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New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

interestingengineering.com

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Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#51

Post by belorn »

myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

If we are going to impose a cultural change on the world population, adding sea weed and shellfish would be better from an ecological perspective with lower footprint. Rather than using 75% of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, aqua farming is closer to 0%. It also dont contribute to killing the oceans like argiculture does.

If we want to scale up food production on earth leaving as much land as possible for nature and humans, the ocean offer plenty of space for food production.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#52

Post by idopmstuff »

myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

And if we just master nuclear fusion, we can solve pretty much all of our problems!

The issue, of course, is that we're not going to master nuclear fusion in the near future, just as we're not going to all switch to eating plants now. (And I say this as someone who's gone from eating beef as my main source of protein to something like 50% fish/20% chicken/30% veggie meals.)

Arguments that take the form of "If we just do , that would solve the problem!" aren't helpful. Inasmuch as they discourage people from researching plausible but less extreme solutions, they're harmful. People are going to keep eating meat, so it's a good idea to research ways to reduce the carbon footprint of raising it and getting it to them.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#53

Post by xnx »

asciimov wrote: post #47
myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

Even plant farming isn't without issues. Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil, and then they end up having to use lots of man made chemicals to "fix" the problem. We have to find a way to be more sustainable in our agriculture.

Absolutely. A great way to reduce the impact of plant farming is to do less of it. Something like 1/3 of farmland is used to grow crops that are fed to animals. https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#54

Post by 100721 »

scotty79 wrote: post #41
myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

> If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares The only way I can even remotely believe that is that 'agricultural' includes pastures which are useless to humans for any other purpose. Land used for plants intended for human consumption would need to be expanded along with everything bad they require. I also wonder how high would be the health cost…

> The only way I can even remotely believe that is that 'agricultural' includes pastures which are useless to humans for any other purpose.

This is really interesting! I didn't know that pastures cannot support crops and/or buildings.

Why are pastures so limited in their usability?

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#55

Post by ben_w »

asciimov wrote: post #47
myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

Even plant farming isn't without issues. Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil, and then they end up having to use lots of man made chemicals to "fix" the problem. We have to find a way to be more sustainable in our agriculture.

> Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil

Crop rotation predates the wheel by about two millennia.

We're using the synthetic alternative because it's really amazing not because we don't have alternatives.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#56

Post by johnnyanmac »

prox wrote: post #29
blitz_skull wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck enforcing a world-wide “plant-only” diet. I know people who would go to war just over that.

Black-and-white thinking, think in gradients! You eat meat X times a week? Try X -1 or more. Even a little bit helps tremendously. Everyone reading this who eat meat every day, try cutting down even one day, it will help.

I will not, thank you for your input.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#57

Post by haswell »

2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #48
myshpa wrote: post #18

Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could stay on our 1% of habitable earth, lower our agricultural footprint from 48% of land to 15%, use quarter of pesticides,…

The solutions of "everyone just needs to do " are a dime a dozen. We could solve war if everyone just stopped fighting. It's better to fix incentives such as making meat more expensive through taxes or fewer subsidies on meat or feed grains (corn). Or making vegetables cheaper. I could see a serious PR campaign to support farmers/small business (conservative hook) and eat local planet variety combined with fulfilling…

This isn’t an either/or proposition.

Long term goals (“everyone just needs to do ”) can (must) coexist alongside shorter term incentives and PR campaigns.

To your point, hyper fixation on the long term goal makes it seem unachievable.

But conversely, short term incentives must necessarily be informed by long term goals if there’s hope of establishing a useful incentive structure.

Success will require focus on both ends of the spectrum.

Ultimately what we’re talking about is society-scale habit change, and habit change relies on both a belief in a long term outcome and a commitment to daily progress towards it.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#58

Post by johnnyanmac »

thisGuyFlicks wrote: post #27
blitz_skull wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck enforcing a world-wide “plant-only” diet. I know people who would go to war just over that.

Why do you go directly to the extreme implementation? No one said anything about "enforcement". There are ways to push society towards a better paradigm without enforcement. We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society. People that "would go to war" over the fact that they should eat less red meat are not exactly of sound mind.

>Why do you go directly to the extreme implementation

> We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society.

I guess it's human nature, I don't know.

Re: New study suggests that lab-grown meat produces up to 25 times more CO2

#59

Post by thebigwinning »

thisGuyFlicks wrote: post #27
blitz_skull wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck enforcing a world-wide “plant-only” diet. I know people who would go to war just over that.

Why do you go directly to the extreme implementation? No one said anything about "enforcement". There are ways to push society towards a better paradigm without enforcement. We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society. People that "would go to war" over the fact that they should eat less red meat are not exactly of sound mind.

> We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society.

Interesting. Do you see this as defending democracy?

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