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

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

#191
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I still think that there is a simple explanation for the 'reduction in methane' effect Yes - your "still" suggests to me you think that it is a mystery (apologies if i misunderstand), whereas i believe it is reasonably well understood - it's bromoform, aka tribromomethane, which inhibits methanogenesis in bacteria [0]. So it is indeed a chemical weapon. > Raising cattle in a regular diet of seaweed for its entire l…

Thanks for the info. It seems that tribromomethane is classified as a persistent carcinogenic, toxic by contact and also water soluble. Not good. That moves the discussion further, to a totally different, much darker, scenery: "Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that will cause canker if eaten" . I wonder what government agency would approve a known carcinogenic as okay to be used in meat production and how the…

canker -> cancer

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

#192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whole milk: 24% That is a crazy high efficiency, when you think about it. A quarter of all food this animal receives through its entire life ends up as milk. The rest is used for growing cells, keeping it alive and warm, moving around. Back of the napkin says that I've eaten my bodyweight in food in less than 2 months.

> A quarter of all food this animal receives through its entire life ends up as milk You are not doing the math well. Milk is 87% water, so we should include both, what the animal drank and ate. What you have after removing the water would be the real conversion factor (dried food to dried milk).

Lol, obviously this 24% is meant to be energy preserved (i.e. the joules or calories) when going over from the feeding to the milk.

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

#193
post #65
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week. Especially if your job isn’t that physically demanding. You reduce meat consumption to 1/7 if you do so. If most of us did that a lot of problems would be moot.

You assume that the only reason people eat meat is either sociological or physical workout. You have multiple subsets of population that may find it more difficult to quit meat than the others. For women (especially pregnant), meat is a source of Iron. For people with adhd, there is a correlation with meat eating (and we can assume causation as well, since adhd is genetic). Meat is a source of vitamins that have been…

I don’t think I was assuming, but it’s one if the most frequent misperceptions. It’s highly subjective indeed when it comes to your relationship with meat. But vegatarian meat replacements are getting ridiculously good, especially the last couple of years, if its just about the taste and texture.

And again, it’s not about dropping meat right now, it’s about seeing if you can cut down. Even eating it one day less makes an impact.

Just try it is what I am saying. See if there is something in your culinary palette that fills the appetite (and has no biological negative net effects)

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

#194
post #28

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.

"We all know that the best thing we can do is eat a local, veg-friendly (vegetarian/vegan) diet."

Really, why don't you take it one step further and reduce your diet to a kind of Soylient that comprises the most energy efficient veg.

How dare you eat veg that's not Soy, don't you know how inefficient that is?

Or maybe your statement about food is wrong and borderline authoritarian?

Price in carbon and then let people decide.

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

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the demand will always be there. Humans like to eat meat. I doubt very many will give up the privilege, esp. when others are not. I guess that's why we're all doomed to a broken planet. As long as we keep using "well, no one else is going to change" as an excuse we'll inherit the world we deserve.

There will always be someone telling us we're "doomed to a broken planet." Some people aren't going to subscribe to your brand of Catastrophism or your solution to the problem.

Well, maybe I'm wrong and technology will outpace our looming problems. I hope that's the case but it would be foolish to depend on it, don't you think? It seems to me that your brand of thinking is one that comes to down to a simple mater of believing what it is convenient for you to believe.

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

#196

How is this any different from hybrid vehicles still burning FF? Yes, it makes it slightly better, but eating certain protein sources is a choice, whereas transportation infrastructure is an economically-limited choice. Animal ag still causes: - climate change - inefficient allocation of calories and fresh water - water, air, and ground pollution (lakes of poo, runoff into rivers) - pandemic and other zoonotic diseas…

We eat meat as part of our diet.

So saying 'animals are the problem' is like saying 'human existence' is part of the problem.

We ate meat before, we can continue to eat meat.

What we need to do is fix the carbon problem, and possibly the 'too many people' problem.

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

#197

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…

Relevant article: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/3/034...

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

#198
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the demand will always be there. Humans like to eat meat. I doubt very many will give up the privilege, esp. when others are not. I guess that's why we're all doomed to a broken planet. As long as we keep using "well, no one else is going to change" as an excuse we'll inherit the world we deserve.

You at least see how hypocritical that is, right? The Western world got to fulfill our gluttonous desires -- now, when it comes time for the developing world to get their turn at the table, we wag our fingers and say "Sorry, that's bad for the planet!"

On the one hand yeah, I do get it. On the other hand there's a very real possibility that not changing our ways now will result in a significantly worse future for literally everybody.

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

#199
post #28

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.

Buying local is not necessarily better. A small farmer who hauls 50 pounds of tomatoes to the local farmers market can be far less efficient than an industrial farm shipping 2 tons from 1000 miles away to your local super market.

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

#200

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…

Re "Amazon deforestation" — those lands haven't been deforested because of the western country's consumption of meat, they've been deforested because people are starving, and they need to put food on the table, and be lifted out of poverty.

And countries, such as Brazil, are only now doing what the western countries have been doing all throughout the 19th and the 20th century. I know this sounds terrible, but you have no right to demand that Brazil stops the deforestation, and in fact you have no sway either, because you are not buying the result of their agriculture anyway.

If western countries want the deforestation of the Amazon to stop, the cold, harsh reality is that they should subsidize the price for it.

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As for making personal changes, if eating soy makes you feel any better, sure, do that, but stop shaming people for eating meat. Because in the large scheme of things, switching from meat to soy does mostly nothing for the environment.

The reason is that, going vegan, as an individual, only saves you a couple of $ in CO2 emissions per year. That's right. All of your efforts are only worth a couple of $ per year in CO2 emissions. And even if you think that's worth it, those emissions would be re-allocated to industry anyway.

Also, ironically, the behavior of people going green changes. If you have an electric car, for example, you might feel the need to ride it more, to make more trips. Because it's cheaper, and you've been a good citizen, you've earned it. And when that happens, and it does, your net emissions might not go as low as you'd think. Never mind that the subsidies for electric cars are yet again subsidies for the rich.

Go carless first, then we can talk about not eating meat ;-)

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Real change will come from technological progress. It always came from technological progress. Remember whales? Whales were not saved by political activism, by individuals refusing to use whale oil. Whales were saved because cheap replacements for whale oil became available.

Ironically, renewable energy might not be very green at all. Maybe we should address the fact that solar panels are super inefficient, taking up massive land use, and their recycling is super expensive. Instead of investing more in nuclear energy, money is being diverted on solutions that may in fact be worse for the environment than cleaner fossil fuels (e.g. gas).

We are currently unable to replace fossil fuels with cleaner alternatives, because "renewable" energy isn't up to snuff, and because of nuclear-phobia, which prevents investments in nuclear power.

But sure, let's all eat soy, that will save the planet.

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