Not trying to be overly flippant... who cares?

The paper opens with "to feed a growing population" without asking is that what we need? want? where we are actually heading to?

Is feeding the world a real problem? I've yet to see compelling evidence that it really is except as a secondary effect of logistics, energy supply, and war.

edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

> Is feeding the world a real problem?

Yes, but it is not a production capacity problem. The constraints on food are mostly in the logistics chain, often having to do with corruption or distribution targets (food goes where the money is), or regulation (did you know that cherry growers in the Upper Midwest are required --_by Federal law_-- to destroy unsold crops?).

A huge amount of food goes to waste simply because of regulation or subsidies, at least within the United States.

It's the leading cause of deforestation which is a major factor in climate change. It also is a major contributor to climate change for other reasons. Since you mentioned energy, it's also much less energy efficient.

Isn't this something to care about?

I recommend you visiting the Brazilian region of Pantanal, if possible travel through Mato Grosso do Sul -> Mato Grosso -> southern Pará where it transitions into the Amazon.

You will see vast areas of cattle ranching, soybeans plantation used for cattle feed, and other crops that can be used as cattle feed. All that area used to be the Pantanal and Amazon, now transformed to grow beef.

If we would reduce the calories wasted on beef, this area could still have a lot more native vegetation. Of course, it's purely wishful thinking because this ship has sailed, beef consumption will take a long time to stop growing, these farms will fight for their lives to keep producing, and we've lost a huge area of incredible nature to eat some steaks and burgers.

Solve our energy problems first? How would decreasing cattle stop work on improving our energy system? I think a lot points to that we need to do both (and yesterday). It’s not like agriculture is a small part of our greenhouse gas emissions (25-35% globally).

Exactly. The current world population is 8.3 billion and is expected to peak at 10.3 billion in 2080 and then begin declining. Now, there are a number of other reasons we might have food shortages, but population per se I don't think is a significant factor.

Agreed. The market should decide if beef consumption is viable. Ultimately energy is the basis all food production. Cheap and plentiful energy solves the food production and distribution problem, then its just matter of preferences.

> edit: I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

There's no "first." There's not a queue of problems that the people of the world work on one by one. It's not a matter of limited labor/money either, we're talking about policies to change allocation. If anything is limited here it's political will, but that doesn't really work like money or physical limitations, it's more abstract and nonlinear. It's quite possible that a platform containing more changes earns more will than one with fewer, so budgeting is the wrong impulse.

meat uses up enormous quantities of water. potatoes for instance use about 75 gallons to produce 2000 calories compared to say 1500 to 2500 gallons for 2000 calories of beef.

We have 8 billion people. We have enough people to solve both the energy problem and the food efficiency problem.

That said, it's very, very funny that you responded to an article about energy inefficiency (calorie -> calorie) and said we should solve our energy problems. Beef is an energy problem! We're putting 30x the energy into the product against the energy we get out! Thats wasted energy!

This is being downvoted, but is raising a serious point.

- Nearly 90% of Americans eat red meat [1].

- Environmental activity against meat has led a lot of people (26% of Americans) to believe that there is a push to ban red meat. This issue does not poll well [1].

- Despite the above, Americans are eating less red meat than we used to [2].

- The vast majority of people who choose to reduce their meat intake do so for cost or health reasons, not environmental [3].

Putting all that together... studies like this do not help the environmental cause. Sure, they find something that's vaguely interesting, and can possibly be a bullet point on an environmentalist slide. However, a far better research study would be one focusing on human health impacts of red meat, or demonstrating economic benefits to red meat alternatives.

tl;ld - This study is not useful, and is probably damaging to it's own cause.

[1]: https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/nearly-nine-ten-ameri...

[2]: https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/new-survey-reveals-r...

[3]: https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/two-thirds-of-a...

> I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

You don’t think the two are related at all? When you say “solve” energy problems, do you mean from supply-side solutions or demand-side solutions?

>I understand the environmental impacts. I think we should solve our energy problems first.

is there a rational argument in here or is this just a cheap psychological reflex to keep eating beef? Because it's not clear to me how solving our energy problems and the consumption of beef even intersect so that we couldn't do both at the same time.

You might as well have said "man I really should stop drinking and smoking, but we gotta solve the energy problems first"

The question is, whats the bigger environmental impact, more people using smart phones, computers, cars, planes, buying the newest fashion to show their style,... or feeding them with beef?

You are completely right, who the fuck cares?

[flagged]

I know you warned us, but this overly flippant.

There's plenty of obvious reasons we shouldn't be wasting land, energy, water and labor on producing things that don't get utilized. Even in the most selfish capitalist sensibility, we are wasting money. Yes the energy issue is much bigger than this but wasted energy utilization is part of that problem. I know this is politically fraught, but that should not have any bearing on scholarship. This is just data to add to our understanding.

And also that this study is global, not purely applicable to America. Republicans can exploit outrage with lies to their base, but that isn't such a slam dunk everywhere in the world

> Is feeding the world a real problem?

In light of recent, uhm, "challenges" to fertilizer supply chains?

> Not trying to be overly flippant... who cares?

Congratulations on being overly flippant without trying. Evidently a lot of people care, and environmental impacts and energy problems are closely related.

Feeding the world is mostly a political-economic problem. Political-economic decisions make it hard to feed everybody, when we technically have more than enough to feed everybody. But one of the decisions that make it hard to feed everybody is the decision to eat lots of beef in rich countries. Land that's used to grow food for cattle could (in many but not all cases) also be used to grow food for poor people, but there's no money in that.

That's not the only one; there's lots of other ways in which food is wasted or used inefficiently. Although the situation has improved tremendously over the past half century, there are still a lot of people suffering from malnutrition.

> Is feeding the world a real problem?

Yes.

> I've yet to see compelling evidence that it really is except as a secondary effect of logistics, energy supply, and war.

I don't know how to respond to this. It's like saying you don't think breathing underwater is difficult, except for the secondary effects of water. War is a problem. Energy supply is a problem. Logistics is a problem. All these problems lead to starvation. People starving is a real problem.

Another reason people starve is economics and market forces. The market decides it wants to use up more water and grain to feed cows. That grain and water is now not available for purchase as human food. That means it is more scarce on the human-feeding market. Scarcity drives up prices. So livestock feed makes grain more expensive, making it harder to purchase, for people to eat.

(I'm using "starve" as a euphemism for "malnutrition that not only severely impacts bodily health, reduces quality of life, and increases mortality, but also decreases economic productivity")

Now, if the point you're trying to make is "we could solve world hunger", then absolutely the answer is yes, humans produce more than enough grain to feed everyone in the world, and we have the money to transport it everywhere, even assist with cooking fuel. But because of all the categories you think don't apply, and markets, and economics, we are not fixing it. We are choosing to let people starve.