Comments by "What I\x27ve Learned" (@WhatIveLearned) on "Vox"
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How many of you are familiar with these concepts?
Marginal Land vs. Arable Land
Many people ask why not use the land to grow food for humans?" Because you can't.
-Around 30% of land on the earth is agricultural land (useable for the purpose of making food, the rest is junk).
-Take 66% of that 30% of land. That is "marginal land."
- Marginal land is not suitable for growing crops due to soil quality or not enough water etc. So what can you do with it?
-You can have cows graze on the cellulose on this land (again, this land is not suitable for growing edible crops), and turn that cellulose into protein and various nutrients humans need.
Ruminant Upcycling
-33% of that agricultural land mentioned above can be used for crops. (Nice.) This is called "arable land."
-Though, for every 100lbs of human food produced from crops on this land, roughly 37 lbs of inedible plant byproduct is produced.
-Cows can eat this inedible plant matter and turn it into protein.
-Worthless cellulose + Cow = Human Food
Biogenic Carbon Cycle in a nutshell:
-Methane has stronger warming potential than CO2 so cow burp is bad, right? Well...
-Plants capture carbon from the atmosphere via photosynthesis
-Cows eat the plant, take the carbon.
-Cows burp out the carbon in the form of methane (remember methane is CH4 - Carbon, 4 Hydrogens)
-12 yeas later, Methane is broken down back into carbon dioxide via hydroxyl oxidation.
*These carbon molecules are the same molecules that were in the plant the Cow ate. It's a natural cycle.
(By the way, the carbon dioxide added to the environment by burning fossil fuels (not part of any life cycle) stays in the atmosphere for 200 〜 1000 years)
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