Transcript
A tweet by some news company saying “Your bowl of rice is hurting the climate too.” It has a link to an article and a picture of a bowl of rice. It has a quote saying “Should I just die”
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They’re just trying to write words that make you click
Does baiting someone for a click have a name?
“Mainstream journalism”?
You can’t exist without something suffering.
Might as well make the sufferer cum
Guys, I’m suffering a lot right now.
That is a rather succint and straightforward argument in favour of absurdism vs nhilism.
Rice is… really really no where near the top of the chain on problematic crops. It’s mostly grown for direct human consumption, unlike corn and soy, and, although quite water intensive (at least for wetland rice cultivation) most of the production is done in areas with the water resources to support it, Yangtze river, peal river, Mekong delta, Ganges river, the lower Mississippi river, ect ect.
Obviously there are some serious issues with conventional rice cultivation, but, in terms of the number of people it supports relative to the over all impact it has… it’s definitely not something the average consumer should be putting at the top of their list to cut out.
The poors should just stop eating so we can keep flying our jets.
Et cetera. I’m the etc. person now.
so. on this upsetting piece of doom and gloom i’m going to ask people to bear in mind the following
- grain farming is the most intensive form of vegetation farming because of its requirements for irrigation at scale
- most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans but by food animals that we then eat
- based on point two, eating more rice for most people will still be a net benefit to the world because that’s rice you ate instead of a cow or a sheep or a chicken that ate the rice
- based on point one you should diversify the vegetarian crops you eat to include more greens, root vegetables, and fruits
- there’s a lot to learn about how to eat healthy from pre-colonial/pre-imperial cultures. of particular interest to me are the nomadic tribes of North America who prior to European colonization were post-colonial/post-imperial
most of the world’s grain is not eaten by humans but by food animals that we then eat
An extra bit of doom: nearly half of the corn (consuming a proportional amount of water, energy, and labour) produced by the USA is not eaten by humans or animals. It’s processed into bioethanol (consuming more water and energy) and fed into cars. The process is a net negative of energy, but shutting down or even scaling back the industry would lead to a massive loss of jobs and an economic suicide.
I don’t have numbers to show, so feel free to disregard.
Which is a good point to keep in mind when people claim there isn’t enough land for solar panels.
Even by extremely optimistic assumptions, bioethanol barely helps. It’s entirely a corn farming subsidy combined with oil companies pretending their product can be clean. Here’s a rundown:
people claim there isn’t enough land for solar panels
Oh, I have another bone to pick with those people. I know a perfect place for solar panels. Take this satellite photo of a completely random part of Kansas:
The circular irrigation system leaves the corners unused. That’s 21% of the square’s area, wasted.
(edit) I’m not a civil engineer, and I know that putting solar panels and supporting infrastructure so close to a water spray has its own problems, but that is still way too large an area over all of the arable land in North America to just leave unused.
And even if they can’t have solar, they can probably have windmills. We need a combination of the two.
It’s also worth pointing out that about half of corn and soy production is not profitable, like, most people growing it are not making a living off it, they’re breaking even at best. Most farmers in the US make the majority of their household income in jobs off of the farm.
Most farm land in the US is not cultivated to generate profit, but to maintain it’s status as “agricultural land” which excepts it from many different types of tax (or at least subjects it to a far lower rate). Making it an untaxed store of wealth. There is a reason that the largest owner of farmland in the US is bill gates. Corn and soy are grown because they are the most “hands off” crops, requiring the least amount of ongoing intervention for something that breaks even.
In all likelihood, if we shut down the ethanol program, very few people would loose their livelihoods, but there would be an economic impact in that more people farming for tax reasons would be taking a loss on that. Many might choose to sell off their lands and move that wealth in to different asset classes, which would have knock on effects.
Rice, generally speaking, is not a significant contributor to animal feed, at least the grain isn’t. Most rice is grown for human consumption.
There are plenty of crops that do need to have their cultivation scaled back as they’re mainly being used inefficiently or wastefully, but rice isn’t really high on that list.
Rice agriculture uses a lot of water and also releases methane.
absolutely. in a lot of ways this is like how almond milk is not a sustainable alternative to milk, but a less damaging alternative to milk. rice can be part of a sustainable diet so long as you diversify your diet. our problem as a species is largely that our societies can’t help but lean into monocultures.
Yep, and factoring in what foods are grown close to you and are in season is also important. Transporting food around the world is a huge part of the carbon footprint.
Thank God the billionaires aren’t doing anything wrong.
No, if you die you can’t make people money, so just live and suffer thanks.
i mean, if we all humans die would be great for environment, but better keep that as plan B 😁
Food uses water to grow, extracting water uses fossil fuels. Don’t grow food!
