animals, agriculture and water shortages

[PLAYER57832]

From the "bottled water thread", respose deemed off topic, so moved here:

Are we talking about a different article and set of research here?
Yes.

Link

Leading water scientists have issued one of the sternest warnings yet about global food supplies, saying that the world's population may have to switch almost completely to a vegetarian diet over the next 40 years to avoid catastrophic shortages.

This is the first false claim. The overall idea is that animals take more water than plants, BUT they utterly miss the big picture, namely that animal (nor plants, but there is a less direct route) overall water usage is not just based upon the intake. A well managed farm, including things like manure ponds and the like ensure that clean, fresh water is returned to the system. It will take a GREAT deal of internet digging for me to come up with stats and studies, but this IS part of my subject.

It also misses what happens when animals are taken out, namely that you wind up using more petroleum based fertilizers and even more pesticides. Those things don't degrade, often don't get filtered and even more often wind up in the stream systems. It much harder for a marsh to clean itself of artificial (generally not fully balanced) fertilizers than of animal waste. It ALL needs to be controlled and managed properly, but the key is proper management, not just saying "go vegetarien".

Another error:
There are a lot of other issues that article doesn't touch upon. I mentioned a few of those earlier, but you cannot just look at one aspect when making any decision about the environment.

The absolute BIGGEST error, though, is the fundamental assumption that all agricultural land is essentially interchangable. This is just not true. Deserts often sport traditional herd societies for some pretty good reasons.. those land are just not suitable for crops, but CAN yeild animals.

Second,
Humans derive about 20% of their protein from animal-based products now, but this may need to drop to just 5% to feed the extra 2 billion people expected to be alive by 2050, according to research by some of the world's leading water scientists.

LOL... again, I fundamentally dispute this. To get those figures, they ignore water-intensive crops and focus on the highest uses of water by animals. I would have to look at the original research to really see what is happening (might just be folks not really paying attention to the study, just picking out data without bothering with explanations)

] "There will not be enough water available on current croplands to produce food for the expected 9 billion population in 2050 if we follow current trends and changes towards diets common in western nations," the report by Malik Falkenmark and colleagues at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) said.

OK, let me clarify here. I am NOT disputing that we have a coming water shortage, in any way shape or form. I have said as much myself. I am disputing that going vegetarien is a major part of the fix, that removing animals from our diet is any kind of real answer. (though, again, many westerners could well cut back significantly on meat.. it is largely for reasons other than water use).

Further, I get rather irritated because this tends to be an issue where folks actually pull in more of a moral argument and just really don't care to research the facts. Not saying you have done that, but a LOT of the major advocates of this thinking have ulterior (moralistic type) agendas. They are not looking for objective answers, they have their answer and just want to dig up whatever data they can to support their claims.

"There will be just enough water if the proportion of animal-based foods is limited to 5% of total calories and considerable regional water deficits can be met by a … reliable system of food trade."

They make a LOT of assumptions there. I countered a lot of them, but most specifically they ignore the impact of transport and local conditions for agriculture. Transport alone involves significant water use.. but they ignore that entirely.

Dire warnings of water scarcity limiting food production come as Oxfam and the UN prepare for a possible second global food crisis in five years. Prices for staples such as corn and wheat have risen nearly 50% on international markets since June, triggered by severe droughts in the US and Russia, and weak monsoon rains in Asia. More than 18 million people are already facing serious food shortages across the Sahel.

Again, not disputing that water is short, is polluted without far enough controls, is pretty much not taken into real consideration for many political and economics policies like it ought. However, the reasons for this problem are complex and have little to do with animals in our diet.

[Symmetry]

Could you at least not quote me as if I'm saying these things? They're quotes from the article I posted. I don't think it was your intention to set me up as a strawman, so I hope you attribute the quotes to their source.

I'll definitely give you the water intensive crops point- I knew about it, but considered it kind of a minor point in the context of wanting to post the article. Rice is kind of one of the big ones on that front.

I'm sorry if posting the article upset you. It was not my intent, and I'm not sure what moral argument you think I'm making by posting it.

[Symmetry]

This really isn't some apocalyptic prediction- it's a way of fixing a current problem.

If anyone would care to read it in full, here's the report referenced in the article:

http://www.siwi.org/documents/Resources/Reports/Feeding_a_thirsty_world_2012worldwaterweek_report_31.pdf

[PLAYER57832]

Could you at least not quote me as if I'm saying these things? They're quotes from the article I posted. I don't think it was your intention to set me up as a strawman, so I hope you attribute the quotes to their source.

Done... and apologies. I was more tired than I thought last night.

I'll definitely give you the water intensive crops point- I knew about it, but considered it kind of a minor point in the context of wanting to post the article. Rice is kind of one of the big ones on that front.

Corn, cotton (not a food crop, obviously, but used for clothing unless we want more dependence on petroleum), etc, etc.

In fact, many of the traditional western crops take a lot of water, and cannot just substitute for range animals in arid regions. Its important to understand that most of our crops today are irrigated, and that these irrigated lands were rangelands (or, forested lands) initially.

I'm sorry if posting the article upset you. It was not my intent, and I'm not sure what moral argument you think I'm making by posting it.

Definitely did not upset me. That is, I am absolutely not upset that you brought it up, it needs discussing. I am a tad frustrated that you did not really seem to take what I said first seriously, and just posted the article.. which really doesn't address what I said.

I am glad you posted the reference article.

The morality bit is not about you specifically, its that I have seen this stuff passed along widely and in a form that really makes it more of a religious belief than anything scientific, but unfortunately, the articles/speakers try to make it seem as if they are talking science and not religion. The problem is that this type of distortion is used widely by folks who want to deny there even is a problem. Its similar to why I get very upset when atheists outright attack religion as "unscientific" and "illogical" instead of just saying this is not what they believe, but they cannot prove it false. It takes away from the very legitimate arguments and debates that need to happen. And... understand, I have been blasted by this type of "argument" for most of my life.