The article actually has four solutions at the bottom. Compared to the severity of the problem, all four solutions are surprisingly simple. Not necessarily easy, but simple and straightforward.
1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol.
2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel.
3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories!
The third solution doesn’t make much sense since livestock consumption is mostly made up of inedible foods that we can’t eat like husks, stems, leaves, etc. of plants. Livestock is effective for up-cycling foods we can’t digest and turning it into foods that we can such as meat and dairy.
Also there is a lot of food waste in the US. Good food that is suitable for livestock…
Soooooooo "Roughage Products" which is fiber, that humans also need to eat BTW, is usually something like 25% of pelleted food. The main ingredient in pelleted food is usually digestible by humans and between 6% to 15% protein, it's like 25% to 30% depending on the pelleted food. Pound by pound going by the estimates that "eat cow advocates" use you need 12 pounds of food per pound of beef produced, if half of that is grass and half is balanced (which is about what you get for very fancy "grass fed" meat, because it's rated on % of life in grass at like 75%, but the cow eats way more when it's big), you are using around 1.5 pounds of grain per pound of beef. 12 pounds is the lowest estimate, it can go up to 20 or 22 pounds. Yeah corn and soy are less nutritious, but the reason those get planted industrially is that cows eat it. Other stuff like chickpea, rice, beans, hemp, could be grown instead of subsidized crop for cows and just feed cows grass and forage, which is better for the cows too.
In San Francisco right now there's no "entire life on farm" meat on the market. If I want to eat your "ideal cow" that eats _mostly_ inedible foods I have to buy land and raise it myself or get it alive from a farm. It's not a product one buys for human consumption. Cows in the US eat mostly human edible foods.
I don't think we had a famine in the last half century that was caused purely by production. The beauty of a working free market is that starving people are willing to pay quite a lot for cheap food, and so it's virtually impossible to starve just by being poor. The problem was always that the food couldn't get to them. I'd bet on a half-half mix of regulatory issues and fighting.
But yeah, production issues can increase price, which will create a whole lot of issues downstream - for example even if people won't literally starve, some of them won't be able to both eat and make rent. Which will predictably piss them off, and this is how you get Arab Spring as a consequence of corn ethanol.
> In San Francisco right now there's no "entire life on farm" meat on the market. If I want to eat your "ideal cow" that eats _mostly_ inedible foods I have to buy land and raise it myself or get it alive from a farm. It's not a product one buys for human consumption. Cows in the US eat mostly human edible foods.
Search for "100% grass fed beef". There are many ranches that sell it around the country, even in California. Some deliver, some sell in farmer's markets, and a few products are even available in markets like Sprouts.[1]
The fact that it's not available in most supermarkets could be fixed.
On other hand they can be grown where there is enough land and enough water... Just because parts of the world has lack of water doesn't mean there is lack everywhere. In many parts there is even enough rain.
Other factors aside, are you claiming that 100% grass fed beef is equivalent to grain finished cattle? I don't have any information to the contrary, and some do take liberties with terminology, but I'd be very interested to learn how this labeling is applied.
I see. I eat meat and I know about the issues (health wise and environmentally). I’m trending towards less, largely for health reasons.
My ideal world (in my head) is that human beings don’t interfere with animals at all (to eat, as pets, to showcase). We should interfere in only cases where it’s critical (like a natural disaster treating animals).
I haven't seen one of these that takes major factors into account. Tires and pet food contain animals. Animal by-products are used everywhere. Switching away would require replacements. Replacements would become more efficient with economy of scale, but initial switching costs will be high. Some replacements, like food for our obligate-carnivore cats, might not be possible.
Simplest example: Beyond meat is 2-4x the price of meat.
It seems pretty clear that switching away from protein sources like lamb and cows in favor of pork and chicken is carbon-positive.
There's likely an optimal level of meat consumption. Unfortunately most of our information comes from either an industry and farmers dependent on our continued meat consumption, or dishonest vegan evangelists.
Which do you suppose is the bigger problem in food information: dishonest vegans—0.5% of the US population, btw—evangelizing or the lion’s share of the meat-eating public doesn’t like to hear and acknowledge that their favorite dishes are harmful to the planet? I suspect the latter is a more widespread issue…
> Which do you suppose is the bigger problem in food information: dishonest vegans—0.5% of the US population
Being a small share of the population doesn't mean they're invisible or silent. Here on the UK my leftist self that far too often reads the Guardian, one of the biggest newspaper in the nation, there's many times a week an article advocating the vegan diet. One of the two resident recipe writers only prints vegan recipes. I'm pretty sure it's newspaper policy never to print any diet related news that's not vegan-favourable, I guess it's their way of "changing the world". It's conquered a large part of the popular opinion, even though as you suggest the percentage of actual vegans might be very small.
As a meat eater that is non indifferent to the ecological issues we're facing, and believes the vegan diet NOT to be the answer, I would appreciate a more educated and reasoned approach to a hairy question than the constant evangelizing and ignorant repetition of meat bad, vegan good.
I haven't seen a study deeply analyzing non-food uses either. I suspect though that while there will indeed be replacement costs they will be less than the costs of continuing the current system.
Michellin apparently already makes "vegan" tyres. Even for cat food, there are already vegan supplements and the science will improve. Beyond Meat being only 2x the price of killed meat is I think quite impressive when you consider how long each industry has had to optimise.
Yes switching from cows to chickens is better with regards to carbon but the problem is it's much worse with regards to animal welfare since many more animals need to be killed per kilo of meat..
There could be an optimal level of meat consumption if you just consider the environment, but it's far below what we're doing now, and given the urgent climate action that's recommended by expert scientists, it seems wise to reduce this consumption as much as possible. We're _far_ more likely to reduce too slowly than too quickly..
Solar and wind energy used to be multiple times more expensive than other more polluting methods. And yet they’re now much cheaper and going down every year.
We developed a vaccine against Covid in less than two years, which we previously thought to be impossible to do.
If we really tried, the problems you mentioned would have a sizable chance of being solved.
> There's likely an optimal level of meat consumption.
Just going to go out on a limb and say the optimal level is probably less than the typical North American or European diet... Societies that are more resource constrained eat a lot less meat.
> Societies that are more resource constrained eat a lot less meat.
They also lag the life expectancy curve by about 10 years. There are a lot of factors at play obviously, but the universal trend is richer countries have better medical care, education, and more complete diets.
There is so much livestock that while most livestock consumption is inedible foods, the rest is large reason for food shortage. The amount of land they consume takes land from grains.
>grain accounts for 13% of cattle dry feed. In 2021 China imported 28m tonnes of corn to feed its pigs,
The amount of livestock is ridiculous. 63% of mammal biomass is lifestock, 35% humans. Wild mammals are insignificant.
Please share a reference, I am not sure I understand what you mean.
The big majority of agriculture land is spend on producing fodder not husks, stems and so on. I mean an animal need calories too, yes a ruminant can digest cellulose, but the majority is soy, corn and wheat.
This makes me think of The West Wing back in 2005 with Josh and Santos arguing about whether to pander to Iowa about ethanol subsidies. Josh won, Santos pandered.
I guess if you want this to change, you've first got to stop Iowa being so ludicrously influential in the presidential election cycle.
Iowa has been doing a solid job of making the Iowa caucuses significantly less relevant all on their own. The state and its registered Dem and GOP cohorts have become much less representative of the nation as a whole over the last two decades.
The last time the winner mattered was, perhaps, Obama 2008. The contested races since have yielded the following winners: Huckabee, Santorum, Clinton, Ted Cruz, and Buttigieg/Sanders.
On one hand, food subsidies is a pillar to national food security. On the other hand, ending beef subsidies would do wonders for my vegan socialist agenda.
There is scope for substitution. About 10% of all grains are used to make biofuel; and 18% of vegetable oils go to biodiesel. Finland and Croatia have weakened mandates that require petrol to include fuel from crops. Others should follow their lead.
Though my understanding is that ethanol as a fuel additive is largely an anti-knock lead substitute. Alcohol was the originally-proposed solution, before the creation and adoption of tetraethyl lead. Apparent cost advantages drove the adoption of the latter. True costs proved somewhat greater.
My read is that the "biofuel" branding of fuel ethanol is actually a misdirection, though I don't have a good source on that.
I think it can be used for that, but it is also used to cut gasoline and therefore make a single barrel of oil go further. Normally ethanol is less than 10 percent, but I think it can be as high as 15 or 20 percent at the pump right now. Modern engines can handle it just fine, but it does slightly reduce fuel economy.
It's also an oxygenation agent, and replaces MTBE (methyl tert-butyl ether) which ... oh, also substituted for tetraethyl lead. (I thought MTBE was an anti-smog treatment.)
MTBE turned out to leach into groundwater quite readily and there was a pretty widespread outcry about it in the early aughts. Again, ethanol is a replacement (mentioned in the Wikipedia article above).
And yes, since anti-knock agents effectively slow combustion (and ethanol has lower energy-density than petroleum), net fuel efficiency is slightly reduced on a volumetric basis. Net effect remains better overall engine performance.
Depending on what state you're in in the Midwest you can sometimes get E85 gas (85% ethanol). It's always clearly marked because not all modern engines can handle that high of a concentration.
There’s a place for strategic food reserves and ethanol does a good job of maintaining excess capacity without tanking commodity prices (and thus killing future supplies)
There is a major fuel shortage so you are just robbing peter to pay Paul. Also fertiliser will be the next problem, we won't be able to grow enough to cover the loss of Russian and Ukraine exports next year. And meat as a source of protein will become a luxury for all those in power.
The western government's had to know this would happen otherwise they are grossly incompetent at their job.
If the west had had the means to project enough force to break the blockade or do anything directly in Ukraine they should have would have done so already. The losses will be unbearable for conflict adverse populations.
Europe can not survive without russian energy and so won't stop buying it, hypocrisy of the highest order. All and mean all of these bureaucractic lunatics are so far detached that I don't think they have an ounce off humanity left.
Starvation is now an inevitability. Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo.
> Russia have played this very very well as the west followed their own play book to the letter and the russians had counters planned for years, hording gold, setting up non USD financial systems. First round of The Game goes to Russia imo.
I find this very hard to believe. Things are much worse in Russia and for Russia than they are in Europe or the United States right now, with the future looking bleak.
While the quoted poster appears to be getting their news straight from Kremlin, there is something to consider: the average russian is VERY experienced in taking abuse. We're talking about a country where around fifth of the population does not have access to indoor plumbing. Only couple of the largest cities there have living standards comparable to what average HN poster would consider livable.
This whole thing is going to cause a financial recession. More so in some regions than others. But as a citizen of a very small country bordering russia - that's okay. As long as it breaks the back of their military, and sets back their military ambitions for a good long while, there's a long list of luxuries I can live without. I want my kids to worry about global warming, not global warming and when's the next time the neighbours re-discover their imperial ambitions.
Really? can you quantify what that means, are they going hungry, short of fuel, is their currency collapsing, do they have rampant inflation? Or is just that people that got us in this mess are telling you that some how russians are suffering so much that they have to give up. Wasn't that suppose to happen immediately upon the weaponisation of the USD? When will it happen, after we all starve, after all infrastructure in Ukraine is destroyed? To believe that narrative now is beyond my imagination.
Russia's official forecasts are for inflation north of 20%, GDP down 8% in 2022, and factories are offering free plots of land so people can grow their own potatoes.
No shortage of fuel though, since they're having a hard time exporting it now. Although all industry in Russia is heavily dependent on spare parts from the West, meaning things will start breaking down quite soon.
Quite sure the whole world is at similar inflation levels, pretty sure it's about 30% considering the drop in profits from Western retailers, same revenue, massive drop in profits, the retailers took the inflationary hit but it will be passed on eventually. Just look at your fuel prices (supply issues there as well as monetary inflation).
Will this affect russia, of course, but if their level of inflation is rampant then so is the rest of the world.
Russia will likely deindustralise, but so will much of Europe, and even more so if Russia turned off the gas tomorrow. Remember this, russia could grind Europe to halt if it cut off the gas, which would be on top of an economic crisis that is already looking pretty bad. There is no alternative to the piped gas for Europe that's fact in any realistic time frame, no infrastructure plus the price would be at an extreme premium (piped gas is very cheap).
You’re missing that Russia started this with a much lower base. Increasing prices and decreasing growth for an average North American or West European would mean that they would have to go somewhere cheaper for vacation this year and slightly adjust their consumption habits. When your net monthly income is ~$500 or less you might have slightly different concerns if you see prices rising by more than 20%.
> and even more so if Russia turned off the gas tomorrow.
Energy exports are the only thing keeping the Russian currency afloat, unless they want to go into full autarky mode this would hurt them more than the west (i.e. 40% of all gas in Europe comes from Russia, which is huge 80-90% of all Russian exports are fossil fuels and metals and most go to Europe).
Nope, most Western countries have inflation in the 8% range, although as always you can quibble about what's being measured etc.
Also, Russia has already turned off the gas taps to Poland, Bulgaria and by the end of this week most likely to Finland. However, European countries can substitute (with varying degrees of pain), while it's physically impossible for Russia to export that gas elsewhere, meaning any cuts to exports hit them hard in the pocketbook.
At the end of the day, it's pretty much the world vs Russia right now, and the world will absorb the economic blows better than Russia can.
You just left about 4 billion people out of your definition of “world”. China, India, and many more counties that are not against Russia. I find that very arrogant but also reflective of where the “western world” stands right not. This arrogance and self-supremacy must be broken. And that’s what Russia is just doing.
the people that got "us" into this mess are the ones who initiated a genocidal war of territorial conquest in modern times (after repeatedly lying that they would)
not coincidentally, they are also the only ones who can get "us" out of it, by withdrawing – the Ukrainian people have seen the rape, torture, and executions that result from allowing genocidal russian troops to control a single square foot of Ukrainian land, and have concluded that death is a better fate than that which awaits surrendering it
tl;dr you're going to have a hard time convincing Ukrainians to trust russia, but you are sure welcome to try
As a side note, I find the language you are using strange. I do not know if it's my perspective of the world being different than yours, but I'll try to explain.
In my perspective, genocide is a very, very strong word. Hitler killed 6 million Jews, as he literally wanted them exterminated.
Now, crime is a crime, none should be defended nor downsized. But the primary goal behind that genocide was extermination. Do you claim that Russia is trying to exterminate Ukrainians?
Or you are using it just to point out the war crimes that the Russian army is did?
Not who you replied to, but yes, I am claiming that Russia is trying to exterminate Ukrainians.
From the (admittedly, rambling) speeches of their top command about how Ukraine is not a real country and intentional shelling of civilian structures, to mass murder of civilians being uncovered after russian forces are pushed back and abduction of children, there is no way you can call the goal of russian forces anything but extermination of a nation.
Of course, the official body count is not yet past 6 million, and UN paperwork calling it genocide is not yet signed. So yeah, you're right, it's not genocide, just murder on industrial scale.
For the sake of disclosure, I'm from Latvia, a country that shook off the russian yoke in 90s, and my own mother has chilling memories of red army acting the same animalistic way as what we hear from Ukraine today. "Bias" or "experience" - choose your own label.
Yes, russia is engaged in many actions that make clear that they are perpetrating a genocide, such as:
- literally saying Ukraine should not exist
- saying Ukrainians aren't a real people, just russians
- planning to solve "The Ukraine Question" (yes, phrased by the Kremlin just as another dictator phrased "The Jewish Question")
- planning to end Ukraine as a country and split up the land between themselves and other countries (maps have even been found among russian forces in Ukraine illustrating this)
- mass executions to rid Ukrainian land of Ukrainians (see Bucha for just 1 example)
- mass shelling of civilian targets (homes, etc.) in cities to rid Ukrainian land of Ukrainians
- destroying and stealing grain from Ukraine to starve Ukrainians (russia has a history of doing this in Ukraine, see: Holodomor)
- refusing and attacking international food aid, mefical aid, and rescue to Ukrainian civilians
- announcing Ukrainians who fled the fighting will have their property and homes given to pro-russian fighters in territory russia controls
- shooting and shelling civilians who try to evacuate
- sending Ukrainians in areas russia controls to "filtration camps" where those who show support for Ukraine are executed or forcibly deported to russia or russian controlled land
- destroying Ukrainian cultural landmarks
- forcing Ukrainians in russian controlled territory to not speak Ukrainian
the list goes longer, but russia has not at all tried to hide it, simply watch what the state propagandists and putin himself say and have said of Ukraine as a sovereign state
I am sure You have your rightful reasons for this anger, I am sure a lot of people do. I mean, even when You write 'Russia', 'Putin', You purposefully write without capital letters.
Maybe time will tell that, despite your anger, You are right. But I sure pray to God that You are not, and that it hasn't/won't come to that.
Heya, since HN is a worldwide website, I think language or locale differences may have led you to misunderstand my post.
The post actually does not contain anger, and is a well researched list of things russia actually has done and is doing.
As well, since they are facts, and not emotion, and since those facts together (even 2 or 3 of them alone, much less all of them taken together) constitute genocide, my own rightness or wrongness is irrelevant to the fact that russia is engaging in genocide.
Though Ukrainians are no doubt thankful of prayers for them in the face of russia's genocide, and your sympathy for them is no doubt appreciated, so thank you <3
Please, stop this moral high ground rhetorical hypocrisy of the highest order. The US has had no qualms about invading countries or applying sanctions that harm innocent people. There are no good guys. People will all do terrible things for "the greater good", there is no worldly greater good from these soulless bureaucratic monoliths of state hood. They will set targets and strive for them irrespective of the human cost. Nazi german showed the way with their welfare state for the German people and everyone has followed suit.
If you want to stop the russians then declare war don't sit on the side lines trying to manipulate from a safe distance using the likes of sanctions or arming militias that we once all agreed were actual German Nazi evangelists, look at the iconography it's not even in doubt.
It's not hard to convince populations to do any thing, the pandemic should have taught us all that.
Edit: For the record i'm not justifying or demonising either side, do what you got to do, but know that i don't buy any holier than thou BS from either side. But put your money where your mouth is, if Russia must be stop do then do it, declare war or park a carrier group or two in the black sea, enforce no flyzones or guarantee shipping.
Glad you think it's stupid. At least you thought about it :)
Honestly if you want to think your country is whiter than white and the Russians, Iraqis, Taliban, Gaddafi, ISIS, Iranians or whoever are the big evil and you must do whatever it takes to support stopping them being part of the world then that's up to you. But i don't support that view and find it hypocritical. I don't believe in the Liberal Idealogy nor do i see any good in a US led global hegemony and at the same time i've no connection to the Rus people so for me it's very clear that I would struggle to fight for either side.
BTW you do also know that whataboutism goes both ways because you are literally doing exactly the same thing. Frankly whataboutism is utter nonsense to hid hypocrisy.
I never said that my country hasn't done bad things.
I have protested the Tories, and I have always voted against them because I know they are bad people.
I know that the majority of people in the UK have also voted against them and their policies. Your entire point is completely nonsensical.
Where on earth did I do "whataboutism"? You literally said that people cannot be against one invasion because someone else invaded, which they were probably against as well.
this is not the U.S. opposing russia, but the world - literally the majority of all countries
the rest of your post is whataboutism that fails to justify russia's genocidal war of territorial conquest against Ukraine and Ukrainians, both of which russia believes should not exist, period
the world hears russia's farcical pretexts of "denazification" and recognizes it as a cynical ploy to preempt the obvious comparison of russia to the last country which attempted a genocidal war of territorial conquest in Europe
if you want to stop russia's genocidal war of territorial conquest in Ukraine, speak out against russia's genocidal war of territorial conquest in Ukraine
as for international aid to Ukraine, lethal and not, that is what the Ukrainian people ask for, and no amount of russian whinging and concern trolling allegedly on their behalf, or ridiculous "come at me bro"-esque macho encouragement for more countries to formally declare war, will prevent the world from answering their pleas against russia's genocidal war of territorial conquest
>Edit: For the record i'm not justifying or demonising either side
Edit: yes, that is the problem. one side is perpetrating a genocide, the other a victim of it. As Desmond Tutu said, "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor". That is your choice here.
If everyone is so united in opposition why are they still buying the oil and gas (paying in Rubles)? If they're so together why did Turkey block Sweden and Finland joining Nato. If the unifying petrodollar still binds us all why is Saudi considering Yuan. If they had any sort of plan that would save Ukrainians why is it taking months to enact?
If everyone is so united in opposition why are they still buying the oil and gas (paying in Rubles)?
Because we are dependent on it and despite opposition to Russia's war, our solidarity has limits. Limits which are a subject to internal debate and strive. Obviously you know this, which explains the other posters incredulity at the question, which is bound to be in bad faith.
If they're so together why did Turkey block Sweden and Finland joining Nato.
Probably because they see a way to get something they want. Probably not as a gesture towards Russia, since their own contribution to the war -- e.g. closing off the Black sea has been pretty effective.
Ok? That's not a word? I'm not saying the current politics are good, but that's what they are. You don't debate them by feigning ignorance like Guthur did. Pithy neologisms don't add much, either.
>If everyone is so united in opposition why are they still buying the oil and gas (paying in Rubles)?
Are you asking this in good faith, as in, you do not know, and wish to learn?
Or did you mean to say, "I think that a majority of countries are not united in opposition to russia, and I submit as evidence that russian energy sales are not zero" ?
Ah no. Maybe I'm just stupid, so please explain to me how all the European countries that are so united in solidatary with Ukraine can square the round hole of also paying Russia vast sums of money for energy?
explain to you because you do not know, and wish to learn, and thus you are asking in good faith?
or "explain", as in you think the majority of countries are not united in opposition to russia, and you would like to advance this claim?
I want to be clear here, I am all for sharing knowledge, so if you need an explanation because you don't know, and don't just plan to argue, please say so and I will share all I can, what little it may be
So you have no interest in explaining to me how EU countries (Germany etc) paying Russia for energy helps Ukraine? I'm quite serious, I don't know how paying Russia helps Ukraine, or are they not paying for energy? maybe I am ill informed.
And please don't come back with misdirection, either answer the question or lets leave it like that because it's a waste of both our time.
Not the person you were originally responding to, but I would point out that originally the statement was about if everyone is united in opposition, why are we still buying fossil fuel from Russia.
This is not the same question as how it helps Ukraine, so I would be careful throwing around the word “misdirection”.
The original responder asked twice in a row whether or not i wanted an answer when there was obviously nothing rhetorical about my questions and so that is the misdirection.
And we are now how deep in this thread without an answer to the simple question; how can a lack of EU energy embargo stand in solidarity with the sanctions and Ukraine. Please explain?
I think the original responder's concern, which I share, is that your question is really an opinion, rather than a genuine question, and that they (or I) would spend time writing a long, detailed response to what is a very complicated topic, only to be wasting our time because it would fall on the ears of someone who is not interested in listening (or reading).
I'll go for it though, and address the original question, which was 'If everyone is so united in opposition why are they still buying the oil and gas (paying in Rubles)?', although you've rephrased it as 'please explain to me how all the European countries that are so united in solidatary with Ukraine can square the round hole of also paying Russia vast sums of money for energy?', and somewhat differently asked 'I don't know how paying Russia helps Ukraine, or are they not paying for energy?'
First off, I don't think anyone would argue that this in any way helps Ukraine. Of course, paying money to Russia is not going to help Ukraine. However, Europe has been dependent on Russian oil and gas for a long time, and it is not simple to just cut that off. 40% of gas supplied to the EU comes from Russia, and almost 30% of the EU's oil.
Second, I don't think anyone anticipated that this war would last longer than a month or two. I think the expectation from the EU's side was an overwhelming show of force from Russia, regime change in Ukraine, and a quick end to hostilities. Although the EU started discussing longer term moves away from Russian gas and oil at that point, I don't think there was a sense that this could have any short term impact in terms of supporting Ukraine (or cutting off indirect support for Russia). The EU, known for being slow to react and full of bureaucracy, was able to publish a plan on 8th March, less than two weeks after the invasion. The plan is very aggressive, and targets reducing imports from Russia by two-thirds within one year. This is a major economic blow to Russia, and likely was intended to scare Russia into changing their approach in Ukraine, unsuccessfully.
Third, just stopping paying for this fuel would likely be in breach of commercial agreements. Russia and Ukraine have been at war since 2014, and the EU has not stopped paying for gas. There are legal implications to not upholding your side of a contract, although I doubt that this is a serious consideration - likely this could be thrashed out quickly.
Fourth, if we stop paying, Russia would then cease supplying oil and gas to the EU. There are a number of reasons this would be problematic. First of all, the distribution systems we currently have need to be pressurised (this is not technically quite accurate, but it's a close enough analogy I don't think it's important to get into the details). If Russia stopped supplying gas and oil to the EU, there is an overhead for the EU to keep these pipelines pressurised to avoid the whole system collapsing. So additionally to losing 20-30% of Europe's fuel supply, Europe would additionally need to divert supplies to the network rather than it being available for use by users. I wasn't able to find details on the amount of technical gas consumed by the EU and what the gap would be, but during the previous fuel crisis, the gap for gas alone was 21 million cubic metres per day, which represents 2% of the EU's total daily consumption.
Fifth, the EU is struggling with economic challenges same as the rest of the world. We have high inflation, Cost of Living is going up faster than salaries. Reducing energy supply would necessitate massive price increases on fuel bills, which is currently being seen in the UK and very poorly received. As this war seems to be settling in to become a long, drawn out conflict.
Finally (at least for this comment), from a military strategy point of view, cutting off this income now would give Russia the opportunity to develop other income streams while operating on their reserves. Waiting until Russia is deep in an economic crisis, and has burned through their war chest before cutting off their cashflow is likely to lead to more acute hardship and be a stronger bargaining chip. I'm sure Russia are currently considering this as well, but there will be a 'sweet spot', before Russia are able to develop other income streams.
sure, I have interest, IF you are able to say you are asking because you don't know and want to learn, not because you want to argue
this is not misdirection, it's giving you the opportunity to show your questions are being asked _in_good_faith_, because I don't see a point to answering a bad faith question
you've had two opportunities to do so, and both times chosen not to simply say that your objective is learning, rather than arguing. instead, you extremely conspicuously chose to deflect from such a clarification
in my experience, when someone is hiding and actively avoiding clarifying their objective in a discussion, it is because their objective in the discussion is not clarity.
tl;dr: you say you want an answer to your question, but if you think you already know the answer, then your question doesn't need another one,
and if you DON'T think you already know, it should be easy for you to just say that, and that you don't intend to argue with whoever would teach you the answer
I live ridiculously frugal in a emerging economy country. It's not that I actively look to drop out of consumption, it's just that I lifestyle seemed to settle on this way of being. My entire cost of living is probably less than the cost of ownership of my small truck back home.
I don't consume things which use corn as an ingredient. I don't use seed oils. My food is mostly wild fish (local markets.) If Russia were unleash nuclear war, I probably wouldn't get hit.
I guess I would still be screwed if there were a global food catastrophe because it would affect me somehow.
No reason for this comment other than it's strange to see that the solutions on this list wouldn't apply to me.
It would be partially offset by the higher fuel economy you'd get without ethanol in fuel.
"Ethanol contains about one-third less energy than gasoline. So, vehicles will typically go 3% to 4% fewer miles per gallon on E10 and 4% to 5% fewer on E15 than on 100% gasoline." [0]
I think Ethanol in gas is stupid and I always tank up with E0 when I can (it's available in some parts of New Hampshire... not sure about your state).
Ironically, favoring public transport (which includes a good deal of walking) and bicycling is negatively impacted by the global calorie shortage, bringing us full circle.
I would think feeding corn to a human is more energy-efficient than turning it into biofuel and burning that in an engine, although now I'm curious exactly how the two compare.
> Enclosed spaces with the general public in a still ongoing pandemic?
I'll concede that there's a point there. However - the world states with the best covid "performance" in terms of deaths/capita etc. have much better developed and widely used public transport systems.
Re 4., that's doable if the West renounces some of its existing economic sanctions against Russia, the Russians themselves have said as much recently.
It probably won't happen because the West doesn't like to see itself as being involved in the war (in a way similar to what Russia thinks about itself) and will try to resort to "Russia should unlock the blockade purely on humanitarian grounds!", which, of course, is the type of declaration which has no effect during a direct economic war (like the one the West and Russia are now waging against each other, on top of the military proxy war).
Hypothetically, if the west actually wanted to give up sanctions in return for clearing the blockade.. why, in what universe, could they possibly expect Russia to stand by its word?
Russia said for six months they were simply conducting exercises and had no intention of invading whatsoever. Why should anyone believe they would clear the blockade if sanctions lift?
> If they don't stand by their word then they can re-impose the sanctions, it's as simple as that.
That does not work with the current Russian regime. The only thing removing sanctions will do is allow them time to come up with solutions to mitigate future sanctions. They are not good-faith actors, and only use good-faith solutions to improve their leverage in future deals
For everyone who wants to downvote, go and look how well the sanctions after the 2014 invasion worked. The primary reason why the invasion of 2022 went forward was due to their confidence that they could mitigate the same style of sanctions that went into effect then
> Because at some point the West will have to sit at the negotiating table with Russia.
Do they? What does Russia have that will force them to the negotiating table? The damage to this years harvest is already done and the supply chains will likely have figured themselves out by next year
If the US accrues enough "Oh, we don't talk to _those people_, we only sanction them" world states, they will encompass enough of the world's population to make it unreasonable for third parties to obey US sanctions, which they currently tend to (because the US sanctions transitively); and enough of the world's population to do things like replace SWIFT and/or drop the USD as their main reserve currency.
(Also, there's the question of the fate of the Ukranians, but I guess you're right in that the US doesn't care enough about that to negotiate with Russia.)
I mean yea, but arguing that the US has hit that point is different than arguing that Russia in particular will have to be negotiated with. The US could always lower sanctions on other nations than Russian
this seems like nebulous FUD that attempts to downplay that one of the actors here is literally engaging in a genocide
will the world (NOT the U.S., as the opposition to Russia's genocidal war is global) accrue enough countries out of 200 or so which engage in genocidal invasions of conquest of their neighbors in the 21st century? sounds implausible
You know, the US (and people who drink its kool-aid) has been leveling several such false accusations lately, another one being about the Chinese treatment of the Uyghurs. As a person whose family was decimated by genocide I'll tell you that it's quite insulting on the personal level; but beyond this - that kind of rhetoric has a "boy who cried wolf effect", and that's really bad.
You do not need the fabricated accusations to condemn Russia for war crimes and the killing of civilians in its invasion of the Ukraine.
Killing people who support an opposing faction isn't genocide either, that is just regular dictatorship terror tactics. The fact that Putin argues that Ukranians don't exist and that they all are Russians just supports that it isn't a genocide, as he doesn't intend to kill all Russians, just the "Russians" who refuse to be Russians.
Instead of calling it a genocide, call it a massacre. Russia is massacring Ukranians, nobody is arguing against that, and the world stopped accepting such behavior even in wars a long time ago. Prematurely calling it a genocide just makes people stop listening to you.
>The fact that Putin argues that Ukranians don't exist and that they all are Russians just supports that it isn't a genocide
as it turns out, the exact opposite is true. attempting to erase a people (as in "the Ukrainian people") is a pretty common aspect of genocide, and includes forcibly destroying their identity as a unique people
>Prematurely calling it a genocide just makes people stop listening to you.
then it is good that nobody has done so prematurely, as people have not stopped listening (unless you personally constitute "people" ;)
per the definition of genocide that I found on the UN's website, they are easily committing at least one of the points that defines a genocide. That is
- Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
I prefer to let the dronies and tankies argue their pro NATO talking points vs pro China talking points without my involvement. Most of us will have too much trouble wading through multiple state propaganda outlets to arrive at a reliable conclusion on that one.
> Because at some point the West will have to sit at the negotiating table with Russia.
The whole point is that you can't negotiate with Russia. Ukraine gave away it's nukes by negotiations and Russia isn't keeping its end of the bargain. Russia has to be defeated like the Japanese did or collapse like it tends to do from time to time.
> Because at some point the West will have to sit at the negotiating table with Russia.
I hope not. I've really taken to the idea that China should manage their connections to the West and hopefully take a lot off the top until Putin is dead.
China not being a democracy doesn't seem to be a problem when it comes to institutional stabilities for managing NK. The US has done a lot worse with some of its dictator client states.
Sure if the Russians want to have another revolution and run new elections or something that's great but trying to get Russia to do something is like pushing against a horse. Lets let China push Russia and see what happens.
What is "the west" exactly? Japan? New Zealand? Finland? Tunisia? A better term would be liberal democracies, but that wouldn't have quite the same "both sides are the same" ring to it, would it?
Russia isn't waging an economic war against anyone. A dictator tried to invade his democratic neighbour, he failed, and now the other democraties are cutting him out of their club
The Economist is cagey about the definition, but by context it works out to "America and its allies" (where "America" is "The United States of America".
The US, NATO, NORAD, ANZUS, SEATO, and specific alliances such as the US-Japan alliance, Mutual Defense Treaty between the United States and the Republic of Korea, and the like, would likely be included. In the context of Ukraine and this article, probably the Common Security and Defence Policy (CDSP) of the EU as well.
If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise.
> "both sides are the same" ring to it
They are definitely not the same, they have obviously different values. Again, Putin has said as much, he's the one fighting for a multi-polar world with multi-polar values, so to speak. I think the same holds for Xi, in China.
> If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise.
I mean, I agree that it doesn't carry the same positive vibes that it used to, but it still carries much better vibes than "corrupt authoritarian semi-dictatorships".
To those who might try going "muh western propaganda" on this, save your time. I am speaking as someone who grew up in one of those "corrupt authoritarian semi-dictatorships" and eventually immigrated to a "liberal democracy".
Yeah, the gaslighting cracks me up. I too escaped a former Soviet bloc country that Russia invaded in exactly the same way it is invading Ukraine right now.
I now live in one of those “horrible” western democracies where I can tell the Prime Minister that he’s an idiot to his face and the worst that’ll happen is that he’ll laugh at me in a dismissive way.
But these countries are “all the same”, right? Right?
Again, the Russians have said as much what they want. What they understand by "multi-polar world" is the US (and its allies), Russia, China, maybe India, maybe some other regional thingie, like South America/Mercosur maybe (I think by this point they're already branding the EU under "US and its allies", that wasn't always the case, especially around 2003-2005 when Germany and France were against the US intervention in Iraq).
Yes, they would want Ukraine under their sphere of influence, that one has been also made pretty clear by them ever since the USSR was broken up.
that sounds like both a bad idea, and an unrealistic idea, most of all because in that presentation russia considers itself an equal to the others in the list, which it most certainly is not, in nearly all respects
in a more generalized sense, russia actually doesn't care about any of the countries listed but itself, except insofar as it can convince those countries to support russia
the world is already multipolar, as was pointed out – look to the UN for an example of how multiple poles interact with each other in a civilized fashion – nearly 200 of them!
russia doesn't want this, all they want is domination, and the disintegration of the multipolar world that is civilized diplomacy which might unite and thus present a united front against russian domination and genocide
>”the world is already multipolar, as was pointed out – look to the UN for an example of how multiple poles interact with each other in a civilized fashion – nearly 200 of them!”
This isn’t what polarity refers to. The nations of the UN are not at all equal in terms of power and influence.
While no one would question that the United States, Russia, and China are the “poles” in this system, no one would regard any of the 190ish other nations which are far smaller and less powerful as poles.
In the UN the nations are more equal than anywhere else.
At tha General Assembly all nations are equal. And after all of the abuses of veto powers discussions to eliminate the permanent Security Council positions are once again picking up steam.
> If you think "liberal democracies" still carries the same positive vibe across the world that it used to some years ago you are in for a big surprise.
Agree, I would state it as "liberal" "democracies" - this is an opinion of course, but I think if one was to fairly but critically perform an in-depth evaluation, things are not as lovely as they are described to the masses.
> Again, Putin has said as much, he's the one fighting for a multi-polar world with multi-polar values, so to speak. I think the same holds for Xi, in China.
Great pole there! /s The West may have it's problems, but Putin is trying to resurrect the same pole that was led at one point or another by Hitler, Stalin, Mao. The world doesn't need that again.
Uhm, yes? They elected a comedian with no political experience or ties for f's sake. But I suppose that was some sort of rigged election or he's just a figurehead or something?
Uh, he's banned all opposition parties. Where's the democracy? He was a direct employee of a Ukrainian billionaire oligarch, plenty of ties, just check the Pandora Papers...
Election where major opposition parties were banned? A democratic society where 40+% of population is not allowed to use their own language? When opposition leaders get arrested? Where almost a 100 people were publicly burned alive, and still no one is punished? Where right wing extremists / neonazi paramilitaries are incorporated in an official army and given a licence to kill, as documented by OSCE multiple times in eastern part of the country? And all that happened before this war. Just that they now fight Russians doesn't mean they are democracy, they are just a useful enemy of an enemy.
And the list goes on and on, although only one of the mentioned things would be enough to consider such a country as non-democratic at least.
I think corruption and a rule of oligarch is the least problem in a country like that.
There is some speculation that the liberal democratic rumblings from Zelenski are what forced Putin to act. I have no illusions that a country with deeply rooted corruption issues like Ukraine can turn on a dime, but he was at least voicing support for the idea. If he managed to root out some of the corruption then Putin would lose the ability to puppet the state entirely, and that's a slippery slope to becoming part of Europe and being lost to Russia forever.
Another option for #4 is supplying enough long range anti-ship rockets to sink whole russian fleet in black sea. They can't bring in more ships, because turkey is blocking the entrance.
Triggering world war 3 would also help reduce the population which could reduce co2 emissions and food requirements. Killing a few birds with one stone.
That's not much different than supplying other kinds of weapons (and anti-ship missiles are on the list anyway, if not from US then from UK).
Also everybody is mostly over nuclear threat I think. When a nuclear country keeps annexing land and threatens you with nukes if you object, you have two options -- keep giving up or call the bluff (or assassinate the leadership I guess).
But there is no spin. There's either global thermonuclear war or there's nothing. If NATO isn't invading Russia, and Russia isn't invading NATO, then nothing has changed.
Does Russia want to start global thermonuclear war because they can argue a technicality that it's not their fault? No, I don't think so. They could start the war and the outcome would be the same at any time they want.
Excusing the edge case of a pathetic attempt of a land invasion of Finland or Poland or something crazy.
He's also very very scared to do anything of consequence. Look, the Ukrainian invasion was the only reckless thing he's ever done and look how it turned out.
We are talking about a country that can’t even supply proper boots to its troops. Why believe that the nuclear weapons they inherited from USSR still work?
>"those other people choose to, as they would rather vaporize than give an inch of their land to russia"
If that was the case we would have active war in Crimea in 2014.
>"if you expect them to surrender or accept less, well, you'll have to make your case to them"
Why would I make any case? I do not expect anything. It is their choice. Also I do not think the talking was about Ukraine in particular. The statement was generic.
> If that was the case we would have active war in Crimea in 2014.
Nobody believed it was happening, i.e. Ukrainians never expected having to fight Russians. Now it's completely different; Ukraine has been preparing for an escalation of the war for 8 years.
Nobody in Crimea believed it was being taken, until it was.
By that time, the Ukranian government was beheaded, whatever left of the army was demoralized. There was literally a few thousand dollars in the state's coffers. Insurgency in the east was ramping up; a few volunteer battalions were formed overnight, financed by neighborhood donations, and sent off to fight the (covert) invasion in the east. It's actually a miracle Ukraine survived in 2014, so fighting the Russian regular army (with a big Naval base) in Crimea was not on top of the list.
It's been 8 years since and no fight for Crimea. This still contradicts the original statement: "as they would rather vaporize than give an inch of their land to russia".
And I am far from blaming Ukrainians. Their government luckily had enough brain cells and had voted not to attack what Russia considers their territory and not to vaporize their nation for the sake of some hot heads's stance.
Had they decided to do so on their own before Russia's invasion then there would be no support from the West. The chance of them succeeding militarily in Crimea in that case I think would have been big fat zero.
So no, in general I do not think want people to get vaporized en masse just because somebody believes they should.
Also we might just have a case of keyboard warriors here. It is easy to be brave / stupid sitting in a safe place in front of computer screen.
>It's been 8 years since and no fight for Crimea. This still contradicts the original statement: "as they would rather vaporize than give an inch of their land to russia".
only if you believe that viewpoints and opinions and attitudes of humans never change, a ridiculous notion
>It is easy to be brave / stupid sitting in a safe place in front of computer screen.
if you don't like that that's their attitude, feel free to complain to them about it, don't attack me, the messenger, telling you how it is. after all, it is easy for you to doubt their resolve in a safe place in front of a computer screen
Ukraine doesn't have much of a merchant fleet. Most of their exports travel on foreign bottoms. And foreign ship owners are unwilling to risk entering an active conflict zone, especially because they can't obtain affordable insurance.
we can play this game all day long, but the past 2 months have clearly shown that russian conventional forces are not even close to a match for NATO combined forces*
* as long as the goal isn't to slaughter as many civilians as possible, which for russia is a strong assumption
The Russian government has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that it is not a good faith interlocutor. Nobody should take anything they say seriously.
It's almost amazing that the newspapers reprint what Putin says, as if it was something to take seriously. Without explaining to the readers that Putin is trying to manipulate them. -- They're sometimes letting themselves be a megaphone he can use, I think.
Would-be tyrant -- I'm guessing you have in mind the president in the US who didn't want to leave, after having lost the elections? (Could have made him a dictator at least, eventually, if he had succeeded. A tyrant? Hmm it means "a cruel and oppressive ruler" -- so yes, then, I'd guess it would have turned out that way. Cliffhanger ... soon 2024.) Or am I'm bad at guessing :-)
> It probably won't happen because the West doesn't like to see itself as being involved in the war (in a way similar to what Russia thinks about itself)
Ridiculous equivalency. Your boogeyman "the West" didn't attack Russia and doesn't have troops in Russia.
Running the blockade doesn't necessarily require Russian cooperation in advance. All that's required is a minesweeper, and some commanders and captains with giant balls.
Run some ships under a NATO flag to Odessa, fill them up and run them back. Russia will bluster and threaten, but I doubt they'll actually do anything. Russia is not in a strong enough position to be able to escalate. I'm not anywhere close to sure of that, Putin is definitely not completely rational. I do think it's a risk worth taking.
If they can ship the food to Odessa (presumably by truck or train), it seems like they would be able to ship it to a port in a non-blockaded foreign country instead (e.g. Turkey, Greece, Italy, Poland).
It'd take a lot of trucks and train cars to move one ship's worth of grain. Consider that highways, train lines, and ports don't necessarily have a ton of extra capacity available, for reasons of economy, that upgrading those takes time, and can be hard to finance if the situation is perceived to be temporary (so, may take significant government intervention to make it happen).
Plus, you go to all the effort and expense of doing that, then Russia hits a few important bridges on the Ukraine side of your routes, and now you're back to nearly-zero capacity.
Russia has already struck the Zatoka bridge south/west of Odessa, the best/shortest route from Odessa to Danube river and Black Sea ports in Romania.
Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase. (correction thanks to the commenter below - gauge, not wheelbase)
Russia has already stolen about 500 000 tons of wheat from Ukraine and delivered it to Assad, its ally in Syria. Russia runs very intensive propaganda campaign representing European help to Ukraine wrt. wheat export as basically Europe stealing the wheat. Its propaganda also celebrates the food prices rising in the "collective West" countries as supposed result of the sanctions, and Russia will do anything to stimulate the rise of the prices in order to foment public push against the sanctions.
> Most of the trains in Ukraine is electric-pulled. Russia has already struck most of the railway power transforming stations. Ukraine has very limited number of diesel trains. It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase.
Ok top of that, there is a gauge change when crossing over from Ukraine to the west and the infrastructure towards the west is hardly at the level required. For example, train crossings from Poland to Germany are not all electrified, so you need another change of engine.
dreamcompiler wrote: “Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference.”
There is no gauge difference between Russia and Ukraine.
In fact, even some (small) parts of Polish railways use Russian gauge - remnant of the times when Soviet raw materials were delivered in bulk to Polish metallurgic plants.
Side note: This gauge difference worked in Ukraine's favor in one respect. Russia's military logistics infrastructure is heavily train-based, but Russia's trains had to stop at the Ukrainian border because of the gauge difference. This meant they had to switch to trucks which are old and unreliable and they got bogged down in mud, which meant they had to stick to roads where they were easy for the Ukrainians to attack. And those transshipment points where the Russians had to unload all their cargo from trains and reload it onto trucks also became fat juicy targets.
Yet another example where Russia didn't think carefully enough before invading.
I read an article early in the war that specifically stated the opposite, but apparently it was wrong and now of course I can't find it. You're correct.
> It can't use European ones because of different wheelbase.
Just a quick point of clarification for anyone trying to look this up. The correct term is "gauge" (distance between the rails) instead of "wheelbase" (distance between front and rear wheels). Most European countries use tracks with a gauge of 1,435mm but Ukraine uses 1,520mm.
yep, as long as you're "good" according to Russia&Assad. Russia is weaponizing the food the way it has weaponized natural gas and oil. In some sense that is a weapon of mass destruction posed to be used in the next few years with casualties going into millions or even tens of millions ballpark if one to look at various predictions of the food price rises and shortages in the next few years.
>It means general population of the country would be fed.
Nothing indicates that. If anything, what we know about Russia and Assad allows to reasonably suspect that it is only pro-Assad regions will be fed while others will be subjected to the rising prices and shortages.
>Looks like win-win to me
That win for Russia, Assad and pro-Assad population comes at the cost of increased prices and shortages for the Middle East and Africa at least (the regions which directly imported from Ukraine), as well as rising prices across the world - all that being the direct result of the Russian war hitting availability of tens of million tons of Ukraine produced food. I.e. there were 2 alternatives - 1) tens of millions tons of Ukraine produced food would normally be available to the whole world vs. 2) Russia delivers only 500K tons to its Syrian allies. As we see Russia used military force to enforce the alternative 2).
><skipping crap about food as a weapon>
Food isn't the weapon. Using military force to intentionally create food unavailability is the weapon.
It seems like you intentionally missing the point that Russia is using its military force in Ukraine to :
1. limit the availability of the Ukraine produced food on the international market
2. put as much as possible of what is produced by Ukraine under Russian control
and thus to allow Russia to create food unavailability at will at the place and time of its choosing.
Btw, interesting parallel with Nazi Germany - it wanted to grab those fertile lands for itself and to clean them of Slavic people, and Russia similarly wants those lands for itself and to clean them of Ukrainians (and Russia has been actually succeeding at that more than Germany back then as Russia has already forced more than 12 million Ukrainians out of those lands).
It's a non-issue. The US alone can produce enough to supply the world, but we pay farmers to let fields fallow to keep prices up. Africa is full of fertile land and could be feeding the world, if we weren't actively destabilizing countries. Canada produces millions of tons, and looks like they are also growing extra.
Right? Check that one off the list (if this actually happened ... Russia cant get anything done right anymore so I dont see that grain making it anywhere).
But also, a lot of the food has been destroyed, a lot of the equipment has been destroyed in the chain of producing and delivering the food, and a lot of the people that work in that chain have been killed, displaced, or have had more pressing tasks than working in agriculture. Those problems aren't likely to be solved immediately even if new export routes are opened.
I really don’t think the USA can afford to let Ukraine fail. They are basically committed to destroying the Russian economy now, and having them lose the war in Ukraine is an important part in that.
If Russia is able to defeat Ukraine, end the war and stabilise the situation, they will be in a better position to convince countries to work around the sanctions they are facing, which would amount to an end-run around the dominanc e of the US dollar.
So this is accurate in my opinion, but you're essentially saying the quiet part out loud. You're saying the war has nothing to do with saving Ukraine, but rather protecting the hegemony of the US dollar.
I suspect if everybody understood that's what we're really concerned with, support for Ukraine would drop precipitously.
I was not suggesting the opposite, by any means. But I am not sure I agree with your statement either. I won’t even get into hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business dealings and I agree the blame is technically all on Putin, who is an evil madman, maybe even literally going insane from cancer or paranoia or something.
But flooding Ukraine with cash and weapons, with zero oversight or public debate should concern people. It all seems a bit poorly managed, something that most intelligent people now agree is the overarching theme of the current administration. Dropping buckets of cash aid and weapons — 20 billion here, 40 billion there — will probably do more than intended. It usually does. We love regime changing the world, spreading American style peace and democracy, typically with an unwarranted optimism about the outcome. Let’s hope things go better this time.
The trouble is that it is pretty damn tough to pivot from corn to some crop meant for direct human consumption. The machinery and infrastructure we have in place to grow, transport, and process corn is almost unimaginable in size.
A pivot like this would require incredible gov't subsidies and take decades.
Also, my family is from the north of Argentina, so during the holidays there during one or two weeks fresh corn was very cheap. So we ate sweet humita and spicy humita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humita, sweet corn pie and spicy corn pie, also whole fresh corns, and other stuff. We joked that we ate some dish with corn for lunch and some dish with corn for dinner for a week.
In fact reducing corn yields and switching to a different crop will save farmers
money as framers have to over supply fertilizer as they are planting corn too close together to get yields without using fertilizer i.e. corn take out more from soil than it gives back
100% on the cows, wrong on hard to grow. Growing in mass quantities is hard on the local environment (global if you count the affects from usage). Corn fed beef is bad.
Surely, we must know how to do this. I mean, we know how grass-eating ruminants break down the cellulose to obtain energy with various enzymes and whatnot. We could probably invent some kind of exo-stomach to pre-digest grass into an edible state. :)
Starch and cellulose are both glucose polymers. The only difference is the way in which the glucose units are attached to one another. Existing enzymes can only cleave one or the other. Ruminants don't actually have the necessary enzyme, but instead rely on bacteria in their stomach to do this for them.
I guess if you really wanted to, you could take cellulase in the way that people can take lactase to mitigate the effects of lactose intolerance.
How you'd actually get your stomach to brew that up into anything useful in time is anyone's guess, and what it would do to the rest of you is an exercise for the keen experimenter.
We are basically too active and too large to eat grass, even if we had lactase.
1. Stop using so much corn to make ethanol.
2. Stop using so much seed oil to make biodiesel.
3. Stop feeding so much food to livestock. Bonus: reducing the livestock population provides short term calories!
4. Break the Black Sea blockade.