Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide • Hacker News Board

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#101

Post by dagss » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 2:39 PM UTC

snovv_crash wrote: post #51

IanCal wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So what if methane is more "potent"? If you are concerned about global warming, swapping one thing for something else that has a greater negative impact is bad. Having a process or animal that converts CO2 to methane is not neutral just because the CO2 was already in the atmosphere. > How potent 25x more. > and in relation to what, CO2 over a period of 100 years usually. > and in what amount? Any amount, it's a rel…

Doesn't methane break down much more rapidly than CO2?

The 25x number already includes this effect. Methane is much much more potent than CO2, but since it breaks down rapidly then over the course of a 100 years the average effect is 25x.

So: if you first say "25x" then you cannot say "break down" afterwards because that is included in the 25x, you are then mentally including the breakdown twice.

There are also higher numbers in use than 25x that is used for the effect over shorter horizons. But 100 years seems like a good horizon for the humanity getting through the crisis or not.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#102

Post by dagss » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 2:54 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #47

pxeger1 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat farming takes in CO2 (photosynthesis), and produces CO2 (cows breathing) and CH4 (cows farting). CH4 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, so, even by your flawed simplified model, farming cows has a net negative greenhouse effect.

So what if methane is more "potent"? How potent and in relation to what, and in what amount? Large ruminants and other animals that produce methane roamed the Earth in greater numbers long before humans came up with the concept of livestock. Stable isotopes of carbon in atmospheric methane don't support livestock being a contributor to rising methane at all . Because livestock methane is part of the carbon cycle , an…

Total emissions of 100% is made up contributions of 1%+1%+1%+...

By that logic there exists nothing that can help climate change...even if we are causing it.

A bit like saying "shooting this one plane down out of 1000 enemy planes does not win the war; may as well not shoot it and give up".

Yes, obviously if we had never touched fossil fuels, having even more lifestock than today would probably be fine too, but that is not very relevant.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#103

Post by ben_w » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 3:04 PM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #85

myshpa wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not human nature. It's just a tradition. And a tradition is just a story (maybe even a lie) we've been taught, and which we tell ourselves. Stories are easily changed - like slavery or patriarchy, for example. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw

Eating meat is human nature (and biology). We can digest just about any meat there is. We cannot digest any plant. Try eating a tree branch and see how far you get. Likewise humans (like other animals) will always have tribal and territorial tendencies manifested in enslavement, war and conquest. First-world nations developed over centuries and still have countless problems, and they're only a minority of the global…

> We can digest just about any meat there is. We cannot digest any plant. Try eating a tree branch and see how far you get.

While I'd absolutely accept that wild humans are omnivores, your first statement here is false — there are many kinds of animal flesh and organs (tree branches are more like bones than anything else) that are bad for humans, and can even be lethal. Even some meats which are safe in moderation can cause harm if they're the only one being consumed.

But I'd also argue that it's important that we're not wild any more. We may not be able to eat wood, but we can burn it to create an external second stomach in the process we call "cooking".

Now I think about it, it's also important that the environment is, by our actions, radically different to the one we evolved for. Both plants and animals have been changed by many generations of selective breeding to be better suited to our dietary desires. (And other desires, but those don't matter for this topic).

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#104

Post by issa » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:09 PM UTC

sokoloff wrote: post #48

issa wrote: post #25

It is pretty insane when you think about it. We could get all the climate harm reduction benefits the article mentions if people would just choose to eat plants instead. Seems like a very simple solution.

We wouldn’t have had to invent different forms of birth control if people would just refrain from penile-vaginal intercourse unless seeking pregnancy. Seems like an equally simple solution.

Not a terrible example, but I think the difference is that we, as a society, sweep the issue of animal suffering under the rug. Most Americans are horrified if someone mistreats a dog, but don't bat an eye at the treatment of cows and pigs that end up on their plate. And a lot of effort is expended to keep that disconnect in place. I recall The Hamburgler stealing hamburgers off of the trees where they were growing in McDonalds commercials. Not to mention government subsidies that bring down the price of meat. So, ultimately, I think it IS a simple solution, we just need to stop actively working against it.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#105

Post by sokoloff » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:15 PM UTC

Schroedingersat wrote: post #96

manigandham wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing simple about changing human nature. If you have to start with "if people would just choose" then it's not viable.

You start with not subsidizing the meat industry massively (via direct handouts, subsidized feed and so on) and making them pay for exterrnalities. That way they'll have vastly less money for advertising and lobbying. Then you take the trillions you've saved and use it to bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them. It's actually pretty easy to get people to make different choices, you just make…

> bring healthy, convenient, tasty options to put in front of them

It seems like this would be enough and that you don’t have to take all the steps laid out as preliminary. (You could still do them in parallel if you like.)

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#106

Post by cheese_goddess » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:19 PM UTC

> If nothing changes, the food sector will soon account for almost half of the world’s total emissions budget.

And this is absolutely as it should be! Half of our carbon budget to hit 1.5 C is absolutely right to spend on food production. We need food much more than we need anything else. We can do without internal combustion engines, without air travel, without everybody getting a new iPhone every few months, but we can't do without food.

Having enough food to feed everyone a healthy and nutritious diet is a much better protection against civilisation collapse than making sure everybody has a car!

The post tries to say that trying to meet the 1.5 C goal "without addressing animal agriculture would require other sectors to reduce emission beyond realistic levels" but those are weasel words! Climate change is caused by those, air quotes, "other sectors" - industry, energy production, transportation- burning fossil fuels and it is those "other sectors" burning fossil fuels that is keeping us from hitting the 1.5 C target.

It is those, "other sectors" that need to get their house in order and reduce, no, minimise, their emissions. It's not everyone else who has to give up their food for the sake of BP, Google, Shell and Ford.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#107

Post by whimsicalism » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:41 PM UTC

asdff wrote: post #38

whimsicalism wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meat production is not carbon sequestering, it is carbon emitting. Most agriculture in general involves replacing more carbon sequestering natural growth with agricultural fields.

I think that would depends on what the natural growth is actually able to sequester, no? Not all areas clearcut for farmland were lush, quite the opposite actually with artificial irrigation bringing in the possibility of generating all that biomass.

There is carbon stored in the soil that tilling lets out.

And of course all of this is before you get into methane emissions from fertilizer, etc. and the fuel costs of transporting all these crops around as feed. I mean you can just look at the stats for carbon emissions from meat production.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#108

Post by uxcolumbo » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 4:54 PM UTC

neuronic wrote: post #88

anothernewdude wrote: post #30

Oh just stop. I'll eat Falafel and other vegan foods. But why would I ever eat a chicken or beef replacement? Just make some unconstrained good vegan food. It'll be better.

Don't be this absolute, please. So I love the taste of meat, but I generally don't think my personal enjoyment is sufficient reason to further harm both highly intelligent animals and the climate. It's a decision I have deemed egoistic with regards to myself (and myself only - I am not one for evangelism). I want to explain why my experience seems a bit different with "replacements". It is very hard to change habits,…

If more people would think like you it'd be a great step forward, i.e. putting climate / biosphere health & stability and reducing animal suffering above their taste buds and being happy with 'good enough'.

Plant based meat substitutes are becoming better and better. Some folks can't tell the difference already.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#109

Post by uxcolumbo » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 5:02 PM UTC

hitpointdrew wrote: post #91

What the hell is with all the anti-meat propaganda? I am not eating soy, I am not eating bugs, I am not eating this. Just stop with this nonsense already.

What is non-sense is creating all this destruction and waste of resources just so we can have some cooked animal flesh on our plates when it's not necessary for human survival in most societies anymore.

Especially this community here, who relies on logic for their work.

What makes more sense?

A) Choosing food products that require fewer resources and land to feed the world.

B) Continuing on our current path (pollution & deforestation) that will eventually mean the destruction of our biosphere.

Re: Meat made from recycled carbon dioxide

#110

Post by cheese_goddess » Sun, Jun 19, 2022, 5:41 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #35

howlin wrote: post #11

Instead of elaborate carbon capture infrastructure, it seems more straightforward to just use photosynthetic organisms like algae. Either engineer algae to make the proteins you want, or engineer yeast or some other microbe that can take the products of algae and convert to these proteins. Honestly it sounds like a needless and impractical gimmick.

Or we can just have plants capture the CO2, give those plants to large ruminants which will feed those plants to the microbiota in their cecum, digest the microbiota and converting it into the kind of nutritious protein and fat that hominids have adapted to digest almost exclusively for millions of years. If one is worried about the methane emissions of cattle, it's not really clear that this is even a secondary conc…

That's right that cow farts don't contribute anything to climate change. Some sources quote the methane cattle emit as if it was significant but it isn't because the environment can handle it. In truth, the emissions from farming that the environment can't handle come from "land use change". That's the land that's deforested and turned into cropland to feed cattle.

But that's a big problem and not one to be underestimated. We are tearing down the ability of the environment to capture carbon, one hectare of forest, let alone rainforest, at a time. That has to stop. And that means cutting down on meat production.

That's not to say we should stop producing and eating meat. That'd be just risking malnutrition on a planetary scale.

I'm also not sure about the bit where you say "hominids have adapted to digest almost exlusively for millions of years", where you mean meat. We're omnivorers and we are "adapted" to an omnivore diet: a little bit of everything. Eating only meat is as braindead as eating only plants. We need a balanced diet to stay healthy.