In fact, just livestock production consumes 26 percent of ice-free land on Earth and each year 13 billion acres of forest is converted into new pastures and farmlands every year.
Some people have responded to this problem by becoming vegetarian. Some do it just on the premise that animals in captivity or going to slaughter often suffer or have inadequate quality of life.
As far as water is concerned, the current issue lies with recycling wastewater back into usable water, in particular in areas of the world where drinkable water is sparse.
Thankfully, private funding and advanced scientific minds come to us with some very nice solutions.
I speak about the repercussions of the technologies mentioned below a bit further in the video below:
Water
First things to consider with water is its availability. In many countries, drinkable water is available directly from nature. In some other locations, it needs to be filtered or treated before we can safely drink it.
Using Metal-Organic Frameworks (MOF), scientists from the University of California, Berkeley were able to extract decent amount of drinkable water from the air. The only thing their process needs is the MOFs, which are not used up in the process, and solar energy. They were able to extract 2.8 liters of water in 12 hours from air with only 20-30% humidity. That's pretty impressive. The process required about 1 kg of MOF. The process needs to be refined with different MOF combinations to increase the speed or efficiency of the process, enough to allow every single home on the planet to extract its own drinkable water directly from the air, without the need for any sort of treatment. You only need the MOF component and the sun after all. Easy peasy.
And how about our wastewater? Well, an experimental team in Spain has designed a very easy process using electroactive bacteria that loves the organic matter in wastewater to very quickly and efficiently clean the wastewater and fuel it's own energy needs on its own. The bacteria does that by creating electricity as they consume the waste matter in the water. The purified water can then be sent to a pool where it can be redistributed to irrigate or be recycled to other uses. The water is not suited for drinking but it could be reused in many ways through its reintroduction to nature's water cycle. The current process by the team at iMETLand can convert 25,000 liters per day, enough for a small community. This can likely be scaled up for larger communities or scaled down for individual houses with further research and testing.
Here is the process described in video:
Lab-grown meat has become pretty real these days with investors like Richard Branson endorsing the process and investing significant amounts in one of the companies that are developing such things, Memphis Meats. Don't forget guys, humans are omnivores. We're supposed to largely eat fruit and vegetables, but we're supposed to eat animal muscle too.
Believe it or not but 14.5 percent of greenhouse gas is attributed to livestock. If we grew our meats in vats, we could reduce that amount by 90 percent and reduce land usage for livestock by 99%. That's huge. That land can then be used for lots of other things instead and we would only need animals to sample interesting cell cultures, which doesn't require us to hurt or kill the animals. In fact, one turkey has enough cells to cultivate enough vat meat to replace several trillion turkey nuggets. That's a lot.
Here is how it works:
The cost of a burger has already gone down from $350,000 to $11 using lab grown meats in the past 4 years and it is estimated by the investors in companies that are interested in such things that the cost of lab-grown meat will be equal to that of real meat in approximately 3 years.
I'm pretty sure the meat won't taste as good as the real thing to start with, but we'll have full control over flavor at that point, therefore it can only get cheaper and better tasting with time. Not to mention way more ecological.
The Chinese have also made significant investments in the technologies, promising soon we'll be seeing this type of foodstuff in supermarkets and restaurants all over the world soon enough!
3D Printed food
This is another beauty. We already have processed foods but that food is not very healthy as most people know. But what about 3D printed food? Well, in principle, companies have been able to do it using core materials like calorie-free fibers to create artisanal food items that look like the real thing. This technique can become quite popular when people need to make their own food at home at some point with full knowledge of what is exactly in the food item. So in principle, this should be better than fast-food but just as fast, and better than processed foods as well since no preservatives or odd chemicals are needed. Though, make no mistake, this method of making food is not as good and nutrient-rich as the real thing. Still, very interesting way to create neat food items from designs and very interesting edible materials!
Automated Farms
Not much to say about that, but several companies, including this one, Hands Free Hectare, have started selling their solution of fully automated farms to the public. These farms can resolve another issue we're having around food: 30% food waste. Automated farms, connected to data based on demand from people, can possibly sow, grow and pick fruit and vegetables in exactly the right time to provide the market with what it needs based on exact demand. We can therefore significantly reduce waste in production, shelving and transportation of food grown from these farms in the future. Something to support and develop for sure!
I'm incredibly enthusiastic about our future as a society. Our population increases constantly, but innovative individuals are constantly coming up with amazing solutions that resolve big issues while considering others and the technology's environmental impact.
My goal is to educate people that these technologies exist and I encourage every single person that is reading this to use these technologies and products. Demand creates market drive. Let's keep it going guys!
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