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Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

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Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#161

Post by karmakurtisaani »

tmitchel2 wrote: post #157
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane emissions and ethical reasons (if you care about such things). Edit: also they take a lot of land to feed. Soy grown in where Amazon rainforest used to be and so on.

If you eat meet which has been raised on ground where trees have been felled for the sole purpose of creating that meat then yes the amount of carbon released is going to be insane. Here in the UK (nearly?) all the meat we consume is grown nationally, i.e. doesn't originate from places like the Amazon. And on the methane front, they eat the carbon in the grass which has literally just captured a bit of carbon from th…

The amount of resources, e.g. land, water etc. you need to raise cows is about 10 times more than what you'd need to grow the same calorie content of vegetables.

It actually doesn't matter if you grow the feed nationally or import from Amazon, the fact remains that those fields replace a natural ecosystem that could be contributing to biodiversity and much more efficient carbon capture.

Grass captures CO2 from the air, and the cows fart (actually mostly burp) out methane that is about 25 times worse GHG over a 100 year period.

You want to get better at working with nature? Hunt your own meat from the wilderness.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#162

Post by [deleted] »

Reason077 wrote: post #22

I'm not vegan or anything, but I've found oat milk not only tastes great on cereal etc, but it also keeps fresh for much longer in the fridge. I've pretty much given up buying cow's milk now days, unless I have a specific recipe or something that calls for it. Cheese, on the other hand, I can't see myself giving up any time soon!

[deleted]

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#163

Post by Rury »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #161
tmitchel2 wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you eat meet which has been raised on ground where trees have been felled for the sole purpose of creating that meat then yes the amount of carbon released is going to be insane. Here in the UK (nearly?) all the meat we consume is grown nationally, i.e. doesn't originate from places like the Amazon. And on the methane front, they eat the carbon in the grass which has literally just captured a bit of carbon from th…

The amount of resources, e.g. land, water etc. you need to raise cows is about 10 times more than what you'd need to grow the same calorie content of vegetables. It actually doesn't matter if you grow the feed nationally or import from Amazon, the fact remains that those fields replace a natural ecosystem that could be contributing to biodiversity and much more efficient carbon capture. Grass captures CO2 from the ai…

You're ignoring that cows are also carbon stores (and relatively dense ones as far as biodiversity goes).

Look, the problem is real simple. Simple math says that we can do this:

Carbon(in atomosphere) + Carbon(biomass) + Carbon(underground) = Carbon(total on earth)

Biomass gets it's carbon from atomosphere, and releases (most) of it back to atmosphere, and hence not a real problem as it undergoes a stable cycle and is limited by the total carbon between the two. Even if it's form changes, it's not a real problem as the math shows it's inherently limited. Additionally, some carbon does escape this cycle and ends back in underground stores - but it's an extremely slow process.

The real problem is taking carbon from underground, and putting it into the atmosphere - via an unnaturally rapid process. Anything else, is comically trivial to the problem that is the fossil fuel industry.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#166

Post by karmakurtisaani »

Rury wrote: post #163
karmakurtisaani wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The amount of resources, e.g. land, water etc. you need to raise cows is about 10 times more than what you'd need to grow the same calorie content of vegetables. It actually doesn't matter if you grow the feed nationally or import from Amazon, the fact remains that those fields replace a natural ecosystem that could be contributing to biodiversity and much more efficient carbon capture. Grass captures CO2 from the ai…

You're ignoring that cows are also carbon stores (and relatively dense ones as far as biodiversity goes). Look, the problem is real simple. Simple math says that we can do this: Carbon(in atomosphere) + Carbon(biomass) + Carbon(underground) = Carbon(total on earth) Biomass gets it's carbon from atomosphere, and releases (most) of it back to atmosphere, and hence not a real problem as it undergoes a stable cycle and i…

So by your logic we could just turn all forests to farmland and use it to raise cows without any noticeable impact on climate (or I guess environment in general)? And before you say you wouldn't turn ALL the forests to farmland, I'd like to point out that we've already done so to a massive amount of the planet. Forest coverage went from 60% of land area to just 30% in the last 70 years.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#167

Post by wbsss4412 »

cyberlurker wrote: post #159
wbsss4412 wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doctors are inherently risk averse, all that means is “we don’t know, and there’s not much downside to not doing it, so we might as well advise against”. Saying “no one can say” means they literally have no idea. It’s not all that different than the statement “no one can say that 5G doesn’t cause cancer”. Note that phytoestrogens are categorically not human estrogen, they are simply compounds that mimic some of estro…

Many doctors also tell pregnant women to stay away from soy. One doctor linked me to a study that male babies from mothers that drank soy during pregnancy had statistically smaller genitalia. You might be right about “overly cautious” but I think doctors being that way is more reputable than gym rats quoting their favorite fitness blog.

Pregnant women have been consuming soy foods for thousands of years in East Asia, there should be an overwhelmingly large amount of studies that suggest ill effects to weigh against that.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#168

Post by karmakurtisaani »

tmitchel2 wrote: post #150
gmuslera wrote: post #140

Meanwhile 100 million oil barrels are extracted (each producing 0.5/0.7 ton of CO2 equivalent), 23 millions of tons of coal, and 365 thousand million of cubic feet of natural gas are consumed. All those numbers each day, and without counting leaks. And we are talking of fossil fuels, carbon that wasn't in the ecosystem for maybe many millions of years, compared with the relatively short lived and recycled methane tha…

100% this. These dairy cows aren't magically unlocking some deeply seated fossil carbon and farting it into the atmosphere. Nature already has a carbon cycle that works in harmony between plants and animals, let's try and work with it and emulate it rather than use even more energy and other resources to produce these highly processed goods. If you are vegan go for it, if you care about the environment stick with mil…

I spot at least 2 common fallacies here:

1. "Work with nature" - what does that even mean?

2. "Stick with cows which graze on open grass land" - the amount of such cows is a tiny fraction of all cows. How will I know how to get to those cows?

I'm not even a vegan, but also hold no delusions about milk products.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#169

Post by tmitchel2 »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #166
Rury wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're ignoring that cows are also carbon stores (and relatively dense ones as far as biodiversity goes). Look, the problem is real simple. Simple math says that we can do this: Carbon(in atomosphere) + Carbon(biomass) + Carbon(underground) = Carbon(total on earth) Biomass gets it's carbon from atomosphere, and releases (most) of it back to atmosphere, and hence not a real problem as it undergoes a stable cycle and i…

So by your logic we could just turn all forests to farmland and use it to raise cows without any noticeable impact on climate (or I guess environment in general)? And before you say you wouldn't turn ALL the forests to farmland, I'd like to point out that we've already done so to a massive amount of the planet. Forest coverage went from 60% of land area to just 30% in the last 70 years.

Definition of strawman.

Re: Milk alternatives produce up to 4.5x less greenhouse gas emissions as milk

#170

Post by tmitchel2 »

karmakurtisaani wrote: post #168
tmitchel2 wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100% this. These dairy cows aren't magically unlocking some deeply seated fossil carbon and farting it into the atmosphere. Nature already has a carbon cycle that works in harmony between plants and animals, let's try and work with it and emulate it rather than use even more energy and other resources to produce these highly processed goods. If you are vegan go for it, if you care about the environment stick with mil…

I spot at least 2 common fallacies here: 1. "Work with nature" - what does that even mean? 2. "Stick with cows which graze on open grass land" - the amount of such cows is a tiny fraction of all cows. How will I know how to get to those cows? I'm not even a vegan, but also hold no delusions about milk products.

Working with nature emulating it, as in biomimicry, something we so far seem to be terrible at as a human race.

I guess it's a very localised problem because just under 90% is grass fed in the UK. I can Google grass fed beef and get a lot of hits to indicate where I need to shop or I could ask the local butcher.

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