To be fair almonds, soy and a lot of stuff that we grow is AWFUL for the environment. One of the largest driving forces behind ramping up production of those plants is also veganism. Or more accurately the demand for vegan alternatives.
A lot of the key plants are some of the worse monocrops we have in terms of water use and environmental damage.
The rise of vegan alternative demand has at this point actually made it so that vegan diets are technically worse then a normal one for the environment.
A lot of those plants are also starting to cause huge problems with natural habitats all over the place. Which is rather funny when you consider that one of the main talking points vegans like to bring out is meat is murder. But the rise in inefficient monocropping has killed more animals and habitats then cattle has now.
Its just a massive cluster fuck. Monocropping is killing our land and using our drinking water. Meat is killing our land and using our drinking water. Data center is kill our land and using our drinking water.
Everything is just being scaled to infinitely no thought to actually preventing harm. All of it slowly killing everything around it till there's nothing left.
Its great! Every time a vegan tries to yell at me about eating a nice stake and how I'm killing animals. I just get to point out their diet is murdering natural pollinators all over the place killing habitats and has caused the death of more woodland, creatures, plants, insects and other things than I could ever hope to kill by just eating a nice juicy steak.
The almond industry is also unfathomably lethal to bees. If you care about bees, eat honey, not almonds—honey producers need their bees alive and well, while almond growers merrily slaughter them by the billions to force off season crops into existence.
Mono cropping in general has killed so many insects. It's truly absurd. The knock-on effects and damage to the habitats around farms is wild because of it. Unironically plants are murder.
The majority of the plants we grow are fed to animals first which reduces the calories by over 8x. So if anyone wants to reduce their “plant murder” that’s a good place to start.
Ironically the same bees OP is lamenting about are the reason so many pollinators have died off.
Honey bees are aggressive foragers, and it's really a shame we rely on monocrops because it means we also rely on the same honey bees that are killing all our native bees and pollinators.
Maybe it is, but the US is only mentioned in passing. The whole tirade about honeybees being an invasive species, however, is a very frequent occurrence on reddit as well as lemmy, where everyone seems to assume that everyone lives in North America.
Ehm... isnt that water directly ingested by either cows or men? The problem with wasting water is ruinning water that could be used by consumption. Maybe im missing something, but this sounds like a futile argument.
Unless they use salt water they draw from the same supply of groundwater or surface water as drinking water.
Drinking water is usually surface water or groundwater pumped from a lake/river or a drilled hole in the ground passed through a filter, an UV light to kill bacteria, and possibly some chemicals added to get the correct pH.
The limiting factor for how much drinking water you can make is how much you can pump out of the ground/lake before it dries up.
You don't know much about irrigation or farming do you? I don't know about the US but here in the EU, at least where I live, there is like a 2 magnitude difference between pumping water from a channel versus buying tap water.
Its like ploting the number of people buying food at a fast food joint and a Michelin star restaurant. While both serv food it's weird and misleading to compare it...
And why do you mention salt water? How is that a factor? Neither uses salt water.
41 Comments
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world · 27 pts · 91d
I just googled if almonds or ai was worse for the environment and google ai said almonds are bad.
unitedwithme@lemmy.today · 36 pts · 91d
Gemini currently answering that question
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · -34 pts · 91d
To be fair almonds, soy and a lot of stuff that we grow is AWFUL for the environment. One of the largest driving forces behind ramping up production of those plants is also veganism. Or more accurately the demand for vegan alternatives.
A lot of the key plants are some of the worse monocrops we have in terms of water use and environmental damage.
The rise of vegan alternative demand has at this point actually made it so that vegan diets are technically worse then a normal one for the environment.
A lot of those plants are also starting to cause huge problems with natural habitats all over the place. Which is rather funny when you consider that one of the main talking points vegans like to bring out is meat is murder. But the rise in inefficient monocropping has killed more animals and habitats then cattle has now.
Its just a massive cluster fuck. Monocropping is killing our land and using our drinking water. Meat is killing our land and using our drinking water. Data center is kill our land and using our drinking water.
Everything is just being scaled to infinitely no thought to actually preventing harm. All of it slowly killing everything around it till there's nothing left.
Its great! Every time a vegan tries to yell at me about eating a nice stake and how I'm killing animals. I just get to point out their diet is murdering natural pollinators all over the place killing habitats and has caused the death of more woodland, creatures, plants, insects and other things than I could ever hope to kill by just eating a nice juicy steak.
Really makes them mad
Squirrelsdrivemenuts@lemmy.world · 34 pts · 91d
Most monocrops like soy and corn are eaten more by your steak-producing cows than by humans. Your cow has done all the killing for you.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/soybean-production-and-use
felsiq@piefed.zip · 23 pts · 91d
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 90d
This is ragebait lmao
tomi000@lemmy.world · 9 pts · 90d
I refuse to believe anyone could spend so much time writing a comment this stupid. Has to be a bot.
oldwoodenship@lemmus.org · 4 pts · 90d
https://woods.stanford.edu/news/meats-environmental-impact
ShotDonkey@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 90d
Funny. Nice try. Yawn.
platypode@sh.itjust.works · 26 pts · 91d
The almond industry is also unfathomably lethal to bees. If you care about bees, eat honey, not almonds—honey producers need their bees alive and well, while almond growers merrily slaughter them by the billions to force off season crops into existence.
Holytimes@sh.itjust.works · 8 pts · 91d
Mono cropping in general has killed so many insects. It's truly absurd. The knock-on effects and damage to the habitats around farms is wild because of it. Unironically plants are murder.
Humans are really bad at not killing everything.
lookingforanALFpolycule@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 91d
The majority of the plants we grow are fed to animals first which reduces the calories by over 8x. So if anyone wants to reduce their “plant murder” that’s a good place to start.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 91d
Ironically the same bees OP is lamenting about are the reason so many pollinators have died off.
Honey bees are aggressive foragers, and it's really a shame we rely on monocrops because it means we also rely on the same honey bees that are killing all our native bees and pollinators.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 90d
From Wikipedia. They're quite literally native for most of the world's population.
Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 89d
The post is about the US
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 1 pts · 86d
Maybe it is, but the US is only mentioned in passing. The whole tirade about honeybees being an invasive species, however, is a very frequent occurrence on reddit as well as lemmy, where everyone seems to assume that everyone lives in North America.
lookingforanALFpolycule@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 91d
Not sure why I can’t just eat neither?
T00l_shed@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 90d
Sorry, it's almonds or bees. There is no 3rd option :(
AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 90d
But I don't like eating bees, they're hairy and crunchy.
T00l_shed@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 90d
Then you must choose almonds, sorry no exceptions!
lookingforanALFpolycule@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 91d
Some more context
shrodes@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 90d
I read this many years ago now which covers various metrics across the different types of milk and “milk”
https://blog.bramp.net/post/2021/04/03/alternative-milks/
Siegfried@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 89d
Ehm... isnt that water directly ingested by either cows or men? The problem with wasting water is ruinning water that could be used by consumption. Maybe im missing something, but this sounds like a futile argument.
lookingforanALFpolycule@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 89d
Idk, that water is important to save is the argument OP made, I just added context.
Return_of_Chippy@lemmy.world · 14 pts · 91d
You're gonna get death threats.
smuuthbrane@sh.itjust.works · 13 pts · 91d
Them almond titties dry up without enough water.
Ariselas@piefed.ca · 8 pts · 91d
can you eat data?
db2@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 91d
You can if you're bitlocker and nobody has a yellow thumb drive.
Treczoks@lemmy.world · 8 pts · 89d
Given that most Datacenters have not yet been built, this might be accurate for the time being.
Feathercrown@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 90d
The water consumption thing is such a meme. Power consumption? Yup. Waste heat? We got that. Pollution? I don't know but I can take a guess!
Water? Eh. Barely.
Armok_the_bunny@lemmy.world · 11 pts · 90d
Except for the many of them being built in the fucking desert, where water access is already a huge problem.
Nindelofocho@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 90d
Yea the water isint being destroyed or used up. Its getting back into the ecosystem through some way (hopefully sans pollutants)
utilization is what goes up and that takes away from people, plants and animals that need it. Basically water bandwidth.
surewhynotlem@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 44d
People don't care about water. People care about local water. And they're rightfully upset when some data center just throws it into the sky.
vegafjord@slrpnk.net · 4 pts · 89d
Oh my god! Almond water usage is skyrocketing!
Alsjemenou@lemy.nl · 0 pts · 90d
AI justifies killing animals.
seggturkasz@lemmy.world · -6 pts · 91d
I'm sure people don't irrigate almonds with drinking water. The comparison is kind of meaningless...
zxqwas@lemmy.world · 10 pts · 91d
Unless they use salt water they draw from the same supply of groundwater or surface water as drinking water.
Drinking water is usually surface water or groundwater pumped from a lake/river or a drilled hole in the ground passed through a filter, an UV light to kill bacteria, and possibly some chemicals added to get the correct pH.
The limiting factor for how much drinking water you can make is how much you can pump out of the ground/lake before it dries up.
seggturkasz@lemmy.world · -4 pts · 90d
You don't know much about irrigation or farming do you? I don't know about the US but here in the EU, at least where I live, there is like a 2 magnitude difference between pumping water from a channel versus buying tap water.
Its like ploting the number of people buying food at a fast food joint and a Michelin star restaurant. While both serv food it's weird and misleading to compare it...
And why do you mention salt water? How is that a factor? Neither uses salt water.
boonhet@sopuli.xyz · 2 pts · 89d
It all still comes from the same aquifers or lakes in the end.
zxqwas@lemmy.world · 2 pts · 90d
80% of Almonds are grown in California. Your turn.
seggturkasz@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 90d
And your point is?
In California, water is so inaccessible as tap water is where the data centers are?? If so, then OK it would makes sense to compare it.
But then California wouldn't be the top almond producer, would it now?
Your turn ;)