shrike82 posted:Any increase in meat prices will impact the developed world primarily for the best. Yeah a rise in food prices in a politically unstable area sounds like a great idea. A little social unrest will do those uppity third worlders good and will probably lead to a more sustainable and bountiful future for society as a whole. Come on, it's not like they're people. Nothing says progress like civil war
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 03:41
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 20:55 |
|
|
You should probably read that post again.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 03:44
|
|
Paper Mac posted:You should probably read that post again. I read it quite clearly. There's just zero reason to target the consumption of the third world. It's paternalistic bullshit. Things like meat should be cheaper for the third world. It already IS a luxury in many places. Cheap meat is not the problem, the problem are rich first worlders who can't take responsibility for their own consumption and the consumption that was required for their society to progress to where it has. Humanity can afford cheap meat.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 03:47
|
|
|
developed != developing
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 03:50
|
|
|
down with slavery posted:I read it quite clearly. No, you didn't, because we're talking about the retail price of meat in an English supermarket.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:02
|
|
|
Paper Mac posted:No, you didn't, because we're talking about the retail price of meat in an English supermarket. shrike82 posted:Any increase in meat prices will impact the developed world primarily for the best. Sure are a lot of skeletal toddlers hiding in that word "primarily"
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:04
|
|
|
We're talking about england here. Food is getting hella expensive, and the assholes in charge aren't helping, but we're a long way from hordes of skeletal children. Malnourished children, on the other hand...
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:08
|
|
|
It should be clear that leftists like SedanChair don't actually given a poo poo about the global south but are basically arguing for inaction in the face of GCC so that their Western lifestyles aren't disrupted.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:09
|
|
|
I don't think political stance means that much when it comes to CC. I'm a massive leftist myself, but the climate doesn't give a poo poo, and I can't see desperation doing anything other than leading to increasingly desperate (ie. fascist) 'solutions'. Sure, there'll be plenty of revolutions, but that's just going to be squabbling over increasingly small remains no matter which side wins.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:14
|
|
|
petrol blue posted:We're talking about england here. Food is getting hella expensive, and the assholes in charge aren't helping, but we're a long way from hordes of skeletal children. Malnourished children, on the other hand... You mentioned meat- are there any other foodstuffs you've seen big price swings in? I'm not all that familiar with European agricultural markets. I suspect that in North America we might see some more overt effects of climate change on food prices with the ongoing drought in California, but it's hard to say.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:14
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:It should be clear that leftists like SedanChair don't actually given a poo poo about the global south but are basically arguing for inaction in the face of GCC so that their Western lifestyles aren't disrupted. Isn't that kind of a shitheaded assumption? I could pay for meat as a rare luxury just like I'm sure you could. It's not about my quality of life. I support many laws that force lifestyle changes on people in my class, but I don't do it reflexively while ignoring knock-on effects.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:15
|
|
|
Paper Mac posted:You mentioned meat- are there any other foodstuffs you've seen big price swings in? I'm not all that familiar with European agricultural markets. I suspect that in North America we might see some more overt effects of climate change on food prices with the ongoing drought in California, but it's hard to say. Well, I should point out that I'm living on benefits, under a government actively opposed to 'scroungers' - so my real income is dwindling anyway. I've always thought of fresh meat as expensive, and not something I buy often, but fresh veg is also relatively expensive - about half my post rent/bills/etc money if I just buy fresh meat/veg. One of the big problems personally, and something that briefly made the news recently, is how much supermarkets bulk-sell veg, artifically increasing waste. It costs a few pence more to buy a bag of 12 apples than to buy 3 individual ones, for example. A fresh stirfry (say, some pork, beansprouts, onions, and rice) would be about £1 per serving. A huge plate of chips with a chicken ('chicken') kiev, frozen peas, and mayo would be about half that. On top of that, if you're trying to feed a whole family, I imagine that's a ton of prep time, etc.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
Paper Mac posted:You mentioned meat- are there any other foodstuffs you've seen big price swings in? I'm not all that familiar with European agricultural markets. I suspect that in North America we might see some more overt effects of climate change on food prices with the ongoing drought in California, but it's hard to say. Chipotle seems to think this could be the case some day. http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/03/04/3360731/chipotle-guacamole-crisis/
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:23
|
|
|
Dear GOD, not the guac! I loving love that stuff!  Oh hey, beansprouts are still cheap for an enormous bag that gets 1/3 used before it's dead, though. 
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:27
|
|
|
Knockknees posted:Chipotle seems to think this could be the case some day. They already charge you an extra $2 for a scoop so I think this is partially bullshit.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:31
|
|
|
petrol blue posted:Well, I should point out that I'm living on benefits, under a government actively opposed to 'scroungers' - so my real income is dwindling anyway. Yeah, I think your experience here is going to become pretty common going forward. I'm not sure what the total value of cash-disbursement versus other types of benefit programs is in different countries, but cash-disbursement programs are going to become useless if they don't keep up with food inflation. I guess that's the intent of the ideologues running the show, though, as you noted. petrol blue posted:I've always thought of fresh meat as expensive, and not something I buy often, but fresh veg is also relatively expensive - about half my post rent/bills/etc money if I just buy fresh meat/veg. One of the big problems personally, and something that briefly made the news recently, is how much supermarkets bulk-sell veg, artifically increasing waste. It costs a few pence more to buy a bag of 12 apples than to buy 3 individual ones, for example. Did they offer a reason for that pricing structure? I imagine it's something like "packing/shipping/handling/retailing individual items is more expensive than bulk packed ones", but I have no idea. Food retail honestly makes no sense at all to me. I live in a dense, poor, mostly immigrant neighborhood with a couple of discount chains and a couple of independent grocers (who basically do solely fruit/veg), and if you clip coupons things are pretty cheap. 1 km as the crow flies west is the center of the city, and prices on a lot of things are double what we pay here. The pricing seems to be as much or more a function of the socioeconomic terrain of the city as it is a reflection of the underlying costs of producing, packing, delivering foodstuffs. Knockknees posted:Chipotle seems to think this could be the case some day. Here's the punchline: quote:The guacamole operation at Chipotle is massive. The company uses, on average, 97,000 pounds of avocado every day to make its guac — which adds up to 35.4 million pounds of avocados every year. And while the avocado industry is fine at the moment, scientists are anticipating drier conditions due to climate change, which may have negative effects on California’s crop. Scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, for example, predict hotter temps will cause a 40 percent drop in California‘s avocado production over the next 32 years. A 40% decline in yield is pretty shocking. If it comes to that, yeah, they're going to have problems sourcing 35 million lb of avocado a year. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:44
|
|
|
Nah, the closest you get to a reasoning is NOW ONLY £2 PER KILO (of wheat husk and connective tissue). I think largely it's economic factors rather than pure strain in supplies, but part of the economy-problem comes back to "Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist." The UK has (long since) maxed out how much food, housing, and money it can provide, and I think the rest of the world is going to be (or maybe already is) just behind us. The only difference that I can see is that for a long time ([e: up till the, maybe] early-mid 20th century) we had a tech advantage that let us act bigger than we are, and that's catching up to us. To head off Shrike's inevitable criticism of my politics: Maybe if we'd gone full commie-paradise at the start of the 20th century, we could have gained a few years from eating the rich. Much as I hate to say it, right or left - democracy really looks like the losing horse in this race. Except it'll eat all the other horses on the way down to it's nicely-upholstered coffin. China seems like the only large state with the power to really do anything about CC, shame about the small print. (people) petrol blue fucked around with this message at 05:02 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 04:51
|
|
|
It's really hard to differentiate thermoeconomic effects (economy is dysfunctional because of some fundamental physical property of the system) from political economic ones (economy is dysfunctional because of crisis of accumulation, imperial decline, etc). In any case, I think England's in some ways a little bit ahead on the imperial decline curve than the rest of the Anglo-American hegemony, but we'll be joining you there soon enough.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 05:03
|
|
|
Of course we're leading the way for you colonial scum!  Race you to the bottom? e: I started reading Climate Wars earlier. The first scenario is russia getting very expansionist and northern europe getting fascist. It was meant to be a scenario for 2045. 
petrol blue fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 05:12
|
|
Paper Mac posted:No, you didn't, because we're talking about the retail price of meat in an English supermarket. Again, cheap meat is something we can have and should have. There is no reason for the price of meat to go up when we have so many other ways to cut carbon emissions. Food prices going up are the last thing we need for anyone. And yes, there are poor and hungry people even in the developed world.
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 05:54
|
|
|
down with slavery posted:Again, cheap meat is something we can have and should have. There is no reason for the price of meat to go up when we have so many other ways to cut carbon emissions. Food prices going up are the last thing we need for anyone. And yes, there are poor and hungry people even in the developed world. That's the post you should have made the first time, yes. petrol blue posted:e: I started reading Climate Wars earlier. The first scenario is russia getting very expansionist and northern europe getting fascist. It was meant to be a scenario for 2045. What chapter is this? It's been a while since I've read it and I couldn't find it flipping through. Paper Mac fucked around with this message at 06:43 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 06:34
|
|
|
Production costs of food is a pretty tiny part of what you actually end up paying in the store. As for the markets, there's been some speculations of a poor soybean harvest in Brazil due to drought and some wheat movements due to the Crimea crisis but nothing massive (like, 0,05% effect on whatever you pay in the store). Last year was a pretty drat great corn harvest too and this harvest is shaping up to be pretty good in Europe so it's probably not related to actual production costs 
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 07:35
|
|
|
petrol blue posted:Well, I should point out that I'm living on benefits, under a government actively opposed to 'scroungers' - so my real income is dwindling anyway. Have you looked into Hydroponics at all? I was tired of the crap produce that the supermarkets around here offered so I started growing my own. Just need a central room(temperature control) and wall space(Vertical farming). Fresh picked food is far far better then anything offered in a supermarket, year round production, and to top it off I know the complete history of the food I'm eating. Daytime(7000k) compact florescent light bulbs are the only light source you need.(All I use) The more expensive produce gets, the more cost effective growing your own becomes as well. When it's cheaper, cleaner, and taste better, there is really no reason not to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 07:40
|
|
|
Zelthar posted:The more expensive produce gets, the more cost effective growing your own becomes as well. When it's cheaper, cleaner, and taste better, there is really no reason not to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 07:50
|
|
|
Space needed is just wall space. I can see space being an issue for some ,but the vast majority could cope. For time, aside from initial set up. It's just top off water bucket once every few weeks or as needed, add plant food to water bucket once a month. Lights are on one of those cheap wall timers for Christmas lights. Check in on plants once in a while to make sure things haven't gone horribly wrong and to Q-tip flowers for pollination(10-20min). Pick food. If someone doesn't have time for that, then most likely they are not even cooking at home and growing food then is a moot point. Negative Entropy posted:Are any city governments moving to implement hydroponic gardens, like having greenhouses on the roofs of office buildings? I've seen community gardens and the like, but no real push yet. I'd love to see the worlds food production go hydroponic or open air hydroponic(open air for pollination reasons). This act alone would make dead zones in the ocean a thing of the past, since hydroponics are a closed loop watering system. Zelthar fucked around with this message at 08:25 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 08:11
|
|
|
Zelthar posted:Space needed is just wall space. I can see space being an issue for some ,but the vast majority could cope. For time, aside from initial set up. It's just top off water bucket once every few weeks or as needed, add plant food to water bucket once a month. Lights are on one of those cheap wall timers for Christmas lights. Check in on plants once in a while to make sure things haven't gone horribly wrong and to Q-tip flowers for pollination(10-20min). Pick food. I live in a lovely one bedroom flat. My already limited space is taken up by things I need to live. In an effort to keep the costs down, I literally have to have next to no lights on in the house. I'd imagine there's quite a few people in my situation. I doubt creating a hydroponic (which is pretty unforgiving if you gently caress up, as someone who has literally no food production experience is likely going to do, possibly several times) food farm in their living room is going to be ideal.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 08:25
|
|
|
So, in the climate change thread, you're going to suggest growing food 100% on artificial light. That sounds woefully inefficient and severely not carbon-neutral for most of the developed world. Not to mention the potential drug raids when your power bill spikes.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 08:43
|
|
|
As anecdotal as it is, I grew up in the desert southwest in a large city. Even gardening was a joke. All I did was Google my way though. "horribly wrong" Are dead plants really that big of a thing? Maybe a water leak? It's just a plant with flowing water under it. It's really a lot less complicated than most people give it. Yeah, finding space can be a challenge for some and impossible for others. It should be worth the time though to look it over, if it would save money over the long run as well as a healthier diet. This is also situational to food costs and location. A well placed farmers market would provide all the cheap produce one needs. A 23w CFL daytime light bulb costs less then 20$ a year to run 12 hours a day every day. EightBit posted:So, in the climate change thread, you're going to suggest growing food 100% on artificial light. That sounds woefully inefficient and severely not carbon-neutral for most of the developed world. Not to mention the potential drug raids when your power bill spikes. Yep Or are you under the impression that all the fresh water we need will always be there for lovely irrigation and run off that kills massive areas of the ocean. Nope, no water shortages right now in most of the growing areas of the world.... An increase in power demand is a small price to pay for all the benefits and stability(weather proof growing seasons, no barren lands, winter production of summer crops, local farms in major cities, food transportation cut in half or more). LED lights, less then 10$ a year in power Zelthar fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 08:52
|
|
|
shrike82 posted:Nah, Yiggy and I are in perfect agreement. Especially given the response, and contrary to others telling me what I do and don't agree with... I think I'm only further in agreement with Shrike. This false dichotomy between weaning ourselves off excessive meat consumption and hungering for, nay needing more distended bellies of starving children (who couldn't possibly be given another protein source in this universe...) is both absurd and typical for Sedanchair. I also don't see at all why we must have and should have cheap meat as if its some sort of divine right. This smacks of the same sort of problems plaguing and stopping all other efforts to change societies' behavior and curb emissions: an extreme and bizarre attachment to our own creature comforts. Saying we can and must have cheap meat can just as easily be said for how we can and must have cheap energy and ignores how both come with a cost whether its reflected in the retail price tag or not. To blithely mention how there are so many other ways for us to reduce emissions ignores how intractable those other emissions sources have proven to be to any sort of concerted effort and just how big of a piece of low hanging fruit reduced consumption of meat would be. Agriculture, and particularly enteric fermentation from beef and lamb raising, are the number one source of Non-CO2 greenhouse gases.  A fuller breakdown of the carbon inventory for the US in particular is here   http://unfccc.int/resource/docs/natc/usa_nc5.pdf The greenhouse gases from agriculture and especially meat agriculture are more potent than CO2. In terms of CO2 equivalent, after direct burning of fossil fuels, the impact of beef and lamb farts is second only to the release of N2O from agricultural land management, and even there meat agricultural is a disparately large contributor. Once you add in manure management to enteric fermentation, it just about equals N2O release from agricultural land. It is a huge contributor and anyone pretending to be serious about GHG reduction cannot ignore it. Furthermore, we could hugely dent the release of these GHG's merely with a reduction in meat consumption away from a pattern which is really only a problem in the US, Europe and Austrailia. Most of the world already isn't on a meat intensive diet, despite these ridiculous attacks on people pointing this out as somehow wanting developing world children to starve. http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0062228#pone-0062228-t001   Even a small shift in our consumption patterns would have a marked difference. Especially when you consider that a third of fossil fuel emissions are from transportation and that a non-trivial fraction of this includes transportation of livestock and livestock agriculture inputs. Cutting carbon emissions will not be achieved with piece-meal efforts designed to protect comforts which only truly exist in the Western Developed World. And when we so obstinately continue to deny the problem it will be no wonder when the developing world demands that they have their turn too since we're so unwilling to make changes ourselves.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:12
|
|
|
Yiggy posted:Furthermore, we could hugely dent the release of these GHG's merely with a reduction in meat consumption away from a pattern which is really only a problem in the US, Europe and Austrailia. [b]Most of the world already isn't on a meat intensive diet, despite these ridiculous attacks on people pointing this out as somehow wanting developing world children to starve. Sure, but let's avoid doing that thing where we pretend that the reason poorer countries don't each much meat is because they're so ethical or environmentally conscious or whatever. People in the developing world loving love meat when they can get it. They don't because they can't, not because they don't want to.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:24
|
|
|
What role do you think Lab meat will play in all this? Right now it's a new and scary thing ,but as meat prices rise ,one way or another, it will be part of the market. I can see it entering the market kinda like high fructose corn syrup did to cane sugar.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:25
|
|
|
Torka posted:Sure, but let's avoid doing that thing where we pretend that the reason poorer countries don't each much meat is because they're so ethical or environmentally conscious or whatever. People in the developing world loving love meat when they can get it. They don't because they can't, not because they don't want to. I sincerely don't believe thats what I'm doing and frankly the developing world isn't the problem. If the true cost of the damage meat does to the environment were reflected in its price, if factory farms weren't a thing, the developed world wouldn't be able to get as much of it either. What I'm resisting here is the notion that the cheap meat that only we're enjoying is somehow the Natural and Right way of things.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:28
|
|
|
Yiggy posted:What I'm resisting here is the notion that the cheap meat that only we're enjoying is somehow the Natural and Right way of things. I don't think even one poster has argued that. I'd be all for reducing meat consumption in America only, if there was some way to do it short of the eventual famine/manhunts/prison planet way that will probably end up being what happens.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:33
|
|
|
Zelthar posted:An increase in power demand is a small price to pay for all the benefits and stability(weather proof growing seasons, no barren lands, winter production of summer crops, local farms in major cities, food transportation cut in half or more). Hydroponics are interesting but they're not a systematic solution in that it's pretty much impossible to replace open-field growing with hydroponics. Hydroponics really doesn't scale well when you get into eg. staple production. If you're really producing 100% of your veg from your hydroponics system, good on you, though. Zelthar posted:What role do you think Lab meat will play in all this? Right now it's a new and scary thing ,but as meat prices rise ,one way or another, it will be part of the market. I can see it entering the market kinda like high fructose corn syrup did to cane sugar. No role. Tissue culture is incredibly energy and material intensive. It also needs to be conducted typically in some kind of conditioned media, often containing FBS (fetal bovine serum) or NGS (normal goat serum). You need really, really good sterile facilities to do tissue culture on any kind of large scale, and well trained staff. It's in short, way more expensive than raising a goat or cow or whatever and you in many cases have to raise the goat or cow to provide the medium for the cells anyway. IIRC that lab burger they served was 5 or 10 grand or something absurd like that. It's possible they might find a way to get a bioreactor to do this on a large scale semiautonomously but I really doubt its ever gonna be cheaper than a guy standing on a patch of land with a cow.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:38
|
|
|
SedanChair posted:I don't think even one poster has argued that. down with slavery posted:Again, cheap meat is something we can have and should have. There is no reason for the price of meat to go up when we have so many other ways to cut carbon emissions. Food prices going up are the last thing we need for anyone. down with slavery posted:Things like meat should be cheaper for the third world. It already IS a luxury in many places. Cheap meat is not the problem, the problem are rich first worlders who can't take responsibility for their own consumption and the consumption that was required for their society to progress to where it has. I don't think cheap meat is something we can and should have, I don't think we as humanity can afford the externalities that cheap meat requires. I would not want it on a boat, I would not want it with a goat. I do not think we need cheap meat here, I do not think we should enable cheap meat there. The problems with our own developed world consumption go hand and foot, hoof and mouth with our consumption problems and attachments to cheap meat. They are inseparable.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 09:45
|
|
|
Yiggy posted:I don't think cheap meat is something we can and should have, I don't think we as humanity can afford the externalities that cheap meat requires. I would not want it on a boat, I would not want it with a goat. I do not think we need cheap meat here, I do not think we should enable cheap meat there. The problems with our own developed world consumption go hand and foot, hoof and mouth with our consumption problems and attachments to cheap meat. They are inseparable. I think he's more getting at the fact that you can't really attack cheap meat without raising the price of food overall. In other words squeezing those least able to bear the burden to address climate change.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 10:31
|
|
|
A big flaming stink posted:I think he's more getting at the fact that you can't really attack cheap meat without raising the price of food overall. Really? Given the massive amount of food that is grown just to be fed to animals for mostly Western meat consumption, with the big efficiency loss that goes with it, wouldn't reducing that demand lower the price of those foods for people? e: I mean I guess there would be some substitution effect but I can't see how it would outweigh the drop in demand. Admittedly I'm not sure how you could go about discouraging Western meat consumption without a massively unpopular market intervention or huge cultural shift. The New Black fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Mar 6, 2014 |
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 11:51
|
|
|
The New Black posted:Really? Given the massive amount of food that is grown just to be fed to animals for mostly Western meat consumption, with the big efficiency loss that goes with it, wouldn't reducing that demand lower the price of those foods for people? A lot of the crops grown are literally not edible for humans but are for animals. There is also currently a glut in production (for food in general, but especially human friendly stuff) so it's not like making things more efficient will necessarily solve world hunger because you still need to get the food out to people.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 14:10
|
|
Yiggy posted:I don't think cheap meat is something we can and should have, I don't think we as humanity can afford the externalities that cheap meat requires. I would not want it on a boat, I would not want it with a goat. I do not think we need cheap meat here, I do not think we should enable cheap meat there. The problems with our own developed world consumption go hand and foot, hoof and mouth with our consumption problems and attachments to cheap meat. They are inseparable. Spoken like a true privileged first worlder. No buddy, meat being affordable by poor people inside and outside the developed world is not actually a problem when it comes to climate change, sorry. When we get to the point where we don't have reasonable places to cut carbon emmissions and we absolutely need to, I'll hear the argument that we should reduce food production/increase costs. As it is, the price of essentials should not and does not need to go up. We don't need more expensive clean water, food, or any of the things we should be using carbon for. What needs to be more expensive are luxury items, carbon-heavy forms of transportation, and running a business that pumps thousands of tons of CO2 into the air. Yiggy posted:What I'm resisting here is the notion that the cheap meat that only we're enjoying is somehow the Natural and Right way of things. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naturalistic_fallacy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature There is no "Natural and Right way of things"
|
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 14:16
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 28, 2024 20:55 |
|
|
A big flaming stink posted:I think he's more getting at the fact that you can't really attack cheap meat without raising the price of food overall. Luxury taxes? Raising prices locally so people consume less locally is trivial.
|
|
#
?
Mar 6, 2014 15:05
|
|
