I wonder if the book examines the efficiency of the production and maintenance, direct or indirect, of "inputs that aren't useful for food production in other ways, like food waste for pigs, and pastoral land not suitable for crop farming."
If you lived round where I live you'd see pastoral land not suitable for crop farming wherever you go. Rocky hillsides, windswept moorland, peat bogs. Much of it is prime sheep country, and well (and profitably) grazed in consequence, but of course this wouldn't do for Americans, who refuse to eat lamb or mutton.
It's a fair point in principle, but it does seem kind of utopian. The present system is fundamentally built on raising or hunting animals to add protein to the diet of other, higher prestige/cost animals. Something like a quarter of the world's fish catch goes to feed animals.
So, given that, how do you move back to a system of "natural" feed for animal husbandry without pretty draconian laws or Bob's apocalypse?
Back home, there was mile after mile of "pastoral land not suitable for crop farming." It didn't require many inputs beyond a fence and a water source. You could raise corn on most of it, but only at a huge cost and it isn't a good idea. Even with irrigation and fertilizer, many soils are only suited for growing grass. For example, the sand hills don't have sufficient top soil to grow crops but cows do just fine.
but of course this wouldn't do for Americans, who refuse to eat lamb or mutton.
I refuse to eat mutton, but if you mail me a lamb, I'll happily eat it.
Americans, who refuse to eat lamb
I love lamb. Pretty much my favorite meat. But it's expensive.
Like voting for the acolytes of Ayn Rand and virtually every other American human behavior, "refusing to eat lamb or mutton" is a result of advertising.
What is true of course is that this approach doesn't permit the level of intensive meat production that the west has grown used to. We'd need to go back to using meat mainly as a flavouring in an otherwise pulse, grain and vegetable diet, or for feast on high days and holy days.
Like the great peasant cuisines of the world, in fact. And most of the tastiest dishes. Rush Limbaugh wouldn't like it, but so fucking what.
But it's expensive.
so I gather. When the American segment of the family turns up over here they demand lamb in loud voices. But there's no reason for it to be expensive. Got a mountain? Put some sheep on it.
Plus, there are plenty of vacant slopes in my neighborhood. Has anybody tried urban goat herding?
re: 2
Quite, see also, 'Scotland: everywhere that's not Fife or the Central Belt.'
re: 8
And of course there always those small animals that peasants have raised using minimal food and space -- chickens, rabbits, etc.
Rocky hillsides, windswept moorland, peat bogs.
I'm going to need an innocent young governess wearing a mist-grey hooded cloak open over a tight-bodiced white gown and unsuitably dainty slippers to complete the picture. Can wardrobe gin something up?
Has anybody tried urban goat herding?
Not personally, but I know where to find some urban goats about a mile from our house. But they're raised for milk rather than meat. I don't know enough about goats to know if you need a different breed to eat. Now those buggers really will eat anything. Your trousers with you in them if you don't mind out.
9: Most of the land here isn't as well watered as Britian. Much of the pasture couldn't handle sheep because they bite the grass too far down for it to recover. At least, that's what people say.
using minimal food and space -- chickens, rabbits, etc.
I'm fairly certain that I've heard a chicken in the shed behind a house that I pass on my (very urban) walk into work.
12. The Bronte Rectory is about 40 miles north of us, but the country's much the same.
Much of the pasture couldn't handle sheep because they bite the grass too far down for it to recover.
This must be a particularly weak sort of grass. Most grass can survive being grazed by sheep. And you don't have to have very well-watered land to be able to raise sheep. The Afghans and the Arabs and the Persians manage. Central Asian and Middle Eastern cooking is very sheep-centric.
2: Neal Stephenson has a wonderful passage in "The System of the World" describing 18th century Britain as having a fringe of civilisation, learning, trade, commerce, etc, surrounding a howling central wilderness full of sheep.
Do Americans really not eat mutton or lamb? Seems odd.
Interesting argument. Certainly there are tasty animals that are well adapted to land that cannot grow plants humans can eat. we shouldn't assume the whole world is Iowa or that all animals are best off eating corn.
This is related to a sad thing I remember from Mountains Beyond Mountains. There used to be hardscrabble, resourceful, resilient native(-ish?) swine you could raise in the hills in Haiti. Until Americans came along and said no, the way you have to raise swine is using our cloned stock of oversize delicate animals that must be raised in clean rooms by proprietary methods, fed corn, sold to such-and-such supply chain for low profit, etc. And now there are no more Haitian mountain pigs. Perhaps I'm misrepresenting the politics/economics of it but it makes me sad to think you can lose an animal and way of life that was well-suited to a land. That's a unique loss.
16: "That's great, Ashley/Tiffany/Pomegranate/Asuka. You're doing great. You're wandering the moors, right? But you don't want to fall into the tarn, you know?"
"What's a tarn?"
"I dunno. Jimmy, what's a tarn?"
"It's like a kind of bird, I think."
"A bird? How the fuck is a governess going to fall into a bird, Jimmy? What the fuck do I pay you for? Where's that writer jackass? Tarn my ass. Can we get some mist spray on the cleavage, please? No, on the cleavage, numbnuts, if I wanted wet collarbones I'd go play water polo."
This must be a particularly weak sort of grass. Most grass can survive being grazed by sheep.
True. But, I think you have to watch the sheep and move them around more often to let the grass rest. Or can get more pounds of beef from the same acres. Or something. Anyway, nobody I knew even tried sheep.
I don't think my wife's family have raised a pig for a while, although there's a bit of the outbuilding under the terrace that is the 'pig place'. They do have loads of chickens just scratching about the yard being fed on kitchen scraps, though. It's essentially free protein. Her granny used to raise kitchen rabbits, too. Again, more or less free protein.
Safety warning, by the way: George Monbiot's journalism is generally or at least very often wrong and is therefore best regarded as a non-load-bearing structure.
Anyway, nobody I knew even tried sheep.
Swing low, sweet fruit delivery service.
Do Americans really not eat mutton or lamb?
Lamb does get eaten, but it's mostly seen either as a special dish for holidays or something you get at Greek restaurants. I'll eat pretty much any non-primate, but I don't think I've ever even seen mutton on a menu or in anybody's home.
You don't even have to graze sheep really; you can keep them on the beach and let them eat seaweed and infant birds and carrion. Problem is that the iodine builds up in their systems and turns their wool brown. Also, they tend to be aggressive.
Related-ish, I love this headline: "Justice League Wants Goat Rights in Charlottesville".
I'll eat pretty much any non-primate
Missionaries of the rank of bishop or above are safe from Cannibal Apo.
24: I've never seen mutton either. My dad said that his college cafeteria used to serve it all the time, but that was in the 50s. Though he likes lamb now, it was 30 years after that mutton before he'd try lamb.
17: you can get lamb in any fine restaurant and in most Indian restaurants in U.S. cities. I attest. It comes from Iceland, New Zealand, or sometimes is local. I've never seen mutton at a restaurant or grocery store but it must be possible to acquire. Farmers have sheep. Though, if there's no market, and therefore it doesn't pay to butcher them, I am not sure what happens to dead sheep?
Goat meat is supposedly becoming popular. I read it in the NYTimes. Hard to cook though, no? If I had a yard I would DEFINITELY have goats rather than mow it. So friendly and sweet, if you bottle-feed them as babies I guess.
re: 22
Heh, a friend of mine hates him. When I mentioned I see him quite often in Oxford, pottering about the place, he was on tenterhooks, hoping I'd reveal he drove about in a Humvee or something, burning fossil fuels for fun. But no, I only ever see him on a bike.
Thing is, sheep can use terrain like this, where cattle would probably fall off. (You can see a few on the slope on the right if you look hard. Basically small white specks.)
I am not sure what happens to dead sheep?
More theology debates?
If I had a yard I would DEFINITELY have goats rather than mow it. So friendly and sweet, if you bottle-feed them as babies I guess.
I sense bitter disappointment in ursyne's future.
30: I'm sure his heart is in the right place, he's just rather lazy and not a very good journalist, and doesn't seem particularly to care whether he's telling the truth or not.
If I had a yard I would DEFINITELY have goats rather than mow it.
Geese are your preferred lawnmowers. Plus if you live in a burglar prone neighbourhood they're as good as a dog.
31: Yes, but there are many other landscapes.
re: 31
Yeah, you struggle up some godforsaken hill-path in the mistaken belief that it's good for you and then find the place is infested with sheep.
Neal Stephenson has a wonderful passage in "The System of the World" describing 18th century Britain as having a fringe of civilisation, learning, trade, commerce, etc, surrounding a howling central wilderness full of sheep.
So, like modern Australia/NZ?
35: Geese are better than a dog. A goose makes at least twenty times as much shit as a dog. Before the week is out, nobody will be able to get to your house with clean shoes.
Whatevs, I'm bottle-feeding them and they will love me. Also, goat cheese? Hello?
Ducks are also cheap to raise, personable, and make delicious protein. I think duck eggs are better than chicken eggs for baking. Only problem is the poop. Man, everybody poops!
re: 36
If you could ranch cattle, I'm sure you could ranch sheep on the same land. Magic grass notwithstanding. Although I imagine there's stuff that cattle don't eat -- some shrubs, thorns etc -- that sheep would just mow through, so I expect they aren't suitable for all pastoral land.
Man, everybody poops!
Except for Jesus, according to St. Jerome, according to Milan Kundera.
If you could ranch cattle you could sell a lot of salad dressing in the American South.
Don't care for geese. Mean bastards. If you're wondering how a goose attacks you, the answer is he seizes a chunk of your calf in his vise-like beak and then whacks your legs repeatedly with his extremely strong wings.
Didn't read the article yet, but here's the problems I already have with it:
1. What percentage of the beef/pork/chicken that Americans and Britons eat ever saw anything resembling a blade of grass? A pretty goddamn low percentage is my guess.
2. A lot of this "marginal grazing land" is precisely an artifact of industrial meat production. Or of hundreds of years of intensive non-industrial production. You've got land that's only good for sheep? Plant some trees on it.
3. If you want to keep backyard chickens or even a pig that eat scraps and bugs and what-not, that's great, but good luck doing it in a western city. Even with some intense pressure from locavores and permaculturalists, it's still very difficult, if not impossible, to raise chickens in your back yard legally, and virtually impossible to raise any mammals for food, barring rabbits.
4. Again, perhaps this is mentioned in the article, but what about water? Not just the water the animals drink, which is a negligible fraction of the total, but the water used to grow all the grain they eat, and the water they foul with their noxious effluvia. A back issue of Permaculture Magazine that I was reading recently suggested that it takes something like 100,000 liters of water to make one kilogram of beef. Say that's overstating it by a factor of 10, and you still have an absurdly high number.
36. But the trick is that you use your marginal land for the most apprpriate livestock, no? So you'll have cattle in some places, sheep and pigs in others and possibly goats, camels (Jefferson Davis was keen on raising camels as military pack animals, but he got distracted), bison, etc. It comes down to avoiding the disadvantages of monoculture.
Jefferson Davis was keen on raising camels as military pack animals....
Well, then it must be a great idea.
A back issue of Permaculture Magazine that I was reading recently suggested that it takes something like 100,000 liters of water to make one kilogram of beef. Say that's overstating it by a factor of 10, and you still have an absurdly high number.
This is addressed in the article. No idea how solid the numbers are, but there you go.
re: 45
1. British farming is actually quite unlike farming in the US, I expect. So quite a bit of beef will in fact see grass. Much less so with chickens and pigs, which often are intensively farmed indoors.
2. It doesn't have to be either or, does it? Trees or food? It'll depend on the environment, and need. Sometimes it can be both.
4. Again, only a problem in some places. Not really here, where we have no issues with water supply in most of the UK as it falls from the sky with amazing regularity in much of country. As mentioned in previous conversations, average UK rainfall* is higher than even places you lot think of as wet [Seattle, etc].
* less so in the east and south
45.1: Nearly all of the beef was started on grass. Pigs and chickens, not so much.
45.2: Starting a couple hundred miles west of you and running to the Rockies, excepting a few river valleys, most of the land is too dry to grow trees without a great deal of irrigation and fire suppression.
I'm not pwned. I was talking about the U.S.
45.4 Ah, I see that Monbiot/Fairlie address this point and claim that it is actually THREE orders of magnitude off. That sounds awfully low to me.
Also, there's this bizarre sentence at the end of the article: "and reminds us that even vegan farming necessitates the large-scale killing or ecological exclusion of animals: in this case pests." Right, but, see, if you're growing grain to feed animals, then you're using more pesticides than you would be if you were feeding people with that grain. Same fucking rules apply.
Anyhow, more attention needs to be paid to tree crops in this debate. Vastly more efficient on practically every level. And you get lumber out of the deal too!
I'm not pwned.
"You're pwned! This whole system is pwned!"
45.1: Americans, possibly true. Britons, no. We don't do the industrial feedlot thing. Our beef is generally wholly or mostly grass and silage fed.
45.2: not in Britain, again. It's not like the Highlands were covered in rich waves of grain at one point. The soil's always been thin and sour and poor. Not to mention waterlogged. Quite a bit of it does now have trees on it - sitka spruce and pine forestry.
45.3: it's perfectly legal to raise chickens in your back yard in London; I know people who do it.
45.4: again, you're assuming grain-fed feedlot-raised cows. Not the case outside the US.
Was it here that we were discussing the fact that most laying hens in the US are simply thrown away at the end of their productive life? Because it's not economical to use the meat even for charity. So bizarre.
Also, with regard to the prairies: Before European agribusiness got ahold of them, the American prairies contained something like 300 edible species of plants. And they were, even then, being managed by Native people to a great extent through the use of semi-controlled burns.
Of course, there is some marginal grazing land that can't ever have trees on it in this epoch, but Britain used to be vastly more forested than it is today.
38: exactly like modern Australia, except for the fringe of civilisation, learning, trade and commerce.
I only recently became aware of the hotly debated issue of horse slaughter in the US. Hello, unintended consequences!
I ate all my green beans last night. Then I got a cookie!
58: Why does this horse taste like onion?
Our beef is generally wholly or mostly grass and silage fed.
And sheep and cow brains.
On raising chickens, lots of people do it. Nationally the law only stipulates that you can't do it as a commercial enterprise, which is defined as 50 birds or more. Local laws vary, but most of them address nuisance rather than the principle.
Don't keep a cock unless you hate everybody on the next four streets. You need to clean their run meticulously or you'll get rats, and the council will take you to court for attracting the buggers. Otherwise, you're good to go.
Lamb does get eaten, but it's mostly seen either as a special dish for holidays or something you get at Greek restaurants.
Yeah, I think my dad, the prototypical timid American eater, might have never had lamb before I dragged him to a Greek restaurant a few years ago.
Don't keep a cock unless you hate everybody on the next four streets.
British sex education departs from the U.S. norm, does it?
re: 56
Well yes, but I'm not getting what the point is. That we should return it to primal forest? What? Britain has been farmed pretty much since the last Ice Age ended. The landscape has been shaped by human hands for millennia. Some places it makes good ecological and economic sense to grow deciduous forest, and some places it doesn't. There are 60million+ people here now, which there weren't 2000 years ago.
That's not to say that we couldn't adopt lower impact farming methods, and considering seriously the adoption of more environmentally sustainable farming -- including the growing of much less meat -- but the 'let's turn things back to forests' argument doesn't help.
58: That's so weird to me. It's actually illegal in some states?
And they were, even then, being managed by Native people to a great extent through the use of semi-controlled burns.
They were burning it to get rid of trees. Somebody should have told them about apples and almonds.
re: 61
Not for yer actual decades, though.
62: Well, that is indeed a more sensible policy than is prevalent here.
What's the law like on bees? We're only just able to have bees here in Mpls. and the requirements are pretty stringent (I think you have to get the permission of 80% of your neighbors within 200 feet of your property or something like that).
56 Also, with regard to the prairies: Before European agribusiness got ahold of them, the American prairies contained something like 300 edible species of plants. And they were, even then, being managed by Native people to a great extent through the use of semi-controlled burns.
Huh? I mean, yeah, but few if any of them were suitable for large-scale cultivation of the sort that can feed millions of people. What's your point?
That's so weird to me. It's actually illegal in some states?
My limited understanding is, it's effectively illegal in the whole of the country. But still legal in Mexico and Canada. So, "load up the trailer" happens. And isn't well-regulated.
56: "Britain used to be vastly more forested than it is today"
Britain is actually more forested today than it was at the start of the nineteenth century. In fact, Britain is more forested today than it was when Magna Carta was signed, when the population was about three million. (Present coverage: 12%. Coverage in 1215: estimated 5-10%.)
Britain is actually more forested today than it was at the start of the nineteenth century.
Pennsylvania also and I think the same is true for most of the eastern U.S.
58 I only recently became aware of the hotly debated issue of horse slaughter in the US. Hello, unintended consequences!
I like how we're all going to become progressively more educated about horses and ponies as long as Stanley remains in his current relationship.
65: I'm not suggesting that all of non-forested-but-forestable Britain should be put back in tree growth, that would be absurd. Simply that the Monbiot/Fairlie contention that land currently used for grazing should be used for only grazing because it is not usable for other purposes is absurd. I would expect, though IANAB, that much of the best grazing land, i.e. the land where your cattle get fattest, is probably also the grazing land that would be most amenable to reforestation, due to more favorable water, temperature, soil and other conditions.
76: what you would expect is interesting, but it's not (see above) founded on any real knowledge about British history, farming, or ecology.
76: I doubt that. Grass and trees do best in different types of soil. The current inefficiencies of meat production have to do more with land used to grow grain to feed cows and pigs and whatnot. Grazing is rarely done on land suited for other purposes.
74: Certainly all of New England.
77: What are you talking about? Your statistic in 73, to wit: that a significant amount of land that was not forested in the past (ostensibly due to human intervention) is now forested precisely makes my point. If you are arguing that no more than 12% of Britain could ever be forested, then your argument is as speculative as mine, if not more so.
80: I don't know about knife-crime island, but in the U.S. most of the reforested land was crop land*, not grazing land.
*Or residential/industrial sites.
re: 80
Yes, but much of that land is now very different from when it had trees on it. 1500-2000 years of cultivating land for agricultural use changes the land. That's some pretty fucking epic sunk costs.
Yes, I know you've spent 2000 years making it better. Working day in day out, on literal peasant wages, to make it great land for growing food. Food which we, qua people, need. But you know what, trees would be more aesthetically pleasing.
Re: OP, I found visiting Texas a few years back really thought-provoking, both in regards to the economics of a barren hellhole as well as to the politics that comes from having interneighbor distances of a few miles and an economy that comes from either resource extraction or cattle.
Extrapolating recent trends to smaller and smaller food animals, within 30 years people will be eating either insects or vat-grown muscle tissue, either as hidden supplements in processed food, or like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/loupiote/88563671/
I just recently found a local source of organic goat's meat, great for kabobs or chili.
I mean, if the contention here is that there is no link between overgrazing/overfarming and deforestation, then that's just silly. If you're all claiming that, once this cycle is underway, there's no way to reverse it, that seems not to be born out by the statistics presented.
82/83: Yes, it's unfortunate that we can't eat fruit or nuts or sap or seeds, and have to admire the trees that bear them solely for their aesthetic value.
Orchards are ecologically very different from forests. Not that anyone said they were the same, exactly, but planting tree crops and reforestation are fairly distinct concepts. On the other hand, I like nuts, and fruit.
83. Moreover there are entire categories of landscape (heath springs to mind) which were forested prehistorically but were created by human intervention. If you reforested all the heath in Britain you'd create an ecological holocaust.
Don't care for geese. Mean bastards. If you're wondering how a goose attacks you, the answer is he seizes a chunk of your calf in his vise-like beak and then whacks your legs repeatedly with his extremely strong wings.
I have wondered about this! Well, not geese so much, but ever since I heard (somewhere?) about a grown man getting nearly killed by a swan and thought, "...How?" I still have difficulty imagining it. I suppose this is what google is for.
re: 86
Really, now you are just being fucking absurd.
The reason we, as a species, largely went over to agriculture, is because you can feed orders of magnitude more people with it. The number of people you can feed with the produce of trees that grow in the north of Europe [remember Glasgow is roughly parallel with Sitka] from a given area of land is going to be so tiny relative to the number you can feed from agricultural use of the same land that it's not even worth making the comparison.
I'm sympathetic to loads of green arguments, but this specious primitivist bullshit is useless.
If I heard of someone being killed by a swan, I'd assume drowning. They're big strong birds, but to kill someone I think a swan would have to get in a lucky blow to the head, resulting in falling into water.
83 is right.
I hope so; you wrote it.
91 is right. Also, 88. Also, 85 is arguing against a straw man and straw isn't a sustainable crop.
Hahah, 89 I meant. I was misreading the quoted number as the comment number.
Discussion of swan-related violence.
Geese and swans can break your arm, easy. I'm not sure how they'd kill you except, as LB suggests, by accidental drowning.
Geese and swans can break your arm, easy. I'm not sure how they'd kill you
I suppose if you tried to eat a whole one ...
I'm not sure how they'd kill you except, as LB suggests, by accidental drowning.
They'd have to wing it, but I'm sure they'd think of something.
I have a hard time believing a normal grown man could be taken out by a swan. My mom had a few geese when we were kids. We'd run around and bait the the geese and then they'd get pissed and chase us. All good clean fun.
80: what I mean, natilo, is that you've been making a lot of erroneous statements about agriculture, ecology and history on this thread, to the point where it's not immediately apparent that you know anything at all about them, certainly not as they relate to Britain.
93: "A male swan can break a man's arm with a single blow of its wing. And a female swan can break a male swan's heart with just a glance" -- Bill Bailey.
Don't know about PA, but Maine and Vermont definitely have less arable land more forest now than in the 1840s.
Food fact for the day:
Manioc, base starch for much of Africa, needs to be cooked just right or it's toxic.
I think that the central questions concerning food production for the next generation are whether genetically engineered drought and disease cultivars will be adopted quickly enough to avert starvation in Africa or not, and whether alternatives to the current natural-gas intensive method of making nitrogen-rich fertilizer.
You! Guys! Are! The! Best!
God, I love it here.
I have a hard time believing a normal grown man could be taken out by a swan.
Easy for you to say. Most of us don't go about armed and are thus completely vulnerable to that kind of attack.
I like how we're all going to become progressively more educated about horses and ponies as long as Stanley remains in his current relationship.
Stay tuned for tomorrow's episode: "Coping with the News that your Significant Other De-balled a Mammal on Valentine's Day".
106: That's not the problem. The only problem is if she enjoyed it.
106: Sounds like a country song. Have you thought about writing a tune for it?
106. My favourite rock interview of all time was watching P.J.Harvey describing to some numbskull DJ how to castrate a bull in front of an audience of adoring teenagers.
(Polly and the DJ were in front of the audience; she wasn't suggesting that you needed a crowd of adoring teens to enable you to castrate a bull.)
Heh. Along with one of the commenters in the link in 96, video of dangly armed swan victims or it didn't happen.
I have to say, getting taken out by a swan would be seriously embarrassing.
re: 109
Heh, she was on Radio 2 last week, playing stuff from her new album [which sounds great] and being interviewed. Her speaking voice is always a surprise. Like a slightly posher, younger Pam Ayres.
I don't know about armsmashing, but they can certainly KO your bridal gown.
106: Stanley, your lady friend rocks!
Stanley, your lady friend removes rocks!
Yeah I did kind of intend that to be low-hanging... you know.
105: I am waiting for gswift to discuss what sort of weapon would be best for defence against an angry swan. A taser might be foiled by the feathers. And pepper spray might not work at all: birds tend to be OK with capsiacin.
No idea what the best defence would be other than a sturdy pair of shoes [for either running or booting]. But like a lot of people, I'd guess, I've been attacked by a swan -- well, had one run at me hissing and flapping, rather than actually been hit by one -- and they are scary bastards. Hence Bill Bailey's joke about people having guard-swans, instead of guard-dogs.
Swans have got that long neck. Best defense is a good offense with some kind of sword while screaming "there can be only one".
birds tend to be OK with capsiacin
The entire point of capsiacin is to allow birds to eat peppers and not mammals since the seeds survive the GI tract of birds and they can therefore spread the seeds, so capsiacin is likely to be ineffective.
Much of it is prime sheep country, and well (and profitably) grazed in consequence
I was with you until "profitably". Sheep farming is shit living, even with subsidies. Fun fact: in Britain, you have to pay to get your sheep sheared! Our appetite for lamb is so insatiable (and our supply of heathland and moorland so massive) that wool is in massive and structural oversupply and the value of a fleece is significantly less than the cost of shearing it and carrying it away.
The "forestry unchanged since the middle ages" fact is true, but very dependent on saying "Britain" rather than "England" - it's the result of massive plantation of pine in Scotland. Which is (drum roll) .... a quite environmentally destructive thing to do!
Best defense is a good offense with some kind of sword while screaming "there can be only one".
When wouldn't this be the best defense?
The real question is whether an owl can take a swan.
When wouldn't this be the best defense?
118: gosh, policemen in the US get a lot more tactical latitude even than the TV suggests.
Fun fact: in Britain, you have to pay to get your sheep sheared! Our appetite for lamb is so insatiable (and our supply of heathland and moorland so massive) that wool is in massive and structural oversupply and the value of a fleece is significantly less than the cost of shearing it and carrying it away.
Man, you couldn't tell from what you pay for knitting yarn in the US.
How many kindergarteners could a swan beat in a fight (no weapons)?
wool is in massive and structural oversupply
So sell it to chumps abroad? I like wool.
I mean, if the contention here is that there is no link between overgrazing/overfarming and deforestation, then that's just silly
I do not believe that there is a single hectare in the British Isles which has been overgrazed.
The British probably never thought of 127.
Man, you couldn't tell from what you pay for knitting yarn in the US.
Or men's clothing. Share the houndstooth and herringbone wealth, teabags.
They probably just didn't know how you felt.
re: 130
Yeah, you'd think, but the ancient dudes on Harris are struggling, too.
Actually, screaming charges with edged weapons is what the rural Chinese have instead of responsive local government. Look up "mass group incidents".
127: Apparently, you can pee on it for weeks and it comes out perfectly clean.
94: I don't think that's a straw-man at all. I think it's a pretty accurate reading of what people were asserting. If you want to see a straw-man, look to 73, where ajay is trying to suggest that my assertion about a greater extent of forest in Britain was limited to the historical period.
Not to mention 90, which is asserting primitivism where none exists. Admittedly, perhaps I should be more clear that when I say "forest", I'm using a broad definition like "A dense growth of trees, plants, and underbrush covering a large area," which would include forest gardens, multi-storey orchards, etc. My point in talking about the extent of "area of Britain which was able, in the past, to grow trees" and comparing it to the current British landscape, was that, rather than returning to the forest primeval, it would be possible, and even desirable, to institute tree growth schemes which could feed many people and would be sustainable without the extensive inputs of petroleum products, and loss of topsoil, that characterizes much modern farming.
This reminds me of a similar discussion a few months ago, where the straw-man people were arguing against was that I was calling for a return to filthy, unregulated produce and hours of toil for oppressed housewives when I asserted that it would be a good idea to grow more food close to the place it was to be eaten. Straw-men are y'all's stock in trade, not mine.
127: once bitten, twice shy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darien_scheme
They probably just didn't know how you felt.
You're such a card.
134: In fact, it's traditional.
Traditional dyes of the Scottish Highlands are the native vegetable dyes used in Scottish Gaeldom.... Amateurs may wish to experiment with some of the suggestions, but should note that urine (human or animal) is used in many recipes as a mordant.
re: 135
Come on, it's simply a fact that you won't be able to produce as much food. Not even a tiny percentage thereof. Everything you've written is precisely the kind of primitivist crap you are claiming you aren't advocating.
I'm _for_ growing food in ways that minimizes environmental impact [including transport costs], and _for_ making best use of land, where that use may well include deciduous woodland over large areas. I'm also for forests for 'aesthetic' reasons, too. It's just nice to have loads of big green places. But everything you've written so far has been simplistic and ignorant.
Sorry. I'm sympathetic, but you are just off on this one. You keep writing as if the UK was like the US, and it's not. It just isn't. And no amount of trying to shoehorn arguments appropriate to the plains of the US into the UK, which is a completely different environment, is going to work.
126: I honestly wonder if my toddler number* is greater than a swans. Toddlers are just the right height for a swan to really fuck them up in one go, and I am fairly dependent on my legs for mobility.
And gswift is right: they have absurdly long necks! Couldn't you just grab on and squeeze?
Finally...guard eagles, while obviously incredibly awesome, seem a little...murderous? With the throat ripping?
*Really I mean a little older than toddler, closer to kindergartner, but "toddler number" rolls of the tongue so much better. Also, I obviously mean rabid, zombi-fied toddlers, not the sweet kind who'd want to play wolf pack.
What percentage of the beef/pork/chicken that Americans and Britons eat ever saw anything resembling a blade of grass? A pretty goddamn low percentage is my guess.
That's a loaded question, since pigs and chickens can't digest cellulose and therefore can't be grassfed.
As regards beef, almost all the beef cattle raised in the U.S. are grassfed for at least part of their lives. Steers raised for slaughter are generally "finished" on grain (mostly corn and soybeans) in higher density feedlots where grass does not grow. But the cow-calf portion of the production cycle relies on grazing and fodder (which is grass in another form) and some supplementary protein.
In other words, 102.1 is right.
Finally...guard eagles, while obviously incredibly awesome, seem a little...murderous? With the throat ripping?
Let's ask the wolves who prey on nomads' flocks in Central Asia what they think!
My point in talking about the extent of "area of Britain which was able, in the past, to grow trees" and comparing it to the current British landscape, was that, rather than returning to the forest primeval, it would be possible, and even desirable, to institute tree growth schemes which could feed many people and would be sustainable without the extensive inputs of petroleum products, and loss of topsoil, that characterizes much modern farming.
No I'm afraid your agronomics is just off here. The places which were once forested are places like Dartmoor. There's just no way that deciduous forests are going to be anywhere near the most efficient food-producing use. And as I intimated above, "loss of topsoil" really isn't an issue either. The topsoil sticks around, because of the rain.
135: You are either asserting or strongly implying quite a bit about the food-producing capacity of trees. Outside the Mediterranean olive zone, I can't think of a single densely settled area in the temperate zones where tree crops were a predominant food source. Trees are nice, but the idea that everybody is missing out on a cheap lunch because there aren't enough trees in Europe or the U.S. is something that seems very unlikely and should at least have a citation.
It would be fantastic if you could train an eagle to shit on an intruder's head as fair warning.
145: How about a symbiotic eagle/goose pairing? The goose shits and the eagle rips throats.
146: At this point we might as well go for the Rabbit of Caerbannog. Or rather, his lazy cousin, who has outsourced the throat ripping for a pittance to a foreign eagle who lacks the proper documentation.
I'm glad Flippanter is around to ask the truly important questions, like 126.
148: Some people call me an idea man , because I'm too lazy to bother with planning, execution or logistics.
120: Fun fact: in Britain, you have to pay to get your sheep sheared! Our appetite for lamb is so insatiable (and our supply of heathland and moorland so massive) that wool is in massive and structural oversupply and the value of a fleece is significantly less than the cost of shearing it and carrying it away.
Just out of curiosity: Do you have to shear the sheep to get better mutton, or is it so that the skinheads don't jump them in the Tube?
Man, you couldn't tell from what you pay for knitting yarn in the US.
The thing is, the selective breeding of sheep has produced animals that are either wool breeds or meat breeds, much as there are beef cattle and dairy cattle. (This isn't true the world over, obviously, but is mostly true for modern farming.) The breeds of sheep that are kept for meat have lower quality wool than the ones bred for wool. Especially the old mama ewes exposed to the Scottish winter. So the structural oversupply is of low quality wool, not the stuff you would want to knit into a nice sweater.
144: google gives 6.4 million calories per acre of wheat, 18 million for potatoes, 12.3 million for maize, 4.6 million per acre for apples. (20,000lb yield per acre, 240 calories per lb). And that's fresh apples. Apples are a bit more difficult to store over the winter than grain.
146: A honey badger might also work. (youtube link)
135 it would be possible, and even desirable, to institute tree growth schemes which could feed many people and would be sustainable without the extensive inputs of petroleum products, and loss of topsoil, that characterizes much modern farming
I just find it hard to believe that you really believe this. Look at the main food crops that have sustained large populations for all of human history. Grains, certain legumes, sometimes roots and tubers. You think we can replace them with apples and almonds?
Olives are even worse - 2.5 million per acre - but they can be pressed into oil, which is storable and easy to transport.
Olives are even worse - 2.5 million per acre - but they can be pressed into oil, which is storable and easy to transport.
And they can be grown on steep, rocky, dry ground that wouldn't support any alternative cultivar. Not that they necessarily are grown that way, just that they could be, which explains their prevalence in certain parts of the Mediterranean.
Also, people need fats to survive, and olives are a rather convenient source of it if you can grow 'em.
This thread is making me want lamb.
152: I started a big reply, but I realized it was just 154 with more words.
Nuts are really expensive. The agribusiness grown nuts I buy are over twice as expensive per pound as the organic grass fed ground beef I buy.
This thread is making me want lamb
I have a bunch of lamb...Laydeez.
159: Really? I see almonds at 6.99/lb, organic grass fed beef at like 8-9.
Anyway, I'm still thinking about a plot in a community garden, but it would be very much more carbon intensive than buying food from the store as I can't find one with a free plot within walking distance of my house.
So sell it to chumps abroad? I like wool.
Was England's and I believe Scotland's principle export commodity until the industrial revolution. The economic history of England in the middle ages is the history of wool and woolen fabrics. I imagine quite a lot still gets moved.
This reminds me of a similar discussion a few months ago, where the straw-man people were arguing against was that I was calling for a return to filthy, unregulated produce and hours of toil for oppressed housewives when I asserted that it would be a good idea to grow more food close to the place it was to be eaten.
This is mostly orthogonal to the conversation at hand, but I was reading some old Wendall Berry essays recently, and it was incredibly refreshing to see that when he suggests that most people should eat food from small-scale local farms, he's open and explicit about the fact that this would imply a return to subsistence-level farming for the majority of the population. He faces that head on, appreciates exactly what "subsistence level" means, and advocates for it nonetheless. This is a stark contrast to most other authors I've read who push similar goals. It's a great book, btw.
162: a fiendish plot in a community garden, then.
Was England's and I believe Scotland's principle export commodity until the industrial revolution.
Wales exported compact VHS players and was thus poor until the 80s.
Really? I see almonds at 6.99/lb, organic grass fed beef at like 8-9
I can get the beef for about $6/lb. I don't remember exactly what almonds where >$10 for sure. Cashews and pecans where around $14 to $15 a pound. I probably need to do some comparison shopping for nuts, but I am pretty sure they are still going to be more expensive than the beef.
Cashews and pecans where around $14 to $15 a pound.
You shop at a really shitty store or have a bad memory.
Also, people need fats to survive, and olives are a rather convenient source of it if you can grow 'em.
So are almonds. (And barley, IIRC.)
http://www.nutsonline.com/nuts/
...Laydeez?
Organic beef would be quite a bit more expensive than that here, I think. Although it'd depend on the cut.
150: you have to shear them for their own welfare. The losses made on wool are a pretty recent phenomenon - also, British farmers tend to sell their wool through the Wool Marketing Board, which they grumble about a lot.
I can get the beef for about $6/lb.
Lucky you!
Almonds from these guys are insanely expensive. As are the grapes. But they're both delicious.
172: What happened to sheep before shearing? Did they just get caught in brambles all the time, and then eaten by wolves or foxes or whatever it is you have over there? (Seriously, what predators do the British isles have? I am blanking.)
There's only one species of poisonous snake, at least.
175: It kills you with incompetence.
I'M A LOSER, BABY, SO WHY DON'T YOU KILL ME?
re: 174
Foxes, badgers, birds of prey, wildcats [in Scotland], stoats, weasels, polecats, pinemartens, otters, feral domestic cats and dogs, and the occasional escaped alien predator that someone's had as a pet. That's about it, I think. There's some talk of reintroducing wolves to Scotland.
174: I'm speculating, but I'm pretty sure, that predomesticated sheep didn't require shearing. If sheep now require shearing for their own welfare, the problem is that even breeds of sheep now raised only for meat are descended from sheep bred for wool as well, so they grow a heavier fleece than is practical for the sheep without shearing.
Someone could probably breed meat-sheep with a fleece that didn't need shearing, but if dsquared's right, either it hasn't happened, or they're not commonly raised for meat.
Seriously, what predators do the British isles have? I am blanking.
At present the most terrifyingly bloodthirsty land predator in Britain is the badger. Also foxes, pine martens, mink, stoats, weasels, polecat, and two sorts of snake, one of which is slightly poisonous.
In the recent past, though, we had wolves and bears. Also cave lions, if you go far enough back.
re: 175
Yeah, but there hasn't been a death from one of those in 30 years. The only time I disturbed one it just slinked off slowly [and then got chased by a neighbour's cat].
170: I will have to order some nuts from them.
I know I am getting somewhat ripped off on the nuts, but even the site linked in 170 would be more expensive per lb than the beef. This is ground beef so about as cheap as it comes. I am looking at buying a 1/4 cow from a local organic producer which would come to about $7/lb overall which would be a mix of cuts and ground. If I wanted to buy a whole cow I could get it close to $6/lb.
the occasional escaped alien predator that someone's had as a pet.
"If it bleeds, we can chib it."
I know I am getting somewhat ripped off on the nuts
Kind of a hard thing to miss, really.
I am looking at buying a 1/4 cow from a local organic producer which would come to about $7/lb overall
Actually I was looking at the wrong thing. 1/4 cow is about $6.40 a lb.
re: 179
There are breeds that don't, I think, need shearing.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soay_sheep
are native to the UK. Although they sound like a bugger to look after as they don't flock.
Someone could probably breed meat-sheep with a fleece that didn't need shearing...
...But the British are partial to flowing locks.
Resplendent with his flowing locks, he strode among the lowing flocks, and cried "Hey, what the shit? These are cows."
You know, most of the Great Basin and prairie was basically once a giant grazing pasture that supported huge numbers of an animal that is not a sheep and that is fucking delicious: the bison. Much of it is better suited for that than any other kind of agriculture. If I were food czar, I'd turn everything between the longitude of Des Moines and the Rockies into a giant bison reserve.
Even the "Buffalo Commons" guy wants to start about hundred or so miles west of the Missouri River.
178, 180: I am mostly familiar with many of those so-called predators in stuffed animal form. Seriously, otters?
Not that the northeast of the US is all that fearsome. We haven't had mountain lions or wolves in a while, and black bears are sort of cuddly.
As opposed to Australia, where apparently everything is trying to kill you all of the time.
a giant bison reserve.
I think the regular size bison are quite big enough, thank you.
As opposed to Australia, where apparently everything is trying to kill you all of the time.
Nah, once you get away from the cities it's not so bad.
Nah, once you get away from the cities it's not so bad.
Yeah, then it's mainly just the drop bears.
And the spiders. And the snakes.
Would the bison be entitled to vote? Because I think that might improve the composition of the Senate, if some of the low-population Western state Senators were replaced with giant ungulates.
re: 192
Yeah, otters have made a comeback since we stopped hunting them. They are hard to see in the wild, though, as they are elusive. I have come across a stoat/weasel outside my office, fairly recently, though. And I've seen badgers a few times. I see birds of prey all the time, as do most people who drive a lot, I expect. Kestrels and red kites mostly. Kites are big birds.
192: As far as the northeast of the U.S., you shouldn't forget coyotes.
As far as the northeast of the U.S., you shouldn't forget coyotes.
Or fishercats.
I see birds of prey all the time
Somebody around here lost their little toy poodle (or something) to a hawk. It was on the news and I could not make myself not laught. There are urban falcon nests in Pittsburgh and most other U.S. cities with the right mixed of tall buildings and pidgeons.
I was reassured when I found out that kites eat carrion, because we see them frequently over our garden, and I was starting to worry about pets.
I don't think any carnivores prey on sheep. The worst problem their fleeces cause them is getting them stuck on things. I guess before they were bred for their wool to be better, it was a looser fleece that came out more easily when they got caught in bushes. (Like if my dog were hunting rats and rabbits through brambles constantly as he would like to, I wouldn't have to groom him as his hair would get pulled out naturally.)
Has back-garden-chicken-keeping not reached the US as a recreational pursuit yet? Loads of people I know have them.
A red-tailed hawk took a shit on our roof last spring. It was majestic.
[and then got chased by a neighbour's cat].
The terror of the neighborhood?
There's a lot of hawks in my neighborhood, and a lot of unexpected pigeon remnants as a result. One particularly weird thing is that the hawks will often disarticulate and leave the wings of the pigeon intact, while eating the rest of the bird, so you'll be walking along and see a neat pair of pigeon wings, still attached to each other, lying on the ground.
The first couple of times I saw that, I thought it was horrible people torturing birds, and then someone explained that it was just horrible birds torturing each other, which is entirely different.
I recently saw a majestic bird of prey sitting in a tree outside the Clayman Institute for Gender Research, majestically tearing bits of flesh off a dead squirrel's body.
Has back-garden-chicken-keeping not reached the US as a recreational pursuit yet? Loads of people I know have them.
It definitely has. I mean, it was a thing thirty years ago, and it's back now.
Back with a vengeance. Though I have known several people who found the idea better in theory than in execution.
204: Leave out little bottles of buffalo sauce, some celery, and blue cheese dressing.
I don't think any carnivores prey on sheep.
Golden eagles will take a lamb given the opportunity, I think. Full grown sheep, not so much. Bears and wolves would, I suppose, if they were hungry enough and if they reintroduced them.
Braudel in Structures of Everyday Life writes about the contrast between Europe and China on the use of non arable land. The Europeans had an extensive pastoral economy in marginal areas that was well integrated with the grain growing one, the Chinese just didn't use their poor quality land. As a result, far more meat consumption, wool, leather, and use of animal manure rather than the human variety. Also more horses and cattle available for transport and plowing. On the other hand paddy rice growing was far more productive in areas suited for it than wheat, rye, etc in Europe.
I keep my backyard chickens in a rusted out four-door Honda Civic, because a chicken sedan is more luxuriuos than a chicken coupe.
204. I know they're all god's creatures and that, but I'm afraid my ability to empathise with city pigeons is a bit restricted.
195: actually there are very few poisonous snakes in Australia...
most of them have been eaten by the spiders.
I wonder how many chickens we'd need to keep on the roof to supply our apartment building with eggs. 84 units, say, each apartment consumes a half-dozen eggs a week, so that's 42 dozen eggs a week, six dozen eggs a day.
That sounds like an impractical number of chickens. And they probably wouldn't even like the roof.
And of course, there are the hawks. This really isn't going to work.
a half dozen eggs a week per apartment? Nobody cooks?
re: 201
Eagles can take sheep, but mostly lambs, I think. I read something a while back about other British birds of prey, and some of them -- peregrines and goshawks -- will take surprisingly big prey, even though their habitual diets are small things like rodents, and ducks.
||
News flash: Michelle Bachmann is bonkers.
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That's about 80-100 laying hens. Going by permitted industry limits in the UK, you could fit them into about ten square metres, or 100 square feet. Easily small enough to go on top of your apartment building.
Under British law, you'd need enough chickens that they'd be assumed to be a commercial enterprise and subject to all sorts of agricultural regulations. I bet there's something similar in New York. Do you have a balcony? You could keep a couple on that.
Do you have a balcony? You could keep a couple on that.
And then they could raise the chickens.
216: Well, we probably average a dozen eggs a week, and I'm figuring we're at the high end on egg consumption.
I wonder if the local park would be able to absorb the necessary quantity of chickenshit, if we wheeled it down the block.
Do you have a balcony? You could keep a couple on that.
There's the fire escape.
my ability to empathise with city pigeons is a bit restricted
Don't people eat pigeons? I'm guessing they must be different than city pigeons, but maybe not.
Same pigeon, but presumably kept in slightly more sanitary conditions.
Actually, we wouldn't get eggs out of it, but maybe a pigeon coop on the roof would be more practical. I could work on my Marlon Brando impression.
I could work on my Marlon Brando impression.
Or your Forest Whitaker impression.
224: People do eat pigeons, but city pigeons are rats with wings. Rock pigeons are a game bird and domesticated pigeons are called squab
re: 224
Pigeon is nice, but it's wild wood pigeon that people here tend to eat, not city pigeons (i.e. rock pigeons) although they've historically been bred for food as well. I presume you can buy squab in various places, but whenever I've seen pigeon for sale it's wood pigeon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utility_pigeon
226: Because your shit smells like moon pie and roses.
Omaha included?
Moby, note that the Halford Strategic Paleo Diet Bison Preserve would turn almost the entire state of Texas into a bison range. This is the best idea in American history.
The male hipster who was cleaning my house once a week for a while because I am a feminist I am a total moron was experimenting with raising indoor chickens, which he would let wander through his rental house in Echo Park. Not surprisingly, he recently asked me for legal help because his landlord was evicting him.
I could work on my Marlon Brando impression.
Chicken shit is incredibly smelly.
You could keep the chickens directly above a flock of sheep and let the magic wool take care of all your fowl excrement needs.
Don't people eat pigeons?
Fleur and I once had a meal at a place we love in the southwest of France where the main course one day was pigeon juste cuit. Turns out that when you order "barely cooked pigeon", that's exactly what you get.
At least I think it has been wood pigeon. Maybe I've been buying squab, some of the time.
re: 234
Yeah, it's often served very rare as it's easy to overcook it and make it chewy and tough.
Half raw pigeon is a recent fashion which I don't like. Same with half raw duck. But properly cooked through, wood pigeons are fantastic. You can usually negotiate with the chef, as per steak.
re: 237
Yeah, I don't mind the pigeon slightly pink, and I've over-cooked it myself in the past, the same with duck breast, but I wouldn't serve them as rare as I sometimes see chefs doing on TV.
237: "Will you cook the pigeon all the way if I give you a steak?"
Whole ducks are fine roasted all the way through, but well done magret/breast is an abomination.
Do people eat goose partially cooked, too? I'm wondering why having one's goose cooked is supposed to be a bad thing, and a proclivity for eating them semi-raw would be a possible explanation.
According to the Nebraska Game and Parks Commisison, you can hunt dove with a crossbow. Now I really regret leaving.
[I was looking because when I was growing up I recall, apparently incorrectly, that the dove was just a type of pigeon.]
228: People eat rats, too. And guinea pigs.
243: I bet they don't eat city rats unless they are starving.
And guinea pigs
I've long hypothesized that they call them cuy in Perú, because their other name in Spanish (conejos de Índia) is just too adorable to describe something you eat.
I'm wondering why having one's goose cooked is supposed to be a bad thing
A job for Charles Funk! Who endorses a rather just-so-ish story involving the goose that laid the golden eggs.
Note how the unnecessary comma in 245 makes Stanley sound uninformed.
247: Then the comma is worse than unnecessary. It is a definite negative.
Don't know about PA, but Maine and Vermont definitely have less arable land more forest now than in the 1840s.
Vermont was about 75 percent deforested in the early 19th century to accommodate sheep farming, which was a major source of meat and textiles in the US until WWII. Lamb consumption these days varies regionally; it's commonly raised and eaten around here. I've known precisely one family that regularly ate mutton, though, and that was when I was in elementary school.
Likewise, urban chicken- and goat-keeping also varies. It may come as no surprise that it's pretty popular in Portland; we have neighbors a block away who have both. You're limited to three animals total (chickens, ducks, goats, rabbits), but I gather that the limit is neither much observed nor enforced.
[I was looking because when I was growing up I recall, apparently incorrectly, that the dove was just a type of pigeon.]
Pigeon and dove are basically interchangeable terms. What kind of dove is not a type of pigeon?
Chicken shit is incredibly smelly.
Sweet Christ is it. We used to live across the road (and downwind) from a field fertilized every spring with chicken manure, and we'd have to close the house up tight. It's eye-wateringly pungent.
212, 228: Haters. The pigeon: A majestic and acrobatic flier that rules where a thousand timorous songbird species fear to alight.
You're limited to three animals total (chickens, ducks, goats, rabbits)
So you can have three rabbits, or three goats? Those don't seem close to equivalent.
What kind of dove is not a type of pigeon?
I'd thought that a turtle dove was another name for rock pigeon, which it isn't.
252: Yeah, in fact the decrepit nomenclature-Nazis switched from Rock Dove to Rock Pigeon in 2004.
256: Or you can have a chicken, a rabbit and a goat, or other combinations of three. They're not equivalent, obviously, but no one really cares if you don't exceed the limit by too much and your goats aren't too noisy (roosters are prohibited outright).
258: That could very well explain my confusion.
What kind of dove is not a type of pigeon?
I decline to believe that any John Woo protagonist has ever sauntered in slow motion through a flock of pigeons on his way to a super-awesome gunfight.
260: But just try transporting them across a river in a small boat.
I have eaten cuy, and it was in fact adorable. It was roasted whole (with head and paws on) and came out of the kitchen wearing a jaunty little hat made from half a plum tomato and a sprig of thyme.
Fucking idiots. Trees are great food sources.
"Anyhow, more attention needs to be paid to tree crops in this debate. Vastly more efficient on practically every level. And you get lumber out of the deal too!"
Yes, I would like to switch from wine to cider as my daily drink, apples being about as good as potatos on efficiency. Its hard to find dry cider in wine sized bottles around here, except $$$ mail order.
Anyway, i'm quite pissed I was too late reading this thread to come in and note that trees are amoung the best sources of calories per acre, since all you twits were "haha trees can't POSSIBLY be a useful way to use land"
The reason we 'went over to agriculture' in the sense of grains and pulses is more to do with the fact its a lot harder to quickly force the evolution of perrenial plants than annuals, especially annuls that are trees which take 15+ yrs for each generation.
And yet, olive, apples, bananas/plantains, chestnuts (not any more sine the chestnut holocaust), coconut, red palm (both very important in the tropics. And i think red palm is the highest calorie per acre of any food source. )
When did yoyo start using capital letters?
266: note the stipulation of "temperate zones" in 144. Good luck with your breadfruits, bananas and oil palms in Saskatchewan.
Bananas also don't grow on trees in any botanical sense. Those are big plants, without a woody trunk.
266: So that leaves me to eat apples and diseased chestnuts. Hurray.
(P.S. You should be able to find dry cider in beer-sized bottles. If that isn't good enough, maybe you're too picky.)
268: I stipulate well enough that I could have gone to law school.
also, you can't compare nuts (and to some degree other foods) to other foods that are mostly water. meat is like three fourths water, and the rest is mix of protein and fat. nuts are mostly fat, which has over twice the calories per unit weight.
also, tree food could (though not currently) combine some level of grazing of the ground cover along with the primary crop. this is being done at a few places now.
Anyway, the unmentioned issue with meat, especially ruminants, is that the produce a lot more methane than other animals.
If you want meat in a future crowded world, think fish. fish, not being warm blooded and some other reasons convert protein much more efficiently from mouth to plate. maybe we'll finally figure out how to grow kelp too.
also, you can't compare nuts (and to some degree other foods) to other foods that are mostly water. meat is like three fourths water, and the rest is mix of protein and fat. nuts are mostly fat, which has over twice the calories per unit weight
You can if you're comparing them on the basis of calories per unit of land, rather than on weight of food produced.
273: But the ones with water have empty calories. (I know, I'm not helping.)
I don't see why you'd switch from wine to cider other than a taste preference. Wine grapes are more like orchard fruit than field crops. And the lumber factor is negligible; you get precious little lumber out of most food trees.
I emptied a bunch of calories into your mom last night.
276 NICE.
anyone remember that Savage Love where the chick wrote in concerned about the caloric content of semen? i believe he assured her it was egregious, as bad as buttercream frosting or some such.
Are vegans allowed to swallow?
you were comparing them meat vs. nuts on a weight basis per dollar. But a dollar of nuts is a lot more calorie than of meat.
i switched beer->wine already.
and of course some arctic plain is about the one place in the world trees aren't a good option. Where I live, the only local crops on a large scale are soy and corn, and it used to be forest.
An orchard or banana plantation is probably as bad for wildlife as a field of corn or peas. Clearing land of forests is bad because it removes habitat for birds, mammals, etc. Replacing forest with what is really just a big garden does nothing for ecosystems. It significantly reduces complexity within the habitat while increasing the fragmentation at a larger level. Even if you plant another crop under the trees, you're still left with a less complex habitat and one for which the native animals are completely unadapted. Reforesting with native forest is a very difficult process (slightly easier in upland habitats in the SE US, hard in riparian areas, long time frames in the East) and you're doing that for environmental/ecosystem function reasons; not for people food (unless you like bobwhite and white tailed deer).
Also, just reiterating what was said above at #189, the entire plains and prairies of the US and Canada was grazing land naturally. That land is never supposed to be treed (trees really only started encroaching on SK prairie after settlers showed up and killed all the bison/wanted trees) and it's certainty not supposed to grow highly nutritious stuff. Crops (peas, soy, canola, corn, etc.) in SK require so much watering and nutrients and pest control that you seriously cannot argue that it's more 'natural' than grazing?
Bring back bison!
Are vegans allowed to swallow?
As long as the relationship isn't exploitative, I don't see why not.
unless you like bobwhite and white tailed deer
I've actually wondered about commercial hunting for venison. Suburbs all over the NE, deer are an irritating pest. It would make perfect sense to me for municipalities, at least in areas that are dense enough that no one's hunting recreationally, to license commercial harvesters to trap or otherwise non-dangerously-for-the-people-in-the-area kill deer to be sold as venison. The combination of getting rid of the deer and nearly free meat seems like a brilliant idea.
Almonds have more calories/ounce than cashews. I would not have guessed that.
284: The problem, I think, is with certified processing for general sale.
Are vegans allowed to swallow?
So vegans can't eat at all? Lame.
license commercial harvesters to trap or otherwise non-dangerously-for-the-people-in-the-area kill deer to be sold as venison
My area occasionally issues special bow hunting licenses for the green space that runs by the river through town. It isn't commercial and doesn't happen that often.
deer are not only irritating, they are extremely destructive to forest regeneration. at high enough density, they simply eat all the plant shoots.
some NE towns are considering licensing deer hunting but afaik it is still highly restricted. apparently andover is trying a one-year pilot program allowing, oddly, bow hunting. http://www.eagletribune.com/local/x708135850/Portions-of-town-land-for-now-fair-game-for-bow-hunting
You know what? I've been thinking about it all day and I've realized that the rest of you are correct. There is no point to trying to change anything for the better. Things only get worse. Collective action for the common good is just a charade. The cops and bosses and landlords will always win. Maybe someday our species will evolve into something better, but ultimately it seems much more likely that we'll just end up like the Daleks. The best possible hope is that we annihilate ourselves while leaving the greatest possible amount of other species still extant. I am capitulating. 20 years of activism against war & racism & misogyny & homophobia and for the environment & unions & peace would have been better spent flossing my teeth more consistently. There's no point to any of it, and I've been deluding myself and others by proposing otherwise. I'm done.
right now, you are growing a bunch of soy, corn, and wheat. Much of this goes to feed animals. In the absence of animal consumption, there would be less land needed. Since noone should eat much soycornwheat anyway, lots of land, like here in the midwest, could grow human foods, on trees, instead of cornsoywheat. grazing cattle/bison on the plains would be better than crops->feedlot. probably less efficient. they'd still produce methane. the plains aren't that diverse, even if they are natural.
Aw, come on Nat. All anyone was arguing with you about in this thread was tactics, not goals. And you certainly shouldn't let an argument with one 47-year-old balding man in a basement under a broad range of personae get to you.
Suburbs all over the NE, deer are an irritating pest.
Southeast, too. I've got no data to back this up, but I'd bet they cause at least as many wrecks here as alcohol does.
291: Right, because of all the problems in the world, the biggest is that people want to eat bread and noodles.
LB is right, but that's no excuse to let your gums suffer.
287: Oh, I'm sure there are a million problems like that, but I'd think that the value of getting the dadblasted deer population down would be worth figuring out how to make the regs work.
I've also proposed reintroducing mountain lions for the same purpose, but I think that would be less popular.
298: Mountain lions with battery powered, head mounted web cams would be popular.
There is no point to trying to change anything for the better. Things only get worse.
To the contrary, I for one believe that making things better is both desirable and possible, though rather less likely to the extent we succumb to utopian fantasies disconnected from empirical facts.
I realize you're pissed, but 291 is the mother of all non sequiturs. The questions wasn't whether we should try to make things better, it was whether the things you say are better are, in fact, better.
trap or otherwise non-dangerously-for-the-people-in-the-area kill deer to be sold as venison
Exactly what method of trapping or killing did you have in mind?
294: Add the Midwest to that, too. If we had the same problem here, I'd take up bowhunting (which a couple of friends do, but they do it out in the woods; I want to be able to harvest meat in my backyard).
I've also proposed reintroducing mountain lions for the same purpose, but I think that would be less popular.
Harder to hunt, and they probably don't taste as good.
302: Giant pits lined with pillows.
302: Entrapment by legal skullduggery.
The processing issue is a really weird one. On some protected areas they'll manage deer and hogs in order to protect or improve natural habitat. Which can mean hiring a bunch of hunters (sometimes with helicopters) to come out and shoot as many animals as possible*. But then all the carcasses get dumped or burned or something. Maybe a few will get 'lost' in the process and end up being eaten but it's such a waste.
In some areas they have programs where hunters can donate extra deer to food banks. And I think processing is covered by the food banks so it's really a benefit to the hunters. So it's not impossible to arrange for processing of deer on a semi-commercial basis.
The nice thing is that hunters are usually pretty happy about having someone to give their meat to for the cost of processing. And you get to feel good about eating something local (and delicious).
*sometimes they'll do different things like try to only remove individuals that would naturally be killed by predators. Though with hogs they really just want them all gone (and the hunters want them there (and will introduce them on purpose)).
302: I have no idea at all -- the intent of that clause was to indicate that obviously having amateur hunters roaming densely populated suburbs to kill deer all year was a terrible idea safety-wise, and this only made sense if there was some way to do it without imperiling the local residents.
Are vegans allowed to swallow?
Maybe if the guy's had a vascectomy? Or maybe I'm confusing vegans with the Catholics.
307: What if you made them use an arrow on a 50 yard string?
the intent of that clause was to indicate that obviously having amateur hunters roaming densely populated suburbs to kill deer all year was a terrible idea safety-wise, and this only made sense if there was some way to do it without imperiling the local residents
And the intent of my question was to indicate that I don't think there is.
Sedative darts, like on Mutual of Omaha?
Although, on second thought, we could probably come up with methods that would be no more dangerous than mountain lions, so if you're using that as an acceptable baseline level of danger, maybe we can make it work.
Herding dogs trained to chase the deer into corrals?
Introduce a whole bunch of sterilized does. Like the mosquito method of control.
Nanobots? (A little pie in the sky, but Sally suggests them as a plausible solution for most technical problems.)
311: Those were life insurance pamphlets.
Larger, carnivorous, robotic deer.
I've never heard of any of these methods being utilized to hunt deer. Some of them seem downright implausible.
trap or otherwise non-dangerously-for-the-people-in-the-area kill deer to be sold as venison
Dear God. Somebody alert Buck before it's too late.
319: I'm sure that catching, tube-cutting, and releasing enough does to sexually exhaust all the males of a deer herd will work just fine.
319: Wait till you see how we're gonna cook 'em!
I think hunting is generally heavily regulated with a goal of being sporting, and requiring a certain amount of skill. Methods that make it too easy (like shooting deer while they're stunned, staring into your headlights) are specifically disallowed. The idea would be to abandon that philosophy of regulation, and allow anything practical and safe that would get the population way down.
Drugged feed, come to think, would do great. Attract deer with corn spread out in a given location for a week or two, until all the local deer knew where to come for it, and then spike it with something to knock them out, throw them in a truck, and take them to a slaughterhouse. That might actually be practical.
320, 321: In fact, it's been proven in the wild.
An orchard or banana plantation is probably as bad for wildlife as a field of corn or peas. Clearing land of forests is bad because it removes habitat for birds, mammals, etc. Replacing forest with what is really just a big garden does nothing for ecosystems.
For god's sakes, yes. It took a while for me to process that someone here is actually using viewing the concept of "forested land" and "orchards that can be harvested" as interchangeable.
Drugged feed, come to think, would do great.
Roald Dahl FTW.
321: Sure, but if they have a personal assistant, they can delegate a great deal.
329: Which you pull, still beating, from the tree.
What if a group of local children ate the drugged corn, too, and no one noticed until they were chopped up at the slaughterhouse with the deer? Then no one would want to buy the meat.
326: To be fair to Nat, he was explicitly proposing managed forests with both crop trees and accompanying flora and fauna, such that the area would support a rich ecosystem. See his 135. I don't know that that would work, but it's not the same as saying an orchard is a forest.
327: I loved that book.
281 is some nice momentum for the Strategic Bison Reserve. Let's make this happen, people. Next step: Orange Post Titles.
331: Oh, there's always a market, urple.
335: I knew it.
334: You know, one of these days, when the future of America looks bleak, and society's needs are at their greatest, the orange post titles are coming back out.
Inshallah, one day the Orange Post Titles will emerge from occultation.
Orange post titles : Unfogged :: King Arthur : Wales
anyone remember that Savage Love where the chick wrote in concerned about the caloric content of semen?
There's a classic Cecil Adams column on the question from 1973.
333: But "a rich ecosystem" is very different than supporting "a rich native ecosystem". My knowledge is more on the native tree-side of forests rather than the fruit tree-side but...well I have a whole thought experiment about integrating fruit trees into forests but that might be a bit much.
343: Oh, I have no idea if there's any way to do that sort of thing. I just wanted to say that Nat didn't make precisely the simplistic error that Ned identified.
Drugged feed
You could use No Doez™.
I initially read this ad as referring to female deer.
Out in the portion of Deer Camp Nation my wife hails from, people buy "deer corn" in the fall and winter to, as you might have guessed, feed the deer some corn. I think the thinking on this is a muddle of "The poor deer will be hungry/starve otherwise, so we have to feed them and then shoot them." and the more direct, "This will encourage the deer to come on my property so that I can shoot them later." The way I was taught, deer reproduction is pretty closely tied to available calories. So, I tend to be a bit skeptical about how much culling would be necessary if we stopped feeding the critters in the first place.
I don't think people on Long Island feed deer much, but there's still an infestation of them. (Only fairly recently. I don't think I ever saw a deer on the North Fork in the eighties, but now they're all over the place.)
347: The doe will then be dependent on welfare instead of providing for herself and offspring. The fawns will be raised without a buck and repeat the cycle poverty. Deer will never develop agriculture.
I bought my dad a bottle of deer repellant cutely branded "Not Tonight, Deer" (with cartoon label of annoyed lady deer rolling over in bed). It smells terrible; unfortunately doesn't really keep the deer away.
350: Did you try putting it on a deer penis?
I don't think people on Long Island feed deer much
To the extent that they garden, they do.
I taught See/ing Like A St/ate earlier this semester, and very much enjoyed Scott's discussion of the origins of managed forests. Highly recommended (despite some students bitching that they had to read all about trees in a _____ [non-ag] class).
"Deer will never develop agriculture"
They don't plant seeds, they plant rubes. I.e., people who swerve to avoid them in the road.
356: They might, but they won't make a big deal about it.
also, i just had an 'incident' involving swalling a pill. i think it got stuck and exploded part way down. it feels like sandpaper+habeneros in there right now.
Yoyo are you a vegan? Because apparently they can't swallow.
i'm actually just about finished with a half gallon of milk, which is pretty soothing and good for mucous production.
351: not yet!
352: i would have thought so, but it looks as though it's more like rotten egg extract.
Bears will never discover fire.
URLACHER FIRE. yoyo not.
350: It smells terrible; unfortunately doesn't really keep the deer away.
The traditional British solution is to obtain some lion dung and scatter it around your garden. Contact your local zoo.
Introduce a whole bunch of sterilized does. Like the mosquito method of control.
This wouldn't really work because you'd still have lots of unsterilised does out there as well. It worked for screwfly because they used sterilised males, and female screwfly only mate with one male at a time, so they'd mate with the sterile one and then lay unfertilised eggs which wouldn't hatch.
The traditional human way of catching deer is to run after them. Almost nothing can run for as long as a human. We're cursorial predators.
The Kalahari bushmen still do this; they'll run after some antelope for eight hours straight and eventually it keels over/slows down enough to get stabbed.
The Kalahari bushmen still do this; they'll run after some antelope for eight hours straight and eventually it keels over/slows down enough to get stabbed.
Preferentially they slow it down with a small poisoned arrow first, though.
re: 364/365
Yeah, re: arrows. There was an article in New Scientist a couple of years back on human running ability relative to other predators. Basically there's us, and canines. Everything else is useless over the sort of distances humans can travel at speed. Being tall, skinny hairless things that sweat is very useful.
Interestingly, "sandpaper habaneros" was the working title of "jagged little pill."
Just reading about running for eight hours make me want to lie down.
re: 368
Heh, yeah, 'us' implicitly doesn't include me.
Walt, you ought not to read for eight hours. Bad for your eyes.
I'm not sure this would work for everyone: I've seen evidence on film that bushmen can run, like, super fast.
The Gods Must be Crazy" isn't a documentary, Eggplant.
Oh. This is going to make recycling so much easier.
Horses can't run/jog for hours? Stanley?
Once I happened to be on a treadmill watching that "Becoming Human" documentary on PBS and they were talking about our evolved ability to run down antelope. There was a reenacted hunting scene in CGI. For a few minutes I was running along with my ancestors, exhausting that antelope, on the verge of grabbing it by the throat. That was the best I've ever felt on a treadmill!
374: Horses certainly can't run for hours, I don't know about 'jog' because that could mean different things. A slow trot is sometimes called a jog, or was back when people used lots of different words for how a horse moves its legs.
A fit horse can jog (trot slowly) for hours, probably at roughly the same pace a fit marathon running could manage.
Horses can't run/jog for hours? Stanley?
There are man versus horse races over long (marathon-like) distances. They are competitive, because a horse can go so much faster between rest breaks. But the endurance of humans is such that they usually win.
That was the best I've ever felt on a treadmill!
I've also had fun when Terminator 2 has come on cable, and I can pretend to be the T-1000.
IIRC, the New Scientist article had some comparisons with other species. Lots of things are faster over short distances, obviously, and quite a few over moderately long distances. But almost nothing can keep up over periods of hours, especially when it's hot, as we can sweat to cool down.
Even species we think of as long distance travellers -- some of the big African ungulates -- are toast over long enough time periods.
I was a little too confident in 376. Apparently horses do quite well over a 22 mile course.
Yeah i've read about the persistance running too but from what i remember horses still regularly with the horse-human marathongs.
376: I've always felt those were unfair. They pick a top marathon runner and then just go down to whatever stable is close to to get a horse.
381: and they only feed oats to the horse.
and they only feed oats to the horse.
In England. In Scotland they support the people.
Also, persistance hunts are usually a group of people, no? So they can take turns speeding up to keep an eye on the particular wounded animal they've been chasing all that time? Would suck to lose it in a crowd after 8 hours.
376: The horses probably just don't care all that much.
re: 385
Yeah, and as chris says they often try to disable the animal or wound it first. Hit it with an arrow or poisoned spear, and then chase it until it can't continue.
And re: the human-horse marathon, I expect the result would be different in 30 degree+ heat, in the desert. I presume, for animal cruelty reasons, that they allow the horses water, and so on.
385: That's what happened to the people that tried this in a This American Life episode.
384: which explains why England produces such fine horses, and Scotland such fine people.
Certainly a person is no match for a horse over a mile or two. The Kentucky Derby covers 1.25 miles and takes two minutes.
i don't understand how that would work. Usually its the chased who decided where the race goes, unless you're cornered in a tv-style back alley.
388: But that's a skill thing -- presumably someone doing it as a means of feeding themselves would get better at tracking.
The horse v. man race seems too short -- I thought this sort of thing was supposed to take days.
Actually, come to think, I wonder how many calories you can get from your typical antelope, and so how long you could chase it before you weren't making a profit on the deal.
391+ and i don't see why the deer would run in the direction of the trailing human hunter, so that they could take a shortcut to catch up
392.last: I have no idea, but it does prompt me to suggest "Marginal Antelope" as a potential pseud.
on the veldt, the women preferentially bred with the men who had demonstrated superior stamina.
393: Because deer evolved to evade predators by running in a zig-zag pattern? Just a guess, but if you were evading a wolf, you'd probably want to cut a few sharp turns.
392: I think the issue is that you can be chasing one herd of antelope for hours, and then they meet up with another herd, and then eventually split off again, and it becomes really difficult to distinguish which animals have been running for hours and which have been running for...less. This is what I was told, anyway, by a friend who got really into that Born to Run book. I honestly have no idea. I would die.
I wonder how many calories you can get from your typical antelope, and so how long you could chase it before you weren't making a profit on the deal.
How much does this matter? Big game is a status food - in a relatively unstructured society it gives bragging rights to the group that caught it. The people are kept alive by the vegetable foods, rodents and invertabrates collected by the women and children.
Humans are pretty calorie efficient. It's why cardio for weight loss is so shittily ineffective. You only burn a couple of thousand calories running for 3 hours. Max. Damn sight more than a few thousand calories on an antelope.
Of course they aren't catching antelope for their main calorie intake, that comes from plant sources, but for protein and other nutrients.
Also that animals run in spurts, and during those spurts you've got to have one dude who's job it is to try to keep up. Then the animals have to rest, and the pack of people just keep coming.
Actually, we sound pretty terrifying.
I wonder how many calories you can get from your typical antelope, and so how long you could chase it before you weren't making a profit on the deal.
There's a fair amount of calories from protein, but VERY little fat, which is the nutritional bottleneck resource for Bushmen. This, and not radical egalitarianism, explains why the women and children get the "choice" filets while the hunters get the eyes, brains. liver, and bone marrow.
Now I want a liverwurst sandwich but all I've got is chicken breast.
re: 400
Actually, we sound pretty terrifying.
Yeah, it's always amusing watching lions slink off on nature documentaries because a couple of guys with sticks are coming their way. Individually we are soft and helpless, but once there's more than a couple and we have pointy sticks ...
Antelope's about 40 kilos, reckon 1500 calories per kilo of meat and, what, 20 kilos of edible meat? If you're one of a band of six hunter-gatherers, each needing 2000 calories a day, you'll need to drop one antelope every two days or so.
Would a band of six hunter-gatherers have two drummers?
I'm the prettiest princess of all!
398: only in the tropics. In the far north, pretty much all the calories are supplied by the men, by hunting. The women do repair and maintenance.
I've heard that wolves can be pretty effective at getting animals to run in circles, allowing some pursuers to rest.
403: Plus, we can train eagles to rip out a given throat in a screeching death-from-above sort of way. I'm scared of us.
404: But if you're running down antelopes all day, you're putting out much more than 2000 calories.
410: Even if you aren't running down antelopes, 2000 calories a day is probably not enough for any adult without a heated residence and any transportation that doesn't involve feet.
And yet they are also responsible for Corgis. A complex people, the Welsh.
407 - yeah i think this is true, at least in winter/dry season.
i do think the info we have from looking at extant hunter gathers is probably unreliable since all the places agriculturalists haven't taken over are the places plant foods don't grow well. which sort of returns to the op.
plus animals get you things like leather, bones, skulls for bowls, fur, vitamins, etc
Who wants a pretty princess kiss? I'm giving them out for free!
i wonder how often in the miles of running you stop here and there b/c you see a few nuts here, bird nest w/egg there, etc.
I feel pretty! Oh so pretty! But you guys are all still the BEST!
No, I don't count calories religiously or anything, but 2000 calories is plenty for me to maintain a comfortable level of body fat while working out in my urban office-worker kind of way, and I'm not a small person. Put me in a lower-tech environment and I'd probably be lean and stringy on 2000 calories a day, but I'd have to be doing hard physical labor for that to be an unhealthily stingy diet for me.
411: I have, despite several attempts, completely failed to train any Welshmen to rip out people's throats in a screeching death from above sort of way. The best I've managed is an ill-tempered grumble followed by a poorly-aimed thrown brick.
Then they wander off looking for coal to mine.
418: Bushmen are pretty small, as well. Maybe 2000 is too few, but 2500 seems about right.
418: Maybe, but I eat something like 3,000 calories a day and I'm not gaining weight (though I am too heavy). Wikipedia lists only nine countries where people get less than 2,000 calories a day.
Of course, the age distribution for hunter-gatherers would be very different than what we see now. There would be many more children eating less, but also more young adults and nursing/pregnant women.
Outside of the frozen north, though, an awful lot of those calories are coming from plant sources, or the sorts of small non-glamorous animals that chris mentioned above. Rodents, lizards, insects, etc.
#419: have you tried asking us nicely in our own language?
422: you're probably a lot bigger and heavier than a bushman, though. I found a calorie counter and ran the numbers for a five-foot bushman weighing 105lb, which seems about right, and it came out with 2450 calories for an 'extremely active' lifestyle. Living tissue burns calories to stay alive; even fat burns calories. So bigger people just need to eat more to maintain a steady weight.
You're probably bigger than I am (5'7", 155), and also probably bigger than the average hunter-gatherer. And if you're too heavy, even if your weight's stable, you could be stable at a lower weight with a lower caloric input.
re: 426
Yeah, I stabilize at a lard-arse sort of weight, if I'm not watching what I eat. But would be just as stable at a lower kcal input, at a lower weight.
424: Have you actually looked at your own language lately? Clearly, not a practicable means of communication.
425: I don't know any bushmen, but I'm not tall by current standards. I am big boned.
It's because they've fed all the vowels to the Corgis.
424: rhuthr oddi ffurfafen os gwelwch yn dda?
427: it is because of the superiority of comments like this that I changed my pseud.
Probably time to link once again to the New South Wales Imperial Bushmen.
http://www.awm.gov.au/units/unit_21917south_africa.asp
For what it's worth, "Bushmen" is currently deprecated by the people themselves, who prefer "Khoisan." Since their word for people who don't have an epicanthic fold translates roughly as "animal unfit for eating" I'm fine with either. When they acknowledge my deliciousness I'll honor their preferences.
20 kilos of edible meat?
Not the way you and I would define it, but probably pretty close to the mark for Bushmen, who eat parts of the animal we would reject as unpalatable.
437: I just meant that a comment with the word "wildebeeste" in it is objectively better to one without.
438: They use everything but the lope.
Yes, yes, I hate anyone who changes their pseud without very good reason. I'm easily distracted, so I forget, but when reminded of the pseud change the hate flares up again with the heat of a hundred thousand white-hot suns.
Don't worry, it will pass again.
Yes, yes, I hate anyone who changes their pseud without very good reason.
In my opinion the best executed pseud change was PoMoPolymath who posted for at least a month as
[new pseud] ([old pseud])
#433:1) need to consider verb form and chi or ti form of address, and 2) no poetry in you, just like a blydi Saxon. "rush from the sky"? I'd try "plymia o'r nefoedd a torra di y gwddw". And google translate will choke on that because it can't handle imperative forms or Northern spellings.
Actually, that is quite interesting - I know the Welsh go on a bit about being the bardic language and so on, but it really did strike me viscerally - it just seemed so wrong to use a normal word meaning "sky", where the context clearly demanded "plummet from the heavens".
I don't have the slightest idea who Opt. Wil. was previously. It usually takes me slightly longer than this to get confused.
Also, if I had previously realized google translate supported Welsh 433 would have been a lot easier.
it really did strike me viscerally -
Well, that's the whole point of the exercise, isn't it?
Would it be more enraging if I changed back?
443: now you see what I have to deal with.
444: I actually almost did use the word defined as "heavens", but I figured there were probably shades of meaning I was missing.
447: Do what you will -- I bitch, but I don't expect anyone to listen, and certainly there are plenty of name-changers around. But I am glad to know who you are; obviously OW was someone who'd been around for a while, but I had no idea who.
I never follow any of the name changes. I've no idea wtf von wafer was, for example.
450: He switched back and forth in the same thread, I think because he confused himself.
What really annoys me is that some of the name changes I see happening at the time, and I know who it is, but then I forget and lose track of the history. (And VW is ari.)
Also, Von Wafer is so obviously a great name, that one makes sense.
apostropher used to be "air-quote guy" before the incident with the auger made that impossible.
There was a BBC documentary a short while back, Human Planet, which followed a Namibian hunter chasing down an antelope in one of the episodes. It'll be on iPlayer, or if you're not in the UK it's probably on Youtube somewhere.
For what it's worth, "Bushmen" is currently deprecated by the people themselves, who prefer "Khoisan."
FWIW, this hasn't been true for a while. Bushmen, is actually preferred in some communities, especially in South Africa, or so I'm told. Khoisan/Khoesan is a language grouping (whose branches may or may not be at all related) that includes quite a few groups who haven't been hunter-gatherers for centuries. At least we can all agree that "Hottentot" is right out.
If folks are curious about the whole balance of calories thing, IANANutirionalAnthropologist but this guy is. From my understanding, ttaM has it right. Most calories come from nuts, roots, small game, but larger hunted animals provide an important supplement. These days, however, many and perhaps most Bushmen/!Kung and Khoe speakers keep livestock.
Would it be more enraging if I changed back?
Having noticed your e-mail in the back-and-forth I'm curious if you've played the game?
There's are some recent games that use vector movement that look interesting but I haven't tried any of them.
Here's an iPlayer clip of the same sort of thing from Life of Mammals.
I was surprised when I metup LB that she didn't know who I used to be.
(Ooh, what serendipitous scansion and rhyme! Totes unintended.)
I love lamb, but it happens to be a lot cheaper in Britain. We would have it for special occasions--Sunday dinner (though roast chicken was more common) and always on Easter. A lot of people from more Southern states like to have ham on Easter instead.
A lot of people from more Southern states like to have ham on Easter instead.
Because that's the day Jesus stopped being Jewish.
"Hottentot" is only acceptable to be used in demonstrations of how freakishly long Dutch words can get by just adding new parts to the end.
As in "Hottentottententententoonstelling" or "Hottentottententententoonstellingterrein" or "Hottentottententententoonstellingterreinsopzichter" or...
In my opinion the best executed pseud change was PoMoPolymath who posted for at least a month as [new pseud] ([old pseud])
And somehow I still missed it! Go on, give me a clue someone, before I have to get the spreadsheet out.
Lot of good stuff way upthread on the man/"natural" divide (I hate it when I have to work). Besides "hate the pigeon, hate the man", I like the anthropogenic heathlands stuff. It is interesting to look out how people view different landscapes as in terms of naturalness and desirability. I'm a fan (especially in the tree-y eastern US, one of my favorite hiking places is ridge top area in West Virginia where past burning and grazing has left a high open area--was a bit bummed recently that parts of it have grown in with small trees) but 83's If you reforested all the heath in Britain you'd create an ecological holocaust. goes too far. It would be an abrupt change, but hardly any more of a holocaust than the (admittedly slower) one which created them in the first place*. Plus in many places reforestation would be sloooow (the rockier and northier the slower). And it is interesting where you might draw the line, driving between here and Columbus, Ohio you go through an atypical area of grass and low shrubs (used for cattle-grazing): recovered strip mine lands with barely a nub of soil. I do like Stewart Brand's prediction that there will be a national park at Chernobyl by 2035.
*OK, anthropogenic global warming baaaaddd!!! But from a non-human species view it is merely adding further injury to the greater injury of anthropogenic habitat change and destruction.
Doing some searching on wolves as bison predators (wolves are generally the go-to Northern Hemisphere apex predator) came across this WTF? activity from a "wolf park" in Indiana.
Guests have the opportunity to watch what happens when predator meets prey. Bison are some of the most formidable prey wolves will meet in the wild, and healthy bison, like those at the Park, have nothing to fear. Visitors will be able to see how wolves test their prey for weakness and how the bison defend themselves and their calves by chasing the wolves away. Although no animals are ever injured, you will be given unique insight into how wolves hunt and how difficult it is to be a predator in the wild.
Demonstration takes place on bleachersout on Highway 61in front of our bison pasture,
And then David Attenborough buys the movie rights.
Although no animals are ever injured, you will be given unique insight into how wolves hunt
And then after, the wolves will bring you cake.
466: later that same evening, gladiators, then naumachia down on Clark's Pond.
And speaking of the man/natural divide, we continue to get a steady stream of stink bugs reappearing (now mostly in an interior upstairs bathroom). Including the original invasion plus three months of a dozen a day or so, I think we have slaughtered something towards two thousand of the little fuckers. And we don't even own a Moby!
And it is interesting where you might draw the line, driving between here and Columbus, Ohio
On the not-geology land marks side of things, you can make jokes about "Licking County" to pass the time.
471: And "Hocking County" not too far to the south.
"Oh, that one? He wasn't injured. He was killed."
470: You know, they taste just like mutton.
Also, Indiana must have some bitter wolves.
You know, they taste just like mutton, but they break just like a little girl.
470: We've been stink bug free for about two weeks. But we never had more than 10 a week or so. I think they come in through the attic.
475: The bitter to see you with my dear.
474: how would you know? I thought we'd established that Americans were muttophobes (or at least muttofuges).
477: I think the fact that our house only approximately imposes a divide between outdoors and indoors* is a factor.
*Because we're naturalists.
479: Apo is omnivorous where it counts.
