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Limits to sustainable animal consumption: Difference between revisions
Limits to sustainable animal consumption (view source)
Revision as of 02:02, 14 March 2023
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<!-- TODO: add tl;dr: When it comes to feeding 8 billion people sustainably, animal protein{{x|from farming, hunting, and fishing combined}} could be ''at most'' only't be more than _% of the average person's diet. --> | |||
Pro-meat folks rightly point out that [[pasture|some land is only suited for grazing animals | ==Farming== | ||
* Vegans rightly point out that meat-containing diets require more land (and thus more [[deforestation]]). Feeding animals crops [[feed efficiency|is a net loss of protein and calories]]. But... | |||
* Pro-meat folks rightly point out that [[pasture|some land]] is only suited for grazing animals. And unlike humans, cows can live on eating grass{{x|and so can buffalo, sheep and goats. But chickens & pigs '''can't'''.}}. | |||
This raises a more important question: | This raises a more important question: | ||
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Clearly it's less than the ''status quo'', as there are fewer sources of feed. But ''how much'' less? | Clearly it's less than the ''status quo'', as there are fewer sources of feed. But ''how much'' less? | ||
{{aip}} | {{aip}} | ||
==Hunting== | |||
Hunter-gatherer lifestyles were sustainable in prehistoric times when the world population was less than 0.1 billion - today we are at 8.0 billion. Hunting might be a great survival tactic if you're lost in the woods. But it's not going to feed the world. There would be mass extinctions of wild animals [[overhunting|if we tried]]. | |||
==Fishing== | |||
Wild-caught fish could provide 5 or 6 grams/day of protein per capita globally, if none of it was wasted. | |||
{{dp | |||
|<nowiki>seafood.production.wild</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>93 million tonnes/year</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>Global production of wild-caught fish and other seafood (not farmed)</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>Using most recent data available.</nowiki><br /><nowiki> | |||
Fishing grew a lot from 1960 to 1990 but (unlike fish farming) has not increased since 1995. This suggests that we've reached the ecological limit.</nowiki><br /><nowiki> | |||
</nowiki><br /><nowiki> | |||
https://ourworldindata.org/fish-and-overfishing</nowiki> | |||
}} | |||
{{dp | |||
|<nowiki>fish.protein</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>18%</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>Protein content of fish (divided by total mass including bones)</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki></nowiki> | |||
}} | |||
{{dp | |||
|<nowiki>world.population</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>8 billion</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>Number of people alive today, globally</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>https://www.unfpa.org/data/world-population-dashboard</nowiki><br /><nowiki> | |||
Last updated in 2023</nowiki> | |||
}} | |||
Grams of fish: | |||
{{calc | |||
|<nowiki>seafood.production.wild</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>(g/day per capita)(world.population)</nowiki> | |||
}} | |||
Grams of protein: | |||
{{calc | |||
|<nowiki>seafood.production.wild * fish.protein</nowiki> | |||
|<nowiki>(g/day per capita)(world.population)</nowiki> | |||
}} | |||
The sustainable level of consumption might be a bit less than this, because [[overfishing]] is still an issue. | |||
The rest of fish is farmed, which, as mentioned earlier, is a net loss of protein. Farmed fish are fed food crops that humans could otherwise eat. | |||