Earlier quoted context omitted.
I will not eat the bugs.
What’s your stance on the pod?
not a fan
Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
121–130 of 344 posts
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#122Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the main problem with cows was feed lots feeding 10 calories of grain to make 1 calorie of meat, not methane.
Cow feed is generally not human edible: https://www.milkmeansmore.org/what-do-cows-eat/
Most places that grow feed corn could also grow human-edible corn. Remember that I'm talking about feedlots for beef.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#123I can’t read the full article because of the paywall but the main argument seems to be that cows emit a lot of CO2. Ruminants eat plants, which contain carbon captured from the atmosphere. They then release most of that carbon back to the atmosphere, from where it will be eventually absorbed by plants again. So it’s a cycle where no new carbon is really being introduced (unlike burning fossil fuels that would otherwi…
* a lot of energy is used to farm the cows, e.g. growing their food, fertilizers, butchering, shipping, etc * Cow methane is a much worse greenhouse gas than co2, orders of magnitude worse * Land that would capture a lot more CO2 and keep water in the environment is chopped down or otherwise destroyed to make pastures, the worst being rainforests. * Orders of magnitude more water is used to raise cows vs the equivale…
The point about the extra energy is potentially valid, although it would need data.
Methane being worse than CO2 doesn't change the fact that it's a cycle and thus it's not causing extra warming as long as the amount of animals is constant.
Alternative forests, etc, is equally a one off thing. Keeping the pastures doesn't make anything worse, and reverting them back would only be a one off improvement.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better than being headed into a new medieval era because climate change caused civilization to collapse.
Revealed preferences don't match that rhetoric. - People are not migrating North in droves. They are not preparing in any way. - Nuclear energy, the only realistic solution to climate change, is not being supported. It's actually being retired early in many cases and replaced with coal of all things. - Property prices on the coastline are going up. President Obama, who has access to the best information and experts,…
People don't act rationally, that should come as a surprise to no one. Look at the number of people who are overweight, sedentary and/or smoke even though they don't want to die of cancer or heart disease.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#125Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought the main problem with cows was feed lots feeding 10 calories of grain to make 1 calorie of meat, not methane.
Cow feed is generally not human edible: https://www.milkmeansmore.org/what-do-cows-eat/
This implies that the land used to grow cow feed couldn't be used to instead grow human-consumable crops or left fallow as a carbon sink. I'm not aware of any studies showing that.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
Better than being headed into a new medieval era because climate change caused civilization to collapse.
Climate change already caused civilization to collapse 20 years ago according to this article published in 1990: https://apnews.com/article/bd45c372caf118ec99964ea547880cd0 >" UNITED NATIONS (AP) _ A senior U.N. environmental official says entire nations could be wiped off the face of the Earth by rising sea levels if the global warming trend is not reversed by the year 2000. Coastal flooding and crop failures would…
It really shouldn't be necessary to link to this on Hacker News, but Snopes [1] does a good job putting this article into context.
1. https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/nations-vanish-global-warm...
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#127> The simplest way to cut beef output is for people to eat other animals instead, or become vegetarians. That’s like, in 1900, saying “the simplest way to prevent road deaths is for everyone to drive slower.” That’s not simple at all - that’s an intractable group behavior problem. What you really need is for the government to come along and put up speed limits. Most people will push those rules, a few will flout them…
Yes, we absolutely need the government to tell people what they’re allowed to eat.
yes that already exists, last time i checked governments don't like it when people eat other people;
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
That article seems highly motivated to marginalize the effects of livestock. Quoting a section: While methane is 28-times more heat-trapping than carbon dioxide, methane’s lifespan is just a decade, while CO2 — known as a long-life pollutant — remains in the atmosphere for 1000 years. After ten years, methane is broken down in a process called hydroxyl oxidation into CO2, entering a carbon cycle which sees the gas ab…
There is a certain amount of carbon in the atmosphere, and a certain amount of carbon in the ground. When you burn oil, you take carbon from the ground and introduce it into the atmosphere. This increases the total amount of carbon resident in the atmosphere. When you grow plants, you take carbon out of the atmosphere. When you eat it, you release it back into the atmosphere. The total amount of carbon resident in th…
> When you grow plants, you take carbon out of the atmosphere. When you eat it, you release it back into the atmosphere.
So the electricity and diesel that are involved in growing plants come from the atmosphere? That's new to me.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#129It feels like we are headed into a new medieval era of sumptuary laws and moral decrees promulgated by a decentralized international clerical-academic class. I don't think I like it very much
Better than being headed into a new medieval era because climate change caused civilization to collapse.
I heard the argument, that one reason of the Syrian war is how agriculture becomes less and less possible there.
So we already see direct effects on society from climate change.
Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
#130I can't see how lab grown meats would enable the use of the land that animals use. Animals take up land that is unusable for crops and make it productive. What land would the labs use?