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Re:How America Uses Its Land by jpadkins on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @10:28AM (#17662766)
> What about the gigantic consumption of water this implies?

The water isn't destroyed. It goes right back into the ecosystem. The planet surface is 70% water. We aren't running out of water.

> how many people could we feed? The US could probably feed the entire world with meat, with unlimited energy / $$. People going hungry is not a food production problem, it's an economic and logistic problem. If we use plant based food, we could probably feed 3X the world problem (or use 1/3rd the land). World hunger isn't caused by lack of productive land.

Your other point on meat requires more land use and energy than plant food is correct.

Re:How America Uses Its Land by sorrymate on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @12:17PM (#17663908)
Sure, 70% of the earths surface is water. 97.5% being salt water and 2.5% being fresh water. You can't use sea water to irrigate agriculture. You can't drink sea water from the faucet. Additional money/ cost and work would be need to make the water drinkable. Please consider that many states like California, Nevada, Arizona, Texas, water is a valuable resource. And yes, we are running out of cheap drinkable water. That's why most of the west coast gets most of their water all the way from Colorado.
Re:How America Uses Its Land by jpadkins on Wednesday August 01, 2018 @02:23PM (#17665357)
desalination exists. the key word in is cheap. It's an economic and energy problem, not a water resource problem. They get water from Colorado because its cheaper than desalination. Once it's not, they will get water from the ocean.

also, all water requires money / energy to process before we drink it or use it on crops. It's just a matter of much money / energy you use depending on the source.