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Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

economist.com

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Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#161

Post by axiolite »

swader999 wrote: post #157
elil17 wrote: post #85

> 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…

The ironic thing is that speed limits reduce revenues collected from gas tax via better fuel efficiency from driving slower.

A mid-sized conventional gasoline car is more fuel efficient at 55MPH than at 45MPH. Pumping losses work that way. With improved aerodynamics, you could get that even higher.

https://afdc.energy.gov/data/10312

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#162

Post by gregmolnar »

Ekaros wrote: post #160

If we start banning certain foods like beef. We should do it equally. Only allow those crops with lowest CO2 per calorie/nutrient output. As clearly taste is secondary. After all, replacing all we eat with tasteless gruel and water is acceptable by this logic.

The taste of a dish is mainly coming from the spices.

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#163

Post by paganel »

Ekaros wrote: post #160

If we start banning certain foods like beef. We should do it equally. Only allow those crops with lowest CO2 per calorie/nutrient output. As clearly taste is secondary. After all, replacing all we eat with tasteless gruel and water is acceptable by this logic.

At some point Soylent Green becomes an acceptable option.

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#164

Post by TedDoesntTalk »

fighterpilot wrote: post #93
quotemstr wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no universe where climate change causes the literal collapse of civilization. Exaggerating the risks of something just destroys the credibility of the people doing the exaggerating: consider DARE and drugs.

If it indirectly triggers nuclear war, it's plausible. Even just India vs Pakistan will lead to about a billion starvation deaths due to crop failures around the world as an externality. We were close to nuclear war in the 20th century despite no exogenous disturbances. What do you think will happen when there's mass migration and other stresses on the global order?

> mass migration

In case you’re wondering why he claims global warming will lead to mass migration, it is because the millions of miles of coastlines will change.

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#165

Post by swader999 »

colordrops wrote: post #34
beckman466 wrote: post #2

this is a half-baked ‘solution‘ that just makes eating meat a luxury. a thing only for the rich. it’ll be like crimes that are punished by a fine - they just become the ‘fee’ that allows the propertied class to do whatever they want. beef is deadly for humanity because of destructive water and land usage (Vice had a great video showing the Amazon deforestation due to beef production). edit: my point is that the prope…

If only allowing the rich to eat beef will help save the planet then I'm for it.

Edgar: What does steak taste like again? I had it once, but I can't remember. Curtis: If you can't remember then it's better to forget. Edgar: What does it smell like when it's cooked? It must emanate around the place.”

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#166

Post by swader999 »

hjek wrote: post #152
colordrops wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If only allowing the rich to eat beef will help save the planet then I'm for it.

If only eating the rich will help save the planet then I'm in.

It would save humanity. Maybe that's a start?

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#167

Post by Ekaros »

gregmolnar wrote: post #162
Ekaros wrote: post #160

If we start banning certain foods like beef. We should do it equally. Only allow those crops with lowest CO2 per calorie/nutrient output. As clearly taste is secondary. After all, replacing all we eat with tasteless gruel and water is acceptable by this logic.

The taste of a dish is mainly coming from the spices.

But they have little nutrional importance. As such producing them cause substantial extra CO2 load relatively. I think ban of them in such scenario is absolutely justified. As we clearly then want to do everything to combat climate change.

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#168

Post by tarsinge »

fidgetspinner wrote: post #18

Hm, this seems to be missing the point that plant monocrops destroy the soil and are not nearly as efficient a source of food for the human body as fresh animal meat. Regenerative agriculture, which ideally requires both animal and plant cultivation, would be a better path forward if it could scale. If I remember correctly the papers that originally thought cattle were a big contributor to global warming turned out t…

The vast majority of agricultural land today are for feeding animals (between 70% and 80% depending of the studies). The end product meat is maybe more efficient, but compared to what was needed for its production it is not. It’s not humans that eat that much monocultured corn and soy.

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#169

Post by allturtles »

adrianN wrote: post #78
fidgetspinner wrote: post #18

Hm, this seems to be missing the point that plant monocrops destroy the soil and are not nearly as efficient a source of food for the human body as fresh animal meat. Regenerative agriculture, which ideally requires both animal and plant cultivation, would be a better path forward if it could scale. If I remember correctly the papers that originally thought cattle were a big contributor to global warming turned out t…

Well, some meat production is obviously a sustainable part of agriculture. There will always be some areas where the soil is too poor for anything but grazing and you'll always have some waste that you can feed to chicken, pigs, and ruminants. But these sustainable levels of animal husbandry are so far removed from the industrialized meat production that we're currently doing that they might as well be zero. Recall t…

> Recall that just a generation or two ago meat was something you ate once a week if you lived in a fairly developed country.

What do you mean by a fairly developed country? McDonald's was selling hamburgers for 15 cents in 1955 (roughly the same as the price of a loaf of bread at the grocery store).

Catholics eating fish on Friday (instead of meat) I believe goes back many generations.

See also this article about historical meat consumption in the U.S.[0]:

"“These sources do give us some confidence in suggesting an average annual consumption of 150–200 pounds of meat per person in the nineteenth century.”

[0]: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/how-ameri...

Re: Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions

#170

Post by paganel »

mattnewton wrote: post #55
beckman466 wrote: post #2

this is a half-baked ‘solution‘ that just makes eating meat a luxury. a thing only for the rich. it’ll be like crimes that are punished by a fine - they just become the ‘fee’ that allows the propertied class to do whatever they want. beef is deadly for humanity because of destructive water and land usage (Vice had a great video showing the Amazon deforestation due to beef production). edit: my point is that the prope…

If everyone had a private jet with jet fuel subsidized by the government it would also be bad for humanity. It’s currently tolerated as a luxury only for the rich. As an argument for subsidizing something, that doesn’t resonate with me by itself. We subsidize the meat industry directly, and indirectly by not pricing in negative externalities like it’s carbon expenditure.

Equating eating meat to owning a private jet won't get the point pretty well to the masses.
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