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Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

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Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#171

Post by rewq4321 »

louthy wrote: post #135
vbuwivbiu wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading a lot of smoker's-logic in the replies to this: people who love eating meat clutching at straws trying to rationalize it. Nobody's forcing you to do anything! You can happily ignore this and continue living your life as you wish.

Or, it’s logic. Instead of blanket dismissal of everyone that doesn’t agree with you, why don’t you engage individually and help them understand your point of view. You may even find that you need to update your thinking rather than just claiming an entire group of people are deluded.

I'm not seeing much logic in the responses to be honest. We've known for a long time that animal agriculture produces more 100-year carbon equivalent emissions than the whole transportation industry (cars, trains, trucks, boats, planes, ...) combines. It's also the leading cause of deforestation, ocean deadzones, and extinction.

> The 2006 report Livestock's Long Shadow, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations, states that "the livestock sector is a major stressor on many ecosystems and on the planet as a whole. Globally it is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases (GHG) and one of the leading causal factors in the loss of biodiversity, while in developed and emerging countries it is perhaps the leading source of water pollution."

> A 2017 study published in the journal Carbon Balance and Management found animal agriculture's global methane emissions are 11% higher than previous estimates based on data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

> In November 2017, 15,364 world scientists signed a Warning to Humanity calling for, among other things, drastically diminishing our per capita consumption of meat. A similar shift to meat-free diets appears also as the only safe option to feed a growing population without further deforestation, and for different yields scenarios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#172

Post by steve_adams_86 »

effie wrote: post #145
steve_adams_86 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also grew up eating crazy amounts of meat here in Canada. I'm steadily moving towards a vegetarian (though with some fish and other sea life I harvest) diet despite still absolutely loving meat. I just can't justify it anymore. To me (and I know others don't need to feel the same way) it's practically immoral to eat in a way that wouldn't be sustainable if everyone else did. It's incredible to be born in a place an…

> it's practically immoral to eat in a way that wouldn't be sustainable if everyone else did. Why would that be immoral if you have negligible negative impact? It would only be a problem if everybody else will begin doing it. Which does not happen. Having children, hunting in the woods, owning a big house. Eating meat. Not being a universal example for every person is not immoral. People have different needs, and one…

I see where you're coming from and I largely agree. In fact if we do go hunting, we will eat meat. Obviously if everyone near me was hunting for meat, the forest would be emptied in no time. But they don't, so the impact is still less than buying beef for example so I think that's acceptable. I also hunt for fish and crustaceans when I dive, which wouldn't be sustainable if everyone else did.

I suppose my desire is partially to exit a commercial food system that I know is unsustainable. That system doesn't look like it will become sustainable any time soon, and I don't want to vote for it with my dollars and contribute to the issue with each meal.

I also don't necessarily do it to feel good. It feels bad at times, otherwise neutral. It feels like doing too little. There's no warm fuzzy feeling from half measures like this. I wish I could do more, but I struggle to figure out how.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#173

Post by cageface »

bitexploder wrote: post #160
jaxr wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The efficiency of converting plant based protein into animal protein to feed that to humans is very low [1]. A huge portion of the crops are actually used to feed cattle. If humans stopped eating meat tomorrow, we would have plenty of food (we'd better start eating a lot more soy, though) https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/11/10/1...

I’ll pass on the phytoestrogens, though. This doesn’t really address the fact that there are ways to still eat meat but minimize the greenhouse effects. For example, chicken and pork is dramatically less directly impactful than beef. There is still the feed efficiency problem, but America’s love of red meat is a better place to start than no meat at all. https://timeforchange.org/are-cows-cause-of-global-warming-m...

I find it odd people are so concerned about phytoestrogens, which have shown to actually have a lot of real benefits in the amounts people actually eat, while chugging down mammalian estrogens by the gallon in milk, which have been repeatedly shown to increase risk of cancer, premature puberty etc.

Cows milk is optimized for cows.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#175

Post by WhompingWindows »

spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

The most impactful, single action any of us need to take is breaking the stronghold that fossil fuel interest have in politics. We can all go vegan today, but if there's no broad, strong policy to decarbonize transport and industry, it won't matter how many bean burgers we eat. We need political power, not just avoidance of beef.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#176

Post by rewq4321 »

ar-jan wrote: post #163
spraak wrote: post #22

Often I see comments asking what we can do to combat this, or expressing feeling hopeless. While it is not the complete solution, one direct way is by eliminating your personal consumption of animal products. Animal agriculture is a huge contributor to methane production, especially from cows. > Overall, we conclude that methane emissions associated with both the animal husbandry and fossil fuel industries have large…

Let's also look at greenhouse gases in general: "According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the largest sources of U.S. GHG emissions in 2016 were electricity production (28 percent of total emissions), transportation (28 percent) and industry (22 percent). All of agriculture accounted for a total of 9 percent. All of animal agriculture contributes less than half of this amount, representing 3.9 percent o…

> Global direct greenhouse gas emissions from transportation versus livestock represent 14 versus 5 percent respectively.

The FAO's latest number for livestock emissions is 14.5% when considering the full life-cycle. It doesn't matter that we don't have a full life-cycle analysis for transportation - that doesn't change the number for livestock. The author tries to dismiss the 14.5% because "[transportation might be a bigger culprit]" and talks about "unringing" the bell on the FAO report simply because of a correction from 18% to 14.5%, which seems a bit of an overstatement.

On top of this, new (2017) data seems to suggest that our predictions of livestock emissions were too low:

> Using the new emissions factors, we estimate global livestock emissions of 119.1 ± 18.2 Tg methane in 2011; this quantity is 11% greater than that obtained using the IPCC 2006 emissions factors, encompassing an 8.4% increase in enteric fermentation methane, a 36.7% increase in manure management methane, and notable variability among regions and sources.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620025/

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#177

Post by inflatableDodo »

rdiddly wrote: post #80
inflatableDodo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think this viewpoint originates from a stunning lack of imagination.

You're right, anything is possible in Imaginaryland!

You look for the overlap between Imaginaryland and Possibilityland, rather than just sulking around in Whatwentbeforeland.

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#178

Post by red75prime »

twic wrote: post #98
tcbawo wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Western capitalism seems to be the one thing that has successfully incentivized people to have less kids, later in life. It's not always glamorous, but it's probably better than most alternatives.

What we really need is cap-and-trade for offspring. Everyone gets one each (so two to a couple), and if you need more, you can buy permits from someone who doesn't, at market price. That adds an economic incentive to have fewer children!

Western capitalism doesn't need such policies. Birth rate in developed countries is below replacement-level fertility.

http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/total-fertility-r...

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#179

Post by phragomax »

kyberias wrote: post #45

Looks fairly flat in 2000-2008. What happened there?

2000 is 11 years after the Soviet empire began to collapse in 1989. A lot of very dirty state-subsided industries in Eastern Europe went offline in the subsequent decade. Maybe that's what we are seeing?

Re: Unexpected Surge in Global Methane Levels

#180

Post by assblaster »

brylie wrote: post #162
assblaster wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So CO2 --> methane is an indirect link at best, and methane levels have been increasing linearly for the last thirty years. https://climatenexus.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ch4_tren... There is no magical CO2 level of 400 that suddenly causes methane to be released from permafrost.

You might be reading the post too literally. The 400 PPM is a target that is easy for humans to discuss. The general idea that increased atmospheric CO2 leads to accelerated methane releases due to thawing of arctic permafrost still holds true, and humans need to set CO2 targets to mitigate this issue.

What's implied with a 400 CO2 level is that anything under that is fine, but above that level it triggers a calamitous increase increase methane and a so called runaway greenhouse effect. This is simply not accurate, especially because the clathrates can release methane far below 400ppm.

The CO2 level should be far lower than 400... A level closer to 200ppm should be the target.

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