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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

#301

Post by phonypc »

herbst wrote: post #298
phonypc wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And how expensive is it to eat beef from these cows? How many people that currently have a taste for beef could afford eating it regularly if this was the only option? I'm all for it, but in effect this is just the "massively reduce consumption" argument.

I haven't found any conclusive numbers. About 6.5% of all beef eaten here is organic. However not organic does not always automatically mean it's 100% bad. My neighbor's meat is way cheaper than organic meat in supermarkets. Still at least twice as much as 'cheap' meat.

Near as I can find, baseline Swiss beef prices are already 4x the global average. I'd certainly be eating beef a lot less if it was 4x more expensive, never mind a premium on top of that.

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

#302

Post by quotemstr »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #283
TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Florida has already so unsustainable that only the US government will insure the structures and buildings. The Netherlands and Venice are also another artificial human livable area. Frozen regions of the world will become habitable so livable landmass will actually increase in northern tundras.

What planet are you living on? There are tons of companies offering private flood insurance in Florida: https://www.floir.com/sections/pandc/floodinsurance/floodins...

Climate hysteria is really something else.

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

#303

Post by GhettoComputers »

quotemstr wrote: post #302
GhettoComputers wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Florida has already so unsustainable that only the US government will insure the structures and buildings. The Netherlands and Venice are also another artificial human livable area. Frozen regions of the world will become habitable so livable landmass will actually increase in northern tundras.

What planet are you living on? There are tons of companies offering private flood insurance in Florida: https://www.floir.com/sections/pandc/floodinsurance/floodins... Climate hysteria is really something else.

Tons? https://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/fl-bz-hurricane-season... >“In Orlando if a house predates 2010 and is worth less than $300,000, no company is going to write [insurance for] you,” warned Locke Burt, CEO of Security First Insurance Co. in a June 2020 Sun Sentinel article.

https://www.forbes.com/advisor/homeowners-insurance/why-is-h... Residents there that cannot afford the insurance that exists might as well mean that it doesn't exist the same way life saving surgery cannot be purchased by a person makes it nonexistant.

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

#304

Post by GhettoComputers »

adrianN wrote: post #293
GhettoComputers wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The question was about your personal energy expended on changing public opinion and making a greener environment, not if you are in power and have dictatorship powers, unless you have a path to that point. What do you think is the most efficient usage of your time to lower emissions? The Dominican Republic had a very green dictatorship who was sadly assassinated but his trees have protected the country on there and i…

The most efficient usage of my time to lower emissions is donating part of my income to lobby groups that try to convince politicians to enact meaningful policies wrt climate change.

Yes, which lobbying groups do you like? I myself just suggest more sustainable practices and do my best, haven't been on a plane in over a decade. You use your voice though, what would you tell others to lower carbon emissions?

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

#305

Post by petermcneeley »

candiodari wrote: post #235

No it would not make even the tiniest dent. I don't get this sort of reasoning. We keep, and keep, and keep treating this like "let's force everyone" problem. Jevon's paradox. If we kill beef production, we change nothing. Oil and coal that gets dug up gets burned. Law simply does not apply to all states that do this, so these sorts of measures are dead in the water. So the ONLY way to lower (eventual) greenhouse emi…

As someone with a degree in physics and a comp phys background I would argue that this is a coordination problem and not one of applied science or engineering.

There is really no better demonstration of this than the nuclear power situation. We have already discovered the source of 'limitless' energy but we refuse to capitalize on it for political reasons.

If you want more innovation you are going to have to fund it. Most of the smart people of this world are currently trying to figure out how to make Ads get clicks. Companies dont really fund the kinds of innovations you are suggesting because they will never see a return on that investment.

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

#306

Post by tfehring »

GhettoComputers wrote: post #299
tfehring wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not familiar with European politics but wasn’t a carbon tax one of the principal reasons for the yellow vest protests? In the US, the vast majority are unwilling to do pretty much anything to fight climate change. ~70% oppose a $0.25/gallon gasoline tax; note that a true Pigouvian tax would be something like 20x higher than that based on the current cost of carbon removal. https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/climate-op…

What kind of normal person wants to pay more for gas, especially when most of the population isn't in the upper income bracket in the US and mismanagement of tax funds is so common? I can't imagine why a teenage mother or person struggling with minimum wage desiring these extra costs or more taxes. The usage of the taxes is big issue, it is likely to just be pocketed by the politicians or as subsidies for large corpo…

It's not about wanting to pay more, it's about wanting to stop causing damage that future generations will have to pay for. Young people in the western world today are quick to (accurately) accuse older generations of severely messing up the environment (as well as housing markets, government budgets, etc.) to enrich themselves at the expense of future generations. Given that, I don't think it's that crazy to expect those same young people to pay for the negative externalities their own activities create instead of just paying it forward.

The poll cited in the article I linked explicitly mentioned that the revenue would be used for policies to support greenhouse gas reduction. I'm skeptical that the respondents cared that much about how the money would get spent, since the vast majority did support policies that would tax the wealthy and/or companies that produce greenhouse gas emissions - the only difference is where they perceive the money to be coming from, not how it would be spent.

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

#307

Post by elil17 »

kybernetyk wrote: post #91
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…

Yes, we absolutely need the government to tell people what they’re allowed to eat.

The government never regulates food products.

Fishing boats are allowed to keep any fish or crustacean regardless of size or sex. In fact, they don’t even have daily catch limits they have to adhere too. We’re so lucky that all fishing companies voluntarily avoid over fishing. If there was some sort of “department of game and fish” in most states regulating what animals you can eat, it would probably be the beginning of the end for America. I would just up and move to Canada.

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

#308

Post by elil17 »

wumpus wrote: post #220
axiolite wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is “pumping loss “? Unlike older scientific topics that have esoteric terminology, usually from the Latin, this one is pretty straight forward... It is the energy lost due to pumping. Basically, the overhead of keeping an engine running no matter how much distance of roadway you cover, but more on point, the extra losses due to running an engine outside of its peak power/performance range: https://www.cyclewor…

Weird, does this apply to EV's, too?

I believe due to motor efficiency and losses from AC, media system, etc., the most efficient speed for most EVs and hybrids is around 25 mph. I’ve heard 10 and 35 suggested as well.

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

#309

Post by agilebodyshoppe »

dnautics wrote: post #189
tasty_freeze wrote: post #51

Earlier 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…

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…

the greenhouse effect is about internal reflections basically. its the same effect that makes cloth appear darker when its wet even though water is basically colorless. greenhouse gases bend light slightly, making it more likely that a light ray will hit the ground multiple times.
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