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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

#201

Post by adrianN »

sdenton4 wrote: post #192
wumpus wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternately, you could consider all of the people who don't think nuclear is the solution to climate change. Are they irrational?

(just to drop the links again... You can deploy untold millions of solar panels while waiting for a nuclear plant to come online, and they will be considerably cheaper as well. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_energy )

I think the steelman pro-nuclear argument is that if we seriously wanted to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear, we'd have to build so many reactors that they become faster and cheaper to build. They also don't require expensive seasonal storage like solar panels and wind would in most of the world or expensive HVDC lines from always-sunny areas of the world to the areas requiring seasonal storage.

So it might be possible that nuclear in the end is cheaper than renewables. Personally I'm not sure about that, but I'm not an expert in the field.

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

#202

Post by gregable »

chrisbrandow wrote: post #116

Treating it like coal implies that its users can trade beef for something that is just "as good". At the moment many users don't find that plausible.

I'll be honest, it seems reasonable to me in a lot of cases. I'm not enamored with steak, and chicken/pork can work just as well as beef for a lot of other dishes. A chicken sandwich is just as good as a burger to me.

I know there are people where that doesn't work, but there may be many where it does too with minimal nudging.

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

#203

Post by bserge »

kart23 wrote: post #184
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…

did speed limits really make things better though? germany has the autobahn and sections with no speed limit, yet their roadways are much safer than the US.

Do those deaths only count Autobahn/highway deaths?

If not, then Germany has the upper hand with a miraculous ancient technology called sidewalks.

They also have bike lanes - no, not for motorcycles, but bicycles!

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

#204

Post by dnautics »

mongol wrote: post #198
dnautics wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like I'm being gaslighted. In advanced physical chemistry we took IR spectroscopy of methane and CO2 and CO2 definitely had much, much more absorption than methane on account of the dipole difference between Carbon and oxygen (IR absorption depends on stretching modes between atoms of different electronegativity, carbon is very close to methane). At the time, it was explained to us young chemistry students tha…

Could it be something like how it is distributed in the atmosphere?

I'm curious and hoping someone can explain it to me

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

#205

Post by gregable »

tomp wrote: post #171
ayngg wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Arguments that meat take an excessive amount of resources are disingenuous because those resources cannot simply be translated to other uses, examples being that the water use example many tout uses rainwater would fall anyways, that livestock will eventually urinate meaning it isn't actually lost, and land used for livestock is mostly non arable land and therefore cant be used for producing crops anyways. Also there…

How would reducing food waste reduce emissions? After all food is just condensed CO2, eating it releases that CO2 back into the atmosphere the same as rotting. It’s a closed cycle.

True for the C from food, but the production process is energy intensive. Fertilizer production, tractors, etc all burn oil C which would otherwise have been left in the ground.

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

#207

Post by asplake »

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…

Efficient? That rather depends on the scope of the system you’re measuring.

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

#208

Post by bserge »

axiolite wrote: post #177

Coal is a fossil fuel. Returning ancient carbon to the atmosphere. Cattle is a bio-fuel. The methane/carbon they release was captured by the grains and grasses shortly before the cattle consumed it, and will continue growing after they've consumed it. Cattle should be the trendy and expensive thing among the outspoken, virtue-signaling greens. It's plant-based. Contains all-natural ingredients. Isn't made in a lab/on…

It can also work as transportation. Imagine riding to work on a bull! I mean, yeah smelly, but cool :D

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

#210

Post by adrianN »

dnautics wrote: post #204
mongol wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could it be something like how it is distributed in the atmosphere?

I'm curious and hoping someone can explain it to me

I'm just guessing: a) We don't have enough water in the atmosphere that the overlap with Methane meaningfully reduces net absorption, b) in the bands Methane absorbs there is more radiation available to absorb than in the CO2 band. If both are true that would explain the bigger effect of Methane.
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