"there's been a lot of objections to GMOs and as far as I have heard, no research whatsoever showing physical health harm."
David do you actually realize how research is controlled by industrial agriculture and how much research is done by industry friendly scientists? Do you understand there's no one pouring millions into independent science? Also to say all GMOs are safe because some have been "tested" is to say the least uninformed. Would you say all chemicals are safe if one is? When these GMOs were originally brought to market, they got a free pass because they were ruled "substantially equivalent".
Glyphosate (Roundup and its cousins) is now the number one pesticide applied on the planet thanks to GMOs that rely on it. It's health affects and environmental affects are not so easily dismissed.
David good interview. I was disappointed with the cursory way you guys addressed precion fermentation. All my research points to an efficient way to grow proteins. You seemed to lump ittogehter with kab grown meat.
Recognition of the asset value of the forests avoided CO2 , in even a simple baning, supports a TAC-optimizing economy. Including farm prices. The local grassfed beef, processed in the UNR slaughterhouse in Reno, contains low transportation costs, and none of the large TAC expense of the N-fertilized feed of Big Beef. The land-cost of my awesome burgers must contain the alternate cost of restoring the seasonal wetland status of some of the pastures (while delivering more water down the Feather); these wetlands are very productive carbon capture systems, whose TAC asset values also belong (and can be recognized) on the Balance sheet(s).
The big deal is peeking out through the tules here. All land that once stored carbon, in big trees and in the living wetlands, carries that alternative value to agriculture.
This may be the single most important feature of the forests-driven carbon economy in the climate crisis.
In the carbon economy, money grows both on and under trees... This solution is radical right from its roots... I do accountant jokes also. Also suboptimal.
I did a little napkin math, and figured the land used for corn ethanol would generate nearly *double* current electrical consumption in the US. And *then* I recently heard the numbers are comparable for *soy*! So, now we're in the neighborhood of meeting *all* projected 2050 energy demand, as long as there is storage, and everything is electrified.
Fine, prioritize putting Solar on land lost to desertification, salty irrigation, (results of poor stewardship, BTW) and all the other brown fields, but saying solar is displacing food is total BS.
I think David missed a trick in failing to connect the land use of clean energy to that of agriculture. Apart from nuclear (and maybe geothermal), energy abundance *also* competes for increasingly scarce land. The vertical farm is the clearest illustration--one acre of scyscraper farm sounds fantastic for land use until you think about the number of acres of solar panels needed to run it.
In your discussion of the climate impacts of food, you should also discuss the work of agricultural scientist Joanne Chory, who is genetically modifying major cash crops to draw down far more CO2 and then store it underground much more efficiently than is done currently. If this becomes used by most industrial farming, it could greatly reduce the effects of climate change.
"there's been a lot of objections to GMOs and as far as I have heard, no research whatsoever showing physical health harm."
David do you actually realize how research is controlled by industrial agriculture and how much research is done by industry friendly scientists? Do you understand there's no one pouring millions into independent science? Also to say all GMOs are safe because some have been "tested" is to say the least uninformed. Would you say all chemicals are safe if one is? When these GMOs were originally brought to market, they got a free pass because they were ruled "substantially equivalent".
Glyphosate (Roundup and its cousins) is now the number one pesticide applied on the planet thanks to GMOs that rely on it. It's health affects and environmental affects are not so easily dismissed.
David good interview. I was disappointed with the cursory way you guys addressed precion fermentation. All my research points to an efficient way to grow proteins. You seemed to lump ittogehter with kab grown meat.
Recognition of the asset value of the forests avoided CO2 , in even a simple baning, supports a TAC-optimizing economy. Including farm prices. The local grassfed beef, processed in the UNR slaughterhouse in Reno, contains low transportation costs, and none of the large TAC expense of the N-fertilized feed of Big Beef. The land-cost of my awesome burgers must contain the alternate cost of restoring the seasonal wetland status of some of the pastures (while delivering more water down the Feather); these wetlands are very productive carbon capture systems, whose TAC asset values also belong (and can be recognized) on the Balance sheet(s).
The big deal is peeking out through the tules here. All land that once stored carbon, in big trees and in the living wetlands, carries that alternative value to agriculture.
This may be the single most important feature of the forests-driven carbon economy in the climate crisis.
In the carbon economy, money grows both on and under trees... This solution is radical right from its roots... I do accountant jokes also. Also suboptimal.
Great post! I can’t believe we can’t get rid of ethanol. Reading this definitely made me want to buy some farmland
I did a little napkin math, and figured the land used for corn ethanol would generate nearly *double* current electrical consumption in the US. And *then* I recently heard the numbers are comparable for *soy*! So, now we're in the neighborhood of meeting *all* projected 2050 energy demand, as long as there is storage, and everything is electrified.
Fine, prioritize putting Solar on land lost to desertification, salty irrigation, (results of poor stewardship, BTW) and all the other brown fields, but saying solar is displacing food is total BS.
I think David missed a trick in failing to connect the land use of clean energy to that of agriculture. Apart from nuclear (and maybe geothermal), energy abundance *also* competes for increasingly scarce land. The vertical farm is the clearest illustration--one acre of scyscraper farm sounds fantastic for land use until you think about the number of acres of solar panels needed to run it.
Thanks for giving me a whole new area to have to think and worry about! Do appreciate all of your posts!
In your discussion of the climate impacts of food, you should also discuss the work of agricultural scientist Joanne Chory, who is genetically modifying major cash crops to draw down far more CO2 and then store it underground much more efficiently than is done currently. If this becomes used by most industrial farming, it could greatly reduce the effects of climate change.
Dr. Chory passed away recently (sob!). However, her work is being continued by the Salk Institute's Harnessing Plants Initiative, which she founded.