Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
Anti-science, inactivism, and unsupported conspiracy theories are not ok here.
We already have way more farmland than we need. That's how we can produce cheap beef in the first place. The government pays farmers to grow corn and turn it into ethanol because we grow so much corn that it would tank the market to sell it all.
We should be turning cropland back into prairies and forests. Put some carbon back into the soil and create ecosystems to support biodiversity again.
A well-intentioned thought. There is indeed a lot of corn. Dedicated fields are valuable, and practical. We just need to find better use for them. ๐
It's far easier said than done, but I would love to see fields of industrial hemp! It would clean the soil, water, and sky. Hemp has so many uses. We can wear it, our clothing would be stronger & last longer...I'm telling you, it would be worth a try.
I'm picturing a field of potatoes, beans and hemp laid out in optimized patterns and never 100% harvested. Throw in patches of natives and flowers and some shading solar panels you'd be really cookin... If feasable to totally no till and if it worked, after season, bring in some cows to clear the dead beans and after a few days, chickens to feast upon the poo-munchin invertabrates. Do soil maintenance if necessary... Add fruit trees for the lullz. Harvesting would have to be really clever... I bet after a decade or so, upkeep costs woild optimize.
Oh hush; it's my naive fantasy and I can do what I want.
We can likely get even more by shifting from gas cars to EVs; notice how much corn is converted into motor fuel:
Transition to irrigated only production combined with moving to EV and we'd need 75% less land for corn. While still eating the same amount of meat.
Banning open range and converting to annual crop rotational grazing would decrease land usage for grazing by 70-80%.
Moving all vegetable production to protected culture would decrease land area needed by 50% or more.
Around 70-80% of environments we destroy for farming/ranching is completely unnecessary. We have the technology and ability to grow what we need an less than 25% of the land area we currently dedicate for agriculture.