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Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

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Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#251

Post by gowld »

slavik81 wrote: post #83
vlovich123 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's to discourage the cattle owner from claiming their cows produce no methane due to seaweed use & then collecting the cap and trade/carbon tax benefit while not bothering with the seaweed? More broadly, how does cap and trade/carbon tax measure the footprint of a business in the first place? I've found no material on the subject but my guess is that they do it based on the power plant/fuel you're using & how muc…

The possibility of an IRS audit would discourage lying about it. If you're claiming to be feeding your cattle seaweed, you're going to have to buy it. Just like any other business expense, you'll need receipts. And once you have the seaweed feed, you might as well use it. To be honest, I'm not sure how the emissions measuring is done, but I think it's handled on the supply-side for fuel and electricity in existing im…

Farmers could buy their seaweed from Acme Agrisupply, SuperKelp(TM) "made with 100% seaweed" (3% seaweed by weight, 97% corn filler), which costs 1/10th the price of real seaweed.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#252

Post by gowld »

tengbretson wrote: post #244
fulafel wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agriculture is already heavily regulated and inspected in terms of such things at least in the EU, owing to the fact that farmers get most of their income from subsidies and these are predicated on various terms. Of course, it would be much simpler to just stop the nonsensical subsidies of environmentally and ethically disastrous ag products like beef...

> owing to the fact that farmers get most of their income from subsidies Where on earth do people get these beliefs?

Depends on how you count, and if "income" is "revenue" or "profit".

~$200B/yr in subsidies in USA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_farm_bill

$990B/yr food GDP in USA: https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistic...

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#253

Post by gowld »

dghughes wrote: post #210

There is a big industry in seaweed harvesting carrageenan is extracted from it to use as a thickener it's used in ice cream and other products. The 2014 study mentioned is from my region the Atlantic Veterinary College. There was a large Irish Moss industry here years ago but most of it has switched to Asian markets with cheaper labour and tropical climate. Although there may soon be a glut of seaweed and any cattle…

https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/138/3/469/4670224

says carageenan is harmful.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#254

Post by gowld »

lozenge wrote: post #68
ehsankia wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can anyone provide a sense of scale and impact if these results were to hold and if the majority of the world beef production were to switch to it? My understanding is that around half of the world's greenhouse gas comes from livestock. Would it mean that this could cut our emissions by half? Would it be therefore much more cost efficient to have the government invest is growing and distributing red algae than whatev…

Your figure is from cowspiracy - it's worth looking up the film to discover its many other inaccuracies. https://newint.org/blog/2016/02/10/cowspiracy-stampeding-in-...

The article says the correct amount is 15%, which is still extremely large.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#255

Post by SiVal »

hackerseven wrote: post #226
gamblor956 wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Per various articles I could find on the West Coast Kelp Die Off, it appears that multiple years of warm El Nino waters, a massive starfish wasting disease, and urchin boom resulted in a 3-pronged assault on kelp populations. Now that the El Nino waters have cooled, and the starfish population is returning to normal, 2 of the 3 stress factors are being reduced. The last--the urchin population--is being controlled thr…

So I have studied this issue extensively. I personally know Jon Holcomb, the vacuum inventor. First, to dispel any myths. There is zero funding for this effort. It also takes a solid month of effort to clear a football field sized area. Compare that speed to the breeding cycle of the invasive urchin species boom and you have a very ineffective method of population control. Although his efforts were innovative. Jon wi…

I'm confused. (I literally mean it, I'm not advocating anything). If the urchins were dying off, I can understand why that would devastate the urchin divers, but why would a boom in urchins put them out of business? Why aren't the urchin divers doing the vacuuming and making more money than ever from a bumper crop of urchins?

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#256

Post by nielsole »

Jach wrote: post #242
skosch wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here you go: https://croadsworldclimate.climateinteractive.org/ Honestly dude, rise above the cynicism (if that's how you meant to come across). You're a goddamn adult, and a well-educated engineer at that. Your current standard of living is at risk because of climate change (also millions of lives in poorer countries, but whatever). Spend 10 seconds on a Google search. "Activists" don't owe you any answers. Never fo…

You're the one writing phrases like "we don't have decades to fix this". How is one supposed to interpret that as anything but "point of no return" rhetoric, especially in light of that rhetoric actually being used with some frequency for the last few decades? I agree it's not helpful rhetoric, so maybe I should have aimed my comment at alarmists who use the rhetoric but who haven't fully embraced that it's too late,…

Climate change is mostly no binary event. There is the risk of runaway effects, and possible extinction (though unlikely) but luckily we haven't hit those yet.

The political 2 degree goal is damage control. Climate models are complex and impacts harder to predict the more you divert from the current situation.

At 2 degrees the costs to society (social costs of carbon) far outweigh the mitigation costs. To hit the 2 degree target we have to act swiftly "we don't have decades to fix this" we are not (yet) at a "point of no return"

As green house gases are currently an externality, there will be no capital without activism.

I am too young to look back decades, but my understanding was that the "we don't have decades to fix this" guys in the 80s and 90s were more about running out of oil(and that turned out to be no problem as rising prices make more expensive extraction feasible) and that climate change as a concern only really started in the 90s (even though known long before that). And there are already damages that could have been prevented by acting swiftly in the 90s. We could have reached e.g. a 1.5 degree target. So the "we don't have decades to fix this" rethoric is fitting as ever.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#257

Post by yungchin »

delbel wrote: post #235
cfadvan wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

AGW skeptics, like evolution and spheroid Earth skeptics are their own audience, no one else is really bothering to tailor their speech to them. We’ve entered the casually dismissive phase of the relationship. The ROI for dealing with people who are in denial is rarely positive after all.

"AGW skeptics" just want a sincere conversation based on science. Like one would say, what about the effects of water vapor on climate change? And pointing out, you can't come to a conclusion and when it is disproven, cherry pick facts to fix your conclusion. It just doesn't work this way. So is it a sincere conversation or what? There's no point to engage with people who aren't honest about the science. Name calling…

> Like one would say, what about the effects of water vapor on climate change?

Is that a skeptics' thing? The answer is, water vapour is yet another positive feedback. https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.htm...

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#258

Post by tanepiper »

gamblor956 wrote: post #229
hackerseven wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I have studied this issue extensively. I personally know Jon Holcomb, the vacuum inventor. First, to dispel any myths. There is zero funding for this effort. It also takes a solid month of effort to clear a football field sized area. Compare that speed to the breeding cycle of the invasive urchin species boom and you have a very ineffective method of population control. Although his efforts were innovative. Jon wi…

I'm not saying that the kelp weren't devastated by those 3 things, I'm saying that the resulting devastation is not permanent. Funding especially is an addressable issue; Patagonia, for example, donates to kelp restoration activities in SoCal and would presumably donate to similar efforts in NorCal if asked.

Sure, nothing is permanent - but the question is can the recovery happen in enough time that it doesn't have a devastating effect on the ecology and on the humans that live around there in human-time?

Say we push too far and endanger our species - we're doomed, but the planet will recover just fine. It has plenty times before over billions of years.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#259

Post by pvaldes »

rfeather wrote: post #213
rileyphone wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Important to note is that the biggest fish caught in the 50s and 60s seem to all be goliath groupers (also known as jewfish) and are now critically endangered and illegal to keep. I imagine they still catch some on these charter boats, but they are required to release them once they do.

The unfortunate thing is that no matter whether something is illegal or not, it can still be a victim of bycatch when fishing for legal species, and bycatch mortality is quite high. Bycatch is actually higher than actual catch by weight for some fisheries+methods.[1] It's not just what you eat, but where it came from. [1] http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/t4890e/t4890e03.htm Edit: A couple of extra spaces removed

And of course the word 'illegal' in the open sea, when you have huge nurse ships in international waters (that will not touch any port in the country) means nothing.

Re: Seaweed in Cow Feed Reduces Methane Emissions Almost Entirely

#260

Post by pvaldes »

mceoin wrote: post #233
Mister_X wrote: post #59

It will be interesting to see how this plays out, because right now the West coast from San Francisco North to at least Fort Bragg, has been suffering a kelp die off of great proportions. No one is quite sure whats going on, but apparently due to climate change, or at least warmer ocean water from further South that we've had for the last 5 or more years, has caused the kelp to die off at a rapid rate, to the point o…

The kelp forests near South Australia have all died off as well: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jul/07/australi...

Different species of brown macro-algae, but same in Spain in the lasts 15 years. Most submerged forests of Laminaria vanished.

It only takes a few degrees of temperature more and it seems that the young spores can't settle anymore. Brown algae have evolved to stand cold waters.

To exploit wild seaweed as a resource to feed millions of cows would create a plethora of new problems. Nobody would agree to abonate their meadow or orchard with a product with a high content of salt for example.

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