231–240 of 322 posts
The problem in the world now is that we have long gone past eating for survival, we now eat for desire. Anyways, go vegan.
What about not feeding them corn? Does grass make as much cow farts?
There are organic livestock farmers in the U.S. who rotate their cattle over various nearby-lands which helps fertilize it naturally, synergy with plant agriculture.
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> 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. 72% of all deforestation in Queensland and 94% in the Great Barrier Reef catchment areas is a direct result of land clearing for beef production. Edit: One source was missing. https://www.wilderness.org.au/images/resources/Beef-Deforest... https://www.…
That doesn't negate the point that deforestation is not necessary, and may not be typical. 100% of deforestation could be for beef production, but 99% of beef production could be without deforestation.
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Norman Borlaug won the Nobel Peace Prize for the green revolution and understood the misguidance of efficiency as a strategy better than anyone. As a tactic it works under the strategy of managing population, as he said in his acceptance speech: > "The green revolution has won a temporary success in man’s war against hunger and deprivation; it has given man a breathing space. If fully implemented, the revolution can…
It's worth noting that continued population growth is an inherent assumption in today's economic climate and really for the past century or two. Just look at all the alarmist headlines around Japan's stagnating population. While a huge environmental win and globally necessary, nations are incentivized to strive for continuing population growth as wellfare, pension systems and arguably the entire economy has been rely…
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> 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 th…
Almost 80% of the usable land is used for livestock agriculture. In which other areas do you propose to increase trees and plants? This seaweed additive they propose is a distraction. Even if it would work, it's a band-aid at best. The real, more simple, cheaper and healthier solution is to make meat and dairy from plants directly.
What are you referring to when you say "usable land"? What means usable? Presumably you refer to agriculture and I'm not sure where your number comes from. 42 percent of the land acreage of Canada is covered by forests. This is the percentage forest cover by each State in the U.S. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forest_cover_by_state_and_terr...
> In which other areas do you propose to increase trees and plants?
Anywhere else appropriate.
> This seaweed additive they propose is a distraction
It's a solution, given that among the problems framed is the level of methane emissions.
> Even if it would work, it's a band-aid at best.
There has been research papers illustrating the impact of seaweed in cattle feed for years now - it works.
No one is framing this as the entire solution to global warming. If it can curb methane to that extent, it has a substantial impact.
> The real, more simple, cheaper and healthier solution is to make meat and dairy from plants directly.
We already have "alternative" products on the market which aren't that popular, but no actual lab-grown meat on the market. The "real" solution (to this minor subset of a larger issue) is one that exists, or could viably be cost-effective enough to consumers tastes. I see no suggestion that lab-grown meat would be cheap, or healthier, or simpler.
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"... the problem is too many people indoctrinated with the idea of eating all the animals, all the time." The problem is there are too many people. Even if a person isn't eating meat, they still use a vast amount of other resources, especially if they adhere to a modern lifestyle.
Nope, that's not a problem. And in 100 years the global population will be shrinking anyway, but resource consumption will still be going up.
Plus there's no guarantee it will shrink.
> resource consumption
Technological innovation is such that we'd be increasingly more efficient with our resource use.
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…
Quite a bit. Most of the deforestation you are mentioning happens for monocrop cultivation, from which livestock consume (mostly) the leftovers. That's usually hidden in data by using total weight, but the reality is that 86% of the dry matter consumed by livestock are not edible by humans [1].
[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22119...
>All improvements are good, but I'd like to know if this is more than a distraction to make people feel better about continuing to demand products they know are damaging the environment (e.g. Amazon deforestation).
Both are compatible. You can be against the Amazon deforestation and pro-reduction of emissions of current cattle. Most of the beef consumed in the US (~90%) is raised in the US.
> Industrial farmed animals aren't eating grass, they're eating crops like soy. If you find soy milk and soy-based meat alternatives decent for example, consider eating those directly instead of products from soy-fed cows - it'll be vastly better for the environment with seaweed or not.
Ahhh... No, thanks. It will also be vastly worse for my health.
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That doesn't negate the point that deforestation is not necessary, and may not be typical. 100% of deforestation could be for beef production, but 99% of beef production could be without deforestation.
If the beef you're eating was raised on a deforested area (anything from a big fast-food chain almost certainly was) then that's still pretty unethical though. I agree it doesn't mean that beef is inherently unethical. But people will need to be willing to accept higher prices in order to make it ethical.
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…
Poore and Nemecek did a pretty comprehensive survey of the climate impact of different foods https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 in 2018. Their underlying data suggests that methane accounts for about 38% of the total CO2 equivalent impact of beef herds. So if this is true, beef would still be highly damaging, but materially improved over where it sits now.