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Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#61

Post by xboxnolifes »

nsonha wrote: post #44
readflaggedcomm wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting human well-being above animals in work, sustenance, and sustainability is not odd or grotesque. Animal welfare secures the future of humanity, which seems enlightened to me, though the author doesn't engage in that pretense or emotional language.

Human can survive well without meat. Even if you don't want to go full vegan, fish is another option, fish are way less intelligent than farm animals. I'm all for human survival and well-being, but this is more like convenience: it tastes good, easy to get and cheap. We can at least change to make it not cheap and easy anymore. Values in our economy are artificial anyway. It's not like we have much else to innovate f…

Fish is still meat even if it has long been said otherwise so that certain religious people can cheat on their dietary restrictions.

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#62

Post by pl-94 »

windlep wrote: post #13

Not sure a pig farmer has the best perspective on this. I've been on farms in my area, that have land that is not usable for farming, too many rocks, too hilly, etc. The land has enough natural rain-fall and grasses that grow on it to sustain sheep/cattle where there would otherwise be nothing but a fire hazard come the dry season (California). In this one and perhaps not common scenario, I think eating meat from the…

I am not sure the fire hazard argument hold. Would you remove any Californian forest for that reason?

Only a very small portion of earth is not able to generate a forest when left alone

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#63

Post by nsonha »

xboxnolifes wrote: post #61
nsonha wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human can survive well without meat. Even if you don't want to go full vegan, fish is another option, fish are way less intelligent than farm animals. I'm all for human survival and well-being, but this is more like convenience: it tastes good, easy to get and cheap. We can at least change to make it not cheap and easy anymore. Values in our economy are artificial anyway. It's not like we have much else to innovate f…

Fish is still meat even if it has long been said otherwise so that certain religious people can cheat on their dietary restrictions.

Dont care, the premise here is that if you think eating animal products is inhumane because of animal suffering, then there is some logic in switching to suposedly less inteligent food sources

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#64

Post by sofixa »

pcthrowaway wrote: post #21
FuckButtons wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right? This isn’t 12th grade gym class, it’s an impending global catastrophe.

I'm disgusted with that fact that governments are still subsidizing animal products. Move the subsidies to plant-based options and make it easier to take the easy way out. We're literally and figuratively paying as a society for the privilege to raise and slaughter animals when it's 99% unnecessary.

It's actually relatively easy - most countries don't have the land to produce enough plant-based calories, and have plenty of meat-based calorie production.

Why would a government bankrupt an existing and well known and visible sector, to be replaced by imports? Lots of people would be pissed.

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#65

Post by Glavnokoman »

paulcole wrote: post #38
Glench wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely true that we're going to and already feeling the effects of climate change. I also hear a kind of despair and giving up in your comment (maybe you feel it's just "the truth"?) but I know that attitude can be dangerous. It's like sitting in a house on fire and saying "why bother to run? my life is already ruined and there's nothing I can do to change that." There are lots of plans and good shots we have at…

Disagree about your comment saying I sound like I’ve given up. I’ve never driven a car, don’t use AC and run heat as little as possible, don’t use a clothes drier, live in a tiny apartment, eat plant-based, never fly in a plane, won’t have kids. I think I’m the only one trying and everybody else has given up!

You're not going to have kids? How do you feel about those having more than 2? And more than 4? I do not think your approach is sustainable but at least you seem to tackle it from the correct angle.

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#66

Post by Glavnokoman »

livinginfear wrote: post #9

The artificial meat market still hasn't been able to address the adverse health effects of isoflavones, and other adverse health effects of phytoestrogens. I'm not referring exclusively to endocrine disruption[5]. There's lots of sources showing negative effects on the brain[1][2][3][4]. These 'impossible meats' are not a good solution. I've heard all of the "eat the bugs" rhetoric regarding addressing the protein ne…

Mentioning overpopulation is a sure way to get downvoted here. Somehow the local crowd prefers to see the planet densely covered with salad to pack as many Homo Sapiens as possible. I am not sure why or what for...

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#67

Post by swiley »

Something the anti-meat people might forget is that the majority of plants by weight is going to be cellulose which is something indigestible by humans. You can feed some animals with the waste plant material (or with plants that can be grown more efficiently than human edible ones) and then eat them. The flexibility here gives you options and options are important for maximizing efficiency.

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#68

Post by matthewmorgan »

etrabroline wrote: post #39
gpm wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are trying to tell me that growing food for animals to eat, and then eating the animals, somehow takes less arable land than directly growing foods for humans to eat? That's just not plausible.

And yet it's true. 2/3rds of pasture is not suitable for agriculture and would be worthless without ruminants. The corn-fed cattle industry in the US is a result of energy being cheap and labor being expensive. Less than 20% of beef is farmed that way.

They're also forgetting about fish and other wild-caught animal food sources

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#69

Post by drooby »

etrabroline wrote: post #49
drooby wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read the article. One third of all pasture is suitable for growing crops. Removing grazing animals from the land can allow for reforestation and increase biodiversity and carbon sequestration.

> Removing grazing animals from the land can allow for reforestation and increase biodiversity and carbon sequestration Ok. How much land could be reforested that way? Most grazing happens in places that are naturally pasture and were never forest like Texas and Argentina. Northern cali isn't exactly known for beef. 2/3rds of land used for grazing being unsuitable for farming sounds like a lot to me. EDIT: drooly, HO…

Again, if you read the article you'd be able to answer these questions.

Here's the math:

- 2.89 billion hectares of land is used for pasture, one third of which (870 million hectares) is suitable for growing crops.

- 538 million hectares is used for growing crops to be eaten by animals.

So, by removing meat from our diet we could free up 1.4 billion hectares of land JUST for crop land for human consumption, while allowing the other 2 billion hectares of non arable pasture to reforest - which would have significant impact on carbon sequestration and biodiversity.

Keep in mind that 1 billion hectares of land is the size of North America plus Brazil.

It is estimated that the entire human population would only need 1 billion hectares of land to survive (on an all plant-based diet). This means that ultimately 3 billion hectares of land could be reforested. The reduction in the farming and food shipping industry's carbon emissions would also have significant impact on reversing climate change.

Re: Ditching meat isn’t the answer for climate change. Better farming is

#70

Post by open0 »

nsonha wrote: post #60
open0 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fish are way less intelligent than farm animals There is no concrete evidence of this. A lot of sea creatures, including fish, have skin cells that can create polarized light and some seem to have developed communication systems with pulses of polarized light. Just the other day it was found that some fish can pass the mirror test, didn't you see that? The prevailing theory is that ratio of brain mass to body mass…

> The prevailing theory is that ratio of brain mass to body mass is more telling than the absolute size A bit weird nitpicking when you yourself make an insubstantial claim about some "prevailing" theory . I think we can both agree that reducing meat consumption is the right thing to do, it's just sometimes to convince people you need to show some leeway.

Why don't you go check it out yourself?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain-to-body_mass_ratio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Encephalization_quotient

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