Fixing potatoes and Rice? (environmental impact)

[ModVegan]

I love Orzo, but I'm still skeptical about how bad really is. Brimstone Salad mentioned impact per calorie, and since rice provides 50% of the world's calories, it isn't an overwhelming amount when you consider how much of our food it provides.

NASA has an article on rice and methane emissions that I thought was interesting: http://icp.giss.nasa.gov/education/methane/intro/cycle.html

You'll notice that Wetlands provide 22% of the world's methane emissions, and this isn't from environmental degradation or anything - that's what they produce naturally. Rice is grown in more or less natural wetland areas, so the likelihood is that anything that grows in these areas would produce methane. And since destroying wetlands has other negative effects, we can't just get rid of wetlands.

My two cents is that we obviously are over-dependent on rice as a staple, and it wouldn't hurt to mix other things in. But I remain on the fence for now as to whether it's a serious threat to the environment.

[miniboes]

Do you think it's likely that we'll be able to genetically modify rice to reduce/remove the methane emissions (if environmentalists don't get in the way too much)?

[brimstoneSalad]

Do you think it's likely that we'll be able to genetically modify rice to reduce/remove the methane emissions (if environmentalists don't get in the way too much)?

As I understand, it has already been done: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/12/02/gmo-rice-dramatically-reduces-farm-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
It just needs to make it to market.

I love Orzo, but I'm still skeptical about how bad really is. Brimstone Salad mentioned impact per calorie, and since rice provides 50% of the world's calories, it isn't an overwhelming amount when you consider how much of our food it provides.

There have been attempts to quantify the effect per calorie relative to other foods, though.

I don't trust this graph (some of the numbers are obviously wrong to me), but it's an example of the kind of arguments being made.

animal ethics graph.png

(discussed in this thread: http://philosophicalvegan.com/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=1185 )

It shows rice as 24 kg CO2 equivalent, chicken as 29 kg, and potatoes as 33 kg per 10,000 food calories.

If true, this makes the idea of switching from chicken to more potatoes as a source of calories a serious problem for the environment.
Again, I think it's a bad graph, and the maker screwed up the numbers somewhere, but these are the types of arguments we have to engage with.

You'll notice that Wetlands provide 22% of the world's methane emissions, and this isn't from environmental degradation or anything - that's what they produce naturally. Rice is grown in more or less natural wetland areas, so the likelihood is that anything that grows in these areas would produce methane.

I'm not sure how much of rice is grown in natural wetlands, as I understand it the vast majority of rice is upland or irrigated rice that converts dry soil into wetlands through leveling it and building walls to hold in rain and irrigation water which would otherwise drain off and join rivers and lakes.
This is the first hit I found that gave rough percentages, although it's some kind of rice education site for kids:
http://www.riceromp.com/teachers/lessonContent.cfm?pId=2

60% upland and 40% irrigated doesn't leave much of a margin for natural wetlands (if accurate).

But apparently the methane output is higher than other wetland farming operations when they're converted:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26374545

Rice cultivation just produces an optimal environment for methane production.

I think the combination of the higher environmental cost per calorie (even if that chart is very wrong, it's still much more of a burden than other options), and the low nutritional value compared to other grains (aside from corn) make it a generally good idea to minimize rice where we can easily do so.
Potatoes are a bit more nutritious, but may be even more costly to the environment due to current storage practices.

I'm all for the GMO rice that cuts emissions, and once that starts to be planted on a large scale I think most of the argument against that rice (as long as we avoid organic/non-GMO rice) will go away.
I don't know how to fix potatoes though.

And since destroying wetlands has other negative effects, we can't just get rid of wetlands.

I understand the species preservation argument is there (although isn't it an appeal to nature fallacy to value species for their own sake?), and certain wetlands help process water to clean it, but I'm not sure that they all have such a positive effect compared to the alternatives.
What would happen if wetlands were removed, aside from species extinction? Dirty water flowing directly into the ocean? What's the effect of that on global warming? I don't know. It might be better or worse.

[miniboes]

Do you think it's likely that we'll be able to genetically modify rice to reduce/remove the methane emissions (if environmentalists don't get in the way too much)?

As I understand, it has already been done: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/12/02/gmo-rice-dramatically-reduces-farm-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
It just needs to make it to market.

Just one more reason why any environmentalist opposing GMO is absolutely silly.

PS, I found out the Dutch Green party opposes not only nuclear, but GMO too, so they are definitely disqualified from getting my vote in 3 months.

[ModVegan]

Do you think it's likely that we'll be able to genetically modify rice to reduce/remove the methane emissions (if environmentalists don't get in the way too much)?

As I understand, it has already been done: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/12/02/gmo-rice-dramatically-reduces-farm-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
It just needs to make it to market.

Just one more reason why any environmentalist opposing GMO is absolutely silly.

PS, I found out the Dutch Green party opposes not only nuclear, but GMO too, so they are definitely disqualified from getting my vote in 3 months.

The Green Parties of the world all seem to be violently opposed to science. They accept that humans impact climate change, and that's about it. I find politics very annoying in general, because it seems like most of the more liberal parties are generally big fans of any naturalistic fallacy that comes their way.

[miniboes]

As I understand, it has already been done: https://www.geneticliteracyproject.org/2015/12/02/gmo-rice-dramatically-reduces-farm-greenhouse-gas-emissions/
It just needs to make it to market.

Just one more reason why any environmentalist opposing GMO is absolutely silly.

PS, I found out the Dutch Green party opposes not only nuclear, but GMO too, so they are definitely disqualified from getting my vote in 3 months.

The Green Parties of the world all seem to be violently opposed to science. They accept that humans impact climate change, and that's about it. I find politics very annoying in general, because it seems like most of the more liberal parties are generally big fans of any naturalistic fallacy that comes their way.

I agree. We've reached an age where the intent of a party is all that matters to voters, and whether or not the party actually has the right policies to reach its ideals is a side note. Any compromising to actually accomplish something in an arena with many different views is seen as weakness and dishonesty. I'm in the somewhat unfortunate position of loving policy but resenting politics.

[ModVegan]

I agree. We've reached an age where the intent of a party is all that matters to voters, and whether or not the party actually has the right policies to reach its ideals is a side note. Any compromising to actually accomplish something in an arena with many different views is seen as weakness and dishonesty. I'm in the somewhat unfortunate position of loving policy but resenting politics.

So true! You're a "flip-flopper" if you're open to reason. Policy is definitely a lot more interesting than politics.