Bessie/rev II

Bessie/rev II

12 years ago, Bessie was a blurb penned in 2014 describing the unsustainability of how beef, chicken and pork are produced in this country as the costs needed to support said enterprises boggle the mind.

In 2014 ...

Among the key findings in the report are:

• More than 1.7 billion animals are used in livestock production worldwide and occupy more than one-fourth of the Earth's land.
• Production of animal feed consumes about one-third of total arable land.
• Livestock production accounts for approximately 40 percent of the global agricultural gross domestic product.
• The livestock sector, including feed production and transport, is responsible for about 18 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. 

In 2026

A single kilogram of conventionally farmed beef requires approximately 15,400 litres of water to produce, the equivalent of around 100 standard bathtubs, and generates approximately 99 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of driving an average car about 250 miles.

The figures come from two of the most carefully constructed peer-reviewed datasets in environmental science. The water footprint estimate is from Mesfin Mekonnen and Arjen Hoekstra of the University of Twente in the Netherlands, who published their global analysis in the peer-reviewed journal Ecosystems in 2012. The carbon footprint estimate is from Joseph Poore at the University of Oxford and Thomas Nemecek at Agroscope in Switzerland, who published their global meta-analysis in Science in 2018. The two studies together represent the strongest available scientific evidence on the environmental cost of beef production.

And we haven't even discussed Leghorn Foghorn or Porky but we will. In thinking about this, the connect to data centers, rockets and fossil fuel use, fits the pattern of extraction and continued abuse of planet earth. Gaia wants us gone and with global warming and unfettered use of AI, getting us gone is no longer in the realm of science fiction.

Channeling 2014 yet again.

Here are some more interesting facts on what goes on mankind's dinner table.

Livestock production — which includes meat, milk and eggs — contributes 40% of global agricultural gross domestic product, provides income for more than 1.3 billion people and uses one-third of the world’s fresh water. There may be no other single human activity that has a bigger impact on the planet than the raising of livestock. But as a new study out today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows, there is tremendous variation in how we raise livestock around the world — and major differences in what that means for the earth and for us. 

Sadly, the http://science.time.com/ site no longer exists but for BRT, it does. :)

The study of planetary habitability is partly based upon extrapolation from knowledge of the Earth's conditions, as the Earth is the only planet currently known to harbour life
(The Blue Marble, 1972 Apollo 17 photograph).