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Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousan

Maybe vertical farms are a crock but at least people are starting to realize that local food production is a better idea than shipping factory farm food thousands of miles. Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history. We waste hydrocarbons in a criminal fashion and our ancestors will absolutely hate our guts for it. Why should we burn up billions of years of oil inside of ~200 years just so that we can eat strawberries in NYC during winter? It is INSANE. The decision-making process we use is only what will make money in the short term. The issue of cost externalization by companies is well documented by economists. Just because it appears "cheap" to use factory farm methods, N-P-K based fertilizers, etc., doesn't mean the long term effects already showing up are not going to severely impact the food chain inside of our lifetimes. Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert. We should start creating food forests, this is a very promising sustainable way to feed people and all of the unemployment we experience can be solved by transitioning a larger % of our population to food production as a job, just like our grandparents used to do it. The desertification caused by agriculture and our increasingly desperate use of technology to cover up the fundamental flaws in how we feed ourselves is increasing rapidly. The water table in many places around the planet is being depleted faster than it can restore itself. These issues are NOT going away and they are far more important than coupons for cupcakes and the like.

mattmcknight 16y ago
The local food movement is quite silly. http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ 99% of human history pretty much sucked. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.html http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.h...
- chadmalik 16y ago
  Saying "it sucked" doesn't address ANY of the points I made. Wake me up when you can make a serious rebuttal.
  - shasta 16y ago
    I think your comment was reasonable, but the point of the "silly locovore" link above is that insisting on locally grown food isn't the way fossil fuel conservation should be implemented, as locally grown does not imply fuel efficient. Rather, the nonlocal food market is a symptom of low fuel prices. But if fuel prices were $20 or $50 per gallon, as you'd probably like it, that would really hit the economy hard. If it turns out that by the time we run out of fossil fuels we have bootstrapped our way to some other reasonable forms of renewable energy, then arguably our resource allocation will have been pretty optimal. Cross your fingers!
VladRussian 16y ago
"Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history." And while chewing nobody has been peering into computer screen reading nonsense comments on HN.
chadmalik 16y ago
I'm seriously tired of getting downvoted for good comments. Later hackernews, have fun with your circlejerk.
- sshumaker 16y ago
  Because your comments about local food are clearly written without a basic understanding of the breakdown of energy use. Freight shipping uses about 1 gallon of gas/ton/500 miles. Over 80% of the costs are in the final few miles - trucking from the shipping depot to the markets. Getting food locally delivered is far less energy efficient than having it shipped in bulk by freight to supermarkets.
  - chadmalik 16y ago
    No, it is because the moderation policies on this site are absurd and comments saying "it sucks" get modded up while a reasonable comment gets modded down. Bottom line the world is running out of hydrocarbons. Things that look "energy efficient" to you today won't look so efficient in 50 or so years. Peak oil already happened in the United States, Hubert's peak is reasonably well accepted, and the idea that shipping food thousands of miles is a long term sustainable strategy for feeding humanity or that the entire world can live like the people in Silicon Valley and New York City is laughable. That is my last comment on HN - mods, please prove my point by voting it down.
    - nitrogen 16y ago
      There's not some crowd of elite "mods" voting you down, it's anybody who's reached a certain karma threshold (probably ~200). Sometimes rational comments will be downvoted right away by a few early and angry jerks, but the scores will later be corrected by upvoters. But, since that was your last comment, I suppose it is pointless to reply. Some on-topic points: 1. Energy efficiency in terms of joules per kilogram per kilometer is a constant, regardless of the actual dollar cost of the fuel. 2. 50 years is a very long time to come up with the technology to replace fossil fuels, hopefully with cheap fission and eventually fusion. 3. Modern civilization thrives on being able to disregard geographic barriers. We could never have a global society if transportation of physical goods became impossible. So, since we (as a society) won't accept the defeat of modern civilization, we will simply find another way to continue to exist. If that means replacing fossil fuels, then it will happen.
dalke 16y ago
"Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert." It was a desert before as well. The Sumerians used irrigation to be able to turn dry but fertile soil into farmland. This requires a lot of hard work, ingenuity, and collaboration, which might be why civilization started there. It's relatively flat, with a hard subsurface, which makes salt buildup a problem, making farming there rather more fragile. If what you are saying is true, then why is there still farming after thousands of years along the Nile and Indus river valleys? In any case, what do you suggest the people of L.A. do? They grow a lot of their food locally, in the Central Valley, but that water is pumped from across the state and the Valley has the same problems as the Fertile Crescent. Should they grow the food in their backyards (more locally), and if so, will there be separate water systems for crops, because it needs less water treatment than humans need? Or should some large fraction of the population move, and if so, where? Since food forests aren't going to grow well enough in LA to feed its own population, at least, not without non-local water. Personally, I would rather pay people to grow my food for me while I get to sit on my porch and enjoy reading and commenting on HN.

mattmcknight 16y ago

The local food movement is quite silly. http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ http://www.thebigquestions.com/2010/08/23/loco-vores/ 99% of human history pretty much sucked. http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.html http://cafehayek.typepad.com/hayek/2008/06/the-real-life-o.h...

chadmalik 16y ago
Saying "it sucked" doesn't address ANY of the points I made. Wake me up when you can make a serious rebuttal.
- shasta 16y ago
  I think your comment was reasonable, but the point of the "silly locovore" link above is that insisting on locally grown food isn't the way fossil fuel conservation should be implemented, as locally grown does not imply fuel efficient. Rather, the nonlocal food market is a symptom of low fuel prices. But if fuel prices were $20 or $50 per gallon, as you'd probably like it, that would really hit the economy hard. If it turns out that by the time we run out of fossil fuels we have bootstrapped our way to some other reasonable forms of renewable energy, then arguably our resource allocation will have been pretty optimal. Cross your fingers!

VladRussian 16y ago

"Eating local, seasonal food is how it has been done for 99.99% of human history." And while chewing nobody has been peering into computer screen reading nonsense comments on HN.

chadmalik 16y ago

I'm seriously tired of getting downvoted for good comments. Later hackernews, have fun with your circlejerk.

sshumaker 16y ago
Because your comments about local food are clearly written without a basic understanding of the breakdown of energy use. Freight shipping uses about 1 gallon of gas/ton/500 miles. Over 80% of the costs are in the final few miles - trucking from the shipping depot to the markets. Getting food locally delivered is far less energy efficient than having it shipped in bulk by freight to supermarkets.
- chadmalik 16y ago
  No, it is because the moderation policies on this site are absurd and comments saying "it sucks" get modded up while a reasonable comment gets modded down. Bottom line the world is running out of hydrocarbons. Things that look "energy efficient" to you today won't look so efficient in 50 or so years. Peak oil already happened in the United States, Hubert's peak is reasonably well accepted, and the idea that shipping food thousands of miles is a long term sustainable strategy for feeding humanity or that the entire world can live like the people in Silicon Valley and New York City is laughable. That is my last comment on HN - mods, please prove my point by voting it down.
  - nitrogen 16y ago
    There's not some crowd of elite "mods" voting you down, it's anybody who's reached a certain karma threshold (probably ~200). Sometimes rational comments will be downvoted right away by a few early and angry jerks, but the scores will later be corrected by upvoters. But, since that was your last comment, I suppose it is pointless to reply. Some on-topic points: 1. Energy efficiency in terms of joules per kilogram per kilometer is a constant, regardless of the actual dollar cost of the fuel. 2. 50 years is a very long time to come up with the technology to replace fossil fuels, hopefully with cheap fission and eventually fusion. 3. Modern civilization thrives on being able to disregard geographic barriers. We could never have a global society if transportation of physical goods became impossible. So, since we (as a society) won't accept the defeat of modern civilization, we will simply find another way to continue to exist. If that means replacing fossil fuels, then it will happen.

dalke 16y ago

"Ultimately though agriculture itself is a non-sustainable process. That is why the fertile crescent, cradle of civilization, is now a desert." It was a desert before as well. The Sumerians used irrigation to be able to turn dry but fertile soil into farmland. This requires a lot of hard work, ingenuity, and collaboration, which might be why civilization started there. It's relatively flat, with a hard subsurface, which makes salt buildup a problem, making farming there rather more fragile. If what you are saying is true, then why is there still farming after thousands of years along the Nile and Indus river valleys? In any case, what do you suggest the people of L.A. do? They grow a lot of their food locally, in the Central Valley, but that water is pumped from across the state and the Valley has the same problems as the Fertile Crescent. Should they grow the food in their backyards (more locally), and if so, will there be separate water systems for crops, because it needs less water treatment than humans need? Or should some large fraction of the population move, and if so, where? Since food forests aren't going to grow well enough in LA to feed its own population, at least, not without non-local water. Personally, I would rather pay people to grow my food for me while I get to sit on my porch and enjoy reading and commenting on HN.