He is a bit slow, so it can be vexing typing things out for him.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 12:45:51
For the past 2 years the majority of meat I have eaten has been game meat. The cow meat I have eaten has been KRAV certified, which means the cows are mostly grassfed. Soy and corn feed are collectivly called ”kraftfoder” (power feed). I have done alot of home work on this since food is something I care alot about. So I understand very well how much of what cows eat when the meat is certified or not, max 25% power feed. You on the other hand have close to zero understanding for global food production and ecology which you have now shown twice. The provincial thinking of an arctic goat herder who needs studies to tie his shoes. löl :)
jergul
large member
Thu Jan 17 14:18:48
Nimi
You failed repeatedly to understand it in this thread.

Your personal habits are as relevant as what fodder concentrates are called in Swedish.

The majority of meat you have eaten is almost certainly poultry. Followed perhaps by farmed deer (which you are calling "game" for reasons known only to yourself), but I would still bet you are underestimating the amount of beef you are being fed.

I will not mention pork to avoid insulting your religious and cultural sensibilities.

I was also saddened to see you are not offered a warm lunch at your workplace (with the obvious impact that would have on the types of meat you consume).
kargen
Member
Thu Jan 17 15:15:10
Jergul according to an LA Times article one ounce of almonds takes 97.2 gallons of water. One ounce of beef takes 106.3 gallons. The LA Times got their numbers from the UNESCO U.S. Institute for Water Education for U.S. averages. While I don't trust UN studies nor the UN itself I doubt they would fudge the numbers in the beef industries favor. What is your source for the numbers you provided?

And this study doesn't show us anything we haven't already known for a long long time. They went in with an agenda and conducted their "study" accordingly.

To save water and land we should all eat more rabbit. An ounce of rabbit meat would take a little over 20 gallons of water coming in under other meats and most nuts. They are better than chickens or turkey because less antibiotics and hormones are needed/used in producing rabbit meat and rabbit shit is more friendly to the environment than chicken shit. Also rabbits do not include grain in their diet cutting down on the need for growing grain. An added bonus rabbit meat tastes really good!

The problems this study and others are trying to fix include hunger, pollution, climate change and some other things. We all know what the cause of these problems is. To many people. If we adopted this diet according to the study people would live longer potentially saving 11 million people a year. So basically this is kicking the can down the road. We have to many people. The obvious solution is less people on the planet.

The fix is either have everybody that lives within forty miles of the coastline swim off into the oceans and seas and drown or find a way to colonize another planet.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 16:11:38
Some crops are suitable for hydroponics, hydroponics is actually water conservative due to minimal loss to evaporation and circular containment. Water will not be a big issue, advances have been made and will be made with desalination.

http://www...eases/2018/01/180102171113.htm
hood
Member
Thu Jan 17 18:18:50
"The fix is either have everybody that lives within forty miles of the coastline swim off into the oceans and seas and drown"

The stupidity is amazing.
Sam Adams
Member
Thu Jan 17 18:54:12
It is trivial to get our planet to produce food for 10B people. We currently do it easily for 7B and yields keep increasing, without any real effort to optimize for surface area.

We could probably get it up to 20B without too much problem too.
kargen
Member
Thu Jan 17 19:00:00
hood the cause to all those problems is too many people. Of course we can't expect forty percent of the population to simply swim to their deaths. We do have to consider though that at some point and time we will run out of room.

And it didn't escape me that you cut your quote short. You know I am right about the population even if my comment was off the cuff.
hood
Member
Thu Jan 17 20:47:03
I cut out the colonizing another planet bit, ooooooooooh! that TOTALLY changed the comment!


"You know I am right about the population"

Not really. We'd have to reach about 4x the current population to really have trouble feeding people. Growth is slowing.
kargen
Member
Thu Jan 17 21:39:45
Nowhere did I say we were at our limit for feeding people. I said for a variety of problems our population is part of the cause. As the population increases we become a bigger part of the cause. I also mentioned kicking the can down the road. Do you know what that means?
hood
Member
Thu Jan 17 21:59:26
Too many people isn't the cause of any of what you mentioned. The only major concern with too many people would be feeding them. Pollution and climate change are pretty easily solvable for the right amount of $$$. It wouldn't even be all that expensive, all things considered.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Thu Jan 17 23:56:20
Yes I think hood is correct. Which brings me to the prognosis. The species and ecosystems of this planet are fucked. We can live here, we are even working on sucking CO2 out of the air and burn it as fuel (it just needs to be made cheaper), if we fuck up the amazons and plakton O2-CO2 cycle, we can probably solve that as well. All it requires is energy. But the Amazons, the Jaguar, the green arrow frog, the great white shark, the siberian tiger etc. they will not make it the way the trend line is pointing. The need for arable land, and Chinese viagra pills, all the human shit activity compounded by global warming.

Just make sure we can eat and breath so we can work on restoring things, eventually...
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 00:20:18
It's not even that we can't protect or even rebuild the ecosystems. It's that we aren't trying in any legitimate way and we aren't putting the focus into weaning/cutting ourselves off of the eco-intensive energy sources. Once you get energy under control, everything becomes easier, including food production.

There's isn't even a reason we couldn't use vertical space for farming once we've made the energy clean enough that it's feasible. Energy is really our limiting factor. Well, energy and the major economy surrounding it.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 00:50:06
Kargen
One ounce of almonds is far more energy dense than beef. Hence the seeming discrepancy.

To "save the planet", see the study's recommendations.

Or where you disputing that following the study's recommendations would dramatically reduce water use?

Nimi
The study assumes huge improvements in best practices. Hydroponics is part of that.

I would be more optimistic. The study has a longlivity component. People that follow its advice will have a greater impact on decisions by virtue of living longer and voting more.

Hood
We do have enough agricultural land to produce food for humans. The problem is overproduction of meat. As the study clearly identifies.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 00:57:52
jergul baby, do try to keep up.
kargen
Member
Fri Jan 18 01:58:43
"Too many people isn't the cause of any of what you mentioned. The only major concern with too many people would be feeding them. Pollution and climate change are pretty easily solvable for the right amount of $$$. It wouldn't even be all that expensive, all things considered."

I agree for now. This is suppose to be a forward thinking study though. That is why I said can down the road.

Jergul I am saying most of what that study points out has been known for a very long time and they are just making new recommendations.

Even with innovations in farming you still have the huge hurdle of changing the mindset of the world. That was the problem back in the 1970s when change was suggested (probably farther back but I was here in the 70s) and has been a problem since.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 06:31:04
Hood
And to the extent that we can point to recovery (right now), it is in low pop density, low bio diversity, high wealth countries.

Vertical farming, yes! Vertical hydroponics, even in cities (on roofs). I have done this myself with strawberries :) It saves land. But it isn't suitable for most stable foods, say potatoes, that need to grow under groud. I don't think there is a pancea, may small solutions.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 06:31:21
*many
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 07:00:41
Kargen
The unique thing about the study is that is shows how a healthy diet dovetails with sustainable land use.

The mindset of the world is pretty much geared towards a sustainable diet. In the sense that this is what most people eat.

The problem is mostly policy, not mindset. Meat is artificially cheap through subsidy and exemptions from good practices, so of course we eat a lot of it.

We should be worried when Chinese and Russian vetrinarian import inspections are the main enforcement branch of agricultural standards.

Hood
The problem is not lack of agricultural land. The problem is misuse of agricultural land.

All kinds of things contribute to increasing agricultural productivity. Fair enough that you want to focus on the minutae there, but it is hardly a worthy focal point.

Try to keep your eye on the big picture, mkay, buddy?
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 07:42:50
"The problem is not lack of agricultural land."

We weren't discussing lack of agricultural land, you dim witted fuck nugget. As I said, do try to keep up.


Nim:
It doesn't need to solve every plant, it was just a quick example. My point was simply that we either have or are just a few years away from having all of the technology we need to clean up energy production (and thus the major source of pollution and climate change drivers). Once we solve that, the rest of kargen's problems would fall into place pretty easily. The only real hurdle overpopulation creates is finding the food to feed them. As has been demonstrated, food isn't the issue right now. It likely wouldn't be an issue until we started approaching the 25-30 billion people mark.


And growing strawberries sounds cool. Were they tasty?
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 08:10:17
Hood
You see, I don't actually care what you and nimi were "discussing" beyond it being a bit off-tangent and hence my drawing the focus back on to the germaine.

Population will peak at 11 billion according to best estimates. And available agricultural land will remain a serious grounds for concern for as long as much of it is misappropriate for feed production.

You are such a dumb-ass.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 08:38:51
"You see, I don't actually care what you and nimi were "discussing""

Then butt the fuck out, dipshit.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 09:33:10
Hood
No. Its a distraction of almost incaculable orders of magnitude.

Clean energy does not equal free energy and never will. Nor is the question of energy storage (a key energy problem) even close to being resolved.

To raise to issues that might help you grasp the scale.

Say global agriculture needs 100 liters of water per year. How many micrograms of that is currently provided by desalination plants.

Say global agriculture needs 1 m2 of space. How many nanometers2 are currently done in vertical hydroponics?

The point being is that of course those kinds of technologies have their place in the basket the study assumes must occur to reach sustainability.

But they are not the solution. The solution is to use agricultural land to produce crops for human consumption.

Everything else is supplemental because the planet is huge and there are a fuckload of humans.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 10:00:26
You're such a whining vagina.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 10:02:45
Hood
You seem triggered.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 10:04:24
Only one of us is bitching like a domestic abuse victim over parallel topic discussions.

You might want to revisit your care bucket.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 10:12:05
Speaking about caring. Did CC ever get around to reviewing your novel attempt? I am guessing it is full of hydroponics feeding what was it the "25-30 billion mark".

lol.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 10:28:36
You can tell jergul is really getting agitated when he dives into the personal attacks.

I will accept that ego shattering stinger as an admission of guilt.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 10:36:45
Energy storage is not an issue with fusion or fission jergul. Only when the hand on the throttle isnt ours is when storage is important.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 10:36:58
Hood
I am with you on that, I think pollution and global warming are things that we will solve within mine and your lifetime atleast (perhaps I am not as optimistic to say within years). I was not suggesting you proposed a pancea in that way, it was an FYI things I learned from doing hydroponics. It was a great example don’t get me wrong, vertical farming is one of the solutions!

I agree that food production will not be an issue. My rantings on this is colored by biodiversity and habitat loss. How much will we break before we can make it better? Extensively if you look at cultivation maps of Europe. Trees and bushes grow back relatively quickly, but biodiversity and balanced ecosystems will be tough. Most of the worlds biodiversity concentrated to a few areas, the majority of which are poor and dirty countries. The order of problem here is, how do you solve poverty and facilitate political stability.

The strawberries were surprisingly good. I was worried the hydro nutrients would give them a wierd taste, but they were indistinguishable (to me) from store bought ones.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 10:43:09
As humans develop gene editing and AI... does biodiversity matter?
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 10:46:47
Sammy
I would have run with hydro-electric myself as a good example.

More correctly - energy storage is not important for base load electricity production and consumption.

Base load is what? Often 35% of peak use? Something in that ballpark.

Hood
We would all be dead from heart attacks if ad-homs indicated agitation.

Nimi
One of the study's main points is biodiversity. An assumption that we will always destroy habitats to avoid starvation seems sound.

I am rehashing under the reasonable assumption that you have read no further than the summary (if that).
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 10:49:30
Sammy
Probably. Lots of blueprints. There is also the ethical, legal, and security aspects of maintaining biodiversity (if we want to survive an alien encounter, then we should pretend not to be viral. Allowing for some biodiversity would help that pretense).
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 11:00:19
Base load is usually around 55%. With a little bit of gas turbine peakers in the afternoon and a little bit of smart planning, even slow responding fission plants can cover 80 to 90% of yearly load.

Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 11:04:11
Look at france. They are at like 75% fission AND they have erratic renewables on the same grid. Could hit 80% without trying, and 90% with little effort.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 11:05:52
Thats for electricity.

Obviously things get more difficult if you want transportation included.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 11:20:22
55% sounds reasonable generally. My opinion is warped by energy demanding heavy industry in Norway (Aluminium smeltworks and such).

I trust we do not have to rehash why nuclearization on that scale is unfeasible?
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 11:23:46
Transportation is gradually including itself, so is something to consider for future projections.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 12:18:04
Sam
With AI nothing we are talking about matters, not even gene editing.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 12:25:42
Best prevent AI on that scale then.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 12:31:53
It could be that an AI of that magnitude would care about biodiversity. 50-200 million of us might enjoy being part of that biodiverse ecosystem in equilibrium.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 13:17:54
Right.

Anyone in the future that tries to teach a human level computer or better to code needs to be executed immediately.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 13:24:17
Sammy
You think that through?

What option gives the greates number of human lives lived over the course of say the next 150 thousand years?

1. Human business as usual (for as long as that lasts).

2. A biodiversity inclined AI and a human population cap of 50-200 million at any given time.

My money is on 2.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 13:25:46
"The strawberries were surprisingly good. I was worried the hydro nutrients would give them a wierd taste, but they were indistinguishable (to me) from store bought ones."

Nice, nice. I've been doing a decent amount of cooking with "fresh" (as fresh as a grocery store is) foods, so I can appreciate growing your own.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 14:59:58
Lettuce makes for perfect hydroponics, any leafy green really. Thanks to LED lights low energy consumption, it is feasible to grow them indoor on a mass scale.

>>Anyone in the future that tries to teach a human level computer or better to code needs to be executed immediately.<<

You _know_ there will be an AI arms race and by the time we get our thumbs out of our asses to get some sort of regulatory framwork, judgment day is over and the survivors are working in death camps. There seems to be so many ways for that to go wrong and it only needs to go wrong once.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 15:09:15
Ya we are going to need some prime directive level shit for that. I think it might happen though. Theres pretty solid risk in AI... much riskier than a bit of global warming.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 15:23:37
Terminator jokes asise, that is the one thing I have some optimism rabout, that there will a regulatory framework before we fly off the cliff. I think even the most optimistic AI people realize the risk if failure is existential.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 15:59:07
Sammy
You really imagine AI to be a greater existential threat to humanity than humanity itself?

Any prime directive with long term human viability in mind would be in line with option 2. I provided earlier.

Its not so much culling as allowing nature to take its course after defusing mass extinction potential.

0.7 females giving birth to 0.7 females will give a population in the 50-200 million range within 350 years after peak population of 11 billion is reached.

Nimi
lulz@outdoor simulator on a "massive scale". What minute fraction of a micro percentage of total agricultural land were thinking is "massive"?
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 16:02:24
I would love to hear why solar panels powering led lighting for photosynthesis is somehow better than sunlight passing through a barrier and powering photosynthesis directly.
Forwyn
Member
Fri Jan 18 16:29:36
Sunlight levels are variable, especially in Nordic fishvilles?
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 17:01:59
Plants can photosynthesize for more hours than the sun shines. You can more easily control the environment indoors, like the amount of sun hours to force flowering plants to bloom, supply better quality light with specific tailor made spectrum. Large greenhouses supply additional lighting for the winter months, grow in the winter months. To grow vertically efficiently (with minimal space) in cities with large rise building the block out most of the sun hours. This would reduce the transporation costs to the market. There are many reasons why.

Stick to herding goats.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 17:05:10
It is a relativly big thing in Japan, the space reduction also reduce the labor requirements and makes it easier to automate the entire thing. Which is another factor since fewer and fewer people want to work with agriculture.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 17:14:36
Obviously you should use the sun as much as possible since it is free, but since LED lights have become cheaper and use so little energy, combined with red:blue lighting, you could grow soybeans all year even in the frozen wasteland you live in. Unsurprisnly alot of Marijuana is grown like this for previously mentioned reasons of blooming. Unless they are autoblooming, marijuna plants switch to flowring when they get ~12 hours of light. Unless you only want to harvest once a year you grow indoors with artificial lights and controlled atmosphere.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Fri Jan 18 17:20:39
Apart from smoking the female plant flowers the seeds of male hemp plants are a great source of omega fatty acids and protein.

You are welcome.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 18:03:10
Nimi
Thank you for mentioning Japan (we all have netflix) The produce is prohibitively expensive despite the mass scale that literally amounts to 0.00001% of Japanese agricultural production.

Great! I would like to add a few kg of artificially heated and lighted Marijuana to my weekly grocery list.

How much will that cost?

Hood
Transportation is far more energy efficient.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 18:40:18
"You really imagine AI to be a greater existential threat to humanity than humanity itself? "

By orders of magnitude.

Exponentially increasing intelligence on the timescale of fabbing a chip? We would be creating a species of gods in no time at all with zero idea how they would behave. Its the worst idea ive ever heard.
jergul
large member
Fri Jan 18 19:07:56
Your faith in humanity is touching. We know for sure that is going to end poorly and will end poorly relatively soon.

If intelligence scales the way you are suggesting, then the aliens we face are the size of galaxies.

The argument can be made that we are already run by sociopathic computer programming. We reached that point as soon as we no longer could intuitively reconstruct the decision paths that created any output we rely on to make decisions.

Programming cannot give two shits about what consequences that output has.

AI unleashed with benign protocols is simply a far less risky proposition than we are.

I think you are putting to high a premium on sitting in the driver's seat as the car plunges off a cliff.

Better that something else drives and sticks to the road.
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 19:22:58
"AI unleashed with benign protocols"

How do you know that it will keep those original protocols when it starts to evolve?
Sam Adams
Member
Fri Jan 18 19:27:14
Unless you are talking about some sort of hobbled ai that cant evolve much. Sure you can have as many of those as you want.

The moment you try to build a high end ai, you get executed.
hood
Member
Fri Jan 18 20:52:25
"Hood
Transportation is far more energy efficient."

Delusional dimwit is delusional.
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 00:55:24
Hood
You seem triggered. I can tell from your ignorant glow.

Sammy
You are assuming an IA would be modeled as a virus.

But sure. We don't know were the road goes. But we do know the vehicle goes off a cliff with humanity at the wheel.

Are you a fan of computerized fail-safes on aircraft to override and correct pilot error?
hood
Member
Sat Jan 19 01:38:14
You really are projecting pretty hard. As I said earlier, you might wanna check your care bucket.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Jan 19 02:11:08
I started indoor hydroponics before I was aware this was a thing in Japan, the reason I do it is hobby. I spoke with my uncle about it who lives there, it is not that expensive and it is a growing sector. Google freight grow, they set up self contained freight containers. It is a useful solution for many issues not all. Climate is not an issue like this and yield is much better. Everything is expensive in the start of the cycle.

As for cannabis, it is very cheap, I would guess all marijuna currently sold in Sweden is grown indoors with HPS lights, the price is 50 euros / 5 grams. In the US it is much cheaper and most of it is grown indoors. Only old school hippies insist on sunlight.
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 02:12:25
Should you not be working on your novel?
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 02:25:41
50 euros for 5 grams is cheap if you are buying gold. It is not cheap for vegetables.

"It is a useful solution for many issues not all"

What issues exactly does hydroponic watering solve on a global scale?

Or to rephrase. How many more micrograms of meat could we eat each week because hydroponics has freed up agricultural land for use for feed production?

This would of course just amount to a subsidy of meat production. Very expensive production methods used to produce for human consumption so very cheap production methods can be used to produce for animal consumption.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Jan 19 03:02:55
That cost has nothing to do with it being a plant grown indoors, under artificial lights, but supply/demand, the fact that it is illegal and most importantly that it is a flowering plant that needs 80 days to bloom and reach maximum yield, it also requires more nutrients and light. 5 grams is quite alot of weed. Lettuce is something entirely different, lettuce does not do well with alot of light, it becomes sloppy and bitter and bleached. Different crops. You need something like 1/10th of the light for 1/3 of the time for salad compared to cannabis.

Hydroponics doesn’t need artificial lights, these are two different things. Hydroponics is extremly water conservative even compared to the best irrigation, it it very space efficient as it allows for vertical growing even with the sun as the source. Just that the use for pure srtificial lights more or less requires a hydroponic set up in most cases.
hood
Member
Sat Jan 19 03:21:23
"Should you not be working on your novel?"

I didn't realize reading half a page of text and typing 2 sentences was so strenuous for you.
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 04:12:29
Nimi
Then perhaps drop using weed as an example. You could send a carrot to the moon for the price of what weed costs.

Hydroponics in a closed environment saves water because it is in a closed environment.

Drip watering is the only thing that might concievably scale to have any kind of impact. Given that the planet is huge and freight containers are very small by comparison.

And again, the best way to conserve water is to eat less meat. By orders of magnitude.

jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 04:16:09
Nimi eats a 200 gram steak with 100 grams of hydroponic salad.

Jergul eats 50 grams of sliced beef in a nice chilli.

By what order of magnitude has nimi's food choice used more water?
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 04:20:14
heh, in that example nimi used 3.6-3.8 times more water than jergul. So just a fraction of an order of magnitude.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Jan 19 04:37:52
I used two examples, one that require alot of light and one that requires very little. I gave you the entire spectrum and you being on the spectrum got hung up on one end. This is your personal issue, not mine.

There are many types of hydroponics, drip fed using coco is one, deep water culture, ebb and flow systems etc. suitable for many different things. All of them are better in terms of water conservation, since they are all closed systems unlike using land. A freight containers foot print vs the area you get out of growing things on top of each other. Or as I said earlier hydroponics and artifical lights are two different things my aspie little friend.
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sat Jan 19 04:43:27
Nothing new under the sun jergul. Arctic goat herder with netflix will always be out of his depth. This is why Swedes (fucking Swedes) vanquished you.
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 04:44:56
Both require a lot of capital investment, use a lot of energy and contribute nothing to global water conservation as they cannot scale appropriately.

Weed could be profitably grown on the International Space Station at current market prices.

You are such an artisan bread.

jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 04:46:48
Nimi: Global hunger is a huge problem. I shall fix it by irradicating starvation amongst Icelandic primary school pupils.
Paramount
Member
Sat Jan 19 06:51:47
What kind of nonsense has the vegans come up with now?

I heard on the news that for a sustainable living we are only allowed to eat one meatball per day?
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 07:07:28
Para
2 meatballs would be closer to the mark as there is a lot of pork in swedish meatballs.

Or 1950 level of meat consumption in Sweden.

http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/843/1/FOODPRINT.pdf

(page 26)
murder
Member
Sat Jan 19 07:30:54

"More than 820 million people have insufficient food and many more consume an unhealthy diet that contributes to premature death ..."

Wouldn't this be a good thing? The more early deaths, the fewer people the planet has to sustain.

What they should be proposing is imposed infertility in the developing world.
jergul
large member
Sat Jan 19 10:30:52
That has to do with study design. What impact would implementing a healthy diet have on long term agricultural sustainability?

It concludes that if we assume improvements in best practices, then agriculture can become sustainable over the long term if humanity adopts a healthy diet with booze (wheat and corn recommendation levels are actually a bit higher than best recommendations based on current knowledge. But it would balance out if we assume alcohol production and consumption).
Nimatzo
iChihuaha
Sun Jan 20 05:55:52
Adorable aspie friend: When someone says something that something is all that is and the answer to everything.

The discussion was no more when the solution was to have billions of people radically change eating habits that are the product of thousands of years of adaptation to local climat and resources. As in we will colonize Mars before this happens.

It is to be expected from someone who says ”we don’t need more evolutionary explanations”. This is the what gave us communism that lead to the type of starvation and calamity that could have been avoided. A shitty understanding for the human animal her ecology.

In your case I think it is a complete disregard since you are very open about your contempt towards humans and especially the ”aryan people” as you call them. I can only imagine the psychology underneath belonging to a defeated people that Aryans kept around as a marketing ploy. Oooo look we have ”indiginous people” they live in huts and herd raindeer. How authentic!

Get over it bro, it is toxic ethnicity.
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