Preface. According to a recent paper in Nature Sustainability (Williams et al 2020), we are on the verge of destroying 11% of earth’s remaining ecosystems by 2050 to grow more food. We already are using 75% of Earth’s land. What a species! Reminds me of the ecology phrase “Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?”

But I have several criticisms of this research.

Proposed remedies include increasing crop yields, but we are at peak food, so that isn’t going to happen. We are also at peak pesticides, as we are running out of new toxic chemicals and pests adapt within five years on average. The second idea is to have homo sapiens stop eating meat and adopt a plant-based diet.  As long as meat is available and affordable, that simply won’t happen.  The third way is to cut food waste or loss.  That would require all of us to live in dire poverty given human nature, and then we’d all chop away at the remaining wild lands to grow more food. And finally, the 4^th solution would be to export food to the nations that are going to destroy the most creatures and forests.  Which in turn would lead to expanding populations in these regions. Malthus was right about food being the only limitation on population. And it would be difficult to export food when there are 83 million more mouths to feed every year globally. 

This research article doesn’t even mention family planning and birth control as a solution.

Or point out the huge increase in greenhouse gases that would be emitted. From “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy”:  The idea that biofuels generate less CO₂ than gasoline stems from the fact that biofuels are derived from plants that absorb carbon dioxide.  But land typically supports plant growth regardless of whether it’s being used to grow corn or not. Corn grown for ethanol for use in gasoline has a net benefit of storing around three tons of carbon dioxide per hectare.  But if the land had not been used for ethanol, we’d be better off.  If reforested, then 7.5-12 tons of CO₂ would be stored per hectare.  A corn ethanol field, formerly a forest, will emit 12 to 35 tons of CO₂ per hectare a year for 30 years (NRC 2014).  By contrast, a wetland stores 81-216 tons of carbon per acre (TCF 2020). In sum, corn doesn’t sequester carbon, but recycles it at best, releasing CO₂ when made into ethanol, and absorbing CO₂ in the next corn crop. Every year when land is tilled or cleared to grow crops, greenhouse gases are emitted from the soil. A carbon storehouse, soil stores 4.5 times more carbon than vegetation (Lal 2004).  Agriculture emits 30% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com Women in ecology  author of 2021 Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy best price here; 2015 When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Podcasts: Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity

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Williams DR, Clark M, Buchanan GM, et al (2020) Proactive conservation to prevent habitat losses to agricultural expansion. Nature Sustainability.

If current trends continue, land clearing for agriculture will eat away at the habitats of nearly 90% of land animals by 2050. Humans have already appropriated over 75% of Earth’s lands for farms, ranches, cities and other endeavors, leaving just 11.6 of the planet’s 57.3 million square miles of land to house the wealth of global biodiversity (Watson et al. 2016).  Humans are likely to convert 1.3 million square miles of the remaining 11.6 million square miles of ecosystems to agriculture by 2050. Williams et al (2020) estimate that the conversion to cropland will further shrink the habitats of more than 17,000 species of land vertebrates, mainly in sub-Saharan Africa as well as South and Southeast Asia.

References

Watson JEM, Shanahan DF, Di Marco M, et al (2016) Catastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets. Current Biology 26: 2929-2934.