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Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

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Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#21

Post by vfc1 »

jakemoshenko wrote: post #12
vfc1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

As far as I know it's all just beans, they are all eatable by humans. The difference between resource consumption of different types of soy crops, if any, is not comparable to the difference between eating the soy directly or feeding it first to an animal, the second is a much more wasteful and environmentally impactful as you can imagine.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#22

Post by zpallin »

jakemoshenko wrote: post #12
vfc1 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You won't need to grow livestock-grade soy if you don't have livestock to feed. But we will always have humans to feed (because we're humans).

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#23

Post by ainiriand »

falcolas wrote: post #14

I'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…

Interesting, I've never felt any quality of life loss when going vegan. Just the opposite. I feel much better and food is delicious now that I have discovered a whole new range of food that I never considered before.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#24

Post by roel_v »

vfc1 wrote: post #3

> 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…

You can grow (maize and grass for) cattle in places where you can't grow crops.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#25

Post by vfc1 »

ainiriand wrote: post #15
Aunche wrote: post #8

Earlier 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.

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. https://beef.unl.edu/water-requirements-for-beef-cattle

You're right the water consumption of livestock raising is very important too, besides the huge amount of excrement produced.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#26

Post by vzidex »

falcolas wrote: post #14

I'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…

Current generation here (I'm 20). There's a lot of steps you can take without decreasing your quality of life - is that cut of steak _really_ that important to your quality of life?

If, aware of the problem of climate change AND of the solutions, you choose to do nothing then you won't just be an asshole in the eyes of the next 20 generations, you're an asshole in the eyes of my generation too.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#27

Post by ben_w »

corliss78 wrote: post #10

Going 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.

The UK currently produces about 60% of its own food requirements (60% of 66 million ≈ 40 million), however I’ve seen it reported that switching everyone in the UK to a vegan diet would increase that to supporting about 200 million people.

That doesn’t mean it would be easy — I am a motivated to become vegan and still failing.

If I extrapolate that to the rest of the planet, the world should be able to support around 38.5 billion.

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#28

Post by cmrdporcupine »

vfc1 wrote: post #3

> 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…

Farms grow crops that you can't eat, to feed to animals that you can.

Name the protein and fat sources that will replace meat. Tofu? We already grow soy for animal feed as a cash crop and it's pesticide and fertilizer intensive, and if people eat it directly instead of as an animal feed additive its production will grow at the expense of forests and soil health.

Nuts? I'm all for perennial woody agriculture, but the calorie/acre ratio is not great, and they are labour intensive for picking, netting, processing. I say this as a person who has an orchard of my own with hazelnuts and chestnuts in it.

The reality is that should meat be gone, we'd have to replace it with other foods, grown on a mass scale on agricultural lands. Animals can graze on products (grass, hay, soy, dent corn) that are marginal or useless for human consumption, and turn it into high protein, high fat calorie rich food.

There are populations that eat primarily vegetarian, but mostly they are also heavy on the dairy. But the moment you bring dairy into the equation you're also bringing in non-productive male calves -- in other words, veal. Similar story for eggs.

What we need to be doing -- along with reducing meat consumption some -- is coming up with more ecological ways to raise meats, and diversifying our meat products. Raising insects as feed stock for chickens, for example. Increasing perennial woody agriculture instead of cash crops, with small scale grazing of meat and dairy animals inbetween rows.

Cutting animals out entirely actually leads to a nutrient deficiency. The classic pre-green revolution family farm forms a kind of nutritive circle with manure, grazing, and rooting being an important part of soil health and maintenance. That didn't scale out in the last 100 years, but it's a model we need to look at.

EDIT: wow, the downvotes. Go vegans go!

Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet

#30

Post by vfc1 »

roel_v wrote: post #24
vfc1 wrote: post #3

> 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…

You can grow (maize and grass for) cattle in places where you can't grow crops.

Yes like in the Amazon where the forest is taken down for soy crops and for grazing mostly. A lot of the grazing land we have was created through human burning and deforestation in the first place.

And yet, in reality, the vast majority of meat comes from factory farms fed with corn and soy.

Even technically called free-range meat gets fattened up in the last portion of their lives in factory farms to get the slaughter weight so they also get fed corn and soy just less.

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