Do those figures include the fact that agricultural land can't be used every year for growing fruit and veg? Or areas of the world that struggle immensely to grow fruit and veg?
Deforestation also happens for produce that takes a higher profit anyway, so if that's not a cow, it'd be something else... a yam, say.
I appreciate this reads slightly confrontationally, and I don't necessarily mean it to (give me the answers to the questions, and I'll look into it / test it out as a hypothesis), but I am struggling to get my head around how scaling things up works. Hunter / gatherers augment what they farm (limited) with meat, after all, with no real detrimental effect, but they're not doing it as a mass-market industry.
Just to put that into context 80% of world soya production is used in animal feed.The analyses looks at permutations of meat, dairy, veg and fruit production and their effects on C02 with the available land. And you are right, deforestation occurs due to non-meat production, notably wheat and soya, used extensively meat and dairy substitutes. But, again, the efficiency of non-meat production is 4-7 times greater, so one forest for every 4-7 forests as now.
We use the land currently used to grow animal feed to grow human feed.
The two biggest causes of deforestation in the world are clearing land to grow animal feed and then clearing land for pasture. Not only we do have enough land to feed the world without meat eating we would also have enough spare land to start planting trees and re-wilding land.
The world fertility rate has been declining for decades. So that’s not even remotely true. It currently averages at about 1.1, any less than 2.1 populations begin to decline.Sadly we wouldn't, because like all species as soon as we have enough to be comfortable all we do is reproduce until we've got a larger population that's hungry.
Stop use agricultural land for growing meat. which is between 4-7 times less efficient at producing calorific input per acre. So you could feed more, not less. It is this inefficiency when combined with other destructive acts associated with growing meat, such as deforestation, that amounts to the C02.
Getting there then.
Wonder what we do economically when constant population expansion isn’t happening.
Interesting times.
Nah, it'll be pension age of 80Well there's one positive.
Zero hour contracts might be put on the back-burner
Nah, it'll be pension age of 80
tbf, isn't our country's birth rate below 2 anyway?Thats gonna happen anyway.
tbf, isn't our country's birth rate below 2 anyway?
There you go. And it's gone down since then:
‘It’s a national crisis’: UK’s birth rate is falling dramatically
The UK is facing a population crisis with birth rates at an all-time low.theconversation.com
(I feel obliged to point out this was what came up in Google, so I have no idea if they're lefty, righty, clown-faced doggy, whatever!)
Some of the figures are unbelievable like China from 2bn to 750m or something like that. Some countries have way less than keeping their numbers upMakes the two child benefits policy even more nuts.
Can’t wait for us to become Japan. Robot carers here we come!
The world fertility rate has been declining for decades. So that’s not even remotely true. It currently averages at about 1.1, any less than 2.1 populations begin to decline.
There you go. And it's gone down since then:
‘It’s a national crisis’: UK’s birth rate is falling dramatically
The UK is facing a population crisis with birth rates at an all-time low.theconversation.com
(I feel obliged to point out this was what came up in Google, so I have no idea if they're lefty, righty, clown-faced doggy, whatever!)
The one I read
World population likely to shrink after mid-century, forecasting major shifts in global population and economic power
With widespread, sustained declines in fertility, the world population will likely peak in 2064 at around 9.7 billion, and then decline to about 8.8 billion by 2100 -- about 2 billion lower than some previous estimates, according to a new study.www.sciencedaily.com
China down from 1.4bn to 740m
Ahh. OK. Maybe I was looking at project fall in fertility rates.
Whereas India
India’s Population Will Be 1.52 Billion by 2036, With 70% of Increase in Urban Areas
The five southern states will account for only 9% of the growth. Put together, they will see a population increase of 29 million – half the increase of UP alone.m.thewire.in
But still growing. Massively. 8.4% growth of a billion people is still an awful lot more people.
But still growing. Massively. 8.4% growth of a billion people is still an awful lot more people.
It may seem that very long term signs are encouraging and maybe they'll come down even more in that time but it's still a massive crisis in the short to medium term
I think any prediction of what’s happening 80 years from now needs a whole lot of salt.
The third world will industrialise quicker than the first world did and like everywhere else where living standards have risen birth rates will fall.
National insurance hike ....yayyyyy
That’ll teach the working people to vote Tory. Should’ve been on benefits then they’d look after you.
I don't vote tory
I meant Labour. Now I’ve had to explain it. Was supposed to be a pithy comment FML
Saw this posted on FB, my first thought was “how shit must Labour be that they can’t beat this guy”CON+10 as they say…
“Two years ago this Saturday, 24 July, Boris Johnson became Prime Minister. Speaking outside No 10, he mocked “the doubters, the doomsters, the gloomsters” and declared that “the people who bet against Britain are going to lose their shirts”. If only they had.
Yes, he got Brexit done, sort of, but it was a wretched, joyless Brexit that has sundered the country; a Brexit secured on a false prospectus, and by betraying Northern Ireland; a Brexit with many losers but not a single clear beneficiary.
Yes, he gambled on a Covid-19 vaccine and won, but that must be weighed against his initial refusal to take the pandemic seriously; his catastrophic failure to order preemptive lockdowns or border closures, and his scandalous neglect of care homes.
Even as the pandemic’s second wave erupted last winter he wanted to reopen the country over Christmas. He is taking the reckless risk of reopening it today (19 July) despite a soaring infection rate and the desperate pleas of global health experts. He kept Matt Hancock on as health secretary despite privately admitting he was “totally fucking hopeless”. He is draconian on Monday, libertarian on Tuesday and wavering on Wednesday. Dominic Cummings has described his handling of the crisis as a “disaster” and “madness”, adding: “Tens of thousands of people died who didn’t need to die”.
But Johnson has arguably caused even greater damage to this country through his systematic trashing of democratic norms, degradation of public life and debasing of politics.
He is a Prime Minister who routinely misleads the public – about everything from the benefits of Brexit to the need for an Irish Sea border and whether he sacked Hancock.
He is a Prime Minister who has destroyed the principle of cabinet government by packing his with mediocrities, non-entities and reprobates – men and women who were promoted for their loyalty alone, and whom he refuses to sack no matter how egregious their transgressions or incompetence.
He claims to have restored sovereignty to the British parliament, but treats it with contempt. He whipped up hostility against it for thwarting the “will of the people”. He has used his large Commons majority to secure draconian emergency powers, and approval of his Brexit deals, with insultingly little debate. He makes major announcements outside the chamber, to the fury of Lindsay Hoyle, the Speaker. As Betty Boothroyd, a former speaker, noted last week, he scarcely bothers to answer parliamentary questions.
The Prime Minister shows similar contempt for the other independent institutions of a healthy democracy. He seeks to curb the judiciary, muzzle the BBC, politicise the civil service, defang the Election Commission and put Paul Dacre in charge of Ofcom. He wants to curtail the right to protest, and impose ten-year sentences for defacing statues.
He is not interested in substance or serious government. He shies from hard decisions. He practices the politics of trite slogans, headline-grabbing soundbites and empty promises. Exhibit one: last week’s shockingly vacuous speech on what is supposedly his flagship policy – levelling up.
His policies are determined by the morning’s opinion polls or Daily Telegraph leader column, or by the latest demand of a small cabal of right-wing Tory MPs. He has no overarching strategy, no grand plan beyond the retention of power, no principles or convictions that he will not jettison if expedience demands it. As Cummings now admits, he is “like a shopping trolley smashing from one side of the aisle to the other”.
He is willing to break the law by proroguing parliament, or reneging on a Northern Ireland protocol which he solemnly negotiated, ratified and signed. He would deny justice to the victims of the Troubles to appease right-wing tabloids and Tories determined to protect trigger-happy British soldiers. He condones ministerial actions that are borderline corrupt – the awarding of huge, tender-free Covid contracts to unqualified cronies, for example, or Robert Jenrick’s approval of Richard Desmond’s £1bn property development in Tower Hamlets in east London. He rewards friends and donors with jobs and peerages, but purges the moderate and decent.
He is a past master at avoiding accountability. He ducks and weaves at Prime Minister’s Questions. He hardly ever gives full-blown press conferences at which journalists can develop proper lines of questioning. He has not given an in-depth television interview since January. He punts an independent inquiry into his handling of the Covid pandemic into the political long grass. He evades questions about his luxury holiday in Mustique, or his redecoration of the Downing Street flat, or his funnelling of public funds to his former lover, Jennifer Arcuri.
He instead peddles the illusion of openness and transparency by posting video clips on Twitter, or through daily photo-ops of stunning banality, or by delivering carefully-honed soundbites to a local television crew.
Johnson's Tory apologists in parliament and the press know all of this is true, but they publicly defend him because he wins elections. He has been aided by a weak and fractured opposition, of course, but he is a shameless populist who does what populists do. He promises the earth. He spends money like water (except on nurses, school meals and educational catch-up programmes). He panders to the people’s baser instincts, exploiting their grievances, resentments and xenophobia. He inflames his base with a deliberate policy of division, pitting north against south, the common man against the metropolitan elite, progressives against conservatives, Leavers against Remainers. He scapegoats immigrants, asylum seekers, lefty lawyers and the EU. He subverts true, understated patriotism with the ugly, aggressive, flag-waving jingoism of the English football thug.
In that inaugural Downing Street speech, Johnson declared that “the buck stops here”, that the Union flag “stands for freedom and free speech and the rule of law”, that he would “create a new partnership with our European friends – as warm and close and affectionate as possible”. He promised that the UK would “recover our natural role as an enterprising, outward-looking and truly global Britain, generous in temper and engaged with the world”. He spoke of “uniting” the country and the “awesome foursome that are incarnated in that red, white and blue flag”.
The speech was so much verbal flatulence. The precise opposite has happened. The UK is a diminished country – economically, diplomatically and geopolitically. It is socially fractured, and struggling to prevent Scottish secession. It has shamefully cut foreign aid. It has breached international agreements. It treats refugees as criminals. It has courted authoritarian figures such as Donald Trump and Hungary’s Viktor Orbán. It has forfeited Brussels’ goodwill, strained the so-called “special relationship” and squandered its international reputation for decency and common sense. “Global Britain” may no longer be trusted even to host the 2030 World Cup. It has lost control, not regained it.
Seldom has a rich, sophisticated Western country fallen so far, so fast. In May, Cummings described Johnson as “unfit for the job”. He was right, but what a crying shame he did not say so back in 2019 instead of propelling him to power.”
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