Maqqa wrote on Dec 19^th, 2015 at 10:18am:


Maqqa wants us to halve our CO2 emissions by splitting into two countries.

Is there a better way than a per calorie comparison to judge the footprint of foods?

If you grow the same or similar food in your backyard without propping up Bunnings in order to do so, the footprint can be close to zero.

freediver wrote on Dec 19^th, 2015 at 10:48am:


Maqqa is looking at the fallacy of each debating techniques

In one argument we look at the calorific density of a food and in another argument we are looking at the carbon emission density of a human from a certain area

Your rebuttal in terms of splitting into two countries I think reinforce my point is that the environment does not distinguish between a Chinese carbon emission and an Australian carbon emission.

mothra wrote on Dec 19^th, 2015 at 11:19am:


It's comparative debating technique that can be used on any number of topics

Maqqa wrote on Dec 19^th, 2015 at 11:03am:


Good point Maqqa. You should inform the scientific community.

How can the cattle industry be more efficient than veges? Milk production alone requires kilograms of feed per liter. Milk production requires constant breeding for lactation. 50% of those cows (the males) must be culled or sold off as beef products. The land degredation from cattle is a constant complaint of farmers. The methane produced is a major greenhouse issue.

There is no way this study can support itself. It appears, however, to address pork, not beef.

Meat production requires a much higher amount of water than vegetables. IME state that to produce 1kg of meat requires between 5,000 and 20,000 litres of water whereas to produce 1kg of wheat requires between 500 and 4,000 litres of water.


Data summary

Typical values for the volume of water required to produce common foodstuffs

Foodstuff           Quantity       Water consumption, litres
Chocolate         1 kg                      17,196
Beef                       1 kg               15,415
Sheep Meat       1 kg              10,412
Pork                   1 kg                       5,988
Butter                1 kg               5,553
Chicken meat          1 kg                       4,325
Cheese               1 kg                       3,178
Olives               1 kg                     3,025
Rice                       1 kg                       2,497
Cotton                1 @ 250g               2,495
Pasta (dry)          1 kg                       1,849
Bread                        1 kg               1,608
Pizza                       1 unit               1,239
Apple                1 kg                         822
Banana              1 kg                         790
Potatoes              1 kg                      287
Milk                1 x 250ml glass         255
Cabbage               1 kg                     237
Tomato               1 kg               214
Egg                  1                      196
Wine               1 x 250ml glass       109
Beer               1 x 250ml glass      74
Tea                      1 x 250 ml cup      27
Source: IME



http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-product...

mothra wrote on Dec 19^th, 2015 at 1:13pm:


The supply of water, Mother, but also the supply of land. Beef farming requires multiple fields per unit of food produced. Forest clearing for beef production, particularly around the Amazon, is one of the major producers of CO2.

In the US, grass feed has been replaced with corn feed. That corn could feed hundreds more people than the beef produced. Over 80% of beef goes into mince, most of this used for hamburger patties. Corn and beef are big ticket US exports, all subsidized. Most of it goes into fast food products, soft drinks and processed foods.

When you add the government subsidies, manufacturing process and supply chain to the water and land use, you couldn’t dream up a more inefficient way of producing food.

When this process dumps food on the global market and puts smaller producers out of business, it puts food security itself at risk. The ultimate result is the monopolization of food.

Multinationals like Cargills, Monsanto and Nestle earn larger profits than the GDP of many nations they trade in, and in doing so, they put farmers in those countries out of business. Those farmers join the slums of the major urban centres. Manila, Mumbai, Dhaka, Lagos, the old food producers become the new urban poor, while the air conditioned malls sell McDonalds to the children of the rich and newly emerging middle classes.

This is not just about land use, it’s about an entire global economy.