• Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Well, yes, but many regions that are going to have water supply issues aren’t near the animal ag farms. Closing a dairy farm in New Hampshire isn’t going to help things in central Africa. The bigger culprit is Climate Change bringing dry air flows to areas that previously had more humidity and precipitation.

      • x00z@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        Closing a dairy farm does actually help. It means less CO2 in the air, less climate change, and thus less dry air in central Africa.

        For the water itself you are correct, but animal farms are very much a reason of climate change.

      • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        To clarify what this user is referring to, Poore & Nemecek 2018 is a recent, widely cited meta-analysis covering over 1530 studies assessing the environmental impacts of food. It’s published in one of the world’s top academic journals – Science – and authored by Dr. Joseph Poore, the director of the University of Oxford’s food sustainability program, and Dr. Tomas Nemecek, an expert on agroecology and life cycle assessments from the Zurich University of Applied Sciences.

        They somehow constantly appear like a spectre whenever this study gets brought up to try to spread FUD about it through vague and unsubstantiated nonsense. They do this because it’s extremely compelling, effectively unambiguous evidence that many animal products such as dairy are abysmal for the climate (“because it’s devastating to my case!”). I highly encourage anyone interested to read it for themselves. The article is paywalled, but Dr. Poore hosts it for free through their personal website, so you don’t have to take either of our words for it.

        Edit: the paper they quote (but conspicuously don’t link to) below to try to refute this methodology is itself a meta-analysis of 369 LCA studies in the same vein as Poore & Nemecek. I can’t; my sides are in orbit. Edit 2: For anyone wanting to read it in full, Lancaster University hosts Clune, Crossin & Verghese 2015 legally and for free as well, so again, you don’t have to take either of our words for it.

        • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          3 months ago

          First, it is often cited that LCA results should not be compared (Desjardins et al., 2012; Foster et al., 2006; McAuliffe et al., 2016; Röös et al., 2013) due to variation in methodology choices, functional units, as well as temporal and regional differences2. Second, no single comprehensive review was identified that adequately covers the breadth of fresh foods available to consumers and caterers. As Helle et al. (2013, p.12643) state ‘data availability and quality remain primary obstacles in diet-level environmental impact assessment’, while Pulkkinen et al. (2015) calls for the creation of a database that communicates data quality, uncertainty and variability to reliably differentiate between the GWP of food types. Previous studies have compiled LCA data to compare different foods (e.g. Audsley et al., 2009; Berners-Lee et al., 2012; Bradbear and Friel, 2011; de Vries and de Boer, 2010; Foster et al., 2006; Nijdam et al., 2012; Sonesson et al., 2010; Roy et al., 2009). While these are useful attempts, the identified studies are inadequate in the coverage of fresh foods available. Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs) attempt to inform consumers of the environmental impacts (carbon, water and ecological footprint) of specific foods, however they also fall short in breadth of items covered at present. The most comprehensive attempt at carbon footprint labelling was performed by Tesco (2012), however failed to label key categories such as fresh fish, pork, lamb or beef before finishing in 2012 due to the scale of the labelling scheme and a lack of participation from other retailers (Head et al., 2013). Third, studies that do compare results may often present singular figures. Peters et al. (2010) and Röös et al. (2011) argue that a range of impacts should be reported from LCA’s to better represent the variety of environmental impacts, as opposed to a singular figure. Finally, there is a lack of synthesised open access LCA data in the public domain available to consumers to inform decision-making.

          • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            It’s exceptionally funny to me that you didn’t link to the study you’re quoting, because if you did, people would find out that you’re quoting a systematic review & meta-analysis of 369 LCA studies in the same vein as Poore & Nemecek 2018 did with 1530 LCA studies.

            The ENTIRE POINT of the study you just quoted was that “there is a lack of synthesised open access LCA data in the public domain available to consumers to inform decision-making. Therefore this paper presents a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of food LCA studies in the last 15 years to assess the GWP of fresh food.” Thus, they appropriately synthesized the data using a meta-analysis. You’ve literally just disproven your own point. I hope you don’t actually believe that people reading this comment will fall for this.

            I’m not trying to taunt you, rather I’m being completely serious: did you read the study you just linked beyond what you quoted?

            • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              3 months ago

              they were honest enough to acknowledge that these studies varied so widely in methodology that combining them would be bad science, but went on to do it anyway. poore-nemecek doesn’t even acknowledge their faux pas.

              • TheTechnician27@lemmy.world
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                3 months ago

                That’s your characterization here? That’s the level of bad faith you’re acting on? That they spent an entire paragraph right upfront citing other papers talking about potential pitfalls for the express purpose of intentionally implicating themselves before doing it? Are you high? Or just deeply scientifically illiterate?

                The entire point of that paragraph is to show that there are pitfalls if taking a naïve approach, but that an appropriately thought-out meta-analysis can meaningfully synthesize LCAs into one set of data, which they go on to explain in their ‘Methodology’.

  • Evil_Shrubbery@lemm.ee
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    3 months ago

    And so the water wars have begun.

    Mass migration, armies at the border, and superpowers killing whether they can’t profit from.

    • curiousaur@reddthat.com
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      3 months ago

      More likely obligate vegan diets. The economic forces will drive the price of water heavy foods like meat and dairy up so high the masses will stop consuming them.

      • Cornpop@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        It’s not like vegetables require a ton of water to grow as well though right… right?

  • Death_Equity@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    Dont worry, there will be a considerable drop in demand due to artificial circumstances. So I wouldn’t worry if you survive what is to come.