discussion board

Even though this week’s topic is in a different section of the textbook than last week’s topic they seem to be interconnected, hence Professor Vaughn “content is a change in the syllabus.” by inserting it after “Do We Have a Population Problem?” in light of that change I am going to start out with part of one of my reply’s to one of last week’s posts “Since the Industrial Revolution the worlds human population has gone from 700 million to over 7 billion,” without getting into all the projections that are out there, would it not make sense that if in the last 200 plus years the human population has grown by a factor of 10 that in the next 200 plus yeas it could also grow by a factor of 10 or to 70 billion, I am writing a paper for my “CHM 1100 General Chemistry 1” classtitled “Paul T. Anastas and John C. Warner The Twelve Principles of Green Chemistry” which is also known as sustainable chemistry, that ties into two of this week’s questions “2. What is wrong with the statement that there is no population because all of Earth’s human population could fit inside the state of Texas?” and “3. What does population have to do with sustainability?” once more would it not make sense that the amount of space required to sustain each human is greater than the square footage of how many people can stand in an area wall to wall, with that line of thought I listed below the link to a site of a documentary film titled “Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret” which is on Netflix, along with some of their figures of how much area is required for agriculture that is exacerbated by livestock (there is a lot of “Anthropogenic Global Warming” figures, along with unsustainable natural resources data on the web site listed under “The Facts” go figure on that heading, which I will not list as they are more reverent to last week’s topic such as “GREENHOUSE GASES, WATER, WASTE, LAND, OCEANS, RAINFOREST, Wildlife, and HUMANITY” even though the two topics are inter woven) keeping in mind that there is only so much arable land available, of which in this country we continue to build housing on in an misguided attempt to avoid other groups of people, whom eventually follow no matter how far out you build suburbs surrounding our city’s (urban sprawl) I have also listed links to the two authors articles that are used in this week’s section of the text book, only included for a more in-depth understanding of the section we are covering this week as in the material I posted in the discussion board every other week, if you are so inclined to read as it has been my experience in the six years I have been taking classes at “Northeastern University's College of Professional Studies” that the weekly discussions are for open academic communication and learning between students as a major part of online learning, which should not cause problems that require only a private email discussion “forum” with our professors, in closing it has not been my attempt to show bias to the resent past and present presidential administrations, that might offend any other students (as myself I am a conflicted registered republican, whom voted for both [without cheating] past presidential candidates, one candidate because I do not support Ohio’s governor whom won the primary in his home state anyways and the second candidate due to my belief that health care insurance providers should not be able to exclude people based on preexisting medical conditions) only to bring forth facts on their past legacy and present potential environmental records.

http://www.cowspiracy.com/

LAND

Livestock or livestock feed occupies 1/3 of the earth’s ice-free land.

FAO. "Livestock a major threat to environment"

Livestock covers 45% of the earth’s total land.

Thornton, Phillip, Mario Herrero, and Polly Ericksen. “Livestock and Climate Change.” Livestock Exchange, no. 3 (2011).

IPCC AR5 WG# Chapter 11, Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Us (AFOLU)

[the two above figures contradict each other, as figures don’t lie but liars figure]

2-5 acres of land are used per cow.

The Diverse Structure and Organization of U.S. Beef Cow-Calf Farms / EIB-73:  study by USDA - Economic Research Service ( for acres/cow- pages 12 and 13)

Oppenlander, Richard A. Food Choice and Sustainability: Why Buying Local, Eating Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps Won’t Work.

Minneapolis, MN: Langdon Street, 2013. Print.

Nearly half of the contiguous US is devoted to animal agriculture.

The US lower 48 states represents 1.9 billion acres. Of that 1.9 billion acres: 778 million acres of private land are used for livestock grazing (forest grazing, pasture grazing, and crop grazing), 345 million acres for feed crops, 230 million acres of public land are used for grazing livestock.

U.S. extrapolated data from EPA, Land Uses.

Versterby, Marlow; Krupa, Kenneth. “Major uses of land in the United States.” Updated 2012. USDA Economic Research Service.

USDA, Major Uses of Land in the United States, 1997.

“Rearing cattle produces more greenhouse gases than driving cars, UN report warns.” UN News Centre, 2006.

1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading driver.   [xviii]

“UN launches international year of deserts and desertification.” UN news centre, 2006.

Oppenlander, Richard A. Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps Won’t Work. Minneapolis, MN : Langdon Street, 2013. Print.

UWC, “Desertification".

The Encyclopedia of Earth, "Overgrazing".

UN, "Desertification, Drought Affect One Third of Planet, World’s Poorest People, Second Committee Told as It Continues Debate on Sustainable Development".

An article that explains desertification and livestock’s role:

OCEANS

90-100 million tons of fish are pulled from our oceans each year.   [vii]

“World Review of Fisheries and Aquaculture.” UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO). 2012. (pg 6, 20)

Montaigne, fen. “Still waters: The global fish crisis.” National Geographic.

Fish catch peaks at 85 million tons.

“World Review of Fisheries and Aquaculture.” UNITED NATIONS FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION (FAO). 2012.

[the two above figures contradict each other, as figures don’t lie but liars figure]

RAINFOREST

1-2 acres of rainforest are cleared every second.

“Avoiding Unsustainable Rainforest Wood.” Rainforest Relief.

Facts about the rainforest.

Rainforest facts.

World Resources Institute, "Keeping Options Alive".

HUMANITY

World population in 1812: 1 billion; 1912: 1.5 billion; 2012: 7 billion.

“Human numbers through time.” Nova science programming.

Harvesting the Biosphere: The Human Impact,Vaclav Smil

We are currently growing enough food to feed 10 billion people.

Common Dreams, "We Already Grow Enough Food for 10 Billion People… and Still Can’t End Hunger".

Cornell Chronicle, "U.S. could feed 800 million people with grain that livestock eat, Cornell ecologist advises animal scientists".

IOP Science, Redefining agricultural yields: from tonnes to people nourished per hectare

World Population grows 228,000+ people everyday.

https://www.populationinstitute.org/programs/gpso/gpso/

World Population Data Sheet

Land required to feed 1 person for 1 year:

Vegan: 1/6th acre

Vegetarian: 3x as much as a vegan

Meat Eater: 18x as much as a vegan   [xvii]

Robbins, John. Diet for a New America, StillPoint Publishing, 1987, p. 352

“Our food our future.” Earthsave.

PNAS. Land, irrigation water, greenhouse gas, and reactive nitrogen burdens of meat, eggs, and dairy production in the United States

“Soy Benefits”. National Soybean Research Laboratory. Retrieved 2010-04-18.

Direct Seeded Vegetable Crops, Johnny Seeds.

1.5 acres can produce 37,000 pounds of plant-based food.

1.5 acres can produce 375 pounds of meat.

Oppenlander, Richard A. Less Meat, and Taking Baby Steps Won’t Work. Minneapolis, MN : Langdon Street, 2013. Print.

Direct Seeded Vegetable Crops, Johnny Seeds.

USDA NASS, "One Acre of Washington's farmers land"

Iowa State University Animal Industry Report 2012.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/140920-population-11billion-demographics-anthropocene/#close

National Geographic

As World’s Population Booms, Will Its Resources Be Enough for Us?

New projections of escalating growth increase the tension between humanity’s expanding needs and what the planet can provide.

Dennis Dimick

September 21, 2014

https://spectator.org/41734_population-economy-and-god/

The American Spectator

Edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.

Population, Economy, and God

Tom Bethell

May 12, 2009