Avoiding meat and dairy is ‘single biggest way’ to reduce your impact on Earth

[kabbes]

The woods near you are named after deer, (only found that out recently), but they were extensively hunted cos they taste good and that.

That’s presumably the Hurtwood, no? I don’t know so much about the history of that part. I was instead talking about places like Duke’s Warren. However, it’d be interesting to know whether the Hurtwood was also ever heathland. Certainly the top of Holmbury Hill has that appearance.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Hurt comes from Hart, as in white hart, olde English for stag...(at least the Hurtwood near me does, so am projecting here). And yes, Holmbury Hill's woods look like they've been there a fair while.

 

[kabbes]

Hurt comes from Hart, as in white hart, olde English for stag...(at least the Hurtwood near me does, so am projecting here). And yes, Holmbury Hill's woods look like they've been there a fair while.

As a born and bred Hertfordshire boy, the old word for stag is well and truly in my bones! My primary school had a hart in its emblem.

 

[editor]

Depends where it comes from - Is the beef in question from Cumbria or Brazil? Transport from one - very small (hence my posts about local supply chains) is very small, the other much larger.
Has it been shipped (smaller) or airfreighted (much larger)?

Which is kind of what I've been saying in my posts

What percentage of meat do you think come from local supply chains?

 

[editor]

It's utterly indefensible to assert that it's OK to keep on eating meat at the current levels.

The result was the factory farm, first for chickens, then pigs, and more recently cattle. Producers discovered that animals could be kept inside, and fed grain, and could be bred to grow more quickly and get fatter in the right places. Since 1925, the average days to market for a US chicken has been reduced from 112 to 48, while its weight has ballooned from a market weight of 2.5 pounds to 6.2.

Pig and cattle farming has followed suit. Sows are held in gestation crates for up to four weeks once they are pregnant, and then put into farrowing crates once they’ve had their piglets to prevent them accidentally crushing their young. Industrially reared pigs spend their lives in indoor pens. Cattle farming is now being similarly streamlined, with cows in the last few months of their lives being fattened in feedlots with no access to grass and sometimes no shelter.

An influential study in 2010 of the water footprints for meat estimated that while vegetables had a footprint of about 322 litres per kg, and fruits drank up 962, meat was far more thirsty: chicken came in at 4,325l/kg, pork at 5,988l/kg, sheep/goat meat at 8,763l/kg, and beef at a stupendous 15,415l/kg. Some non-meat products were also pretty eye-watering: nuts came in at 9,063l/kg.

To put these figures into context: the planet faces growing water constraints as our freshwater reservoirs and aquifers dry up. On some estimates farming accounts for about 70% of water used in the world today, but a 2013 study found that it uses up to 92% of our freshwater, with nearly one-third of that related to animal products.

Livestock is the world’s largest user of land resources, says the FAO, “with grazing land and cropland dedicated to the production of feed representing almost 80% of all agricultural land. Feed crops are grown in one-third of total cropland, while the total land area occupied by pasture is equivalent to 26% of the ice-free terrestrial surface”.

A 2017 landmark studyfound that the top three meat firms – JBS, Cargill and Tyson – emitted more greenhouse gases in 2016 than all of France.

What is the true cost of eating meat?

As concerns over the huge impact on the environment, human health and animal welfare grow, what future is there for the meat industry, asks Bibi van der Zee

www.theguardian.com

 

[editor]

You used to be a fairly reasonable vegan. Now you're the reason people hate vegans.

I see you're still peddling hate.

 

[ddraig]

Top work on the whattabouttery platinumsage
Showing your critical thinking skills there, *slow handclap

 

[ddraig]

Can I just ask ... the reduction/ elimination of red meat / dairy ... which is what the thread is about...
How does that work? It's a bit one sided saying "dont eat red meat and dont use dairy" cos really what you're talking about...will involve killing off not only an industry / livelihood but it will also mean eliminating beef and dairy animals surely? Or are the cows just not to have any more calves? Are you talking about killing off a species?

If the issue is about the methane that cattle produce then the only way to prevent them producing methane is how? Stop them being bred ? Kill them all off? Keep a few in a nature reserve?

Seems to me that the mass culling of cattle is what this is about.
Will it be all cattle? All beef or all dairy? Will the cull include calves?
Or are they all to be neutered?
What happens to all these dead animals then?
Or will it be a case that they just die off because they are not to be bred anymore? Cattle can live to quite a good age.

What is the end result that is required? No cattle? Half the current number?
And once there is no beef or dairy industry anymore what happens to all the cattle ? Where do they go?
Do they get to live out their lives somewhere? Or will they be rounded up? And killed?

It's not about mass culling no, it's about not over breeding and rape and keeping cows constantly pregnant and ripping their screaming calves from them whilst having industrial suction machines stuck on them, do you think that's a nice happy life?

 

[Saul Goodman]

I see you're still peddling hate.

Nope, just stating a fact.

Fucking hell, you're one dense cunt. I didn't see your study, that's why I didn't read it, and my opinion is based on evidence I've read not my feelings.

Tell me - you thick fucking piece of shit - what do you think is the predominant economic driver of soy production? (a) soy oil for human consumption or (b) soy cake production for animal feed?

 

[ddraig]

How many people do you think you speak for Saul?

 

[platinumsage]

Top work on the whattabouttery platinumsage
Showing your critical thinking skills there, *slow handclap

Luckily I have plucky Veganists like you to pick up on the fragility of my desperate carnising.

 

[ddraig]

Luckily I have plucky Veganists like you to pick up on the fragility of my desperate carnising.

Well done, keep up the learning, you'll get there

 

[Spymaster]

Luckily I have plucky Veganists like you to pick up on the fragility of my desperate carnising.

CaRnIsTinG

 

[littlebabyjesus]

It's utterly indefensible to assert that it's OK to keep on eating meat at the current levels.

What is the true cost of eating meat?

As concerns over the huge impact on the environment, human health and animal welfare grow, what future is there for the meat industry, asks Bibi van der Zee

www.theguardian.com

As ever, a lot of those scare numbers need to be set into context. That 26% of all non-ice land devoted to pasture includes, for example, sheep farming on the Falkland Islands, where relatively few animals range over relatively huge tracts of land.

I don't think this lumping together of totally different kinds of farming in totally different kinds of places is a particularly illuminating approach.

153 sheep per human on the Falklands. Take that, New Zealand!

Farming on the front line: Sheep in the Falkland Islands - Farmers Weekly

 

[ddraig]

More farming publications as evidence, great stuff!

 

[ElizabethofYork]

More farming publications as evidence, great stuff!

Are those figures wrong?

 

[Saul Goodman]

How many people do you think you speak for Saul?

I'm guessing everybody that hates militant vegans. You don't sway opinions by abusing the people you're allegedly attempting to change, but that's the whole point, isn't it. There's a certain subsection of vegans who really don't want people to change their eating habits, as a mass shift to veganism would result in a loss of moral superiority. That subsection is the reason why so many people hate vegans, and the reason why a lot of people don't want to be vegan.

 

[Aladdin]

It's not about mass culling no, it's about not over breeding and rape and keeping cows constantly pregnant and ripping their screaming calves from them whilst having industrial suction machines stuck on them, do you think that's a nice happy life?

I'll be honest with you...I am pretty sure not every dairy cow that gets pregnant is mistreated in the way you claim. And I have never ever seen a calf ripped from a cow.
The practices you describe are very alien to what is the practice in Ireland. Certainly calves would not be ripped from a cow and there is no way a cow would be hooked up to a milking machine while giving birth.

Incredible thing I discovered recently - if you rub a walnut (or similarly oily nut, like pecan or macadamia nut), over scratches in wood, after a couple of minutes, the natural oils in the nuts will seep into the wood, helping to heal unsightly marks. Best life hack!

That would be a natural dye. You would not be "healing " anything.

 

[Cid]

More farming publications as evidence, great stuff!

The statistic Ed is quoting comes from the FAO and includes all grassland and rangeland. So stuff like the entire Eurasian steppe as far as I can tell.

 

[Aladdin]

As for the crueltt factor...
Nobody has yet explained what will happen to all these animals when everyone stops eating meat.

If methane is the problem and these animals are not used for beef or dairy...where do they go?
Letting them age and die naturally will not eliminate the methane issue because cows can live 20 yrs or more presumably they will age and still produce methane.
So what's the plan?
Round em up and gas them all?
Let them be culled and used for...what???

Telling people to not eat red meat is one thing but what happens when people stop?
What is thw plan for these animals then?

 

[mojo pixy]

We could deep freeze them and launch them into orbit around Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Billions of cows, floating about in space, perfectly preserved for future, space-faring generations.





Ill get my sustainable, plant-based coat...

 

[Poot]

As for the crueltt factor...
Nobody has yet explained what will happen to all these animals when everyone stops eating meat.

If methane is the problem and these animals are not used for beef or dairy...where do they go?
Letting them age and die naturally will not eliminate the methane issue because cows can live 20 yrs or more presumably they will age and still produce methane.
So what's the plan?
Round em up and gas them all?
Let them be culled and used for...what???

Telling people to not eat red meat is one thing but what happens when people stop?
What is thw plan for these animals then?

Everyone is not going to stop eating meat overnight. It would take years, as evidenced on this thread.

 

[Spymaster]

I'll be honest with you...I am pretty sure not every dairy cow that gets pregnant is mistreated in the way you claim. And I have never ever seen a calf ripped from a cow.
The practices you describe are very alien to what is the practice in Ireland. Certainly calves would not be ripped ...

They like to use terms like 'ripping', 'raping', and 'sexually abusing', to describe farming practices

 

[Pickman's model]

As for the crueltt factor...
Nobody has yet explained what will happen to all these animals when everyone stops eating meat.

If methane is the problem and these animals are not used for beef or dairy...where do they go?
Letting them age and die naturally will not eliminate the methane issue because cows can live 20 yrs or more presumably they will age and still produce methane.
So what's the plan?
Round em up and gas them all?
Let them be culled and used for...what???

Telling people to not eat red meat is one thing but what happens when people stop?
What is thw plan for these animals then?

Sure you'd have been saying some similar thing about horses a hundred, hundred and twenty years ago

 

[platinumsage]

As for the crueltt factor...
Nobody has yet explained what will happen to all these animals when everyone stops eating meat.

If methane is the problem and these animals are not used for beef or dairy...where do they go?
Letting them age and die naturally will not eliminate the methane issue because cows can live 20 yrs or more presumably they will age and still produce methane.
So what's the plan?
Round em up and gas them all?
Let them be culled and used for...what???

Telling people to not eat red meat is one thing but what happens when people stop?
What is thw plan for these animals then?

Presumably any plan will include the imposition of forced sterilisation or brutul sex-based segregation to stop numbers multiplying. I wonder how the Veganists can justify that?

 

[Aladdin]

We could deep freeze them and launch them into orbit around Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Billions of cows, floating about in space, perfectly preserved for future, space-farting generations.





Ill get my sustainable, plant-based coat...

Ftfy



And what is the plan for feeding a non meat eating world?
Vegetables and plants?
Mid climate change with flooding and drought...one would think that veg and plants are potentially risky as sole sources of food?

Or are we all going to be hydroponic gardeners?

 

[Aladdin]

Sure you'd have been saying some similar thing about horses a hundred, hundred and twenty years ago

I dont think people in Ireland farmed horses...
And only the wealthy had horses anyway. General plebs were lucky to have a goat.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ftfy



And what is the plan for feeding a non meat eating world?
Vegetables and plants?
Mid climate change with flooding and drought...one would think that veg and plants are potentially risky as sole sources of food?

Or are we all going to be hydroponic gardeners?

I'm not persuaded you've entirely grasped what livestock eats now

 

[Pickman's model]

I dont think people in Ireland farmed horses...
And only the wealthy had horses anyway. General plebs were lucky to have a goat.

How many horses do you think were in Ireland in say 1900?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Can we set the methane problem in context here? It's nowhere near the problem that carbon dioxide is, due to the relatively stable quantities humans have produced over the last 40 years, its overall proportion of the problem and its relatively short lifetime in the atmosphere (about 12 years). Plus only a quarter of human-produced methane comes from farm animals.

Source: NOAA


Source: Bousquet, P. et al. (2006)