On Sat, 23 Sep 2000 00:13:50 -0700, Ingrid Bauer/J-C Catry
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>I came accross that post and thought it was good arguments to respond to
>the claim that a  vegetarian  diet need less surface to be produced.
>jean-claude

Jean-Claude, that post sais nothing against the fact that almost
and vegetarian food production needs significant less surface to be
produced than animal food.
All agricultural "produced" animals at first eat agricultural
produced plants. And use up 70-90% of it, which goes to waste.

Any real paleo meat - various wild game - need still *much* more
surface
per human. But is is not "produced". It just naturally occurs and
leaves
nature as we want it.

And of couse sea fish is a kind of wild game that needs zero land
surface.
:-)

You quoted:
>>"On a diet of just grains, the carrying capacity of earth is sixty times
>the current population."
Who wants this, to carry as much people on the earth as possible?

The question is more, given how many as we *are* now on the earth,
how we can survive now? If all the dense populated countries of the
east
switched to a eating habit as usual in the western world today
- desaster would arise.
India, China, Russia, Indonesia a.s.o. hardly manage to produce as
much
plant crops as necessary to feed the people directly.
If the 1,200,000,000 people of china now choose to switch from 5%
animal to
25% animal in their diet, the catastrophy would be complete. The 20%
increase in meat would double or triple the crops as needed presently.
Or
only 600,000,000 chinese could live there. What would happen to the
other
600 mio chinese people?

I've also my own ideas what to do with land that could be freed if
more
people switched to more plants in the diet.
First, produce crops less intensely. Particularly by switching to a
sustainable high quality way of organic production. This alone reduces
the
yield to about 1/4th. But high quality, sustainable and less
aggressive to
the nature and animals nearby.

Second, renaturate (leave alone) much of the space now intensely used.

If I was a Koisan in Africa I'd handle a rather big area (37 square
kilometers as I've learned) in a most gentle way. No matter if i arrow
an
antelope from time to time or not.
Ever thought how much your own space on earth is, and how it is used?

But everybody can only decide for himself how much area of the planet
he or
she wants to be used in which way.

regards

Amadeus S.

Some of your quote was:
..
>We need to stop thinking in terms of how many PEOPLE the earth will support
>and start thinking about carrying capacity in terms of having a BALANCE of
>plants and animals, retaining the diverse characteristics of different
>landscapes, and having enough "space" for everyone to coexist, not just
>enough food.
>
>From that perspective, we very definitely have a population problem.
...