Wokeness Political Poison?

The GHG emissions from farming are certainly an issue, but it is one of those issues that we HAVE to find a solution to. If we can convert the rest of transport to electric then I see no reason why tractors could not be. I know you kiwis love your sheep, and it is possible that ruminants will not be part of our food landscape going forward, but we may be able to fix it with genetic engineering.

Greenies here opposed to genetic engineering.

Sheep aren't the problem the national herd is a lot smaller than the good old days.

It's intensive dairy farming. We should be eating more sheep less beef.

Should be eating less meat overall.

I think we might be able to develop hydrogen power due to excess electrical capacity in some areas. That's not a solution for most of the world.

So the Greenies here opposed to farming but are pro welfare state and pro immigration even if the people they pretend to care about (PoC) are hurt by it.
 
I think most of these ancient (and modern day) sacrifices basically involved the ritual killing and eating of the animal, so they were/are no more wasted than your diner.
Who ate them? Was this in addition to what people would normally have eaten?

Emotionally I agree with Greta. Doesn't help she has a face you want to slap.
Okay, that's crossing a line. :huh: Yes, her expression looks like she's never smiled a day in her life, but that's her public persona. In private she could be very different, and her looks aren't the point anyway. It's the message she's been preaching that people either accept or don't, or want to but can't for practical reasons like I mentioned upthread.
 
Who ate them? Was this in addition to what people would normally have eaten?
This is the description from the Iliad, I think the answer is everyone, for some values of everyone (male soldiers, not pages?):

They arranged the holy hecatomb all orderly round the altar of the god. They washed their hands and took up the barley-meal to sprinkle over the victims [cattle], while [the priest] lifted up his hands and prayed aloud on their behalf.
...
When they had done praying and sprinkling the barley-meal, they drew back the heads of the victims (Cattle) and killed and flayed them. They cut out the thigh-bones, wrapped them round in two layers of fat, set some pieces of raw meat on the top of them, and then [the priest] laid them on the wood fire and poured wine over them, while the young men stood near him with five-pronged spits in their hands. When the thigh-bones were burned and they had tasted the inward meats, they cut the rest up small, put the pieces upon the spits, roasted them till they were done, and drew them off: then, when they had finished their work and the feast was ready, they ate it, and every man had his full share, so that all were satisfied. As soon as they had had enough to eat and drink, pages filled the mixing-bowls with wine and water and handed it round, after giving every man his drink-offering.
Thus all day long the young men worshipped the god with song, hymning him and chaunting the joyous paean, and the god took pleasure in their voices.​
 
Who ate them? Was this in addition to what people would normally have eaten?


Okay, that's crossing a line. :huh: Yes, her expression looks like she's never smiled a day in her life, but that's her public persona. In private she could be very different, and her looks aren't the point anyway. It's the message she's been preaching that people either accept or don't, or want to but can't for practical reasons like I mentioned upthread.

She reminds me of a puritan or a nun. She's essentially useless at communicating though she is really only preaching to the converted.
 
The GHG emissions from farming are certainly an issue, but it is one of those issues that we HAVE to find a solution to. If we can convert the rest of transport to electric then I see no reason why tractors could not be. I know you kiwis love your sheep, and it is possible that ruminants will not be part of our food landscape going forward, but we may be able to fix it with genetic engineering.

The first economically viable en masse hybrid pickup truck hit the road, what, this year? You'd be surprised at the torque, sustained and steady, it takes to turn 100 acres over. Much harder than making the truck work with battery load. You'd need a substantial charging station and a way to mechanically swap out forklift-sized batteries as it stands. Somehwhere you won't get stuck. That you run high voltage lines to. In the middle of nowhere. All over the place. Doable, much harder. No, if I had to guess, solar and small is how you'll have to approach fuel use in agriculture. And that isn't even starting in on the energy consumed to create agro-nitrogen fertilizer(the reason we don't all starve), up there with concrete(or higher) on total percentage of human energy usage.
 
The first economically viable en masse hybrid pickup truck hit the road, what, this year? You'd be surprised at the torque, sustained and steady, it takes to turn 100 acres over. Much harder than making the truck work with battery load. You'd need a substantial charging station and a way to mechanically swap out forklift-sized batteries as it stands. Somehwhere you won't get stuck. That you run high voltage lines to. In the middle of nowhere. All over the place. Doable, much harder. No, if I had to guess, solar and small is how you'll have to approach fuel use in agriculture. And that isn't even starting in on the energy consumed to create agro-nitrogen fertilizer(the reason we don't all starve), up there with concrete(or higher) on total percentage of human energy usage.
I can imagine a move back to the power source staying on the side of the field, and the plow being pulled across the field. This is a picture from ~1861 doing that with only 14 horsepower, so it has to be possible:



With regards making nitrogenous fertiliser, they are working on that. And yes, it is a biggy: "The Haber–Bosch process, where nitrogen and hydrogen molecules react to form ammonia (N2 + H2 → NH3), accounts for 1.4% of global carbon dioxide emissions and consumes 1% of the world’s total energy production." and "Now, Vasileios Kyriakou and colleagues have designed a protonic ceramic membrane reactor that consists of Ni-BaZr0.7Ce0.2Y0.1O3–x and VN-Fe porous electrodes, respectively as the anode and cathode, separated by a BaZr0.8Ce0.1Y0.1O3–x solid electrolyte membrane. The researchers achieve a maximum ammonia rate of 68 mmol NH3 h–1 m–2 at 0.63 V and 600 °C, with a Faradaic efficiency to ammonia of 5.5%."
 
It's possible now. We could use literal horses, assuming people are willing to breed them and put 1/3 of the ground back into pasturage. Which they won't. Because if you try and do that you're out of business, and you did not pay yourself at any point while you were running it all into the ground.

I'm being too negative. There are sections of Amish that still do this. I guess we could look at their efficiencies and determine what subsidies would be required to support several percent of the US population in production in this manner.
 
It's possible now. We could use literal horses, assuming people are willing to breed them and put 1/3 of the ground back into pasturage. Which they won't. Because if you try and do that you're out of business, and you did not pay yourself at any point while you were running it all into the ground.
This I suspect is the core of basically all our climate change problems. All the solutions are possible, but cost a bit more. So unless everyone makes the change, no one can as they will get out competed.
 
Some things require government to work. Farmers still farm the program. We get the program we pay for. Remember, we still pay out more raw in SNAP under the Farm Bill than we do in all the production and environmental aspects of that program. Food for thought. A quote from Biden's Secretary of Ag, earlier was along the lines of "We need to think of agriculture not as a food production system, but a food distribution system" or something to that effect. My hopes, currently, are zero.
 
Some things require government to work. Farmers still farm the program. We get the program we pay for. Remember, we still pay out more raw in SNAP under the Farm Bill than we do in all the production and environmental aspects of that program. Food for thought. A quote from Biden's Secretary of Ag, earlier was along the lines of "We need to think of agriculture not as a food production system, but a food distribution system" or something to that effect. My hopes, currently, are zero.
By a massive margin:

Of the programs covered by nutrition, SNAP accounts for 95% of all spending. Overall, nutrition spending makes up 80% of the total budget for the Farm Bill.
Not that I really understand what that means. Poor people can eat, and supermarkets get most of the money assigned to the Farm Bill?
 
That is the gist.

But the point would be under spending on certain aspects of the process. Maybe. Who knows. Maybe that's a reasonable and sustainable investment from the world's largest food exporter. Unless that's somebody else now.
 
Not that I really understand what that means. Poor people can eat, and supermarkets get most of the money assigned to the Farm Bill?
I'm not sure how this program works (we don't do food stamps in Canada, though there are some vile people who think we should, because how DARE people on benefits think they might deserve a chocolate bar now and then, and there's a woman on another of my gaming forums who works at a Walmart in Nova Scotia - maybe New Brunswick, not sure - who will go on a rant about customers who buy more than one turkey, or dare to enter HER store if they're seniors or disabled or on benefits and doesn't give a damn how offensive her words are even when I confronted her about them).

All I know is that less-nutritious food is cheaper than more nutritious food, and it's worse if you need a special diet that means more expensive items.

And food banks, when they started, were supposed to be temporary. Now they're a fact of life for many people, and for some reason they tend to be located in areas that are not easily-accessible by public transit.
 
It's possible now. We could use literal horses, assuming people are willing to breed them and put 1/3 of the ground back into pasturage.

The ~40m acres now devoted to ethanol would feed a lot of horses.
 
Pretty creatures. Hitching posts and manure in the streets, everyday is a parade! :D

I think the Chicago Police still use them. Like 32 of them, total. Lord, there would need to be a lot of rebuilt barns to hold several millions again.
 
Pretty creatures. Hitching posts and manure in the streets, everyday is a parade! :D

I think the Chicago Police still use them.
I just remembered. My grandfather always maintained that tractors where a flash in the pan, and everyone would go back to horses to work the land. People laughed, but perhaps he was right after all.
 
I'm still betting people won't do it or let their neighbors do it. They're aiming for robot agro-armies that Musk and Gates can use to face off against each other.
 
She reminds me of a puritan or a nun. She's essentially useless at communicating though she is really only preaching to the converted.
I think she is on the "spectrum" and has to work hard to be communicative. Be kind.
 
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Hydrogen or biofuel should be better solution to the fossil fuel problem wherever electricity is hard to use.
Keeping lots of grazing animals is not very ecology-friendly too.
 
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