Opinion: "The End of Meat Is Here" - NY Times

[Yuwipi Woman]

There's a reasonably new product on the bulk wet feed market for livestock - oat pulp.

Oat pulp comes from the production of oat milk. The more oat milk produced, the more of this feed will be available for cattle and to a lesser extent, pigs. This will mean that this stuff has a fucking massive water footprint, but it doesn't make burying the oat pulp afterwards any less wasteful.

There's a lot of uses for oat pulp. You act as if the only use that can be made of it is to feed to cattle or to go to the landfill.

For example, you can use it for bread:

OAKLAND, CA — From plant milk to plant butter to plant-based meat, there’s very little that a nut, seed, fruit or bean can’t become these days. But it’s not those products that Claire Schlemme has her sights on — she just wants the leftovers.

Schlemme is the co-founder and CEO of Renewal Mill, a food company that fights food waste by transforming the byproducts of things like plant milk into shelf-stable flour and baking mixes. The company is one of several emerging food and beverage brands that upcycles food surplus into new and high-quality products, saving both money and the planet by fighting climate change.

Renewal Mill: Transforming plant pulp to planet-friendly flour - Commercial Baking

Renewal Mill is a company that fights food waste by transforming the byproducts of things like plant milk into shelf-stable flour and baking mixes.

commercialbaking.com

You can also use it to make ethanol, biogas (one oatmilk company uses their leftover pulp to power their operation), skincare products, fake meat products, fertilizer, and any number of other products. It's also perfect for use in Biochar production.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Ergo, if you buy oat milk, you are "supporting animal ag".

You're expecting an ideological purity that isn't possible in the modern world, especially when we let massive conglomerates produce our food. Its only possible if you raise all of your own food.

 

[editor]

And as the UK swelters in record breaking temperatures likely to cause harm and death, here's what the former chair of the Climate Change Committee says:

Ruminant animals such as cattle and sheep produce methane, an immensely powerful greenhouse gas. Harrison argues that these emissions do not matter because they are relatively short-lived and in some sense “natural”. But a flow of continued methane emissions from any source warms the planet, and that warming effect will only decline if the emissions are reduced. Indeed, precisely because methane is short-lived in the atmosphere, cutting methane emissions is the fastest-acting lever we can pull to moderate temperature rise and reduce the risks of self-reinforcing climate change.


That point is made clearly in a rigorously scientific and carefully balanced 2020 report by the Food Climate Research Network, Grazed and Confused?, which also analyses in detail oft-repeated claims that grazing cattle or sheep can deliver such a large increase of carbon sequestration in the soil as to offset the effects of methane (and also nitrous oxide) emissions. Its conclusion is that any such offset amounts only to between 20% and 60% of the adverse effects.

...the simple fact remains that one of the biggest things that ordinary citizens can do to reduce their own climate impact is to significantly reduce red meat consumption.

The environmental case for cutting down on red meat is clear | Letter

Letter: Reducing methane emissions is the fastest-acting lever we can pull to moderate temperature rise and lessen the damage of climate change, writes Adair Turner

www.theguardian.com

 

[editor]

And here's the comprehensive report from Oxford University cited in that article:

The inescapable conclusion of this report is that while grazing livestock have their place in a sustainable food system, that place is limited. Whichever way one looks at it, and whatever the system in question the anticipated continuing rise in production and consumption of animal products is cause for concern. With their growth, it becomes harder by the day to tackle our climatic and other environmental challenges.

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/reports/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf

*The Food Climate Research Network is a project of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford

 

[Funky_monks]

You're expecting an ideological purity that isn't possible in the modern world, especially when we let massive conglomerates produce our food. Its only possible if you raise all of your own food.

I'm not expecting anything.
I'm happy that byproducts are used as animal feed and the nutrition that we've spent energy to produce is as efficiently utilised as possible.
It's not me that goes on about "the meat industry" like animal agriculture is wholly removed from cropping.

I'm trying to illustrate that the two things are inextricably linked. If you eat plant matter that is farmed, its highly likely it has an interaction with animal agriculture.

 

[Funky_monks]

And here's the comprehensive report from Oxford University cited in that article:

https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/reports/fcrn_gnc_report.pdf

*The Food Climate Research Network is a project of the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford

Funny, last time I posted that research, you said it was bollocks because you didn't agree with stuff extrapolated from Poore and Nemeck, who are part of a different research group, also at Oxford.

It's almost like you don't have a clue about what research is out there or what you are talking about.

Also, given the site we are on, why are you so invested in what the Guardian has to say? You understand that the press acts wholly in the interests of the billionaire class, don't you? Amazing you never question it's narrative....

 

[editor]

This is like dealing with Climate Change deniers with an added layer of paranoid conspiracy thrown in.

 

[Funky_monks]

This is like dealing with Climate Change deniers with an added layer of paranoid conspiracy thrown in.

No, its you, trying to use opinion pieces in the mainstream press to try and argue with someone who's got a lifetime of experience in the subject matter. Nobody has denied climate change.

Do you honestly think the Guardian doesn't have a political ideology?
Have you read the "Why the Guardian is going down the pan" thread on these boards. Do you not think the news media is owned by billionaires?

I've made quite a lot of points about agriculture, none of which suggests that it shouldn't change. I've posted up stuff that has been peer reviewed and talks from internationally renowned ecologists.

You constantly claim to know better than me based entirely on some lay press articles and pieces from such unbiased organisations as "plant based news". You've never been near a farm, you never bother to read either my posts or the research I link to.

You are the classic, middle aged shouty bloke, thinking he knows better than people who've actually studied and applied stuff because of something he read once. As I've said, your posts are a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

 

[bcuster]

No, its you, trying to use opinion pieces in the mainstream press to try and argue with someone who's got a lifetime of experience in the subject matter. Nobody has denied climate change.

Do you honestly think the Guardian doesn't have a political ideology?
Have you read the "Why the Guardian is going down the pan" thread on these boards. Do you not think the news media is owned by billionaires?

I've made quite a lot of points about agriculture, none of which suggests that it shouldn't change. I've posted up stuff that has been peer reviewed and talks from internationally renowned ecologists.

You constantly claim to know better than me based entirely on some lay press articles and pieces from such unbiased organisations as "plant based news". You've never been near a farm, you never bother to read either my posts or the research I link to.

You are the classic, middle aged shouty bloke, thinking he knows better than people who've actually studied and applied stuff because of something he read once. As I've said, your posts are a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

View attachment 332426

What is your view of the thought that eating meat, and the processes involved in slaughtering animals, is inherently cruel?

 

[Funky_monks]

What is your view of the thought that eating meat, and the processes involved in slaughtering animals, is inherently cruel?

Read the thread.
I'm not writing the same things over and over.

In short: I accept that animal death is necessary to consume either meat or plants.
I've been to abattoirs, several on many occasions. I'm satisfied with what I've seen in terms of making death as quick and stress free as possible.

I have more problem with deaths in cropping, eg: to comply with regs, grain stores must have poisons down to control rodents. Insecticides are not a pleasant way to die, nor is going through a combine or being ripped apart during tillage. However, I can't see how we'd produce plants that are safe to eat without some (not all) of these things.

 

[Jeff Robinson]

No, its you, trying to use opinion pieces in the mainstream press to try and argue with someone who's got a lifetime of experience in the subject matter. Nobody has denied climate change.

Do you honestly think the Guardian doesn't have a political ideology?
Have you read the "Why the Guardian is going down the pan" thread on these boards. Do you not think the news media is owned by billionaires?

I've made quite a lot of points about agriculture, none of which suggests that it shouldn't change. I've posted up stuff that has been peer reviewed and talks from internationally renowned ecologists.

You constantly claim to know better than me based entirely on some lay press articles and pieces from such unbiased organisations as "plant based news". You've never been near a farm, you never bother to read either my posts or the research I link to.

You are the classic, middle aged shouty bloke, thinking he knows better than people who've actually studied and applied stuff because of something he read once. As I've said, your posts are a classic example of the Dunning-Kruger effect.

View attachment 332426

Whereas your posts are a classic example of motivated reasoning. You treat all sources suggesting the need to move away from animal agriculture - whether its the Guardian, Monbiot, animal rights and animal welfare organisations, UN agencies, Oxford University climate scientists etc. - as unreliable if not outright malevolent. Your partisan hackery is blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. You're down in the mud with the rest of us.

 

[Pickman's model]

Whereas your posts are a classic example of motivated reasoning. You treat all sources suggesting the need to move away from animal agriculture - whether its the Guardian, Monbiot, animal rights and animal welfare organisations, UN agencies, Oxford University climate scientists etc. - as unreliable if not outright malevolent. Your partisan hackery is blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. You're down in the mud with the rest of us.

facedown in the mud?

 

[JimW]

facedown in the mud?

Waist deep in the big muddy. Transplanting those rice seedlings.

 

[Funky_monks]

Whereas your posts are a classic example of motivated reasoning. You treat all sources suggesting the need to move away from animal agriculture - whether its the Guardian, Monbiot, animal rights and animal welfare organisations, UN agencies, Oxford University climate scientists etc. - as unreliable if not outright malevolent. Your partisan hackery is blatantly obvious to anyone paying attention. You're down in the mud with the rest of us.

I don't though do I, perhaps with the exception of Monbiot who also has no experience in the area (he tried to move to the country but clearly Machynlleth wasn't for him - maybe the hippies at CAT didn't feed his ego in the way he wanted). However, to say that without recognising your own bias is interesting to say the least.

You've also not bothered to read what I've been writing, or my sources.

The challenges facing food production in the 21st century are massive, and I'm trying to highlight how extremely complex this problem is. We've got to feed a growing population as less and less land is available as more gets taken out of production for housing, environmental schemes etc.

Simple "just do this" global solutions are always going to be oversimplistic.
Food production changes based on climate and geography (eg soil type). Globalists offer global solutions. Agriculture, by its nature is local. What is best for the environment is going to change based on locality.
In the UK, for example, there are major issues with "sterile" monocropping reliant on fossil fuels, pesticides and selective herbicides.
This cannot continue. There are solutions to this, some involving tech, some involving cultivation (min/no till, intercropping, undersowing), and some involving bringing animals back into rotation, this is how fertility is built. It doesn't matter who you are feeding with your crops, the soil needs inputs - so even if we are just eating plants, those plants need some kind of fertility, you can't just keep cropping.

Watch the Russell Brand interview, perhaps ignore the bit where its him speaking at the beginning and listen to what's said. It's not just me.

 

[WouldBe]

And as the UK swelters in record breaking temperatures likely to cause harm and death, here's what the former chair of the Climate Change Committee says:

The environmental case for cutting down on red meat is clear | Letter

Letter: Reducing methane emissions is the fastest-acting lever we can pull to moderate temperature rise and lessen the damage of climate change, writes Adair Turner

www.theguardian.com

Sorry but the biggest thing people can do for climate change is to cut reliance on fossil fuels by insulating and cutting use of gas for heating.

 

[Funky_monks]

Sorry but the biggest thing people can do for climate change is to cut reliance on fossil fuels by insulating and cutting use of gas for heating.

Actually, it's probably deciding not to have children.

 

[editor]

Sorry but the biggest thing people can do for climate change is to cut reliance on fossil fuels by insulating and cutting use of gas for heating.

And so the bizarre denial and whataboutery goes on. Eat less fucking meat. It's not that hard.

Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet.

The new research shows that without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, European Union and Australia combined – and still feed the world. Loss of wild areas to agriculture is the leading cause of the current mass extinction of wildlife.


The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions. Other recent research shows 86% of all land mammals are now livestock or humans. The scientists also found that even the very lowest impact meat and dairy products still cause much more environmental harm than the least sustainable vegetable and cereal growing.

The study, published in the journal Science, created a huge dataset based on almost 40,000 farms in 119 countries and covering 40 food products that represent 90% of all that is eaten. It assessed the full impact of these foods, from farm to fork, on land use, climate change emissions, freshwater use and water pollution (eutrophication) and air pollution (acidification).

“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.

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

Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland

www.theguardian.com

 

[WouldBe]

And so the bizarre denial and whataboutery goes on. Eat less fucking meat. It's not that hard.





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View attachment 332605

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

Biggest analysis to date reveals huge footprint of livestock - it provides just 18% of calories but takes up 83% of farmland

www.theguardian.com

One of those graphs show greenhouse emissions from meat is over 50% yet in an earlier post of yours it said " if Americans cut meat use by half it would save 3.5% of ghg's" which would make ghg's from meat only 7% not 50%+ . So they can't both be right. Which one is it? Or can't you be bothered to check? As long as it backs up your 'beliefs' just post it up and hope no one will notice?

 

[Funky_monks]

One of those graphs show greenhouse emissions from meat is over 50% yet in an earlier post of yours it said " if Americans cut meat use by half it would save 3.5% of ghg's" which would make ghg's from meat only 7% not 50%+ . So they can't both be right. Which one is it? Or can't you be bothered to check? As long as it backs up your 'beliefs' just post it up and hope no one will notice?

They are literally the very same articles he posted up earlier in the thread. All are based on one source: Poore and Nemeck, 2018, I've discussed this in some depth. I dunno if Editor is going for a virtual groundhog day here or what.

Maybe he really is scouring the internet for websites that publish the same graphs from the same source over and over in an attempt to manufacture a false scientific consensus from a single paper because I've pointed this out more than once, and yet he persists. Or, maybe he just doesn't read anything he posts and is only interesting in spamming the thread to avoid engaging in other sources I've posted as a virtual "sticking his fingers in his ears". Who knows, its bizarre.

 

[DaphneM]

They are literally the very same articles he posted up earlier in the thread. All are based on one source: Poore and Nemeck, 2018, I've discussed this in some depth. I dunno if Editor is going for a virtual groundhog day here or what.

Maybe he really is scouring the internet for websites that publish the same graphs from the same source over and over in an attempt to manufacture a false scientific consensus from a single paper because I've pointed this out more than once, and yet he persists. Or, maybe he just doesn't read anything he posts and is only interesting in spamming the thread to avoid engaging in other sources I've posted as a virtual "sticking his fingers in his ears". Who knows, its bizarre.

It is very strange. I don’t think he understands the scientific method very well.

 

[Funky_monks]

We aren't actually sure how much methane cattle emit anyway, there's all kinds of modelling going on to try and obtain an accurate figure.

Measuring Enteric Methane Emissions from Individual Ruminant Animals in Their Natural Environment

See also at the farm level:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...NThrEDcC2CPbzxQxl6gkwuCbG5XX275QtrXj8b43MVYmu

 

[JimW]

Here's a fun one, meat eating is sexist (my bold):

The link with education is also not obvious: when the average level of education increases, meat consumption increases, but women's secondary education is the exception. In societies where gender equality increases, moreover, meat consumption decreases.

The role of changing dietary habits in mitigating global warming

When we think of tools to achieve climate goals such as limiting the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above that of the pre-industrial age, most of us visualize wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. Even the climate policy models currently in use, the so-called Integrated...

phys.org

 

[JimW]

See same site has a thing about the problem with liquid manure as fertiliser: Nitrogen footprint: Heavy pollution and resource losses due to liquid manure
One point I read elsewhere recently was the trick really would be to reduce industrial meat farming for the global north which is the worst and not really essential to allow the expected rise in the global south where the way mixed farming is done actually helps poor people both nutritionally and in terms of wider income increases.

 

[Funky_monks]

See same site has a thing about the problem with liquid manure as fertiliser: Nitrogen footprint: Heavy pollution and resource losses due to liquid manure
One point I read elsewhere recently was the trick really would be to reduce industrial meat farming for the global north which is the worst and not really essential to allow the expected rise in the global south where the way mixed farming is done actually helps poor people both nutritionally and in terms of wider income increases.

I have been suggesting all along that we transition to a mixed farming model in the global north, too.

Re: the sexist thing - correlation does not equal causation, even if it did, that's quite a big leap.

 

[editor]

It is very strange. I don’t think he understands the scientific method very well.

Seeing as you have nothing to say but stupid attempts at trolling or wind ups, we're both now on mutual ignore. Search the feedback forum if you're not sure what that means. Bye.

 

[Cid]

I did say "all farming apart from his mate, who grows veg"

Lab-grown food is about to destroy farming – and save the planet | George Monbiot

"While arguments rage about plant- versus meat-based diets, new technologies will soon make them irrelevant. Before long, most of our food will come neither from animals nor plants, but from unicellular life. After 12,000 years of feeding humankind, all farming except fruit and veg production is likely to be replaced by ferming: brewing microbes through precision fermentation. This means multiplying particular micro-organisms, to produce particular products, in factories"

So, industrial, highly processed food. Obviously huge corporations controlling most of our food supply which is now mostly made up of highly processed synthetic foods is absolutely fine by George, but fucking terrifying to me.

Regenesis: Feeding the World Without Devouring the Planet.

This is a very positive review, but: "At the other end of the spectrum, Monbiot discusses the high-tech method of microbial fermentation that grows proteins in vats and has a tiny land footprint. Interestingly, he has become less convinced by attempts at growing cultured meat, instead hoping for completely new cuisines. I was left wondering about the nutritional value though. Monbiot seems fixated on the protein this technology can provide and dreams of a farm-free future in which vast tracts of land can be returned to nature. But we live on more than protein alone. Though he mentions that bacteria could produce the vitamins we need thanks to genetic engineering, he does not mention all the other macro- and micronutrients....."

Maybe I'm missing something through skim reading, but what exactly is being fermented in precision fermentation?

 

[Funky_monks]

Maybe I'm missing something through skim reading, but what exactly is being fermented in precision fermentation?

God knows. Microbes, but apparently unspecified ones.

Yum

 

[Cid]

God knows. Microbes, but apparently unspecified ones.

Yum

Roundabout way of pondering what the energy input he's imagining is here. Microbes don't just appear out of nowhere.

<e2a: I imagine you realise that, just seems er... a large gap>

 

[WouldBe]

Roundabout way of pondering what the energy input he's imagining is here. Microbes don't just appear out of nowhere.

<e2a: I imagine you realise that, just seems er... a large gap>

And also need something to feed off.

 

[Funky_monks]

And also need something to feed off.

Well, it's making its way into policy discussions - here in the Welsh Senedd:

"In Finland, technological leaps are being harnessed to turn bacteria and hydrogen into proteins, which can then be used to make anything from milk and eggs through to lab-grown meat and fish, all done with no harm to animals. Tweaks to these proteins could produce lauric acid, which could bring an end to the use of highly destructive palm oil. Environmental author George Monbiot predicts that this technology will make the plant versus meat-based diets argument irrelevant, and with all manner of foods created in this cellular manner, these farm-free foods, as Monbiot calls them, could allow us to hand back vast swathes of our land to nature, massively reduce pesticide use and end deforestation".....

This particular AM then starts talking about having these in the hands of the state, but I can't see that happening....

https://record.assembly.wales/Plenary/12903#C443483