I am wondering if there will really be a clever technical solution to climate change. Maybe we just need to come to terms with the fact that we have been living drastically above our means and we need to adjust our standard of living accordingly.
Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
11–20 of 119 posts
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
Soy crops are a good example, the majority of them are to feed livestock but they are a great crop to feed humans instead, and without all the waste involved in having to feed a cow first and then eat parts of it. You can make plant milk with soy too, its a very versatile crop. With it, you can feed the same amount of people with a fraction of the land, water, and pollution.
You didn't address, and I don't know: what is the relative environmental impact of growing human-grade soy vs. livestock-grade soy? Is there even necessarily a distinction?
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#13> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
Sure, that's true from a purely ecological perspective, but your argument does not capture the general inhumane practices that go on within the diary industry (e.g., caging, keeping cows perpetually pregnant, separating mother / calve at birth, etc.). All of these combined create a life of significant distress for all the animals involved and should be captured as an "environmental cost" in your equation above.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#14I'm going to say something very unpopular:
If your plan to save the world includes requiring all 9 billion people to fundamentally change their lives (especially if its perceived as a degradation of their current quality of life), it's never going to work.
Now I'll speak for myself. I will not go vegan, given the current offering of vegan foodstuffs. It just doesn't taste as good. I know it may be better for me than my current diet, and I know it could help decrease my overall carbon footprint. I still have no plans to do it.
Perhaps it makes me greedy. Perhaps it makes me an asshole in the eyes of the next 20 or so generations. But I look at it in the larger context - the ship has sailed, our course towards permanent (on a human scale) climate change was set by the industrial revolution and the speed set to flank by global increases to our quality of life.
So yeah, I frankly refuse to permanently sacrifice my quality of life to have no effect on the future.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#15> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
You are making the mistake of assuming that just by growing livestock-grade soybeans you magically have milk. You still have to make this animal drink about 3 gallons per 100pounds, per day.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#16> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
To answer your question, it takes a lot more soy beans to feed a cow, that then will digest them and use only part of them, produce waste, consume water.
The cow will be slaughtered and only part of the body will be consumed (gut, head, for example, make for a huge part and are not usually eaten), some of the eatable parts will be wasted in the food chain.
If you count for everything, the amount of land and resources used to produce a gallon of cow's milk is always going to be much higher than anything done with a crop directly, because you cut out the middleman, the animal.
For the specific case of almonds, why not use soy milk instead for a better comparison. I'm sure you will agree that you can produce a lot more soy milk by using the soy directly then by feeding to a cow, impregnate it, shooting the calf on birth if its male, etc. the whole process.
Not to mention the copious amount of cow excrement produced and the impact on global warming due to methane emissions of the cows intestines.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#17Going vegan is missing the point. There are too many people on this planet, period. Im not going to eat an unhealthy diet just so we can squeeze 3 billion more consumers into the economy. We need reproductive freedom and education in any countries that are above replacement rate.
Please, educate yourself before coming here to say things like that. Do yourself this favour.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#18>Undoing this damage, while also managing to feed the nearly 10 billion people expected to populate the earth by 2050, is going to require lots of ideas integrated together.
Back of the envelope calculation: The global cattle population is around 1.5 billion. A cow eats between 8 and 16 Mcals per day, which is roughly 4-8 times what is recommended for an average adult (2 Mcals). If we diverted all those calories to humans we could feed 6-12 billion of them (neglecting protein, vitamin and mineral content).
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
Soy crops are a good example, the majority of them are to feed livestock but they are a great crop to feed humans instead, and without all the waste involved in having to feed a cow first and then eat parts of it. You can make plant milk with soy too, its a very versatile crop. With it, you can feed the same amount of people with a fraction of the land, water, and pollution.
Barley crops are a good counter-example. There are three main purposes: malting, milling & animal feed. A good chunk of the feed barley on the market is barley grown for malting or milling but wasn't good enough for those purposes and is fed to chickens. The alternative to feeding it to chickens is to throw it away. That's hardly environmentally friendly.
Some barley is purposefully grown for feed rather than aiming for the higher price that malting or milling will get. Yields on such variants can be as much as 3 times that of a nice malting or milling variant.
Given that a chicken can convert 1.5 grams of barley protein into 1 gram of meat protein, you can see how it be more environmentally efficient to "eat" barley by running it through a chicken first.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#20> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
cows dont eat soy, too much fat, it makes them sick