| Independence from fossil fuel use is far from the only factor determining sustainability of our agriculture, though, sadly. Land use is a huge concern, given we already use half of the world’s habitable land for our agriculture [1], putting immense pressure on ecosystems and biodiversity due to this habitat loss. Organic agriculture is less intensive, meaning for the same total food production, it must be more extensive — it requires more land [2]. That’s not to say there aren’t very good reasons to shift to organic agriculture. Fertilizer runoff leads to vast ocean dead zones, such as that in the Gulf of Mexico [3]. Further, we have an estimated 60 years of farming left if soil depletion continues at its current pace [4]. If we are to both curtail our land use and switch to regenerative farming methods, we must curtail meat production. It takes around 100 times as much land to produce 1 calorie of beef or lamb versus plant-based alternatives (similar for the same quantity of protein) [5], such that we could reduce our land use for farming from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and still feed the whole world on plant-based diets. I’m not sure if I’ve connected the dots here especially well, but I hope I’ve at least conveyed that sustainability is multi-dimensional, and goes far beyond just getting off fossil fuels — even though that is a vital step. [1]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use [2]: https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better-for... [3]: https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/deadzonegulf-2021/welcome.html [4]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-... [5]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets |