Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers • Hacker News Board

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#51

Post by etu » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #45

j-pb wrote: post #6

I guess everything helps, but we put so much effort into the problems with easy solutions, that could be invested into the difficult stuff. Livestock contributes to 15% of all greenhouse gasses. But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient. Going vegan. This has the added benefit of protecting threatened ecosystems in the rainforrest and seas. We could then spend that energy on the difficult stuff. Fa…

How will we fix the topsoil damage caused by industrial monocropping without grazing animals? We only have a few decades left before our petrochemical dependent agricultural system will be impossible to sustain. Also, rebuilding topsoil with grazing animals has a side benefit of being a carbon sink.

Have you seen an image of a factory farm? They don't fix the soil. They ruin it more by having too many animals in a small space.

I'm fine with having smaller amounts of animals in open spaces that goes around and take care of the fields, but today's animal agriculture doesn't take care of that.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#52

Post by brightball » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:23 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #6

I guess everything helps, but we put so much effort into the problems with easy solutions, that could be invested into the difficult stuff. Livestock contributes to 15% of all greenhouse gasses. But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient. Going vegan. This has the added benefit of protecting threatened ecosystems in the rainforrest and seas. We could then spend that energy on the difficult stuff. Fa…

The issue here is specifically with beef, so going to an extreme like vegan is way past the reasonable change line.

Eating more shrimp/seafood, chicken, pork, etc instead of beef would be just as effective without all of the extra work necessary to ensure people are getting necessary amounts of protein.

Asking everyone to go vegan is selling a lifestyle and a belief system, not solving a problem.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#53

Post by brightball » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

The first time I read about this a few years back I was wondering how long it would take to become the norm. Once produced at scale, its the easiest and fastest way to address the problem.

If there are any companies out there getting into growing this stuff for industrial uses, I’d certainly be interested in investing.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#54

Post by paulcole » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:26 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #49

paulcole wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I guess everything helps This is a dangerous attitude. While technically true it gives everyone an easy cop out to avoid making real substantive change. Some things help and some things help .

Yeah, don't cop out, go vegan then ;)!

Yep! I have. I also don't drive, don't fly on airplanes, live in a tiny apartment, and will never have kids.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#55

Post by bookmarkable » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #25

bookmarkable wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is not going to go vegan. Humans eat meat. No greenhouse argument will ever change this. This is worthwhile research, as is cultured meat and other options. Evolving the tech of raising and cultivating animal protein to eat is important work.

Habe you tried the latest substitutes? Artificial chicken based on pea proteins has become virtually indistinguishable from real chicken.

Artificial chicken stuffed with soy and other fillers can't be long term indistinguishable to your body.

I wish you lasting health, but fear you are suggesting we all gamble on the oversight and benevolence of the food industry by eating even more processed, engineered foods than even Doritos or Taco Bell as your main protein source(s).

Yes, industrial food does bad things to produce large amounts of chicken, but there are quality farmers still in business, and I'll take a real, dead bird, fish or cow (and occasional pig, though harder to defend) any day over engineered replacement proteins.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#56

Post by j-pb » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:27 PM UTC

preinheimer wrote: post #24

j-pb wrote: post #6

I guess everything helps, but we put so much effort into the problems with easy solutions, that could be invested into the difficult stuff. Livestock contributes to 15% of all greenhouse gasses. But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient. Going vegan. This has the added benefit of protecting threatened ecosystems in the rainforrest and seas. We could then spend that energy on the difficult stuff. Fa…

I think it's really interesting that you view changing the eating habits of millions of people "easy". We've known and broadly accepted that smoking is bad since 1964[1]. Yet new people start smoking every year. Even in countries where packaging displays disgusting pictures showing the long term results of smoking. To me it seems unlikely that relevant parts of the world will become vegan in the short term, or that c…

Oh I didn't mean to say that changing people to go vegan is easy.

Just that going vegan is an incredibly simple solution, and itself super easy.

I probably wouldn't be vegan if it weren't for all those tasty vegan meat alternatives.

Just now I had a german "currywurst" made from wheat protein that tastes indistinguishable from the meat original. It actually tastes "better" becauese you don't get the "joyous experience" of biting onto a piece of bone or onto some chewy piece of atery or god knows what... shudder

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#57

Post by etu » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

ReadFList wrote: post #35

airhead969 wrote: post #4

This is like improving ICEs to enable their continued existence. To what end? How about eliminating meat ag altogether since it's a waste of resources, a significant component of man-made climate change, a pandemic risk, a major source of pollution, driver of deforestation, and poses a threat to antibiotic resistance? But no, the typical rationalizations include: "Muh cheezburger is muh freedom. I can eat whatever I…

How about we keep eating locally produced meat because it's healthy, far more than those "fake" meats that are no more than vegetable oils, estrogen from soy and the likes, and chemicals to add flavour, and instead reduce waste? Do you really think that the increase in vegetable prodution would not have any environmental impact? We grow them out of the air? And ICE should continue to exist to make sure we stop at the…

Soy doesn't contain estrogen, it contains phytoestrogen which looks very much like estrogen but actually has the opposite effect and block "real" estrogen. Phytoestrogen can help to lower estrogen levels.

Do you know where real estrogen comes from? Female animals. Do you know the gender of basically all meat/egg/milk products comes from? Females. So that's where your estrogen comes from.

Not from Soy.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#58

Post by whitepaint » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:29 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #6

I guess everything helps, but we put so much effort into the problems with easy solutions, that could be invested into the difficult stuff. Livestock contributes to 15% of all greenhouse gasses. But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient. Going vegan. This has the added benefit of protecting threatened ecosystems in the rainforrest and seas. We could then spend that energy on the difficult stuff. Fa…

> But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient.

Making ~99% of people vegans is anything but easy, cheap, and mildly inconvenient. In fact, it is impossible (until we manage to replicate meat in the lab).

Your view is ridiculously myopic; I will not and most people will not stop eating meat anytime soon. It is a simple fact and you must accept it before trying to solve this. Real solutions are something like the article describes.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#59

Post by jws » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

frankbreetz wrote: post #12

"Transportation of the processed or unprocessed seaweed should be kept to a minimum, so cultivation in the region of use is recommended specially to avoid long-haul shipping." "Asparagopsis taxiformis, (red sea plume or limu kohu) formerly A. sanfordiana, is a species of red algae, with cosmopolitan distribution in tropical to warm temperate waters."[0] This seems to be a pretty big hurdle to overcome. Either all the…

They are feeding, at the high range, 0.5% seaweed. A cow eats about 10kg of feed a day for 20 months before it is in turn eaten. That seems like 6000kg of feed which means 30kg of seaweed to make a 500kg cow.

Algae to cow is likely a longer distance than cow to table, but one presumes the bulk of that is on rail and more efficient than the trucks used for feed to farm, cow to processor, and meat to table.

Shipping the algae doesn’t seem like a deal breaker.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#60

Post by AtlasBarfed » Mon, Mar 22, 2021, 2:31 PM UTC

j-pb wrote: post #6

I guess everything helps, but we put so much effort into the problems with easy solutions, that could be invested into the difficult stuff. Livestock contributes to 15% of all greenhouse gasses. But the solution is easy, cheap, and only midly inconvenient. Going vegan. This has the added benefit of protecting threatened ecosystems in the rainforrest and seas. We could then spend that energy on the difficult stuff. Fa…

"But the solution is easy, cheap, and only mildly inconvenient. Going Vegan."

"But the solution is easy, cheap, and only mildly inconvenient. Ride a bicycle."

"But the solution is easy, cheap, and only mildly inconvenient. Live in a solar powered minihome."

""But the solution is easy, cheap, and only mildly inconvenient. Don't reproduce/have kids."

"But the solution is easy, cheap, and only mildly inconvenient. No plastics."

I am a huge environmentalist, and I've adopted large swathes of these policies personally. As MIB said, a person is smart, rational, and reasonable, but PEOPLE are scared, stupid, and crazy. They are lazy, apathetic, ingrained in habit, and tired.

Global warming in particular should be pursued in a multifront effort. No one can prognosticate and see "this is where we put ALL our efforts". To succeed it needs to be a combined, iterative, democratic process of research, technology, education, and cultural advancement.