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Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

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Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#431

Post by bioemerl »

cesnja wrote: post #287
himinlomax wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> After how long? A half-life of a decade, as I understand it? Not exactly the order of magnitude of luxury time we have to spare Doesn't matter, if we keep the number of heads of cattle constant, the methane from them in the atmosphere will be constant. If we keep using the same number of ICE cars otoh, the CO2 from them in the atmosphere will keep increasing. We would have to drop the number of ICE cars to 0 to sto…

If the amount of methane in the atmosphere is constant, the CO2 from that in the atmosphere will keep increasing.

Not if the methane is produced through carbon from plants, in which case methane will stay constant but CO2 being sucked from the atmosphere would occur at the same rate as methane emission.

It's sourcing food from petroleum that causes the problem.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#432

Post by bioemerl »

orev wrote: post #59
machina_ex_deus wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Methane naturally turns into CO2 in the atmosphere. Even if it did increase warming more than CO2, once methane emissions reach a steady level, reducing methane emissions won't change a thing, compared to CO2 emissions. This is also similar to meat production emissions. Most of carbon emissions in meat productions are of carbon which was captured from the air as a part of the production cycle, by the plants which fee…

Plants that feed the cattle are overwhelmingly fertilized using fertilizer derived from petroleum products, so it’s not an accurate picture that the feed plants are carbon capture methods.

Fertilizer doesn't contribute methane. The carbon of the plants comes almost entirely out of the atmosphere.

The fertilizer contributes nitrogen and other minerals. Eliminating agricultural emissions should involve non fuel nitrogen fixation, not methane reduction.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#433

Post by flavius29663 »

the_why_of_y wrote: post #385
flavius29663 wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess it depends how you count them: > Other key findings in the report were: Of the 89.3 million head inventory, all cows and heifers that have calved totaled 38.3 million. There are 28.9 million beef cows in the United States as of Jan. 1, 2023, down 4% from last year. The number of milk cows in the United States increased to 9.40 million. U.S. calf crop was estimated at 34.5 million head, down 2% from 2021. All…

If you read the actual report that is linked from there, you will find from the table on page 4 that the classes of cattle not listed in the press releases are heifers, steers, bulls, and calves, and that they do sum to ~89 million. https://downloads.usda.library.cornell.edu/usda-esmis/files/...

so the question is: did the buffalo estimated include the calves+heifers or not?

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#434

Post by least »

Maursault wrote: post #419
least wrote: post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The fact of the matter is most vegans do not have a B12 deficiency I didn't say they did. I did say they in all likelihood need to supplement their B12. This is well supported by vegans and nutritionists. > nor any of the other unsupported criticisms you've made. I have supported my claims, actually. The fact that you disagree with the science is your problem, not mine. > The evidence is available on the web if you…

> No, I'm making a case for meat Well, that's not really possible. Meat is bad coming and going, objectively speaking. The only thing meat does have going for it is the energy provides, but at the cost of poor health and hurting literarily everyone. If meat producers weren't so greedy, and produced less, a lot less, only what was necessary, a lot of the harm that comes with meat could be mitigated, not the health ris…

> The only thing meat does have going for it is the energy provides

Meat doesn't simply provide energy, it's a very nutritious food source. Livestock can and should be part of making our agriculture more sustainable.

> but at the cost of poor health and hurting literarily everyone.

Yes, we've established that you think the meat is bad, except you've not actually provided any evidence that it is bad.

> If meat producers weren't so greedy, and produced less, a lot less, only what was necessary, a lot of the harm that comes with meat could be mitigated, not the health risks, just the carbon contribution.

If any industry that contributes to greenhouse emissions produced less of what is causing those greenhouse emissions, that'd be a net good, probably. It's a balancing act between what people need for survival and what's good for the earth itself. Obviously you think that meat should be produced at a small fraction of the rate it's being produced at now, but I think that's got little to do with the environmental impact given how demonstrably dogmatic you've been throughout this conversation.

> btw, any time I am mentioned, me personally, what I know or don't know, or what I am, etc. etc., a fallacious argument is being constructed. Fallacy is unpersuasive, fwiw.

You've literally said that vegans are likely more healthy than I am and that I'm just trying to justify my lifestyle. When confronted with actual facts, you rejected them as bunk science. The cognitive dissonance you're experience is apparent.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#435

Post by least »

varjag wrote: post #413
least wrote: post #366

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't inject yourself into conversations when you do not fully grasp the context. > In the stores fish and meat are different aisles. This does not change the fact that fish is still, in fact, meat. > And the discussion is about carbon footprint, not veganism. Broadly, but not in this context.

From the comment upstream: > This isn't universally true - some meat is grown by grazing "free" plant calories. But it is true for grain fed cattle -- for most US industrial meat production. It is quite obvious meat is used here in everyday colloquial sense. Especially when elsewhere in the greater thread people contrast meat with poultry.

I was responding to someone who was talking about them being vegan. The conversation was about vegan options, which fish isn't one of them. Please just stop, you didn't even have a real point to make in the first place.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#436

Post by least »

timeon wrote: post #405
least wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes, but the problem is that meat consumes approximately 25 plant calories to produce 1 meat calorie. Why is this a problem? Animals also produce higher quality protein with higher bioavailability, have a better amino acid profile that better suits what humans require, and provide nutrients that people cannot get from plants. That's on top of the fact that a lot of those plant calories aren't even consumable by hum…

> Why is this a problem? You need to produce much more plants to feed the animal first instead of directly feeding you. So to stay on topic (unlike your "quality") this process uses more fossil fuels.

> You need to produce much more plants to feed the animal first instead of directly feeding you.

Yes, but in the case of grazing, it's plant material we cannot eat. That's called nutrient recycling because it converts what cannot be processed by humans into something that is.

In grain diets, a lot of it is produced specifically to feed livestock. This probably at least in part due to the significant subsidies on corn in the United States. Ending corn subsidies would probably be beneficial to American diet both in it'd raise the price of meats and increase the price on HFCS and other corn product.

With that being said, agricultural byproduct can be fed to livestock which can help close nutrient loops. Things like stalks, leaves, husks. Also milling byproducts like wheat and rice bran. soybean and canola meal from oil production. Peels and pulp that are produced from production of juice and other fruit products can be used.

There's a lot of ways to shore up inefficiencies in producing livestock and other agriculture that can help make it more sustainable than it currently is.

> So to stay on topic (unlike your "quality") this process uses more fossil fuels.

Quality is part of the topic because the quality of nutrients is the utility that meat offers and it's from that we need to make judgements on whether or not it's worth producing.

My argument is obviously yes, the increased cost in terms of carbon footprint is worthwhile because meat is such a great source of nutrients that naturally aligns with the nutritional needs of humans in a way that is difficult to do with a solely plant-based diet. There's also not wholly understood benefits of meat, probably because it's become the new boogeyman, like fat was made out to be in the 20th century.

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#437

Post by least »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #427
least wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nutritional yeast is tasty and naturally has b12, and most cereals/grains are fortified with it. Taurine, Carnosine, Creatine, and B12 don't exist in significant quantities outside of meat. Nutritional yeast is often supplemented with B12 but the bioavailability of it compared to animal protein is low. You will need to take an actual supplement to get the right amount of B12 your body needs to function optimally. Y…

One cup of milk supplies 46% of US RDA of B12. Taurine is found in eggs. Neither are meat. Creatine and carnosine are produced by the body from amino acids.

You do realize this is more pedantic than insightful, don't you?

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#438

Post by codethief »

ramblenode wrote: post #378
codethief wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then total atmospheric carbon is unchanged but the proportion of methane, and therefore the total GHG effect, is increased at that time. Summing over time, and you get an increase in overall heat that has been trapped This is not correct. We are already in a steady state. Methane levels due to cattle are already at their maximum (given a fixed amount of cattle). At any point in time, gras will absorb some CO2 from…

Maybe we were talking past each other. > ...and if the amount of cattle is kept constant... My point (unclear) is that this is not a constant, but a variable (in the sense that it is a societal choice). Animal agriculture shifts more of the distribution of atmospheric carbon at any time toward methane, which accelerates warming. > ...this whole closed loop has already settled into a steady state: At any point in time…

Thanks for your comment!

> The premise that the amount of animal agriculture is constant is incorrect.

That certainly is true – I just had a look at the exact numbers: Cattle has seen a 15.6% increase between 2000 and 2020[0]. However, even if you double the numbers in my calculation in my other comment[1], you will see that agricultural greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are still basically nothing compared to those caused by fossil emissions.

> because it currently relies on mined hydrocarbons for feedstock fertilizer and transport.

Many types of food require fertilizer for production and logistics. I'm not trying to say that animal agriculture might not be comparatively bad here but we certainly won't get rid of fertilizer- and logistics-related emissions over night by overcoming animal agriculture. In fact, it could be that we'd just replace one emission source with another. So, before prescribing vegan diets for everyone, I'd really like to see some numbers that suggest that such a move would actually change anything.

[0]: https://www.destatis.de/EN/Themes/Countries-Regions/Internat...

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35675049

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#439

Post by acdha »

revelio wrote: post #417
acdha wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have any examples you could point to? Most of their public comments on the topic of this thread look like this, noting the accuracy of predictions: https://twitter.com/hausfath/status/1597660277188677632 https://www.science.org/content/article/even-50-year-old-cli... Based on what little details you gave, I’m assuming you’re referring to the “hot models” paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01192-…

>> the key point is that neither the IPCC nor NASA GISS reports are affected You: scientific consensus got more precise over time. Me: it got less precise over time and there's no consensus on the right answer for a core variable. You: if you drop models you "know" are wrong then it's got more precise! That isn't a rebuttal it's a confirmation. The models have been getting less precise about core variables over time…

From my perspective, trying multiple things, testing them, and picking the ones which had the best predictive values seems exactly like the scientific process working as intended. ¾ of the models did not have this problem, after all. Remember, science isn’t the process of assuming you’re right but rather testing your ideas harshly and learning from the faults you discover. Given half a century of reliable predictions, I again argue that they have sufficient predictive value even if it makes science deniers uncomfortable to acknowledge their personal contributions have only been towards making the world worst.

Global cooling was never a mainstream position and the people hyping it since the mid-1970s have intentionally been lying to you.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/06/that-70s-myth-did-cl...

Similarly, there was not a reversal of warming. Weather data and sources are noisy, and changing sensor artifacts introduce sampling biases, but the trend is clear and numerous follow up papers found that claim to be wishful thinking:

https://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2017/01/there...

Re: Methane may not warm the Earth quite as much as previously thought

#440

Post by lern_too_spel »

least wrote: post #437
lern_too_spel wrote: post #427

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One cup of milk supplies 46% of US RDA of B12. Taurine is found in eggs. Neither are meat. Creatine and carnosine are produced by the body from amino acids.

You do realize this is more pedantic than insightful, don't you?

From your comment, a reader would be misled to think that these nutrients cannot be obtained in sufficient quantities outside meat. My post is not meant to be either pedantic or insightful but to correct that misconception.
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