"Jim Webster" wrote in message ...
"pearl" wrote in message
...
"Jim Webster" wrote in message
...
yes, but I admit it
Wow.
.. and the UK is rapidly becoming a water-deficient country too..
not for agriculture. May have to ration domestic use in the SE
Crops aren't being irrigated there yet?
some vegetables and potatoes
not such things as grazing land
I remember the summer of '95 in Essex. Grass all burned up.
Any idea why England is experiencing this extended drought?
Stick with UK seasonal vegetables
I'd like to see evidence of vegetables causing water depletion.
Simple.
What is the water content of most vegetables?
If it's that simple you should be able to provide evidence
that vegetable production is causing water shortages.
you just did, vegetables and potatoes are the only crops in the UK needing
irrigation
Those crops have always been grown there, so they're not to blame.
And for imported crops it is simple, work out the water content of
vegetables, multiply it by tons exported, that is the amount of water that
country exports.
If that country is already water deficient, you are merely making things
worse by exporting vegetables
Why are water shortages occuring? Address and eliminate the cause.
'Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth's entire land surface,
mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the
global arable land used to producing feed for livestock, the report
notes. As forests are cleared to create new pastures, it is a major
driver of deforestation, especially in Latin America where, for
example, some 70 percent of former forests in the Amazon have
been turned over to grazing.
Land and water
At the same time herds cause wide-scale land degradation, with about
20 percent of pastures considered as degraded through overgrazing,
compaction and erosion. This figure is even higher in the drylands
where inappropriate policies and inadequate livestock management
contribute to advancing desertification.
The livestock business is among the most damaging sectors to the
earth's increasingly scarce water resources, contributing among other
things to water pollution, euthropication and the degeneration of coral
reefs. The major polluting agents are animal wastes, antibiotics and
hormones, chemicals from tanneries, fertilizers and the pesticides used
to spray feed crops. Widespread overgrazing disturbs water cycles,
reducing replenishment of above and below ground water resources.
Significant amounts of water are withdrawn for the production of feed.
Livestock are estimated to be the main inland source of phosphorous
and nitrogen contamination of the South China Sea, contributing to
biodiversity loss in marine ecosystems.
Meat and dairy animals now account for about 20 percent of all
terrestrial animal biomass. Livestock's presence in vast tracts of land
and its demand for feed crops also contribute to biodiversity loss; 15
out of 24 important ecosystem services are assessed as in decline,
with livestock identified as a culprit.
.....'
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/...448/index.html
In
fact it is the extensive deforestation to create pasture and
feedcrops that has caused aridization; now compounded
by the need to irrigate to keep up your omnivorous habit.
'(i) Micro-climate: Deforestation of TRF leads to drastic
changes in microclimate (Lal and Cummings, 1979), as
outlined in Fig. 6. In general, deforestation eliminates the
buffering effect of vegetation cover and accentuates the
extremes. Fluctuations in micro-climatic parameters are
greatly enhanced (e.g., relative humidity, maximum and
minimum temperatures for soil and air). Deforestation
decreases rainfall effectiveness and increases aridization
of the climate. Forest removal increases the magnitude
and intensity of net radiation reaching the soil surface.
Ghuman and Lal (1987) observed that in south central
Nigeria, on average, 10.5 and ll.5 MJ/m2/day of insolation
were received on a cleared site compared to 0.4 and 0.3
MJ/m2/day in the forest during the dry seasons of 1984
and 1985, respectively. There was no appreciable
difference in solar radiation received under forest during
the rainy (May) and dry (December) seasons (Table 8).
Vegetation removal also increases wind velocity (Table 8).
Deforestation decreases the maximum relative humidity,
especially during mid-day. There is also a corresponding
increase in air temperature and evaporation rate. Perhaps
the most drastic effect of deforestation is on soil
temperature. The maximum soil temperature at I to 5 cm
depth can be 5° to 20°C higher on cleared land on a sunny
day compared with land under TRF cover. Because of
high soil evaporation, the soil moisture content of the
surface layer is also lower in cleared than in forested soil
(Fig. 7).
.....'
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbook...e/uu27se05.htm
so irrelevent to UK and snipped
Relevant and restored.
'There are several major concerns about deforestation of TRF.
These concerns are related to local, regional, and global effects
(Fig. 6). Local effects are the most drastic and are related to
changes in soil properties, vegetation, and micro-climate.
Regional effects are related to hydrological characteristics and
changes in meso-climate. Global effects are due to changes in
global cycles of C and N and water vapor and may be related
to global warming or the greenhouse effect.' - ibid.
You know where most of that imported soya meal is from.
'.. the soya boom, feeding a seemingly insatiable world
market for soya beans as cattle feed, is now the main driver
of rainforest destruction.
Figures show that last year the rate of forest clearance in the
Amazon was the second highest on record as the soy boom
completed its third year. An area of more than 10,000 square
miles - nearly the size of Belgium - was cut down, ..
....
The survival of the Amazon forest, which sprawls over 4.1
million sq km (1.6 million sq miles) and covers more than
half of Brazil's land area, may be the key to the survival of
the planet. The jungle is sometimes called the world's "lung"
because its trees produce much of the world's oxygen. It is
thought nearly 20 per cent of it has already been destroyed
by legal and illegal logging, and clearance for cattle ranching.
But the soya boom has dramatically stepped up the pace of
destruction.
It began on the back of the BSE crisis in Britain, when the
feed given to cattle suddenly became a matter of intense
public concern. Cattle feed producers around the world
switched to soya as an untainted source.
The boom was intensified by the fact that Brazil - in contrast
to the US and Argentina - did not go down the GM route in its
agriculture, so when most European countries went GM-free,
it was from Brazil that they sought their soya bean supplies.
Europe now imports 65 per cent of its soya from Brazil. A
further impetus to the boom is coming from China, whose
emerging middle class wants to eat more and more meat - so
the demand for animal feed is soaring.
The soya boom is bitterly criticised by environmentalists.
"It is turning the rainforest into cattle feed. It is gross," said
John Sauven, head of the rainforest campaign for Greenpeace
UK.
It first showed up in the deforestation figures in 2003, when
after falling or staying steady for eight years, the rate of
destruction leapt by 40 per cent in a single year, from
18,170 sq km to 25,500 sq km.
Since then the rate has stayed at its new high level, with
24,597 sq km cut down the next year, and, as the figures
released yesterday by the Brazilian environment ministry
showed, from satellite photos and other data, no less than
26,130 sq km of rainforest was cut down in the 12 months
to August 2004. This was a further leap of 6 per cent on
the year before and caused immense dismay, not least
because President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's government
adopted an action plan last year to protect the Amazon.
....'
http://www.rainforests.net/therapeoftherainforest.htm
Why won't you comment on the inefficient overuse of water
for the livestock industry, jim? You are too embarassed to?
no, we use all that water that falls on grass or would otherwise go to
waste
You're forgetting about all that imported feed.
maize gluten, buiscuit meal, rememeber,
if we are looking at your diet, then it is only relevent to compare mine
Soya meal, remember. See above.
don't need to, you rant on about it all the time
You do need to, as you are trying to shift the blame onto others.
but it has taken over a week to admit that you are every bit as guilty
I have not. There's no way I could be. It is inefficient unsustainable
consumption for and by the livestock industry that is causing global
water shortages, - requiring 15 to 22 times the water for the same
amount, and at about 40 percent of global agricultural output, that's
nearly twice as much as would be used for plant foods alone - and
~you~ try to blame foods being produced for human beings directly.
Shame on you, webster. Maybe one day you'll find a backbone.
I'm not the one who took over a week to admit what she eats
Stop lying already, webster. I told you way back what I eat.
and still cannot
conceed that by importing vegetables she is importing water
You still can't provide evidence of vegetables causing drought.
Also if water is such a big deal, I'd point out that the amount used in
agriculture in the UK is less than is used by the domestic population
What percentage? A link with that would be helpful.
how much water a day to you use, start from there
Very little.
How many liters of water do bovines consume per day?
remember they **** it straight back out again
What a waste of fresh water.
or convert it to milk which we use.
Rate of conversion?
They drink water that is not up to human consumption standards
Why not?
very little goes into meat
You haven't answered the question.