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).

Bessie

The impact of Bessie and her friends on the environment is huge, so huge that people are starting to rethink the way man grows food on planet earth.

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. 

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.

Boggles the mind doesn't it?

Bessie/Rev II

BRT has talked about the cost of raising Bessie for making burgers. Cowspiracy shows just how environmentally devastating our taste for meat truly is. See Cowspiracy on Netflix as the stats for producing or harvesting meat (water/ocean/land use/pollution/resource depletion/degradation) will blow your mind.

97%

Ninety-seven percent of migratory fish species are facing extinction. Whale sharks, the world's largest living fish, are among the endangered. Ullstein Bild/Ullstein Bild

Our way of life is not sustainable. Plundering the planet to make evermore more stuff is not sustainable. Reserving 30% of the arable land in the world to raise Porky, Foghorn Leghorn and Bessie is not sustainable. Over fishing the oceans is not sustainable and last but not least, continued use of fossil fuels to power civilization at ever increasing levels is not sustainable but we already know that, right?

We don't have the right to do this but here we are. To yours truly, the boiling frog myth comes to mind here without question.

Every year, as the seasons change, billions of animals embark on journeys to find food, to get to better habitats or to breed. They migrate in groups and as individuals, flying, swimming, crawling and walking across international borders and through habitats to survive, transporting seeds and nutrients.

A major new report by the United Nations finds that humans are not only making those journeys more difficult, but have put many migratory species in a perilous state.

Nearly half of the world's already threatened migratory species have declining populations, the first of its kind UN report found. More than a fifth of the nearly 1,200 migratory species monitored by the UN – whales, sea turtles, apes, songbirds and others – are threatened with extinction.

The term "boiling frog syndrome" is a metaphor used to describe the failure to act against a problematic situation which will increase in severity until reaching catastrophic proportions.[7] It thereby encapsulates the barely noticeable impact of slow environmental degradation that has been described by Daniel Pauly as shifting baselines.[8]

Factoid: The frog bails before being cooked, thank god. 

Eating Our Way To Extinction

BRT has written copiously about the unsustainability of eating meat and fish as the inefficiencies of producting same are astounding. Approximately 30% of all variable land is used to feed Bessie, Foghorn Leghorn and Porky while in the seas, 90% of all large fish are gone and 70% of all salmon are farmed with blowback equivalent to what's happening to the land in terms of environmental degradation and resource depletion generated by this destructive process in order to enable us rubes to consume meat 24/7.  Last but not least, this industry, by far, is the leading producer of carbon dioxide and methane along with the production of plastic in its endless pursuit of money no matter what the cost may be.

It's time to go vegan NOW.

Rewild the world

In this unique feature documentary, titled David Attenborough: A Life On Our Planet, the celebrated naturalist reflects upon both the defining moments of his lifetime and the devastating changes he has seen. Coming to Netflix October 4 2020, the film addresses some of the biggest challenges facing life on our planet, providing a snapshot of global nature loss in a single lifetime. With it comes a powerful message of hope for future generations as Attenborough reveals the solutions to help save our planet from disaster. 

David Attenborough, 93 years young, has a truly innovative way to save planet earth, rewild the world as nature keeps us alive by keeping earth in balance through the complex interactions of life to itself and to  its relationship with water, sun and soil in ways to stagger the imagination. As seen in his documentary, the loss of wild has plummeted while the rise of habitat loss. resource depletion and pollution continues unabated, a process, if not reversed, promises the death of mankind by transforming earth into a hells-cape of unimaginable misery. His recommendations to change how we do business on planet earth includes ...

• Stop eating meat as this is totally unsustainable due to the fact 30% of all arable land is used to feed Leghorn T. Foghorn, Bessie and Porky.
• Expand no fishing zones to allow fish stocks and large predators to recoup. 
• Eliminate fossile fuels to stop CO2 production.
• Stop burning down rain forests.
• Reduce human population
• Go sustainable. Growth requires ever more plundering of earths resouces.

Crossing the Rubicon ...

Twilight

This pix, taken a few years ago, sums up a possible future for man as civilization moves further into the Anthropocene and it's tangental relationship to all things related to tech, the environment and to earth as everything's connected and ... everything's quantum where certitude is but an illusion,

3500 articles, musings on thousands of postings and guesstimates, both accurate and inaccurate, populate this blog to the nth degree but you, my loyal readers, already know that so here's to crossing the Rubicon, a most perilous journey we will all be taking whether we like it or not.

No connects or numbering schemes but rather a random walk through a partial list of issues most dire with climate change being No. 1.

Covid-19 is but a weak introduction to what's coming, a pandemic to be sure, but nothing compared to GW and the impact it will have on the world.

For starters, the equator will soon become uninhabitable. Animals and plants are migrating away as we speak but little is said as to what species will survive as they make their desperate move. This also involves us and the impact on the food supply as growing food will move north and south with large swaths of land unable to sustain civilization due to not only excess heat but also loss of water as seen by the move on Lake Mead to restrict waster supply when the water level goes below 1047'.

2020-30 will be remembrance of species lost. Researchers discovered ocean life died much quicker than land in the Great Dying of 250 million years ago. Does this mean the same for us as the acceleration of GW is happening thousands of times faster than the 30,000 year timeframe of the Permian eruption of the Siberian Traps in northern Russia.

2040-50, the real bite of GW begins, where temps of 3+ take hold and Russia and Canada become the bread baskets of the world while Cat 6 hurricanes ply the Atlantic with devastating power. This scenario is already baked including the melting of the Arctic, Antarctic and Greenland as the loss of albedo is a prime GW accelerant and we haven't even discussed the release of ever more methane from the rapidly melting permafrost and ocean located in and around the arctic. Water rise - 2-3 meters?

Forget Florida and cities on the coast, right?

Too many people add to the mix. 8 billion and counting. Not good, not sustainable but Gaia's thinking about a drastic solution to this issue, something Lovelock talked about over 15 years ago.

Mass migrations loom.

AI - the open ended tech where we have lost contro but don't know it yet but we will, soon.

Question: When does AI become sentient? 5 years, next year, 10? One never knows but whenever anyone says AI cannot be this or that, remember the Rand Corporation's take on the net and the fact only 20 systems will be ever be needed to run civilization. 

The military goes full tilt into autonomous bots armed to the teeth. Who's the enemy? How can they be identified? Is man the enemy? Skynet's happening as digital swarms are already being ramped up, connected as one entity driven by, you guessed it, AI. 

The needs of AI differ from us. What does that mean?

Cybersecurity - no system is invulnerable. Everything can be hacked. The biggie is shutting down infrastructure, you know, access to electricity, heat, medical and water supply among significant others. Countries all over the world are capping on this as tech is cheap. All it takes is brainpower, desire to hack and access to the web to make it happen. Is this the end of the world?

Biotech - CRISPR and manipulation of DNA, combined with AI as enhancer, what could possibly go wrong? Pandemics are us, not only with upcoming labs on a chip used by twisted individuals to create bugs but also of the natural kind as GW disrupts all things related to life. Think mosquitoes ...

Continued abuses ...

30% of all arable land is used to feed Bessie, Loghorn T. Fog Horn and Porky, an unsustainable way to feed man, not to mention the accompanying manure, urine and fertilizers used to leverage the land in addition to rampant injections of steroids and antibiotics, along with genetic engineering, to said fauna, to create fast growing franken foods, packaged for us rubes in all shapes and sizes, to consume to our heart's content.

Plastics and chemicals of all kinds, including micro plastics in our air, soil and of course, food, invade everything, something most disturbing as researchers are now finding out this deadly combination adversely impacts fertility. Children of Men anyone? ... by possibly 2045.

The car, ubiquitous in the US because there is no high speed or medium speed rail of any consequence in the US, pollutes the planet to no end as most are gas powered. Maybe we should ask China how they build high speed rail as they are really good at it while the US does nothing. Going electric is not all that great either as the grid, powered by natural gas and oil, power these things. Question, where will the batteries go? Can they be recycled? Good question to ask is it not?

Suburbs ... journey to nowhere, ditto strip malls. Both ecologically disastrous. 

Planes, another prime driver of fossil fuels continues unabated. The production and distribution of ever more stuff never ceases to amaze, particularly in terms of landfill when said stuff become a throwaway for the ages. Think China on this one. 

Subsidies to fossil fuel polluters instead of developing sustainables has been the US mantra for years. It looks like this is slowly changing but it will take time, something we no longer have.

Nuclear war becomes a possible given just how many countries hate each other.

Resource depreciation, environmental degradation and poverty, combined with starvation and over population, become prime drivers for revolution and violence all over the world.

Right now, it's lip service. Nothing of real consequence is being done because that means enormous change for all of us, an issue not be be addressed until the real shit hits the fan. Time frame - 2050.

One point perspective