Meat eaters are destroying the planet, warns WWF report
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Lots, lots, lots, yes.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
Dug up from my personal archive, certainly. A pretty old vintage as well, as it happens. However, the reason I dug it up is that the website you linked to adopts the same sanctimonious tone - not about 'hating vegans' at all, but a dig at vegan policeman types certainly.
Did you note the rather wonderful use of the 'no true Scotsman' argument in there? Not sure I've ever seen a finer example of that particular logical fallacy being used 'in the wild' before.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
That's bison alone - without mentioning all the other wild ruminants in the US (deer etc)
The US is not particularly big on sheep, partly, I suspect due to an abundance of wildlife capable of eating them.
Don't forget that there are vast areas that once supported ruminants that have now become desert - see buffaloes and Savannah lost to desertification.
Increases in atmospheric methane seem to correlate directly with fossil fuels- the most recent increase seems to be down to fracking. I'm sure that I read a paper whereby chemists can identify from whence methane has come and fracking seems to be the culprit.
Edited to add: here it is Fracking prompts global spike in atmospheric methane, study suggests
WouldBe
Dislicksick
Can you light a burp?
Probably not in humans but possibly in cows.which would suggest there's less methane in burps than farts
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Its mostly burps in ruminants- the methanogenic bacteria are contained within the rumen.
WouldBe
Dislicksick
So fuck all to do with meat eating then.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
No, the methane cycle as regards ruminants has been around as long as ruminants have, and so unless we manage to increase the numbers of ruminants beyond that which the planet can support, then it is within natural parameters.
As animal agriculture gets more efficient (for example milk yield per cow increase due to genetics), we need to keep less of them, and therefore less methane is emitted.
The other slight complication is that if we remove farmed ruminants, but leave the habitat unchanged, then wild ruminants will simply occupy that niche.
editor
hiraethified
So you need to dredge up a personal vegan-bashing 'anecdote' whenever a linked website has a 'tone' you don't like? Marvellous stuff.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Fascinating stuff but also quite intuitive. I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned it before as it's an absolute hammer blow to one of the primary anti-meat arguments.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Herd composition with wild ruminants won't be the same though, nor the diet for most, which surely impacts the methane output per head. Then you have the ancillary effects of shipping in the food in most cases and shipping out the product, so while there's mileage in the comparison it's not a like for like replacement in environmental terms. Should think your natural parameters is about right or could be made to be with not much effort but it's not a case of one activity straightforwardly replacing a wild analogue.
Yes, the spike appears to be down to fracking. Its seems that other uses are harder to differentiate so this alone would not get agriculture off the hook for longer term increases.
You can really see the recent increase here after a slow increase and even slight reductions since the eighties.
Here is a study I refered to previously.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Sure, but the anti-meat argument is fallacious to a far greater degree as they say 'cow farming is destroying the environment with GG emissions' full stop. With that context it's quite clearly nonsense.
JimW
支那暗杀团
Yes, looks like the usual case of seizing on something without thinking it through.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
Indeed. A bit like posting up links having only read the headlines. A recipe for disaster.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Herd composition?
A piece of land will have a carrying capacity in terms of the biomass it can support, how the animals are aggregated within that space has little impact. Sure, farmers will manage their grazing availability in a way that wild animals probably don't.
The diet is pretty similar. Grazing animals graze on whatever they can metabolise.
Different types of ruminant will obviously have different diets -
Concentrate selectors (deer etc) can digest limited fibre.
Intermediate feeders (sheep, goats, moose) tend to adapt diet seasonally.
Roughage grazers (Cattle, Bison, Buffalo) are non selective and have a good ability to digest fibre.
They all still have a rumen, which utilises the same method (ie symbiotic microbes) to begin digesting high cellulose foods.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
It is nonesense, but serves two purposes:
People want "easy" solutions to feel good about themselves, and not eating meat is something you can do quite easily without really altering your day to day existence, thanks to global supply chains. Telling people not to use fossil fuels by getting on an aeroplane to go on holiday is a much harder sell, and the petrochemical industry is very well organised, lobbies effectively and has good PR.
Farming, by and large is a lot of disparate SMEs, who often can't agree on anything. Sure, the NFU exists, but relies on farmers paying membership etc- Farmers are often vocally critical of the NFU and AHDB.
Secondly: industrially produced "fake meats" are a massive growth industry currently, attracting huge investment from food processors/venture capitalists who have glimpsed the opportunity to completely cut those pesky farmers out of food production, potentially significantly increasing their margins.
It's no accident that C4 aired Monbiots "Apocalypse cow" just after heavily investing in a fake meat company....
JimW
支那暗杀团
Dim recall is the output per kilo varies with the age of the animal, and age structure of a natural herd different to domestic. Might be misremembering.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I imagine it's more to do with the mass of the individual animal - also the rumen is bypassed in juvenile ruminants until they start to graze/wean
editor
hiraethified
Love the way that the meat eaters here - none of whom are particularly qualified, if at all, to dismiss the findings of multiple science-based studies - have all decided amongst themselves the meat industry is just about blameless when it comes to its well documented detrimental impact on the environment.
I think the highlight for me was when I listed around 10 articles linking to studies, and each one was dismissed with a one line statement to the general agreement of all concerned.
I think the highlight for me was when I listed around 10 articles linking to studies, and each one was dismissed with a one line statement to the general agreement of all concerned.
Poot
My wife thinks I work too hard
There are many farms locally where dairy cattle almost never (or actually never in one case I can think of) go outside. It's hard to imagine that it would make much difference to the wild ruminants who would take their place whether they were there in their shed or not tbh.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
Not particularly qualified?
How much more qualified would you like me to be?
Also - I've read most of those articles before (unsurprisingly) and that was off the top of my head, considering that this is something I do for fun.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
No graze systems still require the food to be grown, it's just fed to the cattle rather than them going out to graze, ie the silage mower/wrapper takes their place in the environment.
Spymaster
Plastic Paddy
It's quite clear that all of the articles referred to were studies which had been re-purposed by someone with an agenda and given hyperbolic titles. Very sloppy and more than a bit disingenuous to present that kind of stuff as bullet-proof fact.
editor
hiraethified
I didn't realise that you'd contributed to international peer reviewed studies on the environmental impact of the meat industry. My apologises.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
It's what the press does - "dull" science doesn't sell newspapers or indeed serve the financial interests of the newspaper owners.
Its amazing to me that we can all see this and (often) rip them to shreds when it comes to other aspects of politics, but oddly, we take their word as gospel when it comes to food production and farming.
Funky_monks
Neo-Rustic
I quite literally told you that I lecture on Agricultural science degrees, what do you think university academics do when they aren't lecturing?
8ball
Maximum Facepalm
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