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Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

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Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#11

Post by nanna »

A month or so ago a ship filled with 19,000 Brazilian cattle destined for the Middle East docked in Cape Town. The cows were living in such horrendous conditions that the stink of the ship took over the entire city. Living in pools of excrement, sick, lame, pregnant and even dead cows among them. The South African animal protection service had to put many down.

It's easy, its right to blame the Bolsonaro regime for having ramped up cattle farming in the Amazon leading to situations like this. It's harder to think of them when we have beef on our plates.

https://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/western-cape/seven-h...

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#12

Post by Qem »

willcipriano wrote: post #6
matt_daemon wrote: post #2

For anyone interested in the numbers behind how bad beef and deforestation are for the environment, see Hannah Ritchie’s great new book Not the End of the World .

> deforestation https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-... https://terra.nasa.gov/news/modis-shows-earth-is-greener

Greening != Recovery

> China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops.

If the green of pristine forests is replaced by the green desert of a monocultural eucalyptus planted forest, or the green of grass pastures, it's still a big ecological net loss.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#13

Post by wk_end »

DasIch wrote: post #9
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef in itself is not bad for the environment. It's the scale of demand that is bad. And that demand is fueled by the combined effects of global population growth and global increase in standards of living. We tend to stop at the symptoms instead of going after the root cause.

Beef is extremely inefficient compared to plant-based food. We could sustain a far larger population with no loss in standards of living without it.

Most people would argue that not eating beef would lower their standard of living.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#14

Post by willcipriano »

Qem wrote: post #12
willcipriano wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deforestation https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-... https://terra.nasa.gov/news/modis-shows-earth-is-greener

Greening != Recovery > China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops. If the green of pristine forests is replaced by the…

Read the first one. The second has a lot of spin that is obvious once you have the context from the first article.

The entire planet is greener. Everywhere. The planting did little.

> Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect

One of those Inconvenient Truths.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#16

Post by b800h »

Qem wrote: post #7
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef in itself is not bad for the environment. It's the scale of demand that is bad. And that demand is fueled by the combined effects of global population growth and global increase in standards of living. We tend to stop at the symptoms instead of going after the root cause.

> Beef in itself is not bad for the environment. It's the scale of demand that is bad. Wasting crops feeding cattle is inherently worse than the alternative, feeding directly on the crops and avoiding the wasting of calories when going up one trophic level.

[flagged]

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#17

Post by chickenchase-rd »

defiamazing wrote: post #5
mytailorisrich wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Beef in itself is not bad for the environment. It's the scale of demand that is bad. And that demand is fueled by the combined effects of global population growth and global increase in standards of living. We tend to stop at the symptoms instead of going after the root cause.

Agreed. Check out /r/keto and /r/zerocarb for some great research about the natural human diet. Humans have eaten beef (exclusively even) for billions of years.

Brazilians of years, not billions

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#18

Post by _3u10 »

willcipriano wrote: post #14
Qem wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Greening != Recovery > China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops. If the green of pristine forests is replaced by the…

Read the first one. The second has a lot of spin that is obvious once you have the context from the first article. The entire planet is greener. Everywhere. The planting did little. > Results showed that carbon dioxide fertilization explains 70 percent of the greening effect One of those Inconvenient Truths.

Exactly, the US and Europe are free to reforest but choose not to for some unexplained reason.

Brazilian beef is frankly way less deforested than anything from the U.S. or Europe.

The three most forested countries in the world are Russia, Canada and Brazil in that order.

In all honesty I’m perfectly fine with the bans / boycotts it keeps farmers here poor and beef cheap.

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#19

Post by emptysongglass »

b800h wrote: post #16
Qem wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Beef in itself is not bad for the environment. It's the scale of demand that is bad. Wasting crops feeding cattle is inherently worse than the alternative, feeding directly on the crops and avoiding the wasting of calories when going up one trophic level.

[flagged]

That's essentially what we do with cows. Do you see the hypocrisy? We don't inflict this on humans so why do it to other creatures which can know terror and pain just as we do?

Re: Tracking Illicit Brazilian Beef from the Amazon to Your Burger

#20

Post by themk »

Qem wrote: post #12
willcipriano wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deforestation https://science.nasa.gov/earth/climate-change/co2-is-making-... https://terra.nasa.gov/news/modis-shows-earth-is-greener

Greening != Recovery > China’s outsized contribution to the global greening trend comes in large part (42%) from programs to conserve and expand forests. These were developed in an effort to reduce the effects of soil erosion, air pollution and climate change. Another 32% there – and 82% of the greening seen in India – comes from intensive cultivation of food crops. If the green of pristine forests is replaced by the…

Also: greening != biodiversity
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