Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

thecattlesite.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 322 posts

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#31

Post by sbelskie »

cik wrote: post #28
seanwilson wrote: post #11

How much could this reduce the total environmental food print of cattle? I.e. including all the energy used to grow the crops they eat, the deforestation to make room for the crops + cattle, the waste the cows produce. Animal farming creates vast damage because of how inefficient it is and seaweed won't address how much feed cows need or that the world is eating more and more meat as countries get richer: > The energ…

At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet. That also doesn't mean that people are going to do it, or can. But at least it's one form of a step in the right direction. War doesn't have to be waged and won in a single battle. Every little step helps if it truly reduces emissions.

I was under the impression that the local part is hit or miss due to the efficiency differences between large national/global supply chains and small local ones.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#32

Post by barry-cotter »

cik wrote: post #28
seanwilson wrote: post #11

How much could this reduce the total environmental food print of cattle? I.e. including all the energy used to grow the crops they eat, the deforestation to make room for the crops + cattle, the waste the cows produce. Animal farming creates vast damage because of how inefficient it is and seaweed won't address how much feed cows need or that the world is eating more and more meat as countries get richer: > The energ…

At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet. That also doesn't mean that people are going to do it, or can. But at least it's one form of a step in the right direction. War doesn't have to be waged and won in a single battle. Every little step helps if it truly reduces emissions.

> At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet.

Local doesn’t belong in there. As a reductio ad absurdum would it be better to eat a diet of nothing but imported NZ lamb or to grow all food locally at McMurdo Base in Antarctica? Grass is next to free. Ocean shipping is the most efficient means of transport for bulk freight there is. To grow food at McMurdo you’d need to heat the environment, insulate it and light it half the year.

Eat local is class signaling, not environmentalism.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#33

Post by bttrfl »

awerawerawrjhui wrote: post #10
leipert wrote: post #8

Discussed last year hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498 I was very skeptical whether this is scalable as up to two percent of the cows feed needs to be replaced with the sea weed and we simply do not produce sea weed at scale yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713552 The TL;DR was: in order to supply 1.5 billion cows with the seaweed we might need up to 291.000 metric tons of algae per…

> I would argue that the most effective way to reduce cattle emissions is to get rid of cattle. I agree, but as a former vegan I'm aware that there's an approximately 0% chance of getting a majority of the world's population to give up beef and dairy. The future has to be with lab-grown meat. I know the technology is still nascent, but if we ever get it right then it has the potential to be one of the most transforma…

"I'm not sure how we can save the climate without it [lab-grown meat]."

Why? It doesn't seem logical at all - I'm pretty sure there are more efficient and healthier ways to feed humans and it seems that the main reason for making lab-meat is to cater to our current habits and tastes. Maybe that's important enough, but perhaps you have more pros?

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#36

Post by dkdbejwi383 »

barry-cotter wrote: post #32
cik wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet. That also doesn't mean that people are going to do it, or can. But at least it's one form of a step in the right direction. War doesn't have to be waged and won in a single battle. Every little step helps if it truly reduces emissions.

> At the end of the day this is signalling. We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet. Local doesn’t belong in there. As a reductio ad absurdum would it be better to eat a diet of nothing but imported NZ lamb or to grow all food locally at McMurdo Base in Antarctica? Grass is next to free. Ocean shipping is the most efficient means of transport for bulk freight the…

"What about Antarctica" is the most straw man argument possible when talking about food sourcing.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#37

Post by emmelaich »

headmelted wrote: post #3

Worth noting that methane is up to 84 times as damaging as CO2 in the atmosphere upon release. ( https://www.edf.org/climate/methane-other-important-greenhou... ) That means that (ironically I guess) this has the potential to be just about the biggest bang-for-buck weapon we have against climate change in the next decade. I don't envy the researchers having to explain it to their kids later though. "What'd you do in…

Cow burps produce more methane than farts.

Not sure whether it changes your argument though.

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#39

Post by tovej »

ekianjo wrote: post #30
tarsinge wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that if the food is not meat we need like up to 75% less crops, which is completely attainable without synthetic fertilizer.

Claiming it does not make it so.

Every addition of a new consumer in a food chain brings with it a high rate of energy loss. The cow will need to use its energy to live, only a small portion of the energy is left in the steak you eat. 75% is a good approximation.

In general, the shorter the food chain, the more efficient it is. This is a universally known fact. I will drop some helpful links for you if you doubt this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_flow_(ecology) https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/z2m39j6/revision/6 https://scienceaid.net/biology/ecology/food.html#ecological_...

Re: Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80%

#40

Post by danielheath »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #9
leipert wrote: post #8

Discussed last year hacker news: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20711498 I was very skeptical whether this is scalable as up to two percent of the cows feed needs to be replaced with the sea weed and we simply do not produce sea weed at scale yet: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20713552 The TL;DR was: in order to supply 1.5 billion cows with the seaweed we might need up to 291.000 metric tons of algae per…

I eat kangaroo, it tastes great and is all wild harvested. Has anyone tried farming roo outside of Australia? Often wondered about the viability.

They’re hard to farm, because they can clear a 3m fence.
Post reply on HN