Can Vegetarianism Stop Climate Change? (reason.com) 269
Eating meat doesn't have as big of an impact on the environment as you've been told. From a report: Eating meat is bad for the climate -- or at least that was one of the main conclusions highlighted in a flood of news reports based on the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's August report, Climate Change and Land. Before you give up your animal protein of choice in an effort to save the planet, let's crunch some numbers to see just how much livestock raising and meat consumption contribute to U.S. emissions. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, agriculture is responsible for about 10 percent of America's total annual greenhouse gas emissions of 6.5 billion carbon dioxide equivalent metric tons. That breaks down to 302 million tons from nitrogen dioxide, largely in the form of fertilizer; 170 million tons from the methane expelled in ruminant livestock flatulence; 65 million tons from managing livestock manure; 60 million tons of direct emissions from farming; and 40 million tons from agriculture-related electricity use. Calculations focusing on agriculture ignore 90 percent of emissions that Americans contribute to the atmosphere.
Assuming every American adopts a vegan diet and all livestock raising ceases, that change would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by just 3.6 percent. In their 2017 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, agronomists Robin White and Mary Beth Hall reached a similar conclusion, calculating that the total elimination of animal husbandry would reduce U.S. emissions by 2.6 percent. How would going meat-free affect an individual American's emissions? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meat consumption in 2019 added up to 220 pounds per capita. Multiplying by emissions per kilogram figures from the Environmental Working Group, a D.C.-based advocacy group generally opposed to crop biotechnology and conventional agriculture, that's the equivalent of 1.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person.
Assuming every American adopts a vegan diet and all livestock raising ceases, that change would reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by just 3.6 percent. In their 2017 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences study, agronomists Robin White and Mary Beth Hall reached a similar conclusion, calculating that the total elimination of animal husbandry would reduce U.S. emissions by 2.6 percent. How would going meat-free affect an individual American's emissions? According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, meat consumption in 2019 added up to 220 pounds per capita. Multiplying by emissions per kilogram figures from the Environmental Working Group, a D.C.-based advocacy group generally opposed to crop biotechnology and conventional agriculture, that's the equivalent of 1.4 metric tons of carbon dioxide per person.
Poorly thought out article (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: Poorly thought out article (Score:2)
One sign this article is BS and not science is that the article attributes ruminant methane to flatulence when in reality the methane is emitted from their mouths.
Re: Poorly thought out article (Score:2)
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Like most things in life, most of the worlds problems is not from bad ideas and bad actors, but poor implementation.
Meat doesn't need to be high carbon, if animals are allowed to graze on open fields, drink from clean local water sources.. But it isn't as cheap and efficient as locking the animals up in cages and force feeding them processed feed.
Growing crops too if allowed for the natural weather cycles to help manage the crops vs putting farms in the middle of deserts and irrigating them from far off sou
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Nowhere is taken into account the removal of forests in order to ranch cattle...
How much forest is being removed in the US for cattle? Because this is only focusing on meat production in the US.
and the amount of fresh water and feed required to raise said cattle,
I'm not sure what fresh water usage has to do with global warming.
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It should be noted that you don't have to tear down forests to raise cattle. You just have to practice proper land management on your existing fields so that topsoil erosion doesn't leave them completely useless after a few years. However, as long as cutting down forests is cheaper, in the absence of regulations preventing it, you can safely assume that it will occur.
Removing forests to raise ca
Re:Poorly thought out article (Score:4, Insightful)
No, real scientists are saying that methane escaping from cows' mouths is one of many factors in climate change.
The reason is that they are ruminants, with a complex digestive system where animals regurgitate food to chew it again.
There are other ruminants that are eaten: sheep and goats.
Mutton production produces about as much methane/meat as beef production, but we eat much more beef than mutton.
Meanwhile, pork production creates 1/4 and poultry production 1/10 as much greenhouse gases (Carbon Dioxide Equivalents per weight unit of meat product) as production of beef and mutton.
And yes, removal of forests, land management and proper handling of animal dung (which release nitrous oxide - another greenhouse gas) are significant issues, but not as easy to affect on a large scale.
Choosing chicken or a vegetarian option over beef is something that everyone can do.
We have to fight climate change on all fronts, but choose the battles for which we have tactics for winning.
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Love XKCD and it's a great representation of history since 20,000 BCE. However, when talking inter-glacial periods, you really need to go back further in time. When you do so, you find that the rate of change really isn't that extraordinary. Nor is the amount of increase that the IPCC expects as worse case scenario.
Re:Poorly thought out article (Score:4, Funny)
[After setting your car on fire] Listen, your car's temperature has changed before.
Re:Poorly thought out article (Score:5, Informative)
Half yes, half no.
Increases in greenhouse gases (natural chemical) and changes in orbital parameters (stronger N Hemisphere summers) resulted in the planet transitioning from Ice Age to the Holocene, reaching a maximum temperature around 6000 BCE. Until the modern period of human fossil fuel mining & emissions, the planet was slightly cooling as expected from orbital mechanics, and with a stable level of greenhouse gases. Now with fossil fuel burning, temperature rose much more rapidly along with greenhouse gases and the physics shows it will rise more sharply still in a geological instant.
The existence of natural climate phenomena does not preclude unnatural drivers, any more than natural heart attacks rule out gunshot wounds to the chest.
Attributing climate change to unnatural influences means locating the specific physical mechanism and quantifying influence of natural influences, again with their own physical mechanisms. This has now been done and the primary result solid since around 1990.
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Cropland to grow soy and corn... to feed to animals.
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Or croplands to grow products for ethanol
Get better numbers (Score:2)
This study says animal agriculture alone accounts for 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions.
https://www.theguardian.com/co... [theguardian.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Exactly, even the summary starts with 10%, and then it drops to 3%. Where did the 7% go.
Just going by the summary, if livestock emissions are 10%, and livestock are removed from the equation, that should be a 10% drop. Not a 3% drop. (Or bump it up to 14% according to the OP's article.)
Furthermore, this is something EACH PERSON can do. Every one of us. The point is it could be a massive shift that everyone can participate in, rather than waiting for industries to change. If you're serious about climate chan
Just in time to go with... (Score:4, Interesting)
... the new study that says Eating meat isn't bad for you :
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/30/health/red-meat-heart-cancer.html [nytimes.com]
No. (Score:2)
There... that was easy,
No single thing is going to solve climate change (Score:3)
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Indeed. What's even more funny is today's Dilbert strip [dilbert.com] which is spot-on for that general concept.
Obvious bias (Score:5, Informative)
This "study" suggests that the alternatives are:
1. Continue eating meat or
2. Go vegan.
But there is a third option:
3. Cut out beef, lamb and pork. Continue to each chicken.
Raising chicken takes far less resources and results in far less CO2 emissions than other meats. So much so that cutting out meats other than chicken is almost as effective as cutting out all meat.
The lack of this information puts the whole study in doubt.
https://www.nationalgeographic... [nationalgeographic.com]
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The solution involving taking less showers, not driving personal vehicles and instead dealing with other humans on public transport, eating yukky green stuff, and doing away with plastic bags and on and on and on, is not a solution. It is a recipe for misery. And if population keeps growing then that 20% emission reduction you are promising will be eaten up in no time by growth in human activity overall. The idea that we should reduce our quality of life to reduce waste is ridiculous. The end result of this
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Or, we could eat the babies.
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Thank you for playing! We'll be right back after this message from the Indian Census Bureau:
"Too many people! Stop with the people!"
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IN the 70s, we had serious discussions worldwide about population management. As a result, China (which was arguably the biggest part of the problem then) had a one-child policy introduced and it held off their population growth for a while. If we had UN and everyone else talk about population management as much as we are now talking about consuming less, we would be getting somewhere.
But yes, less industrialized nations with less capability to manage the human resources will benefit more from cleanup solut
What an insanely stupid option! (Score:3)
No, option 3 is: DON'T MAKE ANY MORE GODDAMN CHILDREN!
No overpopulation, no need for meat factories, no need for resource wars, no big pollution, no need for vegan illnesses.
How much simpler can it get?
We're already doing that (Score:3)
The problem isn't going to be overpopulation, it's underpopulation. Even China's facing problems as they've conditioned their peo
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There's plenty of other options too (Score:3)
Giving up meat is at best going to have a marginal effect. It's a distraction, at least partly. The other thing it is, is a threat. It's a threat from Big Oil. They're saying, "If you try and do anything against us we'll hurt you. We'll take away your cars, your meat, your entire way of life. Just tr
Forgot all the reclaimed land (Score:2)
Just the USA alone uses an insane amount of land for grazing or for growing food for livestock. In Brazil itâ(TM)s causing the destruction of rainforest. No animal agriculture would mean a lot of reclaimed land, lots of new trees and habitat for animals, and many new national parks.
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Actually, I think we want *more* grazing not less. Ruminants naturally grazed on that land before we came here. The problem is when we take the grazing animal out of the pasture, lock it in a stall in a barn, then plant an acre of grain, then feed the animal the grain. We can raise more animals in that same amount of land, but we release tons of CO2 in the process.
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The meat industry being in a panic is really a rather... unique, viewpoint. I'm not sure I can really give it much credit.
I haven't heard that beyond meat is bad for you. I've heard that it's still not really that great for you, because to give it a reasonably appealing flavour they have to put in the same unhealthy stuff that's in everything else, but not that it does this to any ridiculous degree. As a meat substitute, it's passable enough if you surround it with a bunch of the same condiments that ma
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I have tried meatless burgers and burritos. They are fine for what they are: a substitute for the flavorless and textureless meat mass. They are not a basis for a good burger or even more complex foods like steaks or ribs. I also suspect that vegetable based bones from which I can suck out vegetable based bone marrow are a ways off. The meat industry has little to worry about from these companies who hype stuff but deliver very limited results.
However, I do hope we soon see cultured meat (the kind grown "in
No, It cannot (Score:2)
Think about a cup of tea or coffee a day for 5 billion people (out of 7). It's veg, nonetheless is unsustainable.
4gr * 4B = 4 thousands metric tons of tea a day.
Climate change comes from unsustainability, not from meat on its own.
Eat Vegetarians (Score:2)
If we each eat a vegetarian every year we will have even fewer carbon emissions.
On a more serious note, I'm willing (and have) seriously cut back on my meat consumption, but I'm not willing to go full vegan or vegetarian. I'd rather pay more for my products to be made in carbon-neutral factories to produce the same offset.
Animal haters (Score:2)
If it weren't for humans there wouldn't be so many cows, chickens, pigs, etc on the planet. Why do vegans hate animals so much that they want their population numbers to plunge?
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If it weren't for humans there wouldn't be so many cows, chickens, pigs, etc on the planet. Why do vegans hate animals so much that they want their population numbers to plunge?
There would be much higher biodiversity and more animals alive if all the land used for growing crops for livestock, and for livestock itself were allowed to revert back to nature.
Knowing humanity though, we wouldn't allow that land to revert back to nature, we'd put golf courses on it instead.
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Then cut down the trees along the edge of the river [go.com] so people can overlook the muddy river.
Re:Animal haters (Score:4, Insightful)
It never seems to occur to you people that all this land you are talking about belongs to someone else. The owners use it to earn income for their livelihood. Do you really think any government (especially in the US) is going to confiscate all farmland and/or ban the raising of animals for food? Hello, Revolution.
This whole thing is an idiotic response to problems that are solvable in other ways. People around the world demand more animal protein when they finally escape from grinding poverty. Let's solve the big CO2 problems of power generation, transportation and construction, then we can worry about cows. Hopefully by then we can grow nice healthy meat in a lab.
Necron69
0.6 pounds per day, per person? (Score:2)
"Per capita" includes babies and small children. Is the average really 0.6 pounds per day, per person?
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For pre-cooked weight that's not all that much. If its chicken breast that's about 442 calories. If steak it's about 612. Pork is 617 calories. If you're assuming a 2000 calorie per day diet that would put most people at about 25% to 33% of their daily caloric intake being meat.
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The USDA estimates food waste to be 30 to 40 percent of the food supply. I suspect the wasted food is included in the consumption figures. If I'm right, and assuming that meat wastage alone is the same as across-the-board wastage, that would put the meat-into-bellies figure at about 0.4 pounds per day. That's less than two quarter-pounders per person per day - a figure I can easily believe.
So many consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
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Getting rid completely of livestock would also mean no more cats and dogs. What do you think they eat ? Leftovers from the meat processing industry. Going vegan would be a genocide of all species of farm animals and also cats and dogs ! Helping the animals by killing all of them... You can still have hamsters and goldfishes, though.
Cats and dogs could live off a diet of bugs, they don't need their protein to come from other animals. Dogs are omnivores and require less meat then cats. We could theoretically feed dogs bugs and veggies- and then slaughter the dogs to feed to cats.
Which EPA? (Score:2)
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Is that the pre- or post-Trump EPA?
Adding to chaos (Score:2)
Let us assume, for the sake of this discussion, that all of America turns Vegetarian overnight.
What in the world do we do with all the cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, etc. currently on farms being bred as food?
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That's not a valid question. Regardless of whether or not vegetarianism (or veganism) is best for everyone, everyone wouldn't go vegetarian overnight. Even if the most convincing scientific study ever made came out tomorrow declaring meat evil, it wouldn't make everyone a vegetarian overnight. However, if more people ate vegetarian more often (reducing their meat consumption), then farmers would gradually raise less cattle, chickens, pigs, etc. The numbers of livestock would drop as the demand for meat drop
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Let us assume, for the sake of this discussion, that all of America turns Vegetarian overnight.
What in the world do we do with all the cattle, goats, sheep, chickens, etc. currently on farms being bred as food?
Target practice for the military.
No (Score:2)
overpopulation is root cause (Score:5, Insightful)
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U.S.A.: launch operation Evil Aliens immediately.
Japan: launch operation Mecha Godzilla immediately.
Canada: let's grab another beer, eh?
Re:overpopulation is root cause (Score:5, Insightful)
Western countries have been close to or at negative population growth for a while now, propped up only by immigration.
But that negative trajectory has largely been driven by educating women (college educated women have far fewer kids), and giving women/children better healthcare. In places where there's no social safety net and kids take care of their parents in their old age, making sure kids survive to adulthood has the counterintuitive effect of slowing population growth, because families have fewer children when they're confident those children will survive. If the child mortality rate is high, families have tonnes of kids as a way to hedge their bets, and on average, they far outstrip the replacement rate.
So the solution to population growth is educating women and girls, and giving them healthcare and access to contraception. Pretty simple stuff.
What can we do..? (Score:2)
The main problem is that there are simply too many people. If the population halves, then the amount of CO2 required to support our lifestyle halves as well.
The best thing we can do for the future climate of the Earth is to have less children. It is that simple!
I have 1 child. How many do you have? How many do you plan?
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That's nonsense, the planet can support many more humans. there is no shortage of energy nor any element or chemical despite whatever nonsense you've been brainwashed with. It's just an engineering problem.
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That's nonsense, the planet can support many more humans.
Yes, it can SUPPORT them, but it's not better for people or the planet that we have more people. Each person we add makes it more expensive (lowering life-quality) for those that are already here: fewer resources to spread between more people = increased cost.
There is definitely an ecological reason why we want fewer people, but there is an economic one too.
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Why do you have one child? Do you hate the planet?
I can't take these people seriously (Score:5, Insightful)
I'll take these people seriously about global warming when they start talking about what will take the biggest chunks out of our CO2 emissions, and doing that themselves.
First, switch electricity production to onshore wind, hydroelectric dams, and nuclear fission power. Those give the highest gain on energy invested, lowest CO2, highest safety, least land and material resources, and at the lowest cost.
Second, is transportation. Electric vehicles are not even close to a total solution. Long haul trucks can't be electric. Airplanes, except small recreational planes, cannot be electric. Transoceanic shipping cannot be electric. Trains might be electric but that's not always practical. What works, but needs some development to bring to market, is carbon neutral synthesized fuel. In the mean time we can deploy electric vehicles where practical, and switch as many vehicles as we can to natural gas. Natural gas still produces CO2 but far less than diesel fuel and gasoline, and has no sulfur.
A third large producer of greenhouse gasses is construction. We can develop the known processes to reduce CO2 production from cement, steel, and aluminum, production. These are energy intensive processes that can benefit from nuclear fission power and from mining alternative ores.
This can happen with some sane and rational laws in the USA to make the licensing and construction less burdensome. What will also help is to change laws that make it profitable to produce the products we use domestically, instead of cheaper to produce elsewhere in places that don't care as much about pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
If these people cannot support nuclear fission power, as it exists today, then they are ignorant on how much that alone can do to reduce CO2 emissions. The rest of what I give flows from that. Once we have nuclear power then things like synthesized fuels, alternative sources of cement, and so on, all become easier and cheaper to justify economically. This is because nuclear power is plentiful, produces industrial heat, and does so day or night and in any weather.
If these people are serious then they'd be demanding nuclear power, or at least willing to discuss it as an option. If they can't do that then I'm not listening, because they place their ignorance of nuclear power above the real problem of global warming. If this is a "climate crisis" then nuclear power is nothing to fear by comparison, no matter what your nightmares tell you about nuclear power.
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Of course long-haul trucks can be electric. It makes more economic sense than commuter, cars, actually. Trains can be electric (battery electric makes it easier even than trucking). Domestic flights can be electrified, and long-haul flights can eventually be as well (liquid hydrogen being the easiest way to do it in the near-term, though). Shipping can be electrified, too, and that'd usually be cheaper than using synthesized fuels. Synthesized fuel is a nice drop-in solution for anything that doesn't conven
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Second, is transportation. Electric vehicles are not even close to a total solution. Long haul trucks can't be electric. Airplanes, except small recreational planes, cannot be electric. Transoceanic shipping cannot be electric. Trains might be electric but that's not always practical. What works, but needs some development to bring to market, is carbon neutral synthesized fuel. In the mean time we can deploy electric vehicles where practical, and switch as many vehicles as we can to natural gas. Natural gas still produces CO2 but far less than diesel fuel and gasoline, and has no sulfur.
Electric vehicles could be used and are a mature and proven technology in some fields. Trolleybuses, tram, light rail and train are basically a solved problem. Put back tramways in Los Angeles an the other cities: trams are more power efficient than vehicle with tyres, this is why there were horse-drawn trams before the electric ones.
Same thing with freight transportation. Using electric trains and container management could help to have lorries only in the last miles.
Unfortunately with the urban sprawl
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hydroelectric dams
They are a solution to CO2. They are a huge problem with having a healthy world to live in.
I'm on the verge of not taking you seriously.
I'll agree that not all hydroelectric dams were built with the health and safety of everyone in mind. I'll agree that because of poor design, bad placement, or whatever might make a given dam a bad idea. Even a dam that was a good idea when it was built can become a bad idea because something changed. Calling all hydroelectric dams a "huge problem" is not something I can agree upon, not without some justification.
A hydroelectric dam is not just a source of ele
Please stop talking about cows (Score:4, Interesting)
In terms of human induced climate change cattle are a push. In pre-columbian North America there were between 50 and 100Million head of bison and a similar number of antelope, elk, deer etc. In modern North America there are 70 million or so head of cattle and much fewer deer and elk than historic herds. The net methane production from large herbivores in North America is lower than it was 200 years ago. Likewise on other continents.
So while I applaud, in theory, some sense of reducing the foot print attributable to cattle it's not actually part of the historic delta and every time some idgit brings up not eating cows it just gives new fodder to the anti-AGW crowd to yell lalalalalala rather than focusing on aspects that truly matter.
In other words perfection is the enemy of progress. I want progress so this cow nonsense is an enemy.
Been Saying this for Years (Score:2)
As for raising meat vs. vegetables and grains, it is simply a problem of production. To get cheap meat, farmers must grow cheap food-stock. This is usually subsidized #2 corn and is HORRIBLE for the environment. Think about the petro-chemicals used as fertilizer and the water usage as well as waste items. But, to get cheap vegetables and grains, farmers must do same. We s
No it can't. Prolonging is not solving! (Score:3, Funny)
Veganism is hilarously fallacious logic. It is the complete denial about overpopulation or the existence of non-meat-factory meat, and the belief that we should all cut back to unnatural unhealty nurtition, just so we can make even more damn humans. As if prolonging it would be equal to solving it.
So humanity starts overpopulation wars 10 years later because you got half the world to become vegan. Great fucking useless job! Could have done something permanent instead. Like using contraception!
Veganism is nothing but a mental illness among those who never saw nature when they grew up, believe a lion should go vegan too, that canines are for nuts (seriously!), and they ALL take B12 supplements. Cause "humans are natually vegans". lol
Do the math on how many vegans it takes, to nullify the damage from one single more human being born and living his life...
Yeah, I have no kids. So I probably do more to solve this, than a couple thousand vegans combined. "Why are you destroying the planet, vegans??" lol
Just one chance (Score:2)
Eat the babies first. It is the only way to save man kind.
Betteridge (Score:2)
No.
Yes, of course (Score:2, Troll)
The numbers don't seem correct (Score:3)
According to this paper [nas.edu], by a major emissions modeling group, "the livestock sector ... accounts for 18% of [global] greenhouse gas emissions."
The paper then finds that "a global transition to a low meat-diet ... would reduce the mitigation costs to achieve a 450 ppm CO2-eq. stabilisation target by about 50%."
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Pure vegetarianism will be worse for the biodiversity than having mixed food on the table.
The big problem in the world isn't the food we eat but that a lot of it comes from large-scale farms with single type crops or single type of animals that are too intense in numbers for the area where they graze.
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Pure vegetarianism will be worse for the biodiversity than having mixed food on the table.
Sure I'll bite. Why? Please include some links so we know it's not just your crackpot theory.
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Actual research might find something unexpected but basic logic tends to support his concept at least within a small bubble at least if you assume complimentary choices. You can improve efficiency with complementary farming, plants have different nutrient requirements and the waste from one can feed another. Plus they would be more resistant to pests with one type of crop possibly even deterring pests that would feed on another. Even more so animal waste/compost can fertilize the crops while many animals ca
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the only reason certain breeds still exist, is because they are useful to humans. Eliminate the usefulness to humans, will make them go extinct, and reduce biodiversity.
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Wild animals fart too. Perhaps we should reduce their populations. You know... for the environment.
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure I'll bite. Why? Please include some links so we know it's not just your crackpot theory.
It isn't just his crackpot theory it holds up to with any objective examination of known facts and just plain common sense.
I ate a hamberger an hour ago. It came from a cow that was raised on a pasture. On that pasture it ate grass and water and once it grew to its full size it excreted pretty much as much as it ate. Those excretions fertilized the pasture. Other creatures lived there such as birds on its back, small mammals and lizards worked the soil beneath its feet. The cows move on and the topsoil has been incrementally improved. If you were there the pasture would smell sweet with new growth (and the occasional cow pie.)
Now the fast-food hamberder you just ate is quite different. That cow lived in a CAFO. It has to be inoculated against diseases because they are packed so closely together those diseases are effectively cultivated. They are fed grains because grains are cheap. But grains are not natural to a cow. They do not digest and in the end their gut turns septic, requiring more medical treatments. Their manure doesn't fertilize anything it is collected in cesspools that become toxic and a hazard to local waterways. And if you ever been to a stockyard the stench if you are not used to it can cause you to pass out. It is beyond me how something healthy to eat comes from there.
Moving on we have the newly vaunted high-tech "beyond" that are made from vegetable mass. These come basically from vast monocrop factory operations where the land has been brutally cleared of all organisms except the one that the "farmer" wants to grow. It is very profitable and efficient. But it exhausts the the topsoil and there are no grazers allowed because that would eat the crops. So instead they use artificial fertilizers where the nitrogen in it has been fixed by what is called the Haber-Bosch process. Originally invented to produce munitions.
This process is fantastically energy intensive. However currently the way we farm 2/5s of the world's population would not be able to live without it. Where does that energy come from? From burning fossil fuels. Factory agriculture cannot survive without it. There is not enough nitrogen left in the soil we have left to grow the calories we grow. So at the end "farming" (note the scare quotes again) has morphed from an agriculture industry to basically an extractive industry.
Before white people settled in our region there were vast wild herds of cattle-like animals that the first settlers were amazed to see. (so of course they shot them all for the fun of it) They stretched to the horizon. This wasn't an ecological disaster. The land was fertile to support them like it did for the hundreds or thousands of generations it took for that balance of nature to evolved.
Next time one of your vegan friends takes you to one of their special "cruelty free" restaurants try to keep in mind how many animals died to make that fancy vegan dish you are served. They weren't slaughtered. They were trapped, poisoned, crushed, hunted, or whatever else it took to protect the cash crops. It is probably more productive for you than supposing your preconceptions are challenged only by "crackpot theories."
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:4, Informative)
I agree with much of what you wrote. But one important historical clarification - the Haber-Bosch process was absolutely first invented to provide nitrate fertilizer. Only later was it adapted for munitions.
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It isn't just his crackpot theory it holds up to with any objective examination of known facts and just plain common sense.
Then link some studies. It amazes me that people think they can reason about complex scientific processes with two semesters of biology. It's called the scientific method. It works. It's fine to have a theory. Now go qualify it.
Next time one of your vegan friends takes you to one of their special "cruelty free" restaurants try to keep in mind how many animals died to make that fancy vegan dish you are served
Really, really great jab, but I'm not vegan, sorry. Just a believer in facts and critical thinking.
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Then link some studies. It amazes me that people think they can reason about complex scientific processes with two semesters of biology. It's called the scientific method. It works. It's fine to have a theory. Now go qualify it.
Sorry -- it isn't my job to go look stuff up for you. I have been reading both lay publication and credentialed-author papers for decades now and have little interest in walking you through the lengthy process I went through when it is obvious that all you want to do is pick your side and stick to it.
Everything I wrote is not original to me -- just the phrasing is mine. So if you are really interested you can go find plenty of sources that will tell you what I did and many of them have solid citations.
Re: One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:2)
Biodiversity on the table? 90% of what I see on restaurant menus for carnivores is chicken. Itâ(TM)s like the old Monty Python spam sketch. Every damn thing is chicken. And for breakfast? Eggs! Meat eaters would starve without chickens.
Re: One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:2)
Every damn thing is chicken.
But is it?
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Yes. Parts is parts.
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Every damn thing is chicken.
But is it?
Everything certainly tastes like it.
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Unlikely - the species actually being eaten are all invasive, ecologically useless breeds, who often still have wild cousins offering biodiversity.
Meanwhile, one pound of meat requires several pounds of plant matter to produce - beef is especially bad, at about 10:1. Eliminate beef, and you eliminate not just the beef farms, but also 90% of the farms growing feed for them, while still providing the same amount of food (some beef is primarily grass fed, but my understanding is that that is rare, especially
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:4, Insightful)
some beef is primarily grass fed, but my understanding is that that is rare, especially in the U.S.
Grass-fed beef probably is rare in the US, but in countries where we don't subsidise grain production grass-fed meat is the norm.
Corn is cheap because taxpayers pay farmers to grow it.
Re: (Score:3)
Eliminate beef, and you eliminate not just the beef farms, but also 90% of the farms growing feed for them, while still providing the same amount of food (some beef is primarily grass fed, but my understanding is that that is rare, especially in the U.S.).
No it's not [usda.gov]. American cows are fed grass for at least 2/3rds of their life, and even when they're moved onto the feed lot for fattening up with grain (termed 'finishing' in the business), what they eat is a mixture of ~6 pounds of silage per pound of grain. Silage is most commonly made from ordinary grasses, clovers, alfalfa, and vetches.
The stereotype of cattle being stuffed full of expensive maize and wheat is some ridiculous PETA fantasy. You can't feed a cow solely on grain. It will literally kill them
Re: (Score:3)
>Silage is most commonly made from ordinary grasses, clovers, alfalfa, and vetches.
*Wild* grass, that contributes to the ecosystem, or farmed grass? Doesn't much matter whether it's grass or grain farmed animal feed carries a steep energy and environmental cost.
Re: (Score:2)
On the flipside, they're also burning down the Amazon rainforest to raise cattle...seems like this food-related emissions problem is largely a Brazilian environmental policy problem.
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:4, Informative)
Also, the reason Brazil is burning rainforests for soy is because China put a tariff on our soy, so other markets now can compete with the USA.
Mod up please (Score:2)
Mod up please.
I was going to say the exact same thing :)
Re: (Score:3)
Absolutely!
And it is not only soybeans, they are clearing vast areas for palm oil plantations too ...
Monoculture, reduced diversity, habitat loss, and the whole slew of ecological problems.
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:4, Insightful)
I just don't get why we're even discussing this. The premise of the article is that the IPCC report (the largest climate metastudy in the world) says that meat is a huge problem, but some random individual study by two people says otherwise, so.... we should listen to the two people over the IPCC? That makes no sense whatsoever. The IPCC states:
That's not even about going vegan! Just halving animal intake, and avoiding the worst animal sources. Doing that, and letting the land go fallow, would reduce a quarter of the entire anthropogenic CO2 footprint. The IPCC states unambiguously:
But of course people will grasp onto this Reason article because it says what they want to hear.
Re:One small problem with this line of logic. (Score:5, Informative)
Out of curiosity, I looked up the White and Hall (2017) article that Reason relies on. Its here [pnas.org]. The first thing that struck me is how the abstract is written more like a propaganda piece than a typical abstract. The article is ostensibly about GHG impacts, yet they talk about the number of jobs that would be lost if livestock were no longer raised before they even get to GHGs. They also push the widely debunked notion that plant-based diets cannot provide adequate nutrition, and that a plant-based system would create "nutrient deficiencies".
I'm Immediately dubious, but since this is a peer-reviewed paper, it's not sufficient for me to just snipe from the sidelines, so I look to see if there have been any published responses. And boy are there! Let's excerpt from of them:
Re: (Score:2)
Has anyone actually calculated the difference in methane production from cows on candy diets (grain) vs natural, free range grass-fed diets?.
Yes, although I can't remember the exact results. Cows fed a seaweed diet was an even better choice though as they produced far less methane from eating seaweed.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
2. Tax sex to regulate it.
3. Best to keep that box under a bridge to prevent it getting wet. Maybe better to move your box to your parent's basement.
4. Have a mandatory "Logan's Run" style termination date of 30 years of age.
Re: Greta Thunberg wants you to: (Score:2)
Re:Greta Thunberg wants you to: (Score:5, Interesting)
Greta Thunberg wants you to lies you invented
No, Greta Thunberg wants politicians to make policies to stop climate change. It's we have everything we need to simply tax pollution and use atmospheric scrubbers remove pollution from the atmosphere. Small Modular Reactors could be deployed with ease to power everything we need.
Acting like a disingenuous asshole on the internet just makes you a disingenuous asshole.
Re:Greta Thunberg wants you to: (Score:4, Informative)
3. Live in a box
To be fair she only said that in private and about you specifically.
Re: (Score:2)
You seem to be one of those people that believes the rainforest is some magic thing that supports the biosphere or has cures for cancer hiding in it. Sorry, that's Hollywood bullshit.
Studies have tried hard to find out if the damn thing is even carbon positive, negative or neutral. So far the best study said 2.1 billion tons absorbed, 1.9 emitted.... but that's a gnats fart in a hurricane if you're going to claim we need it to help with atmospheric carbon.
Given the U.S.A.'s emissions, it is the peak of hy