The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: April 7, 2009

164 comments on Drumbeat: April 7, 2009

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westexas on April 7, 2009 - 9:10am

Re: Kothin's article in Forbes ("The American Suburb is Bouncing Back"), linked uptop

Surveys consistently show that between 10% and 20% of people want to live in dense cities. In a country that will gain 100 million people over the next four decades, that's 20 million, not exactly what you'd call chopped liver. But the bulk of growth will continue to be in the 'burbs. . .

The unspoken underlying assumption is that only nutcases and space alien cultists, like yours truly, believe that we will have a problem maintaining an infinite rate of increase in our consumption of a finite fossil fuel resource base.

Khebab has crunched the actual numbers on projected cumulative net oil exports by the top five. The 2006 to 2008 data inclusive are falling between our middle and high cases, which in turn suggests that within three to six years the top five will have shipped about half of their post-2005 cumulative net oil exports. In other words, the post-2005 net export fuel gauge for the top five was at 100% at the end of 2005, and we project that it will be showing half empty only seven to ten years after 2005.

Meanwhile the Forbes article is another in a long line of similar missives promulgated by the "Iron Triangle." To paraphrase the old joke about the wife who walks in and finds her husband in bed with another woman, the Iron Triangle types are in effect saying "Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?"

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2767
Net Oil Exports and the "Iron Triangle"
July 13, 2007

To some extent, what we are seeing across the board, from large sectors of the energy industry to the auto/housing/finance industry, media and beyond, is the "Enron Effect," i.e., many people know that we have huge problems ahead, but their paychecks are dependent on the status quo. The suburbanites are caught in the middle of this, although they have a strong inclination to believe the prevailing message from the "Iron Triangle." As in the movie "The Sixth Sense," for most of us the automobile based suburban lifestyle is dead, but we just don't know it yet, and we see only what we want to see.

However, it is increasingly difficult for many suburbanites to ignore reality as it slowly dawns on them that Jim Kunstler was right when he said, “Suburbs represent the biggest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.” We shall probably soon see that hell hath no fury like a Formerly Well Off suburbanite who just had his SUV repossessed and his McMansion foreclosed. At least those of us trying to warn of what is coming can try to be ready with a credible plan to try to make things "Not as bad as they would otherwise be,” when it becomes apparent to a majority of Americans that we cannot have an infinite rate of increase in the consumption of a finite energy resource base. How's that for a campaign slogan?

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Paleocon on April 7, 2009 - 9:12am

Why will the US gain 100M people in the next 40 years? Even that supposition implies a large growth in available energy.

With Boomers aging, and a depression underway, I would expect the population to flatten for a while. 100M immigrants is possible, but that will drastically shift the politics and ethnicity of the country if so.

Or maybe those numbers are simply wrong?

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Leanan on April 7, 2009 - 9:19am

The UN predicted that, based on current trends. It is largely due to immigration, which not only increases the number of people, it increases the fertility rate, since immigrants tend to have larger families for the first two or three generations they are here.

Of course the current trends could and likely will change. The UN also produced studies that found there wouldn't be enough food and water for that kind of population increase.

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Paleocon on April 7, 2009 - 9:47am

Whether we're looking at the world or just the US, powering down without addressing population is a short-sighted and ill-fated gambit.

10 billion people scrabbling for bare sustenance will leave the world as bad off, or worse, as 6B people blowing through fossil fuels.

I don't know how we can possibly control population on a worldwide basis except through war, disease, and starvation. I don't know how we'll even do it within the US. People will move toward jobs and food, and that probably means the US will be quietly overrun by economic refugees.

If I were amoral, I could come up with solutions that favored the US. Biofuels would go near the top of the list, right below warfare.

I can't come up with any morally acceptable solutions to the worldwide population crisis. How do you get the entire world to stop having children?

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JUGLANS_NIGRA on April 7, 2009 - 11:06am

."CHILDREN OF MEN".

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Joe Average on April 8, 2009 - 6:35am

Good film.
A glimpse of the future? (Hope not)

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fuzed on April 7, 2009 - 12:12pm

Generally, larger urban areas have a decreased birth rate. If we increase commute costs via taxes, energy prices, maybe this will slow down the birth rate as more move into urban settings.

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davebygolly on April 7, 2009 - 5:14pm

I can't come up with any morally acceptable solutions to the worldwide population crisis. How do you get the entire world to stop having children?

I think part of the solution can come from our reconnecting to the soil via dense small towns close to agriculture which are locally and regionally self-sufficient in basics. In a situation like this, the communities themselves take responsibility for resource management, including human reproduction rates.

There also has to be some global and regional coordination, but it could be a lot less coercive once people are directly and deeply involved in immediate resource management.

But I can see that there might be a few bumps on the way to getting to that position. :)

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Dinh Ton on April 7, 2009 - 7:05pm

On the question of having more "children"...

Has anybody thought of letting the old die? It sounds cruel but the effort of prolonging 90s & 100s year old ended up costing us more than bringing up a new person who soon will take care of the earth. If we plan to have human remain on earth in the next 1000s years, having no babies is out of the question. So the answer comes down to having fewer babies.

Now, if we think the world population is unsustainable right now and this requires fewer and fewer babies -- these kids will have to take care of us in old age by paying taxes toward social services and health care. For them, this burden is also unsustainable as the whole infrastructure of energy and society collapse -- what will they do?

Whether we realized it or not -- this past few generations had pretty much destroyed the earth through its selfishness of consumerism. Most are still in denial about the consequences.

I was having a discussions with my "older" friends about the status of our (US) debt and liabilities. I, playing the devil advocate, am putting a lot of responsibilities on the baby boomer generation for that. With +50Trillions total, it's just hard enough to see if the future generations can get us out of this mess -- now added to that with fewer people (decrease growth: economic also), this becomes a huge huge mess. Sooner or later, a lot of people holding the US debt will realize that the greatest Ponzi schemer is the US government.

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davebygolly on April 7, 2009 - 9:25pm

Has anybody thought of letting the old die? It sounds cruel but the effort of prolonging 90s & 100s year old ended up costing us more than bringing up a new person who soon will take care of the earth.

I'm 68. I don't want extraordinary and expensive efforts made to keep me alive even now should something happen, much less when and if I make it to 80 or 90.

Another way of dealing with the elderly is to have the younger elderly help in caring for the older elderly. There are a multitude of ways to reduce the resource consumption of the elderly (along with everyone else!), but they are almost all in conflict with the profit system.

Letting the old die is not a good way to put it however. Not going to extreme and expensive measures is a better way. Where and when resources become scarce, choices may have to be made, and it a lot of the interventions performed now, even in the case of the middle-aged sometimes, will make no sense in the near future.

Still, in Cuba, with the teeniest fraction of the resources they have a longevity matching ours and they take pride in it. I doubt this is because of interventions, but probably more because of basic health care, more exercise, and a healthier although much more frugal diet.

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Dinh Ton on April 7, 2009 - 10:33pm

Of course -- I meant it as a provocation into the "don't have kids" ideal. It sounds good but ...

The point is "we are running into the wall hard." There have to be sacrifice in our way of life -- both young and old. We shouldn't think of piling debts onto our younger and expect them to pay b/c they won't and can't b/c it's not sustainable. Living w/in our mean implies we have to pay enough taxes to fund our budgets -- which we haven't done for a long long time. Government shouldn't raid Social Security & should think about an extra tax to save & pay for medicare and medicaid. Those are the moral concepts that I wish people stand up and demand from our government.

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Leanan on April 8, 2009 - 9:08am

I've no doubt the old will die, and that some of the high-tech methods we use to prolong life will fall by the wayside.

However, letting the old die really isn't the answer to the population problem. It's females that determine fertility, and elderly females do not have children (aside from a handful who are able and willing to use high-tech methods like in vitro). It's those of breeding age or younger that matter when it comes to population growth. They are the "exponential function" part of the equation.

I also think the elderly might have knowledge that will be extremely useful in the post-carbon age. My grandparents made most of their possessions. They did buy their car, but they built their house, their boat, their fishing gear, much of their furniture, their greenhouse and planting pots, sewed their own clothes, etc. If things get really bad, those skills will doubtless be more valuable than my skills with computers, Nintendo, and programming the VCR.

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oxidatedgem on April 8, 2009 - 1:03pm

"letting the old die" doesn't distinguish between various categories of old people. There are many old (and not so old) people who are kept alive against their will. They suffer, sometimes incredible agony. They are kept alive because the living do not want to accept that we humans are mortal. For them, the end of endless treatments will be a blessing. I was a hospice volunteer for many years and visited nursing homes from my teenage years. I know that what I am saying is quite true.

Unfortunately in this country the number of elderly that have knowledge that will be useful to us and that still have their full minds is decreasing but not gone. One hopes that people will make good use of the knowledge they have.

I volunteered in Haiti about 20 years ago at one of Mother Theresa's children's homes. I came away with very mixed feelings. While it felt good to help save these lives, the environmental disaster was there right in your face at all times. Saving lives meant more overpopulation, more environmental degradation and more children to be born to suffer in the future. No doubt some of the kids I helped save are now eating mud cakes to try survive and feeding them to their kids.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080130-AP-haiti-eatin.html

My question when I left Haiti is "is good always good" - my answer is "NO". Nothing is simple and doing good can have bad consequences and vice versa - Eastern Philosophy has a better handle on this than Western Philosophy does. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yin_and_yang

I am afraid that oil has subsidized not only our lifestyle but also our moral sense allowing us to indulge in sentimental feelings that we will no longer be able to afford. We will have to make much more difficult moral decisions in the future.

I recommend the movie "The Grey Zone" for anyone wishing to explore some of these moral questions. It asks such questions in the context of a Nazi prison camp - this is a hard movie, but well worth watching.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0252480/

Life is a terminal condition. We are ALL going to die, every person now alive is going to die. Every baby born has a (usually) delayed death sentence as soon as they take their first breath. We are mortal. What will change in the future is not whether or not we die, but when it is likely we will die, how we will die, whether or not we pass on our genes, how many other people will be alive at the same time we are alive and how desirable being alive will be.

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x on April 7, 2009 - 10:56am

Getting food and water for 100 million more Americans can be done. Just stop raising hogs. Currently about 113 million are slaughtered each year:

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/News/story/swineday_plain112408.aspx

Those who refuse to admit that hogs are a waste of resources can not be serious about dealing with the human population problem. Trying to reduce human population while a competitive animal's production runs amok is stupid IMO.

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aangel on April 7, 2009 - 11:09am

I concur.

Eating animals uses more food to feed the animals than we will be able to afford, soon. From memory, I believe the hierarchy is something like this:

cattle -- eleven times more energy in than out
hogs -- six times more energy in than out
chickens -- three times more energy in than out

That's why as developing countries move up the meat ladder they start with chickens.

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Lynford on April 7, 2009 - 12:29pm

I think you forgot the worst energy ratio of large animals.

human beans are undoubtedly the worst.

I really thought when I first saw getting rid of the "hog" mentioned, I thought you were talking about all the fat people around. If we could get rid of those hogs, it would certainly help.

Also I think free range chickens for eggs and meat are getting a bad rap above.

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hightrekker on April 7, 2009 - 12:47pm

I agree, get rid of the "Land Whales" first, and don't feel guilty about free range chickens. Sometimes I feel like I'm an another planet- who are theses beings?

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FMagyar on April 7, 2009 - 6:29pm

human beans are undoubtedly the worst.

Especially if they're soy~~beans~~lentgreen ;-)

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had3z on April 7, 2009 - 1:21pm

it's not all about EROEI, especially when you're talking about food. by that logic of yours, we should stick with oil because it has (had?!) the highest eroei

the problem is you need a balanced diet with a small volumetric intake. and unless you want your stomach digesting apples and potatoes all day long, you need some meat

also, if you got more corn or wheat than you can possibly eat, it would be logical to transform some of it into chicken :P

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JUGLANS_NIGRA on April 7, 2009 - 3:12pm

BS Warning here.

A human can quite easily, survive and thrive, on a meatless diet. Anyone that says otherwise is talking out their a$$.

No more excuses people.

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AlanfromBigEasy on April 7, 2009 - 3:34pm

unless you want your stomach digesting apples and potatoes all day long, you need some meat

BS !

Tell that to vegetarians.

Soybean oil and other vegetable oils are extremely calorie dense, much better than meat.

Best Hopes after a lunch of squash sauteed in olive oil,

Alan

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TrueKaiser on April 7, 2009 - 10:54pm

The plants one needs to eat to subside on a vegetarian diet do not all grow in the same climate zone if you do not want to have vitamin/protein deficiency. Even then our body's digestive tract compared to other other pure herbivores cannot effectively extract all the nutrients in a plant we eat, it is similar to omnivore that has started to adapt to eating meat.

Believe what you want the science states we are meat eaters and we can get some very good nutrition from meat. What we don't need is forcing people to eat plants just so we can squeeze more people on the planet. We need less people.

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ET on April 8, 2009 - 1:16am

What we don't need is forcing people to eat plants just so we can squeeze more people on the planet. We need less people.

+100

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shaman on April 8, 2009 - 10:00am

the science states we are meat eaters

Hold on there, buddy, reel in your hyperbole. Human beings are omnivores, always have been.

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steve from Virginia on April 8, 2009 - 12:42am

The beans and rice w/ tomato, onion, garlic, green pepper and mushrooms was excellent. So was the apple!

Beer is vegetarian, too!

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AKbound on April 8, 2009 - 2:13am

Beer is not vegetarian. Its fermented grains which means your drinking yeast piss. There is a net energy loss from that too.

Cheese, tofu, etc are not vegetarian either.

Less meat is the answer but animal flesh provides us with a very balanced mix of proteins, fats, minerals and vitamins. Are bodies are adapted with the necessary enzymes to break it down. Perhaps some genotypes may be more adapted for a vegetarian diet but I know that mine feels much better when I have some flesh in my meals. Balance and moderation are key. Not abstinence.

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AlanfromBigEasy on April 8, 2009 - 8:49am

may be more adapted for a vegetarian diet but I know that mine feels much better when I have some flesh in my meals.

I am certainly not officially a vegetarian, but I have surprised myself with the question "When did I last eat meat ?" Often a week or more ago. Some dairy though (few eggs).

I was refuting the claim that meat is somehow more energy dense and that veggies took forever to digest.

Alan

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shaman on April 8, 2009 - 10:01am

Cheese, tofu, etc are not vegetarian either.

Makes me wonder what you think is required to make something vegetarian?

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Leanan on April 7, 2009 - 5:22pm

You're right that it's not all about EROEI. Cows, chickens, sheep, and goats do not produce only meat. They produce milk, eggs, and wool, and traditionally were eaten only when their productive lives were over. Pigs, OTOH, produce only meat (though they do that very effectively). That is why pork is forbidden in Jewish and Muslim tradition. Raising pigs is wasteful, since they eat food people eat and don't produce anything besides meat. But because they turn plant food into meat so well, it's very tempting to raise them.

I think your last point is very good, too. Freezing, canning, etc., are very energy-intensive. Traditionally, animals have been a way to store food for the winter/dry season. In that case, EROEI matters less than the fact that they let you store food in a time of plenty and save it for when times are leaner.

Of course this has little to do with our current factory-farm system, but sustainable doesn't necessarily mean vegan.

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absitively on April 7, 2009 - 6:51pm

Pig meat is also tasty! I imagine that long pork is too.

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Bryant on April 7, 2009 - 10:43pm

"Island of the Sequined Love Nun"! Yumm.

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AKbound on April 8, 2009 - 2:18am

Pigs provide for other things too. Pork rinds are yummy... But really there skin is quite thick and is used to make robust leather. Also their digestive enzymes can be used. Also insulin. Pigs/hogs have been traditionally used to make sausage which is not so energy-intensive. They also have keen smell which can be used for tracking. Good point on how live stock is an effective way of storing food.

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Leanan on April 8, 2009 - 9:12am

Yes, pig leather is useful. But the point was that you can't harvest it without killing the pig. That's not the case with wool, milk, and eggs. You can harvest those multiple times, then eat the animal when its productive days are over.

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Consumer on April 8, 2009 - 9:49am

Maybe I'll make my millions by breeding dairy pigs.

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had3z on April 8, 2009 - 5:04am

thanks for the calm tone, and seeing farther than the rest of the bunch.

cows and chickens provide some neat fertilizer for that veggie garden of yours, guys. try giving olive oil to a baby, see where that gets you.
also, animals can take care of themselves pretty well. the best part imho is that they provide an "insurance" to that late spring freeze or arid summer or caterpillar invasion or whatever. there's a reason why they go way back with agriculture. think about it

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FMagyar on April 7, 2009 - 7:53pm

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/may/07-want-to-help-the-environment-eat...

“Americans have no idea how wasteful these large mammals are,” Gracer says. “If you want to feed a lot of people, insects are the best choice in terms of getting the biggest bang for your buck.” Insects, he claims, are nutritious. Although they typically contain less protein by weight than beef or chicken—100 grams of giant water bugs or small grasshoppers, for example, have about 20 grams of protein, compared with 27 grams in the same amount of lean ground beef—they do have other benefits. For instance, grasshoppers contain just one-third of the fat found in beef, and water bugs offer almost four times as much iron. A 100-gram portion of the cooked caterpillar Usata terpsichore has about 28 grams of protein. In their dried form, as they are commonly sold in Africa, insects such as grasshoppers may contain up to 60 percent protein.

Raising insects has a low impact on the environment. They require little water, perhaps because they obtain much of their moisture from their food. It takes 869 gallons of water to produce a third of a pound of beef, about enough for a large hamburger. By contrast, to supply water to a quarter pound of crickets, Gracer simply places a moist paper towel at the bottom of their tank and refreshes it weekly.

Overheard in the "Bike Through Lane" of the local fast food joint (circa 2015)... "I'd like to super size that cricket burger with the hydroponic veggies and I'll have a side order of the solar dried grubs to go please. Oh and could you refill my water pack, thanks!"

Why douse fields with pesticides if the bugs we kill are more nutritious than the crops they eat?

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Leanan on April 8, 2009 - 9:19am

Some cultures do eat insects. (They really are kind of like land shrimp.)

I think the issue is EROEI - not of raising them, but of gathering and preparing them. That's why we have a bias toward larger prey.

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AKbound on April 9, 2009 - 6:16am

I did a little bit of research on insect eating a while ago. Don't remember the links but there is a few sites. EROEI is higher than mammals for raising and as far as preparing them you only have to cook them or eat em raw. Grubs and meal worms for example can be added to whatever grain is abundant for an increase in fat and protein. Every insect is different and little modern research has been done on the nutritional or cultivation. However in many "third world" countries it is normal to catch any insect or small mammal (rodents) to supplement dinner. This IMHO deserves more research. This summer I'm going to intentionally try eating some insects. Mmmhh.

Another interesting food class is bacteria, algae, and lichen. Also if you are ever starving and have some leather boots around...you can boil em.

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Leanan on April 9, 2009 - 9:33am

EROEI is higher than mammals for raising

I wonder if that holds true for mass production, though. If you have to raise a million pounds of meat, instead of a few pounds.

Marvin Harris did some study of this, though it was back in the '70s. He thought that eating algae (the Aztecs did) was a sign of nutritional stress. Not because he was grossed out by algae, but because it was barely worth the trouble of gathering it. His line of attack was to study the EROEI of harvesting various foods. IIRC, he found that larger animals had better returns than smaller ones, with some exceptions, and that this was reflected in the preferences of the people involved. Though he was studying foraging more than animal husbandry.

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FrankRichards on April 7, 2009 - 7:26pm

Those are feedlot/grain fed numbers. My chickens feed themselves during the growing season. And, after eating all the eggs we want, we sell enough to buy the winter feed. That's a flock of 20 hens and two roosters. I cheerfully admit it wouldn't work if we bought them grain all year round.

The 'pigs only eat what people could too' meme is a half truth. Acorns, earthworms, and a serious helping of random leaves are only technically human edible. There may be more truth to it in the Middle East, but in Europe, NA and China a rural family can buy a piglet in the spring, let it forage, supplemented with stuff otherwise headed for the compost, and butcher it in the fall without taking crops out of anyone's mouth.

That's eggs every day and meat twice a week. And then there's the 'brush goats'...

Frank

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mikeB on April 8, 2009 - 6:42am

Stupid quote A:

Those who refuse to admit that hogs are a waste of resources can not be serious about dealing with the human population problem. Trying to reduce human population while a competitive animal's production runs amok is stupid IMO.

Stupid quote B:

I concur. Eating animals uses more food to feed the animals than we will be able to afford, soon.

We have two hogs out in the barn right now, fat and ready to go. We call the butcher shop today for their trip to the Elysian Fields. In addition to grain, these pigs get the bushels of apples from the orchard that we can't use, all the kitchen scraps we can muster, plus all the extra milk from our cows.

Yes, cows. Entirely grass-fed American milking Devons, plus a neighbors' Shorthorn. Daily milking, daily yogurt, butter, ice cream, cheese.

Plus a huge poop pile. It all goes back into the fields--cow, horse, pig and chicken shit.

Speaking of "energy"--how much COAL is pissed away by vegetarians babbling away on websites about their moral superiority?

I invite you out to the farm to pry the fork from our cold, dead hands if you wish.

/rant

P.S. The population problem is caused by unprotected heterosexual intercourse, not animal farming.

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JUGLANS_NIGRA on April 8, 2009 - 8:03am

"I invite you out to the farm to pry the fork from our cold, dead hands if you wish."

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

The Zombie Horde will come visiting soon....HAHAHAHAHHAHAH!

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Merv_NZ on April 8, 2009 - 3:16pm

mikeB

Thanks for putting some balance into this thread.

American contributors mostly seem to think that all meat production is done in feedlots, using valuable "Human food" as the sole input. In many countries grazing on pasture, or browsing on scrubland or forest, is the primary way of raising meat animals.

Large areas of New Zealand hill country are used for grazing sheep and cattle on land that is not suited for any other food production purpose. Many other nations also have regions where the raising of grazing/browsing animals for meat is the only practical productive land use.

Even flat land is often not suitable for agricultural cropping, and can easily turn to dustbowl or salt-flat conditions if used for cropping. Grazing of animals on such land is the best use.

Pigs (hogs) are a marvelous animal for converting food scraps, damaged crops, wasteland fodder, etc into excellent meat and manure. Some varieties such as the Gloucester Old Spot were raised as "Orchard Pigs", and many British folk would keep one in the orchard to keep the grass tidy and cleanup all the windfall and wormy fruit. The NZ Kunekune pig can be raised on grazing alone, although they will grow faster with extra foods.

Eliminating meat from the human diet, so that greater numbers of vegetarians can more rapidly exploit the remaining resources, is a singularly stupid approach to planet management. There are too many people, not too many food animals.

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barrett on April 8, 2009 - 10:51pm

American contributors mostly seem to think that all meat production is done in feedlots, using valuable "Human food" as the sole input. In many countries grazing on pasture, or browsing on scrubland or forest, is the primary way of raising meat animals.

Not often that its that way with hogs in the US. Most of the pork production went to megafarms starting in the 1990's.

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Paleocon on April 7, 2009 - 11:33am

But improving the efficiency of humans is just the same as for other applications -- higher efficiency leads to more complete exhaustion of the resource -- and there will be nothing to stop rampant growth after that 100M growth either, so in 40 years we'll be having the same discussion only without bacon.

The hog problem can be cured readily in one year -- stop breeding them and eat them! While the same solution COULD work for humans, it seems highly unlikely to be the selected path.

Wouldn't it make more sense to NOT raise the population by 100M, cut back on meat consumption, grow less food, and start planning for a less populated future?

It may be that the optimum model for earth's survivability is to run headlong into the wall, with massive starvation and war to reduce the numbers. Perhaps there is no "soft landing" mechanism for uncontrolled population?

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elwoodelmore on April 7, 2009 - 11:37am

"The hog problem....."

but isn't the hog problem really the industrialized hog production problem ?

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aangel on April 7, 2009 - 11:46am

Could be, but even that's too narrow, in my view. It's just one facet of the "humans are consuming the earth" problem.

“God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the West…If an entire nation of 300 million took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts."
— Gandhi, 1928

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s_yajaman on April 7, 2009 - 2:13pm

Poor man. All the principles he stood for - non-violence, tolerance, truth, etc are being consigned to the rubbish bin here in India along with him.

And now we have 2.5 billion Chinese and Indians trying to go the way of America. If 300 million could strip the earth bare just imagine what this lot can do.

Srivathsa

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FMagyar on April 7, 2009 - 7:07pm

Yeah, kinda explains why they all want nukes as well...though a sudden variant of the bird flu virus or some such, might just make the whole issue moot.

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Consumer on April 7, 2009 - 12:46pm

"but isn't the hog problem really the industrialized hog production problem ?"

I think the hog problem is how much hog each person wants to eat. 4oz of bacon crubled on top of a bowl of roasted veggies for four people is different from two 5oz pork chops for each person.

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Bryant on April 7, 2009 - 10:53pm

Sorry Paleocon, but:

The hog problem can be cured

is just plain funny! Cured hog...imagine.

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Triffin on April 8, 2009 - 10:13am

the hog problem can be cured

Hmmmmm ..... HAM ..

Triff ..

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AKbound on April 8, 2009 - 2:23am

The solution for people is similar - Stop feeding them and they'll eat each other.

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AlanfromBigEasy on April 7, 2009 - 3:39pm

Cows first, then pigs.

'Severely limiting corn feed to cattle would do even more good. This would leave more land for soybeans, *FAR* less nitrogen fertilizer and a smaller dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Best Hopes for Grass finished beef, and less corn grown (lower demand > lower prices > less corn :-)

Alan

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MoonWatcher on April 7, 2009 - 8:03pm

OK, I'll say it...soy gives me big-time gas, no kidding.

Y'all can keep your Soylent Yellow and Soylent Red.

Soylent Green tastes like chicken, though...

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santaluciae on April 7, 2009 - 5:13pm

The Nazis hated pigs, funnily enough because Schweinen are the base of German food, Schwein u. Kartoffeln -pork and potatoes. They had the same (mad) statistics of how many people could be fed with barley and rye and potatoes, whatever, instead of feeding it to hogs then feeding the hog and wurst to people.
That way madness lies. By all means control human population but do not transform humans into grass eaters.

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LoveOregon on April 7, 2009 - 8:01pm

Hitler was vegetarian...and St. Francis wasn't. Curious, no?

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shaman on April 8, 2009 - 10:23am

The best reason for being vegetarian has little to do with being nice. I choose to be (mostly) vegetarian because I do not want to deal with the "meat" that comes out of our factory "farms."

I would gladly eat meat from Mike B's farm, just as I will occasionally eat free range turkey and chicken, wild caught fish and a burger from a range fed cow.

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