No commercial incentive to do so. If we had any effective climate regulation, you'd see these things rapidly put into practice.
regulation can't change reality. It's about as realistic as having congress declare the world flat.
> regulation can't change reality
Sure it can.
Regulation changed the reality of passenger planes regularly falling out of the sky and being hijacked. Regulation made drastic reductions in road deaths via seat belts, crumple zones, air bags, and the like.
I saw some math once... not sure how correct it is, but it was something like given the co2-equivalent emissions of methane, even if all cows simply disappeared tomorrow, it would still only take care of about 5% of our global GHG emissions. So if that's true it wouldn't really be a gamechanger. Still worth doing though (the seaweed, not the mass slaughtering)! And if everyone plants 350 trees then maybe we'll get so…
Some variant of this same comment is on every single thread about this here.
My inner child was disappointed to learn that cow farts are not the major source of bovine methane emissions. But saying cow burps is stilly pretty funny.
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
It’s simple really. After global warming causes sea levels to rise, the cows will be underwater anyway, they can just find their own seaweed to eat.
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
It’s simple really. After global warming causes sea levels to rise, the cows will be underwater anyway, they can just find their own seaweed to eat. Problem solved!
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
From an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
Cows are much better at extracting nutrients from, say, grass than humans are.
In places where nuts, vegetables, fruits aren't available, meat may be a more environmentally friendly choice.
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
From an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
You can not grow enough fruits, vegetables and nuts to feed the human population without severe deforestation.
Also, agriculture uses up pretty much most of the obtainable drinkable water.
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
From an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
Perhaps one step further is to bypass even the plants and produce protein directly from CO2!
There are many planet saving discoveries like these. There's also a catch, which is why the planet hasn't been saved yet. > “If we’re able to work out how to scale up the seaweed to such a level to that can feed all of the cows and the sheep and the goats around the world, then it’s going to have a huge impact on the climate; And there you go. That's the hard part that you cannot just hand-wave away. You also have to…
From an environmental perspective, it's easier to directly consume fruits, vegetables and nuts yourself, rather than have an animal do the same, then eat the animal. That doesn't address the human appetite for animal proteins, but there is beyond meat.
Hopefully beyond meat and similar companies are able to continue to drive forward their research. I had a Beyond Burger for the first time recently and it was unsettling. The flavor was beef-like but the texture was wrong.
I will happily eat either a beef burger or a veggie burger but the Beyond Burger is in the uncanny valley right now.
I saw some math once... not sure how correct it is, but it was something like given the co2-equivalent emissions of methane, even if all cows simply disappeared tomorrow, it would still only take care of about 5% of our global GHG emissions. So if that's true it wouldn't really be a gamechanger. Still worth doing though (the seaweed, not the mass slaughtering)! And if everyone plants 350 trees then maybe we'll get so…
5% doesn’t solve the problem, but it makes it more tractable. Enough 5% (or 4%, 3%, 2%…) solutions that integrate well into the existing economy, and you get GHG emissions into a range where the complex, expensive, and disruptive (in the traditional sense of the term) game-changing technologies become reasonable. At some point we will end up diverting a sizable percentage of global productivity to either scrubbing CO2 or dealing with the effects of our failure to prevent or capture source emissions, so those small reductions, implemented as quickly as possible, can add up to significant downline savings.