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Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

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Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#81

Post by stevespang »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

Not only that - - - but the effect of the red seaweed wears off over time as gut microbiota adjust to the methane depressant . . . .

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#82

Post by m000 »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

> None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the amount of methane produced from the same feed even without cows involved.

Nobody's missing anything. That feed wouldn't have been planted in the first place if it weren't for feeding the cows. And that would translate to less deforestation [1].

[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53438680

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#83

Post by samuelbalogh »

ReadFList wrote: post #35
airhead969 wrote: post #4

This is like improving ICEs to enable their continued existence. To what end? How about eliminating meat ag altogether since it's a waste of resources, a significant component of man-made climate change, a pandemic risk, a major source of pollution, driver of deforestation, and poses a threat to antibiotic resistance? But no, the typical rationalizations include: "Muh cheezburger is muh freedom. I can eat whatever I…

How about we keep eating locally produced meat because it's healthy, far more than those "fake" meats that are no more than vegetable oils, estrogen from soy and the likes, and chemicals to add flavour, and instead reduce waste? Do you really think that the increase in vegetable prodution would not have any environmental impact? We grow them out of the air? And ICE should continue to exist to make sure we stop at the…

Eating local doesn't even make a dent in reducing your carbon footprint.

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#84

Post by matteuan »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

Interesting, but still I don't think your comment is very relevant to this. Without cows we could have a forest instead of grass, instead of leaving it to rot. So if the number of cows remains constant you benefit from reducing methane emissions.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#85

Post by goda90 »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

I'd like to see an actual study on this. Yeah decomposing grass releases methane, but in the wild does it release as much methane as it would being digested by a cow?

Lets say the carbon in the grass goes into the cow and X% goes through the cow's metabolism and is exhaled as CO2 or becomes part of the cow itself. Y% becomes a part of the cow's manure. Z% is released as methane into the air. The carbon of grass decomposing on the ground will turn some parts as methane into the air, but also some parts into the food chain of smaller creatures, some parts as CO2 into the air, and some parts into the soil itself. Cows and decomposing grass releasing the same amount of methane seems unlikely to me.

That's not to say I think we should eliminate cattle. Well managed grazing actually does amazing things for the health of soil, and can even fight desertification.

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#87

Post by LegitShady »

j-pb wrote: post #25
bookmarkable wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world is not going to go vegan. Humans eat meat. No greenhouse argument will ever change this. This is worthwhile research, as is cultured meat and other options. Evolving the tech of raising and cultivating animal protein to eat is important work.

Habe you tried the latest substitutes? Artificial chicken based on pea proteins has become virtually indistinguishable from real chicken.

It really hasn't not in flavour texture or nutritional content

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#88

Post by gambiting »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #66
gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

Only grass decomposed in an anaerobic environment would produce methane. Grass decomposed aerobically would produce CO2 instead.

But methane decomposes into CO2 on a relatively short timescale(12 years?) so surely....it's a wash?

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#89

Post by [deleted] »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

[deleted]

Re: Red seaweed supplementation reduces enteric methane by over 80% in beef steers

#90

Post by helen___keller »

gambiting wrote: post #61

There is an incredibly important part of this that I feel everyone is missing. The grass eaten by the cows would produce exactly as much methane if it was just left to rot. It's not as if cows somehow produce methane out of grass that would otherwise just....turn into dust? None of those studies take this into account, they all just measure what comes into a cow and what comes out, but no one takes into account the a…

I'm not sure how much this point matters, because the alternative isn't a field of rotting grass. If the land is undeveloped, the alternative is likely some kind of forest. If the land is developed, the alternative is probably cropland. Also to be clear, we're not just talking grass, there's also a massive amount of industrially farmed grains to fatten the them up, which wouldn't have been industrially farmed if it wasn't demanded for feeding cattle. So there's no real equivalence here.
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