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. ...