Australia to produce seaweed cattle feed that reduces methane emissions by 80% • Hacker News Board

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

#211

Post by shafyy » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:49 PM UTC

Of course Big Meat and Big Dairy love pushing this narrative. These kind of "solution" let's them continue do what they are doing without fundamentally solving the problem.

It's like making more efficient internal combution engines. Sure, it's marginally better, but what it really does is distract from the real problem, which is: Burning fossil fuels. And the same is true for this seaweed cattle.

And this is assuming that it does really reduce methane emissions by 80%, which I wouldn't believe until it has been empirically demonstrated on a large scale.

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

#212

Post by dondoron » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:51 PM UTC

scns wrote: post #18

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…

Without excrement from animals you need synthetic fertilizer, whose production causes massive production causes massive environmental damage eg emissions and algae bloom.

There is more than enough liquid manure, forcing farmers to pay for its removal (at least in Europe, that is). Also, it can be used only at certain points in time to avoid food poisoning.

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

#213

Post by nradov » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

lizknope wrote: post #181

nradov wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think most of us think it is possible to live healthily as vegetarians, but much more difficult. Meat from other mammals contains almost all the nutrients we need in a convenient and properly balanced format. In particular the protein quality and digestibility is higher than in most plant sources. For those of us who are active athletes, there are a lot of anecdotes about people who tried vegetarian or vegan diets…

There are around 300 million vegetarians in India. That is close to the population of the United States. Whatever health problems you think they may suffer from it isn't the ability to procreate. I gave up meat 6 years ago. All of my non subtle clinically diagnosed health problems went away. I did it because I couldn't think of killing animals anymore and the wonderful side effects of obesity, high blood sugar, and h…

There's more to life than procreation. How many of those 300 million vegetarians are still able to perform at a high level in strength and endurance into their 50s and 60s?

Assuming equal caloric intake there is no reliable evidence that eating meat increases obesity, blood sugar, or blood pressure. Rather the opposite.

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

#214

Post by triyambakam » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:52 PM UTC

bamboozled wrote: post #204

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforest…

There's no need to focus on just one. However people are passionate about advocating for eating a plant based diet because it is so easy, relatively speaking. Getting fracking to stop at even just one site is a lot of work, but getting more and more people to stop eating animal products, because it's directly within their own control, is simple. Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?) and as long as it's based on whole foods, eating plant based comes with a lot of health benefits compared to how most people's diet is (in the West or Western influenced - e.g. a lot of Koreans and Chinese have hugely increased their animal product consumption and started including animal products they didn't previously eat like cow milk cheese).

So again, we can work on more than one issue, but why there is strong passion behind diet is that it's a very direct action and comes with other positives.

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

#215

Post by slothtrop » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

shafyy wrote: post #209

bamboozled wrote: post #204

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforest…

It is the highest value target. Livestock agriculture is the leading driver of climate change AND biodiversity loss. It emits more GHG than all forms of transportation combined. Additionally, if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. Some recommended reading: https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-h…

> This seaweed won't even start solving this problem.

To the extent that the problem extends much further than level of consumption of cattle, that is true. But if widespread adoption of feed can effectively reduce methane emissions from cattle, as you said it targets one of the primary drivers - that's more than a start. This helps you visualize the impacts of various solutions, notice what happens when all other things held equal you drop methane - https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=45&...

> if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050.

This is a moot point considering that trees and plant numbers could be increased in many other areas, particularly where they are felled in high numbers, and not all pasture land is appropriate for plant agriculture or otherwise.

There is a short-term battle and a long-term one. We do need to curb emissions in the short-term substantially, which will require innovation and policy changes. Long-term, the fact is land encroachment and destruction scales with the population; we all have an environmental footprint, and slightly increasing its efficiency will never outpace and counteract the impact of perpetual population increase. It's projected to curb more in the future as more of the global population gets lifted out of poverty, and access to contraceptives is more universal - however, this could be accelerated. There's no reason we can't quash global poverty further right now.

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

#216

Post by ticmasta » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

jazzabeanie wrote: post #91

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…

In Australia a significant amount (can't remember the specifics) of cattle is raised on land that is unsuitable for crop production. My own experience confirms this. I've seen many cattle farms around Queensland - some with low stocking density and no deforestation, others very poorly managed with no trees at all or full of invasive species. It's not as simple as eating meat = bad, but that's the message most people…

For many of us in the Western World and specifically Canada, water use is a major area of concern as well. Seaweed obviously doesn't use a lot of fresh water to grow, but I'm not sure about the processing. Cattle production still does use a lot of water and we don't raise a lot of cows by the oceans, but this has some interesting applications.

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

#217

Post by sparrc » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:58 PM UTC

The article says they secured $13 million in funding. This is chump change compared to the size of the Australian beef industry.

Hard to imagine that they are actually planning to roll this out on a large scale with that level of investment.

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

#218

Post by MiroF » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 3:59 PM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #210

MiroF wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 b…

> Brazil is a net exporter of food, so there goes that narrative Yes, but it doesn't export that food to western countries. In the US for example, less than 10% of beef is imported, and most of that is from Mexico and Canada. Believe it or not, western countries grow their own meat, and in the west the CO2 and methane emissions for growing meat has been pretty steady, and is a moderate slice of the carbon emissions'…

> Yes, but it doesn't export that food to western countries.

I don't understand why that matters? Brazil doesn't export to the US because of its FMD problem among its cattle.

> CO2 and methane emissions for growing meat has been pretty steady, and is a moderate slice of the carbon emissions' pie.

Beef production accounts for 1/3 of all agricultural emissions in the US. Obviously it's not the primary or even a huge share of overall emissions, because there are so many other human activities like driving and using electricity that we are doing all the time.

> Renewables are only cost effective because that cost is subsidized. It's a sham IMO.

Yeah, it is ridiculous that we subsidize industries to such an extent! Good thing beef and milk production are not subsidized at all...

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

#219

Post by ticmasta » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:00 PM UTC

thinkcontext wrote: post #148

jazzabeanie wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Australia a significant amount (can't remember the specifics) of cattle is raised on land that is unsuitable for crop production. My own experience confirms this. I've seen many cattle farms around Queensland - some with low stocking density and no deforestation, others very poorly managed with no trees at all or full of invasive species. It's not as simple as eating meat = bad, but that's the message most people…

Its quite rare for beef cattle to be 100% range raised. Beef cattle generally start out in rangeland or pasture where they eat grass with supplementary grain feed for a year or so. Then they get moved to an extremely dense feedlot or Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation where they are fed mostly grain based feed for the next 6 months or so.

That's what gives cows the taste most consumers recognize as "prime beef". Eating solely grass-feed is definitely a different taste;I'm not sure most consumers would like it, at least initially (outside of a hamburger).

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

#220

Post by bad_user » Thu, Sep 24, 2020, 4:04 PM UTC

MiroF wrote: post #218

bad_user wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Brazil is a net exporter of food, so there goes that narrative Yes, but it doesn't export that food to western countries. In the US for example, less than 10% of beef is imported, and most of that is from Mexico and Canada. Believe it or not, western countries grow their own meat, and in the west the CO2 and methane emissions for growing meat has been pretty steady, and is a moderate slice of the carbon emissions'…

> Yes, but it doesn't export that food to western countries. I don't understand why that matters? Brazil doesn't export to the US because of its FMD problem among its cattle. > CO2 and methane emissions for growing meat has been pretty steady, and is a moderate slice of the carbon emissions' pie. Beef production accounts for 1/3 of all agricultural emissions in the US. Obviously it's not the primary or even a huge sh…

> "I don't understand why that matters?"

It matters because convincing people to eat soy in the western world does absolutely nothing for the Amazon forest. It's a false narrative.

It's also untrue that the Amazon forest is deforested because of meat production, and that stopping meat production will prevent deforestation, but that's an argument for another day.

> "Good thing beef and milk production are not subsidized at all... "

Sure, stop subsidizing it. I'm all for it ;-)

That won't do much either, but at least we'll get that off the table. And I'm as anti-subsidies as it gets, because it prevents free market competition, with subsidies becoming yet another privilege for the incumbents and the rich. So yeah, let's get rid of that shit.