Inflation mystery. An Aha! moment for me.

[kandrathe]

But what do you call efficiently? Burning rainforest is very efficient to create palm oil plantings.

Isn't the culprit population? If we focus on Brazil, they've converted 587,000 km² to agriculture use (as of 2000) from a total of 5,500,000 km².

"The minimum amount of agricultural land necessary for sustainable food security, with a diversified diet similar to those of North America and Western Europe (hence including meat), is 0.5 of a hectare per person. This does not allow for any land degradation such as soil erosion, and it assumes adequate water supplies. Very few populous countries have more than an average of 0.25 of a hectare. It is realistic to suppose that the absolute minimum of arable land to support one person is a mere 0.07 of a hectare–and this assumes a largely vegetarian diet, no land degradation or water shortages, virtually no post-harvest waste, and farmers who know precisely when and how to plant, fertilize, irrigate, etc. [FAO, 1993]"

If we apply the .5 hectare per person to their 2010 Census of 190,732,694 we would expect them to be needing 953,664 square kilometers of agricultural land to sustain their population. Or, they could trade something for their needed food, and looking at their economy I see they export aircraft, electrical equipment, automobiles, ethanol, textiles, footwear, iron ore, steel, coffee, orange juice, soybeans and corned beef.

Low tax on airplane fuel makes flying cheaper than taking the train.

I think if they added a routine cattle prodding to air travel screening, I'd just surrender and advocate eliminating air travel all together.

Efficient cattle farming is different if you have millions of acres of pastures.

Well, there is such a thing as trade. The US has 250,233 km² of pasture land. The ecological disaster happened over here about 100 years ago, and people do like eating meat in their diet. So, why not take advantage of those areas that are suited for livestock to produce them?

I am not sure how 'in general' this is. Even though I agree that mass production is more efficient than one by one production of course.

Efficient and sustainable are not the same.

At some point, the cost of making things out of steel forced manufacturers to turn to something cheaper, like tin or aluminum. Cheaper usually means that the raw materials are more abundant, and take less energy to produce.

The only way to prevent garbage(disposable) products from being produced is to educate people to not consume them.