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The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

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Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#61

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

mklarmann wrote: post #37
himinlomax wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dairy from cows grazing on marginal land that is not otherwise suitable / efficient for other cultures is very competitive as far as producing proteins is concerned. Proteins are a necessary nutrient. Industrial cattle fed corn is an entirely different story and should almost certainly be counted as a different category as far as climate impact is concerned.

No. Those cows live longer and therefor produce more methane. They are worse in terms of ghg.

The bovid methane drumbeat is bandied by people who conveniently fail to account for the millions of missing American bison that used to produce comparable output.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#62

Post by cfn »

fredrikholm wrote: post #33
himinlomax wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.

What? The problem is that cattle consumes orders of magnitude more water compared to plants, on top of the fact that they also eat plants, of which they convert a small portion of into (edible) mass. Their urine, en masse, is highly toxic to the local environment as it kills plants (high salt content, fertilizer burn) and pollutes rivers (pH, over-fertilization, algae blooming).

I live in a very small island where the main industry has been cattle (meat and milk production) for several decades. If the urine of the cows was toxic, the island would have been deserted a long time ago. It is as green as it has ever been, just lookup the Azores for some pictures.

It is true that lot feeds and industrialized cattle production create massive amounts of pollution but so does industrialized agriculture. The problem is on the how and not on the what (see Joel Salatin for a good example).

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#63

Post by cfn »

tsimionescu wrote: post #41
waihtis wrote: post #9

The discussion around plants, meat and dairy need to become much more nuanced. Let's take dairy as an example - has a great effect in boosting mTORC1 activity which causes better growth in children. Now, a non-insignificant set of people who have bought into zealous veganry are raising children who will be physically more fragile just because they've been marketed with the idea that dairy == bad. On the other hand, o…

You should note that large parts of the world's population have never consumed dairy throughout their history (except as infants, of course), and are still doing very well today (China being the largest such group). I don't think this is a good line of argument.

But they certainly are not vegan.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#64

Post by revelio »

anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

Yes it would be terrible if IPCC reports were somehow to be censored or politically biased!

https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Im...

Climatologist: "We have to get rid of the medieval warm period"

https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/climat...

Climategate emails (IPCC):

"It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.

Is it true that only climate sceptics have political interests and are potentially biased? If not, how can we deal with this? How should we deal with flaws inside the climate community? I think, that "our" reaction on the errors found in Mike Mann's work were not especially honest.

All these decisions about IPCC chairs and co-chairs are deeply political

I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is !

IPCC report:

https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6syr/pdf/IPCC_AR6_SYR_SPM.pdf

"Equity remains a central element in the UN climate regime ... Prioritising equity, climate justice, social justice, inclusion and just transition processes can enable adaptation and ambitious mitigation actions and climate resilient development ... cash transfers and public works programs [are] highly feasible and increase resilience to climate change"

IPCC press release:

https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2023/03/IPCC_AR6_SYR...

"these choices need to be rooted in our diverse values, worldviews and knowledges, including scientific knowledge, Indigenous Knowledge and local knowledge"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/feb/01/leaked-e...

Today the Guardian reveals how Jones withheld the information requested under freedom of information laws. Subsequently a senior colleague told him he feared that Jones's collaborator, Wei-­Chyung Wang of the University at Albany, had "screwed up".

The apparent attempts to cover up problems with temperature data from the Chinese weather stations provide the first link between the email scandal and the UN's embattled climate science body, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, as a paper based on the measurements was used to bolster IPCC statements about rapid global warming in recent decades.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#65

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

revelio wrote: post #64
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

Yes it would be terrible if IPCC reports were somehow to be censored or politically biased! https://realclimatescience.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Im... Climatologist: "We have to get rid of the medieval warm period" https://www.rossmckitrick.com/uploads/4/8/0/8/4808045/climat... Climategate emails (IPCC): "It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much talking goes on beforehand, the bi…

Now try the real climate science.

https://news.climate.columbia.edu/2019/07/24/climate-epochs-....

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2023/01/harvard-led-a...

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#66

Post by autoexec »

Tade0 wrote: post #27
klipt wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?

It's largely (heh) about their size and that they're not really as optimized for meat as e.g. pigs. They breed comparatively slowly and take longer to grow. Moreover the weight of a cow carcass is no higher than 60% that of the animal, while for pigs the lower bound is ~78%. Poultry is also very efficient in this regard, especially turkey yielding 80%+. Where I'm from domestically consumed beef comes mostly from dair…

The sooner we can get lab grown beef the better. I don't care if it's more expensive or even if it isn't as efficient in terms of energy input as growing, raising, and slaughtering actual cows. It'd still come with tons of benefits like reducing antibiotic use, taking up less land, causing less suffering, eliminating illnesses, etc.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#67

Post by 000ooo000 »

waihtis wrote: post #9

The discussion around plants, meat and dairy need to become much more nuanced. Let's take dairy as an example - has a great effect in boosting mTORC1 activity which causes better growth in children. Now, a non-insignificant set of people who have bought into zealous veganry are raising children who will be physically more fragile just because they've been marketed with the idea that dairy == bad. On the other hand, o…

You concede being a layman yet lay out a conclusion as though you are not. Was there any real point to your comment beyond taking a stab at 'zealous vegans'?

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#68

Post by anonyfox »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

The problem here is, that the giant corporations can pollute the environment (eg. coca cola in a plastic bottle, with a plastic cap, with a plastic label, wrapped in a plastic 6-pack, with a plastic handle, on a plastic pallet wrapped in plastic foil), and rich environmentalists then fly their private jets to some 'green' conference and tell an 'average joe' that he shouldn't drive his car and eat meat, and should pa…

the point is it doesn't matter that you are right - all involved parties have to do their part. rich guys point at average Joes and vice versa, and both don't take action because "but the others".

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#69

Post by asterix_pano »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

The problem here is, that the giant corporations can pollute the environment (eg. coca cola in a plastic bottle, with a plastic cap, with a plastic label, wrapped in a plastic 6-pack, with a plastic handle, on a plastic pallet wrapped in plastic foil), and rich environmentalists then fly their private jets to some 'green' conference and tell an 'average joe' that he shouldn't drive his car and eat meat, and should pa…

The average joe can think about all the unnecessary suffering caused by animal agriculture. Entities do not have empathy, but humans do.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#70

Post by asterix_pano »

mnd999 wrote: post #51
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

Those in power both in government and in the private sector seem to have completely lost interest in the bigger picture and are optimising for short-term personal wealth at pretty much any cost. Perhaps a benevolent AI is the only way forward.

Eating a plant based diet seems more straightforward to me.
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