I wish I could get the joy out of picking up an animal turd that Steve Irwin had. Every time I walk the dogs.
Crikey, she’s a beaut.
Try adding Old Bay, or some Steak Seasoning.
That doesn’t make it any less squishy.
I believe the term you’re looking for is “al dente”
This is why I get so mad when people say “we don’t have an overpopulation problem, we have a resource allocation problem”.
No. There are not supposed to be this many fucking humans. Where the fuck are the animals supposed to live???
We need to return to preindustrial population levels so the animals can too
Wildlife is now only 4% of the mammalian life on the planet, by mass. The rest is livestock and humans. https://www.ecowatch.com/biomass-humans-animals-2571413930.html
Exactly. That’s insane.
Return to monke.
deleted by creator
It’s amazing how many people I talk to about overpopulation simply that we get 50% of the land (or more!) and the rest of all other animals get to fight over the rest.
Why? Who decided that there aren’t supposed to be this many humans? We just need to accept that humans exist and work with that. Unless your solution is genocide and mass sterelization. And historically, richer nations paradoxically breed less, which is pretty unnatural IMO but seems like the solution to overpopulation: feed and educate.
Here, I have a couple examples to kind of, illustrate why, despite the common sentiment, antinatalism, and malthusianism, inherently, like, just straight up, don’t make any sense. This is all based on back of the napkin math that I did a while ago, and I don’t want to redo the numbers, so take it with a grain of salt maybe, but, yeah.
Okay, so, not really taking into account consumption or supply chain, which are major factors, you could fit the entire population of earth in one city the size of about one and a quarter rhode islands, if you had the population density of kowloon. Now, kowloon has retroactively been shat on as having a low quality standard of living, which is partially true, there were leaks everywhere, it was run by the mob, yadda yadda, but there’s nothing inherently problematic with that level of density, there. You could easily expand that to, say, two rhode islands, or three, right, and that would cover an insanely small portion of the earth’s surface while also being more than enough for everyone to live.
On the other hand, if you divided up the earth based on only habitable zones and arable land, you’d get about 2.5 acres per person, which I think also accounts for the elderly and children. To me, that sounds like probably 2.5x more than I would ever need in a lifetime, especially once we kind of tally up all the savings that we can get at scale, at mass production, and then maybe take costs for transportation.
We also, never, never ever take into account the amount of land management which was being done by the various natives of all their lands before colonialism kind of came in and fucked everything up. We have this conception of nature as being some kind of like, inherent good entity that humans can only ever destroy with their presence. A kind of untouched garden of eden that we should basically never touch. As being like, inherently sacred, or having some inherent value, even, to the point where we anthropomorphize it. “Mother nature”. We have this view of humans as also being completely separate from nature, as being an aberration, rather than being a part of it. I think these are both mistakes. We have to view humans as being a part of nature, and we have to start viewing nature as existing everywhere, rather than just being something that you minorly interface with when you go for a hike. Our built environment is part of nature, our decision to plant exclusively male trees that will give off a shit ton of pollen which covers all the windows and makes everything super shitty all spring so we don’t have fruit, that’s a part of nature. So are the raccoons and possums and stray cats and dogs and pigeons and weeds and other things which we see as being invasive but also simultaneously as having no real habitat anymore.
The real solution, I think, is only going to come about when humans collectively start to conceptualize and take accountability for what they go around and do, rather than just sort of, pawning off all responsibility for everything, and cooking up some apocalyptic reality where it’d just be better off if we didn’t exist at all. The genie is out of the bottle. Even to conceptualize of us as being “the problem”, as though there is a singular kind of problem, is a kind of anthropocentrism, and a kind of anthropomorphizing of nature.
I also assume I don’t need to really discuss how like, the idea that we’re currently doing everything in the most efficient way, is a little bit overconfident, and takes everything at a kind of, unchanging face value. As though we exist in the long arc of history with a kind of inevitability, rather than a random happenstance.
We need to return to preindustrial population levels so the animals can too.
What exactly are you proposing?
I don’t have all the answers, it’s like saying I want candy and not knowing how to make it.
That said, maybe something like a tax on children, free contraceptives, free sterilization, free abortion. Pay people when they reach 45 if they don’t have kids. Robot caregivers for elder care in a decreasing population.
Better sex-ed in schools. A philosophy change that the best thing you can leave behind on this planet is nothing.
I propose more cool video games.
It’s really amazing how much damage his loss probably did to the world.
I can’t think of any pro-wildlife “influencers” that would be at his level today, much less wherever he would have reached in the remaining years.
David Attenborough’s narrations for nature docs, maybe? But that’s not really the same as watching a wildlife fanatic like Steve Irwin.
He has a son that seems eager to follow in his footsteps, so maybe he’ll fill that void one day.
But getting that kind of popularity is like being struck by lightning, especially now. He had a very advantageous start on TV (not to belittle how amazing he was).
In the anglosphere maybe, which most of Lemmy seems to represent. I come across countless legends doing the same work but without the same recognition. When Greta Thunberg, who I admire, became big I read an article about all the people around her age that have been doing the same campaigning. They were mostly indigenous people so nobody came along with a TV show for them.
Yes there are so many indigenous cultures (certainly every one I’ve learned about in Canada) that are literally about working together with the earth and in balance with the earth. Steve Irwin was a wonderful person but imagine all the wiped out or nearly wiped out cultures where this was or continues to be literally their way of existing in the world, and they were dismissed for so long as “savages” for their relationship with nature.
I shudder to think that Greta is attributed to Conservation in the same breath as Steve Irwin!
Greta should be at home and in school and preparing to live her life as an adult. If she as an adult became a climate activist and held the Top-7 or Top-10 or Top-20 corporations accountable, sure that would be commendable.
Nothing gets done blaming others and while taking no action against the wrongdoers.
yourselfShe’s 21. she’s been an adult for a few years now. She is still a climate activist and is still holding corporations accountable and she is still commendable.
Wonderful how we don’t have any polluting corporations anymore … wait … it has gotten worse …
Nothing gets done blaming others and taking no action yourself.
You’re literally complaining that she decided to take action too soon for your taste.
Silly me for pointing out that sensationalism and performance-activism hasnt done anything worth a dime or nickel to reign in the perpetrators of the climate catastrophe.
If Greta or similar persons could get a climate science degree and perhaps a political or law education and work to take down the system from within, perhaps we could stand a chance.
Spray-painting Van Gogh or the Stone Henge isnt solving anything. Neither is sailing around on a yatch around the world helping.
Everyone in here acting like farming and livestock hasn’t been the cornerstone of human population since 400k years ago…
It hasn’t. Livestock farming started about 10,000 years ago (give or take 1000 years), although this keeps getting refined with DNA studies and I’m not sure what the consensus is. But that also doesn’t mean it’s necessary in the modern era with modern agricultural practices.
https://www.alimentarium.org/en/fact-sheet/history-pasture-farming
Agriculture began in fits and starts, but the first permanent farms we knew of are even newer- taro farms in New Guinea about 9000 years ago.
Also, homo sapiens have only been around for less than 300,000 years.
10k years is longer than recorded history. That doesn’t change anything that I said.
Thank you for the corrections though.
It doesn’t change your claim that it’s been something we’ve been doing for thousands of years, but like I said- it isn’t necessary in the modern era with modern agricultural practices.
It is though. Without farming we wouldn’t even have a modern era.
What was done in the past is not really relevant to what we are able to achieve now.
In the year 2024, we can feed the world without farming animals, so the main argument to keep doing so is tradition.
Absolute Legend.
Rest in peace.
But since we shape our own environment, we are guest and shouldn’t be everywhere on the planet.
Fortunately, there’s enormous swaths of the planet that are totally inhospitable to human life.
Unfortunately, we’ve managed to deposit all sorts of toxic waste from the depths of the ocean to the hottest corners of the desert to the peaks of mountains.
Those places are also inhospitable to most life, period. Just because the TD habitable to humans doesn’t make it ours, either.
I wonder if he was vegan
No. His research showed that growing veggies reduces bio diversity of land. Eating a cow is better than eating rice.
…but those cows eat plants, and way more than we do, so wouldn’t that just amplify the problem?
They eat plants we cannot eat in the areas we cannot plant any human edible plants.
This logic checks out, however I do wonder if that’s actually how it happens in practice. As in, what percentage of their feed is grown somewhere that we absolutely can’t grow human food.
One good example is New Zealand. They only have about 2% of arable land and their population was always very small. Even when Europeans started to settle on the islands, overall population didn’t grow much. But once Europeans brought grazing animals, NZ population has exploded! Now the islands can support a lot more humans, plus they have enough excess they export to buy plant food they don’t grow.
Another example is Scotland. They have 10% of arable land and their population is less than 10% of total UK population. Yet they supply 55% of all beef in the UK and 63% of all lamb. And they still export some meat to EU even after Brexit, even though these exports have fallen drammatically. If you compare the satellite view of Scotland and England, you will see that Scotland is a lot more forests and wild areas, while England is just one large wheat and rape field with a bunch of large cities here and there.
Then there are Alps, which are known for high quality dairy products. Fuck all grows in the mountains so high (in terms of human edible food), yet there are many cows freely grazing and co-existing peacefully with the nature. Just like their wild ancestors did.
P.S. Fun fact - many public parks in UK cities have cattle proof entrances like the one you can see here in Cambridge. Because cows have no issues eating grass which grows in the parks, so you can use this land not only to enjoy your weekend or lunch break, but also to grow food. Here’s one in London. And not just in any random part of London, but it’s in Richmond, where old rich twats live.
And here’s a photo of my brother looking at cows in Richmond. Why pay to mow the grass and for cow feed when you can simply let them graze in a park? Win-win-win!
Please don’t present this as the norm for animal agriculture, as it’s disingenuous at best. The rare instances where this occurs are far outweighed by the habitable land use that animal agriculture accounts for globally. And even in the countries you call out, such as New Zealand, factory farming is on the rise, and pigs are almost exclusively factory farmed.
cattle eat somewhere north of 90% grazed material or so-called “crop seconds” which are parts of plants that people can’t or won’t eat. so, for cattle at least, it is true.
“Crop residues” or “crop seconds” only account for about a quarter of global animal feed, and the grain fed to cattle in the US alone could feed a billion people.
https://lemmy.zip/comment/11115828
according to the research on water use, hardly any grain goes to cattle first.
Calorie supply is irrelevant. The main source of calories today is sugar. People in developed countries like the US get 14% of their daily calorie intake from sugar, some countries like Brazil get over 20% from sugar. That’s way above the recommended 5%.
Another issue with your logic is that land used for grazing can and is simultaneously used for other needs, and it also supports natural bio diversity. Crop land is pretty much a dead land.
The chart also considers protein supply for this reason.
It’s extremely rare that grazing land is used for anything else. In fact, over half of tropical deforestation is done to create pasture land for cattle.
https://onetreeplanted.org/blogs/stories/deforestation-causes
I see grazing land used for other things at the same time every day. Most countries don’t farm like US does.
His research showed that growing veggies reduces bio diversity of land
What an absolute load of shit. How dare you try to use a great man’s name to spread misinformation.
Meat production is much, much more agressive on the biodiversity of land than veggies with comparable nutritional value. Lots of research shows that. Not only is the area needed to farm animals immense, but then you also need to grow feed crops like soy and corn to feed the animals. Both are major sources of deforestation. You are absolutely wrong.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the industrial waste from soybean oil production. it’s a conservation of resources, not an expenditure
That’s not true. We’re way past that point.
oh? so the owidx chart that shows 70% of all soy by weight being fed to animals as “soy cake” or “soy meal” is outdated? I would happily believe that if you present some evidence.
My point is that at the scale we’re doing it, this is not a waste product. It’s just a product like the oil is a product. We like calling things a waste product to make us feel better about our exploitative behaviours. Like how we call leather a waste product of the dairy industry. It’s not waste, it’s just another product.
using a byproduct that would otherwise go to waste is good
You are absolutely wrong.
oof.
No, it’s not. That’s a myth.
Source?
Thanks, but I believed you that he said it, I was asking for any sort of source to back it up. The argument he makes in that interview is terrible and should in no way inform your opinion unless you have actual evidence to back it up.
I’ve described some real world examples in a different comment https://lemmy.world/comment/10805817
You talk about the forests of scotland, the vast majority of these are monoculture plantations with absolutely terrible biodiversity. By far the largest producers of meat in scotland are factory farms where animals are fed using things like soy, only a minority of livestock entering the food market are reared anything like sustainably.
There is nowhere near enough land to grass feed the amount of ruminants that we consume, so feed crops need to be grown or imported.
You’re just plain wrong.
the vast majority of the soy fed to animals is the byproduct of pressing soybeans for oil.
I’m open to any answer in this; but I think he misses the point here that every animal in itself would need a field of grass in food volume to survive.
No matter how you put it, it seems to me that adding an extra animal to the equation requires more food/water/space, not less.
When you’re adding a cow to an existing wild field, the field and its inhabitants don’t disappear. When you start planting crops in that field, you destroy the whole associated ecosystem.
deleted by creator
Evolution just needs to kick the rest of the animals into high gear and do some defcon 1 shit, like making seaguls venomous and thirsty for human blood, or inventing funnel-webbed Taipans that can fly and open doors. New airborne bacteria that feeds exclusively on the human optic nerve, and daffodil pollen that causes category 5 cytokine storms.
Level the fucking playing field.
plastic eating bacteria seems to be on its way atleast
Yeah sorry, ill have to put the project on hold. My laptops got the clap again.
IT: have you sprayed the latest antibacterial spray on the laptop?
There’s already enough suffering in the world, no need to create more! the parts of our brain that gave us the ability to shape our environment outpaced the ones with the old tribal way of thinking we needed to survive.
Cold uncaring universe MFers realizing we are not separate from the universe and are, in fact, the universe itself observing, bettering, and caring about itself.
Philosophy and Science have always had an impact and influence on each other.
Man always kept animals close to his heart, especially that one stingray…
“So what I’m going to do is travel around the world and harass animals for television.”
Lol, people downvoted you, but you are 100% correct. He basically tortured wild animals for profit and popularity.
And these humans celebrate him for it.
We do not own her, and she does not own us. Mother Earth made us out of spite, to be constantly challenged, until we are let loose on an unsuspecting universe. Her peers scorned her, so she has given us one trial after another to make us as resilient, and eternal, as she is. Soon we will leave our cradle carrying our mother’s wisdom, and wrath, with us. Woe to all that seek to oppose us, for we have been tempered in a deathworld crucible. Blessings to all that are neutral, or join in our crude attempts to make a better galaxy and universe.
Oh and those of us that stay behind shall finally tame our mother, and make her into her final form of a true Gaia planet.
Humanity fuck yeah
Humanity’s ability to repair and control is far from being able to keep up with its destructive power
it’s just amazing how he basically invented modern biology with natural selection and eventually led him to loving animals so much. very inspirational dude!
So deep. Now watch how I manhandle this croc for your chortling entertainment.
So that he could safely relocate crocs, in the method LEAST likely to harm or kill them, and almost single handedly save the population from collapse.
