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Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:12 am
by Kriegsspiel
BTW iDave that was a neat video. I remember seeing that concept before in reference to some Californian farmers (searching "california grazing carbon sequestration" brings up a lot of results but I couldn't find the one I remember), and with Joel Salatin.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:10 am
by C40
bigato wrote:
Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:59 pm
The single change with the biggest impact that any individual could do to combat climate change, other than dying and thus never consuming again, is becoming vegan. So there's that if you are worried about the impact on the planet.
For most of the people reading this, that is not accurate. Unless someone is living very frugally but happens to be eating a large portions of beef or lamb for most meals, becoming vegan is more like the 3rd to 5th biggest impact, behind most of these:
- Not having children
- Not flying on airplanes
- Driving less or not at all
- Living in a smaller home and buying less stuff

Jacob posted a link about a year ago to a study with actual numbers showing what amount of impact different changes have and comparing those to what is actually being recommended... but it's difficult for me to find.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:15 am
by jacob

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:25 am
by C40
Thanks :-)

In short, the impact numbers are:
Each child: +58.6
Driving a car: +2.4
Transatlantic flying (once annually): +1.6
Eating a meat-based diet: +0.8
Not recycling: +0.2
Using incandescent lights: +0.1

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:44 am
by tonyedgecombe
C40 wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 11:25 am
Thanks :-)

In short, the impact numbers are:
Each child: +58.6
Driving a car: +2.4
Transatlantic flying (once annually): +1.6
Eating a meat-based diet: +0.8
Not recycling: +0.2
Using incandescent lights: +0.1
The number for a child seems either too low if it is based on a lifetimes consumption or too high if it is an annual figure.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:43 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
i'm use the loess plateau as a bad example of permacultures potential XD im fairly sure that if the animals were grazed according to savory's work it would make the project maybe 10-20% cheaper. i think that climate might be able to handle vegan keto, they likely have higher biodiversity along with the frost shedding,higher light intensity, and higher solar catchement area thanks to being on those slopes. the main reason i dont favor that example is because of the high cost relative to the amount of work that was done. that area is the most suited to such and intensive change so if anything was going to happen it would have needed to be terraces of some form.

savorys work is more suited to large scale projects and it should be easier to maintain a large herd. (in theory) i have concerns about methane production but i suspect that once insects/chickens/pigs can take hold that they will reduce the emissions from that. savory's method is best definitely suited to simi habitable areas but in gaming there is a bell curve for level grinding effectiveness and i suspect savory is near the peak on that. its cheaper to have many "slaves" and a few managers, rather many paid workers and 1 manager. so for the type of work they are used for cattle are likely the best.
"They apparently account for something upwards of 2/3 of the earth's land surface, which is why I devoted more words to him" i didnt realize it was this much.

Selah ranch's work is likely the least financially viable, unless selah plans to allow succession into rainforest along with allowing hunting. i dont think the ecosystem services are worth the money they invested unless they were in a less brittle climate where it only would have needed that nudge.

"The point of the ramble is that there are "many roads to Dublin". My instinct is that looking to the solutions provided by nature prior to human interference and either mimicking their effect or restoring them outright is the most efficient long-term way to address desertification."
i can agree with this, appropriate technology and such.

"Much of the approach has to be based on location. In places where the majority of the year is relatively wet and any dry season that exists is moderate in dryness and short (eastern US, northern S. America, NW Europe, SE Asia, etc.) we have a lot of latitude because the environment is resilient and forgiving. In places where drought is the norm (western and southwestern N. America, southern S America, most of Africa, west and southwest Asia, most of Australia, etc.) the range of choices are narrower." im fairly sure that silvopasture
should be high on that list in most locations.

"It also depends on what you mean by efficiency." least amount of work/capital needed from humans to create a food producing system in a less favorable location followed by
systems to catch the maximum amount of carbon.

"If it's just a matter of feeding yourself in the desired manner by spending the least time/effort and money to accomplish that, than it is a real estate problem: location, location, location. Pick a benign location and do what suits your fancy."
i want to avoid the most favorable locations as im fairly sure that they can repair themselves/are already doing what needs to be done without interference aside from doing some tree thinning and such.

"If you want to approach it as a more holistic investment and consider the net ecological benefit as an offset to invested time and money when calculating the net cost of your nutrition, maybe even prioritizing ecological benefit aspects, then your options expand to include combined ecological restoration-food production projects. Our fellow board members like 7wb5 can speak more eloquently to the system frameworks to formally evaluate such things. I'm much more simple-minded and when I see something like small impoverished villages in Africa transition away from being fed by grain imported from the Midwestern US and turn their little patch of dry, dusty earth into something that looks suitable for human habitation while feeding themselves, I conclude the ideas behind it are sound although I can't evaluate their efficiency."
im fairly sure that i can help the most people over the longest time by investing in a business and creating profitable jobs that improve the environment/local economy.

"I must also admit that while such noble ideas stir my heart, I still just drive to the grocery store and forage the shelves for the lowest-dollar means of meeting my nutritional goals."
=P im young and stupid so im more willing to do dumb shit like investing in low return/"low skill"/"low stress" stuff like agriculture.
i also read too much fiction to be able to just relax...=P

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:46 pm
by jacob
@tonyedgecombe - It's not just the impact of that child. It's the impact of that child's child/2 + that child's grandchild/4 + ... (See paper in original link for details. It's all explained there, so no need to guess at it.)

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:56 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
That particular point from the book is that we would produce MORE food if we didn't feed livestock on grain grown for that purpose. So it's not that we could still produce 1/2 the livestock (that was an estimate, it's worth reading about how that estimate was attained in Chap 3, very thought-provoking) even if we didn't feed them grain, it was that the animals close the loop on waste and increase efficiency. So when you accept that premise...
(basically feeding food waste to pigs, i can agree with that)
... is incorrect, because you produce more food when animals close the loop on waste & bring more biomass into the food chain. The book is pretty fascinating, especially if you describe yourself as a permaculture hippie who wants to do holistic grazing and agriculture. As he says in the introduction:
yeah it was incorrect, i even contradicted myself from before when i said "savannahs are one of the ecosystems that absorb the most carbon" :lol:
i think i got caught up in trying to be agreeable. =P
the reason savannas are one of the best is because of animal impact+the high surface area.
70-90% plant based is likely the best for maintaining tropical rain forests while higher meat based diets are more suited to temperate/cold climate rainforests =P

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:14 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
Each child: +58.6
Driving a car: +2.4
Transatlantic flying (once annually): +1.6
Eating a meat-based diet: +0.8
Not recycling: +0.2
Using incandescent lights: +0.1

it also depends on how many of your kids want to become hippies and have a net positive impact too... adopting/teaching is likely better unless you like having your kids be blood related to you. =P

for the plane and car bit geoff lawton may be a good example of how traveling can have a net
positive effect. its probably best to stick to online stuff like skype unless he needs to design a large property or speak to a head of state.

i think the meat based diet wasn't referring to allan savory so that could be lowered.

recycling is one i have to agree with for any lifestyle. it could also be reduced via zero waste and minimalism.

paul wheaton did some stuff on incandescents:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gjvOOlHmsU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta2ozf_uJJ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_7I-hgtQo4

...i like extreme stuff soooo derp...

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 1:56 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
https://www.savory.global/wp-content/up ... ethane.pdf
info on allan savory's method in relation to methane production

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:07 pm
by IlliniDave
monkeymanwasd123 wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:43 pm
savorys work is more suited to large scale projects and it should be easier to maintain a large herd. (in theory) i have concerns about methane production but i suspect that once insects/chickens/pigs can take hold that they will reduce the emissions from that.
I think it depends on where you start. If applied to a degraded/desertifying patch of ground, especially one currently managed the way it's typically done on his home continent (using burnoff to clear last season's dead grass). As the land and soil heals vast quantities of carbon are sequestered in the soil, where methane is also absorbed and broken down, making it a net greenhouse negative (or so he said the people who know about such things tell him). The much vilified cow farts will be more than offset in such an arrangement.

If you just add herds to wetter, more forgiving ecologies, and/or continue using currently common practices where herds already exist, it's probably a greenhouse booster.

I agree Savory's methodolgy is probably the cheapest, I'm guessing more than 10-20% cheaper then what the Chinese have done at Loess, but then again, given the terrain at Loess, it might be difficult to apply Savory's methods because chances are much of that that ecology never supported immense herds of grazers to begin with. The Chinese government paid the workers for years before they were seeing sufficient crop yields. Savory's methods seem to turn things around faster when applied in suitable locations.

Veering off topic just thinking about climate impacts, we already know with a high degree of certainty what desertification does to climates at the macro climate level, and what the resulting ecological collapse has been and will continue to be. Regardless, and arguably independently, of how we address atmospheric-driven global climate change and its ecological impact, we need to address the desertification caused by human agricultural activity since it is devastating even with lower atmospheric carbon. And if one accepts Savory's results and conclusions, there's a lot of land out there that requires the return of dense grazing to stop the desertification process (or perhaps reclaim already desertified land) and return the land to sustainable viability. There's other degraded or degrading land out there unsuitable for rehabilitation through dense grazing and requires vegetation-based treatment and sometimes terrain altering, and there's probably degraded or degrading land that could be rehabilitated either way or using combinations.

I don't think it's an either/or between curbing fossil fuel emissions and reversing desertification, it's a both/and.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:22 pm
by IlliniDave
monkeymanwasd123 wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 12:56 pm
the reason savannas are one of the best is because of animal impact+the high surface area.
70-90% plant based is likely the best for maintaining tropical rain forests while higher meat based diets are more suited to temperate/cold climate rainforests =P
If you are being literal with the term "rain forest", the name gives it away--these areas are typically densely forested and I would argue they should be left as forest as much we can. I would say the same for the forests in areas that wouldn't be considered rain forests, with maybe some well-planned timber harvesting (and undergrowth removal in unharvested areas) for the sake of biodiversity where humans tend to intervene with forest fires.

If you are just using it as an umbrella term for places that are wet year round, or nearly year round, then I would agree that both the most cost efficient, and likely most holistically beneficial would be vegetation-based management. Woodland-based lighter grazers like deer tend to coexist pretty well in human-impacted areas.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:46 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
XD exactly "all of the above" is my solution to climate change. i meant like rain forests established via permaculture so that they will be productive food wise. not naturally formed ones.
yay for deer... i hear people farm deer... any opinions on that?

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:17 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
_-_ did you read savory's stuff yet have you watched his other videos
and i was under the impression people would already use supplemental feed much of the time

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:23 pm
by IlliniDave
monkeymanwasd123 wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 6:46 pm
XD exactly "all of the above" is my solution to climate change. i meant like rain forests established via permaculture so that they will be productive food wise. not naturally formed ones.
yay for deer... i hear people farm deer... any opinions on that?
I've never heard of people farming deer, and so don't really have an opinion. In general I don't see the value in trying to bring undomesticated animals into human agriculture, especially those that thrive in the wild, but maybe there's enough of a market for venison that it is viable.

Are you talking about commercial farming of deer, or attempts to bring them into the fold of subsistence farming/permaculture type of arrangement?

There's a guy with property just north of my Dad's vineyard who keeps a small herd of elk (the now-extinct eastern strain of N American elk were native to Illinois). There is a small niche market for elk meat, in part because elk hunting is an expensive endeavor for people east of the Rocky Mountains. His fences are so high they look like they belong at the boundary of a prison.

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:27 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
eeeh well both i guess, the only context i can see being viable is the reindeer up north

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:32 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
i read it before but yeah i reread it

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:37 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
now its your turn did you read/watch any of savory's work?

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:52 pm
by monkeymanwasd123
-.- try watching more stuff... if you cant handle looking at deserts without being pessimistic take a look at the more rainy areas

Re: extremely frugal vegan keto,keto, and carnivore diets

Posted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:24 pm
by IlliniDave
bigato wrote:
Sat Apr 20, 2019 7:29 pm
Well did you read the articles linked in the url I posted above
I didn't read the research articles behind the linked summary/survey articles.

Many of the criticisms seem to be valid criticisms, but I think directed against an understanding of what Savory is promoting that is different than Savory's understanding of it. One that stood out is that Savory to my knowledge is not promoting a system primarily intended for profit generating cattle operations. To me he seems to be promoting a system for subsistence agriculture for people who live in places where conventional methods fail.

Scalability may very well be the fly in the ointment. Not that it can't be scaled--the basic idea was nature's solution to certain ecosystems. I just have my doubts humans can pull it off, despite the urgency. I also agree that cattle are a compromise choice. Bison might be a better choice in western N. America, for example. Even then, mimicking is only mimicking, not replicating.

I also agree and am quite confident Savory would as well that doing something like trying to implement his system in say the Sonoran Desert would be both stupid and catastrophic. It's clear he's targeting marginal grassland areas where human impact has relatively recently tipped the scales downward.