Peak Meat as One of Many Reactions to Peak Oil
I am an optimist. I have to be to work in global public health. If I were wasting all my time being pessimistic about the future then I would have zero energy and enthusiasm left to work towards making a safer and healthier world for those that come after me.
Therefore, when I read @Procrastilearner's great post on the perils peak oil this morning it got me thinking about how humanity will inevitably overcome this problem.
This (below) is one of my favourite graphs at the moment (there is constant, fierce competition for my favourite graph at any one time in my life. This one has stayed solid in my top five since I first came across it around a year ago). It shows the percentages of the world’s land that is habitable, the percentage of the habitable land that is used for agriculture, the percentage of the agricultural land that is used for livestock and then what percentage of calories and protein are gained through the consumption of the agricultural land products.
In short, 77% of the world’s agricultural land is currently used to supply just 17% of the global food calories and 33% of the world’s protein through meat and animal products.
According to Our World in Data:
“the 11 million square kilometres used for crops supply more calories and protein for the global population that the almost 4-times larger area used for livestock”
This level of food production currently sustains 7.5 billion of us. Even though some of use don't have access to enough, and some of us perhaps has access to too much right now, it is without doubt the best time in history to be a human that enjoys being nutritionally sustained.
Side note: I was a little shocked to see Saudi Arabia as having an obesity rate on par with the US. Not sure how that fits in with what @Procrastilearner mentions about Saudi Arabia but interesting none the less
Market forces are an incredibly effective driver of behaviour change. As we continue past peak oil we would likely see the price of oil increase and have a knock on effect in food prices. With a high meat-based diet becoming more expensive and plant-based alternatives (which are very quickly becoming just as good) becoming relatively cheap. Such a squeeze will shift the lines on the food production graph allowing more food to be produced on the same land for less oil.
You can therefore imagine a similar graph to peak oil being drawn for peak meat, with consumption increasing in a country until it is no longer economical to consume and then declining. In fact something similar, although perhaps untethered to cost, already appears to be occurring in some countries.
Peak meat is something I’m looking forward to but it’s going to be painful. In high income countries meat eating has somehow becoming mixed up with masculine identity and in poor and middle income countries meat eating is an aspiration that I find hypocritical for us in western countries to deny them. A global meat consumption level similar to the US or the UK simply is not sustainable with our current agricultural methods so my best beat would be that each country will pass through a process similar to the epidemiological transition model but for meat consumption, whereby as a country becomes richer it consumes more meat until it gets to a point at which it becomes unsustainable and begins to drop and is replaced by alternatives.
Obviously, just as with every story our world tells us through data, many other factors go into meat consumption behaviour (e.g. health education, awareness of animal welfare in factory farming). Cost however, in my mind at least, is going to be the big push that will happen in the coming century and a cheap, quality, ethical alternative at that point will be a no brainer.
The peak meat adaptation to peak oil is just one of many possible reactions to the constraints that less oil may have on the world (the most obvious one is likely the further demand for innovations in alternative energy production), and one personally that I welcome. In fact, I’m coming around to the opinion that the discovery of more oil may in fact slow down the much needed progress at this point in time.
With issues such as this, I often think back to Asimov’s Foundation series (which, @Procrastilearner, I have a sneaking suspicion you’ve read given your past posting history. If not, give them a go, they are right up your street), in which an abundance of resources ultimately leads to an inefficient, wasteful and stagnant society. It’s only when the foundation starts to rebuild with less that progress is made.
I think that sometimes it’s difficult to think in terms of the future doing just fine without us. I’ve been working with undergraduate for the last 6 years now and can feel my generation starting to be replaced. This has left me with more optimism than ever before, but I don’t think that’s the same feeling others my age have. This next generation really has got a handle on the challanges that await them, my plan is to fight for the next 30 years and then pass the baton on, stand back and watch them take the world forward in ways that I never could.
If you haven’t already done so, subscribe to @Procrastilearner and up vote his latest post, which I feel is currently criminally undervalued. And if you'd like, please continue the discussion in the comments or with your own post response
About me:
My name is Richard, I blog under the name of @nonzerosum. I’m a PhD student at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. I write mostly on Global Health, Effective Altruism and The Psychology of Vaccine Hesitancy. If you’d like to read more on these topics in the future follow me here on steemit or on twitter @RichClarkePsy.
Sources:
Our World in Data: Yields and land use in agriculture
Our World in Data: Hunger and undernourishment
Our World in Data: Obesity
Reuters: China's pork demand hits a peak, shocking producers, as diets get healthier
indeed we often encounter now full-calorie foods, I like the nature of your optimism, continue to struggle, I support your hard work, the spirit continues.
Hey, thanks for your kind words! 😀
same as my brother continue to work yes😉😉😊😊😆😄😄
The odd thing, at least in the US, is that it is currently much cheaper to get meat-based foods and junk food than to get decent vegetarian food. I suspect this is more about the lack of demand for good vegetarian dishes when dining out. In contrast, it is possible to cook vegetarian at home for less than meat-based dishes, but in my experience of several years of cooking vegetarian meals, the better meals take a lot of prep time. In addition, even if you are selective at buying organic vegetables, the price is high, because they are highly perishable.
Yes, I'd go with your assesment here. Public adoption of something like the impossible burger that you guys can get at white castle is likely whats needed before things really start moving. I wrote a long post over on my previous non-steemit blog a while back on how to eat less meat which I want to adapt for here some point soon, as I really think its a topic that needs to be talked about in in a more practical way.
It is nice to see options like the impossible burger coming out here in the US. It is VERY difficult to find decent vegetarian food here when eating out, especially when going to major restaurants. One exception to this is Yard House which offers a complete section of food containing Gardein meat substitutes; however, I personally prefer what I might call "true" vegetarian food, by which I mean food that is not using such substitutes. Indian, Mediterranean, and many other cultures offer this type of food. BTW, I tried an impossible burger a few months ago. It was ok, but real meat-based burgers are better as are really good veggie burgers (not the Boca, Morningstar farms frozen ones).
Excellent article. Re-steemed for additional visibility for your blog. I think my post on peak oil may have strayed a little to the pessimistic side. My bad.
The data that you provided about meat production vs crop production is extremely encouraging. I did not know about that, thanks for letting us know about this.
So, it looks like market forces will likely transition us all to a plant based diet and this could mitigate any apocalypse of the four horsemen type scenario.
... and yes I have read Asimov's Foundation series although I am more of a Frank Herbert Dune series man myself (I also pretend the Bryan Herbert books do not exist).
Hey cool, thanks! Was not my intention, just thought it would be an intresting topic to talk about today.
Or i've been naive and over optimistic
Ah I see, that makes sence. All I know of dune is the david lynch film, that fear is the mind killer and that Spice seems to have the same market value as saffron, stupid ingredient, I dont know why I keep cooking recipies with it in.