15 ms·

Climate change and the 75% problem

140 points by adenadel 8y ago

acscott 8y ago
Saw this last night: http://www.anotesark.com/ http://www.anotesark.com/ Had never heard of Kiribati (pronounced roughly Kiribahs). That country could be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of us. Glad there are people such as Gates who are not waiting around.
dmm 8y ago
> Cattle are a huge source of methane; in fact, if they were a country, they would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases! Imagine how opposed to a carbon tax the beef industry would be.
- beat 8y ago
  Legit question, though - are cattle actually carbon-neutral? I mean, where does their carbon come from? Eating plants, that were grown specifically to feed the cattle. Which gets to another question, since I'm not bothering to research before asking... how much worse is methane than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, per carbon atom involved? Because that's basically what cows do. They convert atmospheric CO2 (via plants) into atmospheric methane (via farts).
  - plopz 8y ago
    From wikipedia: Methane has a large effect but for a relatively brief period, having an estimated lifetime of 9 years in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period, having an estimated lifetime of over 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Methane_as_a_greenhouse_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Methane_as...
    - beat 8y ago
      Based on this, it suggests that cattle, while problematic, are carbon-neutral and have been for a long time. I did bother to google about the number of cattle on Earth, which has bee stable at around one billion since the 1970s. The sharp increases in both global population and global wealth haven't changed that for decades. So unless I'm missing something (which is very possible), the amount of methane in the atmosphere from cattle is probably static rather than growing, and the amount of carbon consumed by said cattle is also static.
      - totoglazer 8y ago
        Methane has reached a steady state. However, if CO2 lasts 100 years, and methane -> CO2 takes 9 years, only in 2079 will we have equilibrium. Right now 1billion cows are producing greenhouse gases, but <<1b cows worth of greenhouse gases generated in 1918 are "expiring."
        beat 8y ago
        Well, yeah. How many cattle did we have then? The numbers I found go back to 1960, which was about 750M. Has it doubled in the last century, or quadrupled? Either way, though, it doesn't seem the problem is getting worse, at least. The question is, can we make it better? Can we reduce the level of greenhouse gasses related to cattle, short of just reducing the number of cattle, which seems more like wishful thinking than a plan. My thought from earlier is to act to reduce the amount of corn-feeding and encourage pasture feeding, which takes external carbon (fuel and fertilizer from corn farming) out of the equation. Grazing cattle are typically raised on land that isn't useful for more lucrative farming, living on wild pasture or scrub.
  - kurthr 8y ago
    The problem is that the methane is a much more (30x) potent, although shorter term (10 year decay lifetime) than CO2. So although CO2 is absorbed methane is produced.
  - mattygh 8y ago
    Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than co2, traps about 30x more heat per molecule. On the flip side, it’s half life in the atmosphere until it gets re-absorbed by the earth is on the order of decades, while co2 is on the order of millennia, so if you take the long view it’s not as bad.
  - NeedMoreTea 8y ago
    (Also without searching first) Methane is something like 50 times more effective as a greenhouse gas. That's after allowing for the fact it dissipates far more quickly, initially it's even more. So even though it's a small part of emissions it's a significant constituent of climate change.
  - mistrial9 8y ago
    CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND GREENHOUSE GAS MITIGATION POTENTIAL OF COMPOSTING AND SOIL AMENDMENTS ON CA RANGELANDS California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment Whendee et al Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. - ASSESSMENT OF CALIFORNIA CROP AND LIVESTOCK POTENTIAL ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment Josué Medellín-Azuara et al UC Davis, UC Merced
  - seabee 8y ago
    About 30x worse: https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-potent-greenhouse-gas-than-co2-methane-emissions-will-leap-as-earth-warms-nature/ https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-poten... As far as carbon neutrality goes, you’re drawing a conclusion about the value based only on the first derivative. If you hold livestock numbers constant (they’re increasing, alas, but let’s not worry about that yet) then there will be a rough equilibrium. However, the gas is in the atmosphere for some time until it gets fixed back into the soil, and continues to have a warming effect in the meantime. Any carbon tax has to punish emissions. Net zero emissions isn’t enough anymore.
    - beat 8y ago
      Actually, they're not increasing. I looked it up. The number of cattle in the world has held steady (about one billion) since the 1970s. Given that the population has from about 4B to 7B in that time, and incomes have increased substantially as well, it suggests that beef consumption is level (which means per-capita consumption is shrinking). And given a 9 year lifespan for methane, it's probably been stable for a long time. Now, if you're taking the position that "net zero emissions isn't enough" as justification for a carbon tax, you need to focus on the goal. Is it carbon reduction, or puritanical punishment? Need to ask that, because there's a lot of people who want the latter but claim the former. If the goal is carbon reduction, then a carbon tax is only a means to an end, and we have to ask if it will be effective. Can we carbon-tax beef enough to see a major reduction in its consumption, leading to a major reduction in the number of cattle? (Oh, and you'd better carbon-tax dairy while you're at it.) Does this seem like a reasonable conclusion? And if people aren't eating beef, what else will they eat instead, and what are its carbon costs? I'm not rejecting the position, but I'm trying to think it through.
      - tomp 8y ago
        > Actually, they're not increasing. I looked it up > And given a 9 year lifespan for methane Can you please provide your sources? If this is true, it's not that worrying...
        8y ago
  - VBprogrammer 8y ago
    > where does their carbon come from? Eating plants For Betty the cow on a small homestead sure. Unfortunately modern agriculture is so fubar that it's hard to claim that as true. There are huge fossil fuel energy inputs from everything from chemical fertilisers, herbicides, transportation and processing. Not to mention the damage to the ecosystem that the massive mono-cultures this drives.
    - beat 8y ago
      I live in the midwest, home of the most sophisticated factory farming operations in the world. Chicken and hog factories are way more FUBAR than large cattle operations. Cattle are range animals; they need to move around, so they're usually in pasture for at least part of their diet. In Wisconsin dairy farm country, you see pastures full of cows all the time. And I recently drove through the giant beef farm areas of western Nebraska, which was enlightening. It's dry, arid, sandy land, generally unsuitable for farming. Nothing but scrub grass. Cattle are fine with that. So while the herds are large, the areas they live in are large as well. Chickens and hogs, on the other hand, those are gross. They're kept in confinement, and fed mostly grain. They can't really graze the way cattle do, not at scale.
  - danans 8y ago
    > Legit question, though - are cattle actually carbon-neutral? The vast majority of beef produced is not carbon neutral. From the Beef Cattle Research Council [1] of Canada (not exactly an anti-beef organization): "Presently, the economic conditions are favorable for the production of beef from grain in many regions of the world, largely because of the availability of inexpensive fossil fuels" The plants you are referring to are produced with massive amounts of fossil fuel. By one estimate, each steer "consumes" 284 gallons of oil via feed during its lifetime [2] On top of this, cows are one of the most inefficient ways to turn energy inputs into protein (10x less efficient than other types of meat, 100x less efficient than grain protein), primarily due to large size of the animals must be grown to before slaughter, which uses wastes a lot of energy. [3] There is a large variance between the ratio of input energy to protein output of various types of meat, with lamb (57:1) and beef (40:1) being the least efficient, and broiler chickens (4:1) being the most efficient [4] 1. http://www.beefresearch.ca/research-topic.cfm/environmental-footprint-of-beef-production-6 http://www.beefresearch.ca/research-topic.cfm/environmental-... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html 3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-... 4. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010
    - beat 8y ago
      These are really great links, thanks! This put me on a different solution path - reducing the amount of corn-feeding and making cattle feed (especially beef cattle) primarily natural pasture. Get fuel and fertilizer out of the chain.
      - danans 8y ago
        Glad you found them informative. A solution would have to figure out how to get off the fossil fuels without sending the price of the end product through the ceiling. That is part of the rationale for the current endeavors into creating lab grown meat and passable plant-based meat alternatives.
  - Symmetry 8y ago
    In the steady state cows are carbon neutral. CO2 form the air forms grass, cows turn grass into methane, methane decays into CO2, repeat. But increasing the number of cows increases the amount of methane in the air at any given time and methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Likewise, reducing the number of cows would lead to a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gas in the air. Methane in the atmosphere has a fairly short half life of 7 years so the effects of increasing or decreasing the number of cows is felt relatively quickly.
    - dashundchen 8y ago
      Except animal agriculture is not that simple. There isn't enough arable farmland in the world to just let cattle and animals graze free range. They're not just eating grass. Instead they are eating soy beans, corn, hay that is grown with huge inputs of fossil fuels and fertilizer - made worse by effectively converting that fossil fuel into atmospheric methane. This results in animal products having the highest CO2 equivalent of any food, especially beef and dairy. http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Carbon_Footprint_Factsheet_CSS09-05_e2018_0.pdf http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Carbon_Footprint_Fa... http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/how-fossil-fuels-are-used-to-produce-meat/ http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/how-fossil-fuels-a... One calorie of animal produced requires at least 10 times the plant calorie input. Some quotes from the above article: "Feed production accounts for around 75 percent of fossil fuel use in livestock production, so this one is the big kahuna." "An article from the Food Revolution Network, called on David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist who specializes in agriculture and energy to break down the number of fossil fuels needed to produce the food that livestock consume. According to Pimentel, the process of growing the 35 million hectares of corn, 31.1 million hectares of soybeans allotted for livestock feed in the U.S. (these numbers do not include the soy harvested in South America that feed U.S. livestock), requires an enormous amount of fossil fuel energy in the form of agrochemicals." “Growing the corn used to feed livestock takes vast quantities of chemical fertilizer, which in turn takes vast quantities of oil. Because of this dependence on petroleum,” Pimentel tells Food Revolution Network, “a typical steer will in effect consume 284 gallons of oil in his lifetime.” "Worldwide, we currently use an average of 180 millions of tons of fertilizer to grow livestock feed and as the population grows and the demand for meat increases, it is projected we’ll need 230 million tons or 7.3 BILLIONS of gallons by 2050."
- WorldMaker 8y ago
  *Has been. Koch Industries, the company of huge climate change denying lobbyists the Koch brothers has some major investments in cattle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries#Matador_Cattle_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries#Matador_Cattle... That's just one easy example; the beef industry has long been associated with the oil industry by simple virtue of being relatively co-located in states like Texas and Oklahoma.
- fallingfrog 8y ago
  OK, but the carbon in that methane (CH4) comes from plant sources, which comes from the air. So that is net carbon neutral (except to the degree that methane is a stronger greehouse gas than the carbon and hydrogen it is composed of).
gaius 8y ago
I’ll be in Brussels this week A 10,000 mile trip to save the environment, hmm
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  Travel, commerce, civilization isn't going to stop because of global warming. That's childish hyperbole to suggest one person traveling on a plane or train that's going to be going anyway somehow undermines the goal of getting the whole world to address this issue in a meaningful and serious way.
  - harryh 8y ago
    But addressing the issue in a meaningful and serious way will probably require people to travel A LOT less by air.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
sergiotapia 8y ago
When did "global warming" become "climate change"? Did the boys in marketing decide its time to update.
- Brockenstein 8y ago
  'global warming' refers to the long-term trend of a rising average global temperature, 'Climate change', refers to the changes in the global climate which result from the increasing average global temperature. For example, changes in precipitation patterns, increased prevalence of droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather, etc. They're related, but they are different things.
- bendavis381 8y ago
  Even though your question has been deservedly downvoted, it still deserves an answer. Global warming implies that our effect on the planet is restricted to an upward trend in global temperature. Although that's the principal result of human emissions, the issue manifests itself in many other ways, including but limited to: sea level rise, extreme weather events, substantial changes and extinction of flora and fauna, loss of coral reefs, loss of ice sheets, etc. Climate change includes the broad ecological changes that stem from a warming planet, rather than a narrow focus on the warming itself.
  - vixen99 8y ago
    'effect' on the planet.
    - bendavis381 8y ago
      4 hours of sleep doesn't do anyone any good.
- rebuilder 8y ago
  When it became clear that the climate effects were going to go beyond warming, and that the warming part would be different in different parts of the world.
- 8y ago
Geee 8y ago
My suggestion is that every product should include environmental fact sheet, so that consumers could make better decisions. Every product should be tracked through the supply chain and every process including energy production and transportation would be included in the final product fact sheet. If consumers would buy more environmentally friendly products, markets would direct every producer and supplier to be more environmentally friendly, without any other government intervention or sanctions. Just make it mandatory to be transparent and to include this information in every product. Put warning labels on products that have missing information.
- bendavis381 8y ago
  Not just that. Companies should have to pay for their emissions. Like how we have to pay local government to take our garbage, companies should have to pay to pollute the planet. It's insane that Starbucks et al can produce as much waste as they want without any requirement to pay for the damage.
  - codeulike 8y ago
    Good luck getting the oil industry to pay for their externalities
    - jakewins 8y ago
      This is already happening with the EU cap-n-trade scheme. Because it was designed to ratchet, it initially had nearly no effect - but in two years quotas will have dropped 21% from the ones set in 2005; by 2030 they will force CO2-equivalent emissions down 43%. Companies that emit CO2-equivalent emissions now will either need to retool to lower emissions, or they need to buy emissions certificates from other companies that have retooled. The end result is much simpler than introducing additional labeling of products for consumers to interpret. Instead, the externalities are removed and prices signal the total cost of production, as they should. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en
    - harryh 8y ago
barrad0s 8y ago
This is interesting for cattles, think I saw it here a few weeks back. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...
- plopz 8y ago
  I wonder how long it would take to scale up production of seaweed/algae if that turns out to be effective.
  - netfire 8y ago
    The linked article indicates that only a small amount of seaweed needs to be added to their diet to be effective and that seaweed is easy to grow, so it doesn’t sound like it would take long to scale.
    - giarc 8y ago
      Not that it would eliminate the gains, but cows and seaweed are generally far apart geographically. Therefore you would need to ship the seaweed product to where the cows are.
petermcneeley 8y ago
Remote work tackles so much of this: Less cars on the road. Less cars being created. Smaller roads. Less gas/electric on transport. Fewer offices/smaller. Significantly less stress. Less stress eating. Fewer cows consumed.
- avgDev 8y ago
  Less clothes. Less showers. :)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- perfunctory 8y ago
  Not only remote work but also just working less in general. I don’t see why we as a sosciety can’t go to working 4 or even 3 days a week and still maintain the same standards of living. Or even improving those standards.
  - andrewmcwatters 8y ago
    Because wages for most people are tied to labor and time, and when you decrease the amount of time worked, you produce less labor. Convincing people with money to pay you more for less work is futile. Why the hell would I pay more money to a contractor to work on my home for half the time? I don't understand this thinking. Believe it or not, there are people in the world that want to get shit done.
    - petermcneeley 8y ago
      Paying per hour is a great way to increase hours on something. If your really into the free market you should understand the incentive structure. Many workers have different intensities of working.
    - perfunctory 8y ago
      > Why the hell would I pay more money to a contractor to work on my home for half the time? I lost you hear. Isn't it how it works actually? You usually pay premium if you want something to be done faster.
catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
There are cow backpacks. We can harness the energy from cows and we have an alternative clean energy source. We'd be tackling an electricity problem and the cattle issue.
- catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
  I'm not making this up: https://www.fastcompany.com/3028933/these-backpacks-for-cows-collect-their-fart-gas-and-store-it-for-energy https://www.fastcompany.com/3028933/these-backpacks-for-cows...
perfunctory 8y ago
I am wary of all this talk about breakthroughs. It diverts attention from the hard choices we have to make. Namely change diet, drastically reduce consumption, emphasise circular economy etc. Those breakthroughs may never come.
claydavisss 8y ago
Bill Gates lives in a house that is SIXTY SIX THOUSAND SQUARE FEET. Bill Gates flies in a private jet. Bill Gates has a lot of work to do just to get his carbon footprint in line with the average multimillionaire let alone the national average. Bill Gates should realize that the fundamental challenge is getting people to consume less than they can. Maybe his net blog post should detail his personal impact relative to the average citizen and what he is doing to make his impact below average. We don't need more blog posts. We already know everything we need to know to plot a course of action.
- cheeko1234 8y ago
  Also he has saved 400 million lives. That's a whole lot of carbon footprint added, right?
  - The_rationalist 8y ago
    Source ?
- giarc 8y ago
  Did you read the post? He's part of a project putting up £100 million for climate change research and action. It's not just another post communicating how bad the situation is.
  - claydavisss 8y ago
    He isn't sacrificing. The $100 million will shortly be recovered by his investments. This is about as monumental as someone here donating $500. In any case I can tell him what needs to be done for $0 - consume less No change will come unless everyone sacrifices.
    - giarc 8y ago
      From wikipedia. How long will it take to recoup his $28 billion in donations? "In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the US, and Warren Buffett the first. As of May 16, 2013, Bill Gates had donated US$28 billion to the foundation."
Anth-ny 8y ago
Investing in alternatives is laudable but Bill Gates should support the only credible path to avert an unlivable earth: a worldwide progressive ban on fossil fuels and plastics made with fossil fuels. Then invest billions in alternatives.
esotericn 8y ago
It's not clear to me that these issues don't simply boil down to energy problems. The limiting case: an endless source of free energy. Using this, it seems obvious that any carbon-emitting procedure can be mitigated, by capturing the emissions and storing them. The question is whether concrete, cement and so on are viable building materials under this model; whether meat is viable; and so on. Essentially, these are uncaptured externalities. If you tax the emissions at a higher rate than it costs to capture them, they will be captured, the question is whether demand decreases as a result of increases in cost.
- mbbutler 8y ago
  Exactly. Gates is being too cute by half here. He starts by claiming that only 25% of greenhouse gases come from making electricity; a fact that is technically true but very misleading. He then goes on to name the contributors of the other 75% and almost all of them (with the exception of methane from farming) produce carbon through using energy in the form of fossil fuels. Solving the energy production problem solves the vast majority of these other problems.
daxfohl 8y ago
In reality, does anyone see anything other than a bad ending to all of this? I wish I could start a poll here, but does anyone really think there's still time? Really? Political-economic forces, they're just not going to cave until it's too late. 10 years? Unless the economy fumbles soon Trump will have the next six of those. So, four left. Four damn years to change everything. I think a lot of the focus goes on reducing energy emissions because it's easy political blame gaming. But it's too late and it's not going to work. We're going to destroy the Earth while bickering about it. Assume consumption will continue to rise, assume that oil will continue to own politicians. People will continue to consume, expect to maintain their standard of living off cheap goods shipped from China, heating for ever-larger homes, buying from companies with huge carbon footprints, and blaming others. I think the reasonable thing to do is invest more in the cleanup scenario. But that doesn't score political gotcha points and it's not profitable /right now/, so that probably won't happen either.
- bwanab 8y ago
  For all the reasons you give, bad things are going to happen. We don't have time to stop that, but if we start now, we can mitigate the severity of those bad things that do happen and prevent others. The cleanup scenario isn't an option in any respect if the earth is really screwed.
- Synaesthesia 8y ago
  We can give up, or we can take action. The choice is ours. I still think popular pressure can make a difference, it's how every progressive action yet has come about. Many countries are already onboard, China is realising very quickly how important the environment is. The US public is on the side of reducing emissions, I think the only thing left is to convince US elites and we can get there.
- tomjen3 8y ago
  Agreed. I wouldn't be so skeptical about the effects[0] if it wasn't because those researchers weren't being paid by big government, while recommending new taxes[1]. [0] it seems unlikely that humans have no influence on the environment. It equally seems improbable that we can predict sea levels half a century from now with any accuracy. [1] before anybody puts words in my mouth, I reserve the same skepticsm for any other report coming out of the mouth of an institution which advocates it should have more funding...
1001101 8y ago
Bill's putting his money where his mouth is with investments in Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats (meat alternative startups).
magadem 8y ago
Gates is a hack, and so is anyone else more concerned about the carbon cycle than these things: Sulfur Hexaflouride Ah Nitrogen Plastics in the ocean Why are these things more directly important? Sulfur Hexaflouride has no known stochiometic pathways. Rampant one-way nitrogen conversion from noble to reactive species is killing the ocean literally, and to sustain ourselves, with or without meat; we continue to produce more every year for ag purposes. Plastic use is so widespread and so bad the fish in your cabinet right now probably has plastic in it
abledon 8y ago
Wow took the quiz at the end. Switching to plant base diet for 1 yr is only half as effective as not doing a transatlantic flight. In the future I think we’ll agree to not take so many self indulgent vacations to other countries far away or have some sort of global ‘travel credit’ system to keep track
- GaryNumanVevo 8y ago
  vegans will be the only people allowed to travel :D
hackeraccount 8y ago
There's something about the way most people talk about climate change that strikes me as really off. They talk about consumption and growth being the root cause of the problem. They also have a way of talking about wealth that makes it sounds like it means nothing. There's something wrong with that world view. I'm unconvinced that the solutions to climate change are going to revolve around lack of growth and curtailing consumption. It seems more likely that they will come from applying wealth to the problem. Growth and wealth are tightly linked. Saying that we'll solve this problem by curtailing growth seems to me that we'll solve it without wealth - I don't think that will happen.
kilotaras 8y ago
We would make a progress on some environmental challenges by simply taxing externalities and letting the market do it's work. Climate change - carbon tax. Trash Pollution - packaging and recycling tax.
sosense 8y ago
Get your daily dose of climate hysteria.

140 points by adenadel 8y ago

Saw this last night: http://www.anotesark.com/ http://www.anotesark.com/ Had never heard of Kiribati (pronounced roughly Kiribahs). That country could be the canary in the coal mine for the rest of us. Glad there are people such as Gates who are not waiting around.

dmm 8y ago

> Cattle are a huge source of methane; in fact, if they were a country, they would be the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases! Imagine how opposed to a carbon tax the beef industry would be.

beat 8y ago
Legit question, though - are cattle actually carbon-neutral? I mean, where does their carbon come from? Eating plants, that were grown specifically to feed the cattle. Which gets to another question, since I'm not bothering to research before asking... how much worse is methane than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, per carbon atom involved? Because that's basically what cows do. They convert atmospheric CO2 (via plants) into atmospheric methane (via farts).
- plopz 8y ago
  From wikipedia: Methane has a large effect but for a relatively brief period, having an estimated lifetime of 9 years in the atmosphere, whereas carbon dioxide has a small effect for a long period, having an estimated lifetime of over 100 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Methane_as_a_greenhouse_gas https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_methane#Methane_as...
  - beat 8y ago
    Based on this, it suggests that cattle, while problematic, are carbon-neutral and have been for a long time. I did bother to google about the number of cattle on Earth, which has bee stable at around one billion since the 1970s. The sharp increases in both global population and global wealth haven't changed that for decades. So unless I'm missing something (which is very possible), the amount of methane in the atmosphere from cattle is probably static rather than growing, and the amount of carbon consumed by said cattle is also static.
    - totoglazer 8y ago
      Methane has reached a steady state. However, if CO2 lasts 100 years, and methane -> CO2 takes 9 years, only in 2079 will we have equilibrium. Right now 1billion cows are producing greenhouse gases, but <<1b cows worth of greenhouse gases generated in 1918 are "expiring."
      - beat 8y ago
        Well, yeah. How many cattle did we have then? The numbers I found go back to 1960, which was about 750M. Has it doubled in the last century, or quadrupled? Either way, though, it doesn't seem the problem is getting worse, at least. The question is, can we make it better? Can we reduce the level of greenhouse gasses related to cattle, short of just reducing the number of cattle, which seems more like wishful thinking than a plan. My thought from earlier is to act to reduce the amount of corn-feeding and encourage pasture feeding, which takes external carbon (fuel and fertilizer from corn farming) out of the equation. Grazing cattle are typically raised on land that isn't useful for more lucrative farming, living on wild pasture or scrub.
- kurthr 8y ago
  The problem is that the methane is a much more (30x) potent, although shorter term (10 year decay lifetime) than CO2. So although CO2 is absorbed methane is produced.
- mattygh 8y ago
  Methane is a far more potent greenhouse gas than co2, traps about 30x more heat per molecule. On the flip side, it’s half life in the atmosphere until it gets re-absorbed by the earth is on the order of decades, while co2 is on the order of millennia, so if you take the long view it’s not as bad.
- NeedMoreTea 8y ago
  (Also without searching first) Methane is something like 50 times more effective as a greenhouse gas. That's after allowing for the fact it dissipates far more quickly, initially it's even more. So even though it's a small part of emissions it's a significant constituent of climate change.
- mistrial9 8y ago
  CARBON SEQUESTRATION AND GREENHOUSE GAS MITIGATION POTENTIAL OF COMPOSTING AND SOIL AMENDMENTS ON CA RANGELANDS California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment Whendee et al Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720. - ASSESSMENT OF CALIFORNIA CROP AND LIVESTOCK POTENTIAL ADAPTATION TO CLIMATE CHANGE California’s Fourth Climate Change Assessment Josué Medellín-Azuara et al UC Davis, UC Merced
- seabee 8y ago
  About 30x worse: https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-potent-greenhouse-gas-than-co2-methane-emissions-will-leap-as-earth-warms-nature/ https://blogs.princeton.edu/research/2014/03/26/a-more-poten... As far as carbon neutrality goes, you’re drawing a conclusion about the value based only on the first derivative. If you hold livestock numbers constant (they’re increasing, alas, but let’s not worry about that yet) then there will be a rough equilibrium. However, the gas is in the atmosphere for some time until it gets fixed back into the soil, and continues to have a warming effect in the meantime. Any carbon tax has to punish emissions. Net zero emissions isn’t enough anymore.
  - beat 8y ago
    Actually, they're not increasing. I looked it up. The number of cattle in the world has held steady (about one billion) since the 1970s. Given that the population has from about 4B to 7B in that time, and incomes have increased substantially as well, it suggests that beef consumption is level (which means per-capita consumption is shrinking). And given a 9 year lifespan for methane, it's probably been stable for a long time. Now, if you're taking the position that "net zero emissions isn't enough" as justification for a carbon tax, you need to focus on the goal. Is it carbon reduction, or puritanical punishment? Need to ask that, because there's a lot of people who want the latter but claim the former. If the goal is carbon reduction, then a carbon tax is only a means to an end, and we have to ask if it will be effective. Can we carbon-tax beef enough to see a major reduction in its consumption, leading to a major reduction in the number of cattle? (Oh, and you'd better carbon-tax dairy while you're at it.) Does this seem like a reasonable conclusion? And if people aren't eating beef, what else will they eat instead, and what are its carbon costs? I'm not rejecting the position, but I'm trying to think it through.
    - tomp 8y ago
      > Actually, they're not increasing. I looked it up > And given a 9 year lifespan for methane Can you please provide your sources? If this is true, it's not that worrying...
      - 8y ago
- VBprogrammer 8y ago
  > where does their carbon come from? Eating plants For Betty the cow on a small homestead sure. Unfortunately modern agriculture is so fubar that it's hard to claim that as true. There are huge fossil fuel energy inputs from everything from chemical fertilisers, herbicides, transportation and processing. Not to mention the damage to the ecosystem that the massive mono-cultures this drives.
  - beat 8y ago
    I live in the midwest, home of the most sophisticated factory farming operations in the world. Chicken and hog factories are way more FUBAR than large cattle operations. Cattle are range animals; they need to move around, so they're usually in pasture for at least part of their diet. In Wisconsin dairy farm country, you see pastures full of cows all the time. And I recently drove through the giant beef farm areas of western Nebraska, which was enlightening. It's dry, arid, sandy land, generally unsuitable for farming. Nothing but scrub grass. Cattle are fine with that. So while the herds are large, the areas they live in are large as well. Chickens and hogs, on the other hand, those are gross. They're kept in confinement, and fed mostly grain. They can't really graze the way cattle do, not at scale.
- danans 8y ago
  > Legit question, though - are cattle actually carbon-neutral? The vast majority of beef produced is not carbon neutral. From the Beef Cattle Research Council [1] of Canada (not exactly an anti-beef organization): "Presently, the economic conditions are favorable for the production of beef from grain in many regions of the world, largely because of the availability of inexpensive fossil fuels" The plants you are referring to are produced with massive amounts of fossil fuel. By one estimate, each steer "consumes" 284 gallons of oil via feed during its lifetime [2] On top of this, cows are one of the most inefficient ways to turn energy inputs into protein (10x less efficient than other types of meat, 100x less efficient than grain protein), primarily due to large size of the animals must be grown to before slaughter, which uses wastes a lot of energy. [3] There is a large variance between the ratio of input energy to protein output of various types of meat, with lamb (57:1) and beef (40:1) being the least efficient, and broiler chickens (4:1) being the most efficient [4] 1. http://www.beefresearch.ca/research-topic.cfm/environmental-footprint-of-beef-production-6 http://www.beefresearch.ca/research-topic.cfm/environmental-... 2. https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html https://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/31/magazine/power-steer.html 3. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-times-more-resources-poultry-dairy-eggs-pork-180952103/ https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/beef-uses-ten-... 4. https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010 https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/78/3/660S/4690010
  - beat 8y ago
    These are really great links, thanks! This put me on a different solution path - reducing the amount of corn-feeding and making cattle feed (especially beef cattle) primarily natural pasture. Get fuel and fertilizer out of the chain.
    - danans 8y ago
      Glad you found them informative. A solution would have to figure out how to get off the fossil fuels without sending the price of the end product through the ceiling. That is part of the rationale for the current endeavors into creating lab grown meat and passable plant-based meat alternatives.
- Symmetry 8y ago
  In the steady state cows are carbon neutral. CO2 form the air forms grass, cows turn grass into methane, methane decays into CO2, repeat. But increasing the number of cows increases the amount of methane in the air at any given time and methane is a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. Likewise, reducing the number of cows would lead to a reduction in the amount of greenhouse gas in the air. Methane in the atmosphere has a fairly short half life of 7 years so the effects of increasing or decreasing the number of cows is felt relatively quickly.
  - dashundchen 8y ago
    Except animal agriculture is not that simple. There isn't enough arable farmland in the world to just let cattle and animals graze free range. They're not just eating grass. Instead they are eating soy beans, corn, hay that is grown with huge inputs of fossil fuels and fertilizer - made worse by effectively converting that fossil fuel into atmospheric methane. This results in animal products having the highest CO2 equivalent of any food, especially beef and dairy. http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Carbon_Footprint_Factsheet_CSS09-05_e2018_0.pdf http://css.umich.edu/sites/default/files/Carbon_Footprint_Fa... http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/how-fossil-fuels-are-used-to-produce-meat/ http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/how-fossil-fuels-a... One calorie of animal produced requires at least 10 times the plant calorie input. Some quotes from the above article: "Feed production accounts for around 75 percent of fossil fuel use in livestock production, so this one is the big kahuna." "An article from the Food Revolution Network, called on David Pimentel, a Cornell ecologist who specializes in agriculture and energy to break down the number of fossil fuels needed to produce the food that livestock consume. According to Pimentel, the process of growing the 35 million hectares of corn, 31.1 million hectares of soybeans allotted for livestock feed in the U.S. (these numbers do not include the soy harvested in South America that feed U.S. livestock), requires an enormous amount of fossil fuel energy in the form of agrochemicals." “Growing the corn used to feed livestock takes vast quantities of chemical fertilizer, which in turn takes vast quantities of oil. Because of this dependence on petroleum,” Pimentel tells Food Revolution Network, “a typical steer will in effect consume 284 gallons of oil in his lifetime.” "Worldwide, we currently use an average of 180 millions of tons of fertilizer to grow livestock feed and as the population grows and the demand for meat increases, it is projected we’ll need 230 million tons or 7.3 BILLIONS of gallons by 2050."
WorldMaker 8y ago
*Has been. Koch Industries, the company of huge climate change denying lobbyists the Koch brothers has some major investments in cattle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries#Matador_Cattle_Company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_Industries#Matador_Cattle... That's just one easy example; the beef industry has long been associated with the oil industry by simple virtue of being relatively co-located in states like Texas and Oklahoma.
fallingfrog 8y ago
OK, but the carbon in that methane (CH4) comes from plant sources, which comes from the air. So that is net carbon neutral (except to the degree that methane is a stronger greehouse gas than the carbon and hydrogen it is composed of).

gaius 8y ago

I’ll be in Brussels this week A 10,000 mile trip to save the environment, hmm

Brockenstein 8y ago
Travel, commerce, civilization isn't going to stop because of global warming. That's childish hyperbole to suggest one person traveling on a plane or train that's going to be going anyway somehow undermines the goal of getting the whole world to address this issue in a meaningful and serious way.
- harryh 8y ago
  But addressing the issue in a meaningful and serious way will probably require people to travel A LOT less by air.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]

sergiotapia 8y ago

When did "global warming" become "climate change"? Did the boys in marketing decide its time to update.

Brockenstein 8y ago
'global warming' refers to the long-term trend of a rising average global temperature, 'Climate change', refers to the changes in the global climate which result from the increasing average global temperature. For example, changes in precipitation patterns, increased prevalence of droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather, etc. They're related, but they are different things.
bendavis381 8y ago
Even though your question has been deservedly downvoted, it still deserves an answer. Global warming implies that our effect on the planet is restricted to an upward trend in global temperature. Although that's the principal result of human emissions, the issue manifests itself in many other ways, including but limited to: sea level rise, extreme weather events, substantial changes and extinction of flora and fauna, loss of coral reefs, loss of ice sheets, etc. Climate change includes the broad ecological changes that stem from a warming planet, rather than a narrow focus on the warming itself.
- vixen99 8y ago
  'effect' on the planet.
  - bendavis381 8y ago
    4 hours of sleep doesn't do anyone any good.
rebuilder 8y ago
When it became clear that the climate effects were going to go beyond warming, and that the warming part would be different in different parts of the world.
8y ago

Geee 8y ago

My suggestion is that every product should include environmental fact sheet, so that consumers could make better decisions. Every product should be tracked through the supply chain and every process including energy production and transportation would be included in the final product fact sheet. If consumers would buy more environmentally friendly products, markets would direct every producer and supplier to be more environmentally friendly, without any other government intervention or sanctions. Just make it mandatory to be transparent and to include this information in every product. Put warning labels on products that have missing information.

bendavis381 8y ago
Not just that. Companies should have to pay for their emissions. Like how we have to pay local government to take our garbage, companies should have to pay to pollute the planet. It's insane that Starbucks et al can produce as much waste as they want without any requirement to pay for the damage.
- codeulike 8y ago
  Good luck getting the oil industry to pay for their externalities
  - jakewins 8y ago
    This is already happening with the EU cap-n-trade scheme. Because it was designed to ratchet, it initially had nearly no effect - but in two years quotas will have dropped 21% from the ones set in 2005; by 2030 they will force CO2-equivalent emissions down 43%. Companies that emit CO2-equivalent emissions now will either need to retool to lower emissions, or they need to buy emissions certificates from other companies that have retooled. The end result is much simpler than introducing additional labeling of products for consumers to interpret. Instead, the externalities are removed and prices signal the total cost of production, as they should. https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/ets_en
  - harryh 8y ago

barrad0s 8y ago

This is interesting for cattles, think I saw it here a few weeks back. https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-methane-burps-cut-greenhouse-gas-emissions-climate-change-research-a8368911.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/cows-seaweed-metha...

plopz 8y ago
I wonder how long it would take to scale up production of seaweed/algae if that turns out to be effective.
- netfire 8y ago
  The linked article indicates that only a small amount of seaweed needs to be added to their diet to be effective and that seaweed is easy to grow, so it doesn’t sound like it would take long to scale.
  - giarc 8y ago
    Not that it would eliminate the gains, but cows and seaweed are generally far apart geographically. Therefore you would need to ship the seaweed product to where the cows are.

petermcneeley 8y ago

Remote work tackles so much of this: Less cars on the road. Less cars being created. Smaller roads. Less gas/electric on transport. Fewer offices/smaller. Significantly less stress. Less stress eating. Fewer cows consumed.

avgDev 8y ago
Less clothes. Less showers. :)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
perfunctory 8y ago
Not only remote work but also just working less in general. I don’t see why we as a sosciety can’t go to working 4 or even 3 days a week and still maintain the same standards of living. Or even improving those standards.
- andrewmcwatters 8y ago
  Because wages for most people are tied to labor and time, and when you decrease the amount of time worked, you produce less labor. Convincing people with money to pay you more for less work is futile. Why the hell would I pay more money to a contractor to work on my home for half the time? I don't understand this thinking. Believe it or not, there are people in the world that want to get shit done.
  - petermcneeley 8y ago
    Paying per hour is a great way to increase hours on something. If your really into the free market you should understand the incentive structure. Many workers have different intensities of working.
  - perfunctory 8y ago
    > Why the hell would I pay more money to a contractor to work on my home for half the time? I lost you hear. Isn't it how it works actually? You usually pay premium if you want something to be done faster.

catchmeifyoucan 8y ago

There are cow backpacks. We can harness the energy from cows and we have an alternative clean energy source. We'd be tackling an electricity problem and the cattle issue.

catchmeifyoucan 8y ago
I'm not making this up: https://www.fastcompany.com/3028933/these-backpacks-for-cows-collect-their-fart-gas-and-store-it-for-energy https://www.fastcompany.com/3028933/these-backpacks-for-cows...

perfunctory 8y ago

I am wary of all this talk about breakthroughs. It diverts attention from the hard choices we have to make. Namely change diet, drastically reduce consumption, emphasise circular economy etc. Those breakthroughs may never come.

claydavisss 8y ago

Bill Gates lives in a house that is SIXTY SIX THOUSAND SQUARE FEET. Bill Gates flies in a private jet. Bill Gates has a lot of work to do just to get his carbon footprint in line with the average multimillionaire let alone the national average. Bill Gates should realize that the fundamental challenge is getting people to consume less than they can. Maybe his net blog post should detail his personal impact relative to the average citizen and what he is doing to make his impact below average. We don't need more blog posts. We already know everything we need to know to plot a course of action.

cheeko1234 8y ago
Also he has saved 400 million lives. That's a whole lot of carbon footprint added, right?
- The_rationalist 8y ago
  Source ?
giarc 8y ago
Did you read the post? He's part of a project putting up £100 million for climate change research and action. It's not just another post communicating how bad the situation is.
- claydavisss 8y ago
  He isn't sacrificing. The $100 million will shortly be recovered by his investments. This is about as monumental as someone here donating $500. In any case I can tell him what needs to be done for $0 - consume less No change will come unless everyone sacrifices.
  - giarc 8y ago
    From wikipedia. How long will it take to recoup his $28 billion in donations? "In 2007, its founders were ranked as the second most generous philanthropists in the US, and Warren Buffett the first. As of May 16, 2013, Bill Gates had donated US$28 billion to the foundation."

Anth-ny 8y ago

Investing in alternatives is laudable but Bill Gates should support the only credible path to avert an unlivable earth: a worldwide progressive ban on fossil fuels and plastics made with fossil fuels. Then invest billions in alternatives.

esotericn 8y ago

It's not clear to me that these issues don't simply boil down to energy problems. The limiting case: an endless source of free energy. Using this, it seems obvious that any carbon-emitting procedure can be mitigated, by capturing the emissions and storing them. The question is whether concrete, cement and so on are viable building materials under this model; whether meat is viable; and so on. Essentially, these are uncaptured externalities. If you tax the emissions at a higher rate than it costs to capture them, they will be captured, the question is whether demand decreases as a result of increases in cost.

mbbutler 8y ago
Exactly. Gates is being too cute by half here. He starts by claiming that only 25% of greenhouse gases come from making electricity; a fact that is technically true but very misleading. He then goes on to name the contributors of the other 75% and almost all of them (with the exception of methane from farming) produce carbon through using energy in the form of fossil fuels. Solving the energy production problem solves the vast majority of these other problems.

daxfohl 8y ago

In reality, does anyone see anything other than a bad ending to all of this? I wish I could start a poll here, but does anyone really think there's still time? Really? Political-economic forces, they're just not going to cave until it's too late. 10 years? Unless the economy fumbles soon Trump will have the next six of those. So, four left. Four damn years to change everything. I think a lot of the focus goes on reducing energy emissions because it's easy political blame gaming. But it's too late and it's not going to work. We're going to destroy the Earth while bickering about it. Assume consumption will continue to rise, assume that oil will continue to own politicians. People will continue to consume, expect to maintain their standard of living off cheap goods shipped from China, heating for ever-larger homes, buying from companies with huge carbon footprints, and blaming others. I think the reasonable thing to do is invest more in the cleanup scenario. But that doesn't score political gotcha points and it's not profitable /right now/, so that probably won't happen either.

bwanab 8y ago
For all the reasons you give, bad things are going to happen. We don't have time to stop that, but if we start now, we can mitigate the severity of those bad things that do happen and prevent others. The cleanup scenario isn't an option in any respect if the earth is really screwed.
Synaesthesia 8y ago
We can give up, or we can take action. The choice is ours. I still think popular pressure can make a difference, it's how every progressive action yet has come about. Many countries are already onboard, China is realising very quickly how important the environment is. The US public is on the side of reducing emissions, I think the only thing left is to convince US elites and we can get there.
tomjen3 8y ago
Agreed. I wouldn't be so skeptical about the effects[0] if it wasn't because those researchers weren't being paid by big government, while recommending new taxes[1]. [0] it seems unlikely that humans have no influence on the environment. It equally seems improbable that we can predict sea levels half a century from now with any accuracy. [1] before anybody puts words in my mouth, I reserve the same skepticsm for any other report coming out of the mouth of an institution which advocates it should have more funding...

1001101 8y ago

Bill's putting his money where his mouth is with investments in Beyond Meat and Memphis Meats (meat alternative startups).

magadem 8y ago

Gates is a hack, and so is anyone else more concerned about the carbon cycle than these things: Sulfur Hexaflouride Ah Nitrogen Plastics in the ocean Why are these things more directly important? Sulfur Hexaflouride has no known stochiometic pathways. Rampant one-way nitrogen conversion from noble to reactive species is killing the ocean literally, and to sustain ourselves, with or without meat; we continue to produce more every year for ag purposes. Plastic use is so widespread and so bad the fish in your cabinet right now probably has plastic in it

abledon 8y ago

Wow took the quiz at the end. Switching to plant base diet for 1 yr is only half as effective as not doing a transatlantic flight. In the future I think we’ll agree to not take so many self indulgent vacations to other countries far away or have some sort of global ‘travel credit’ system to keep track

GaryNumanVevo 8y ago
vegans will be the only people allowed to travel :D

hackeraccount 8y ago

There's something about the way most people talk about climate change that strikes me as really off. They talk about consumption and growth being the root cause of the problem. They also have a way of talking about wealth that makes it sounds like it means nothing. There's something wrong with that world view. I'm unconvinced that the solutions to climate change are going to revolve around lack of growth and curtailing consumption. It seems more likely that they will come from applying wealth to the problem. Growth and wealth are tightly linked. Saying that we'll solve this problem by curtailing growth seems to me that we'll solve it without wealth - I don't think that will happen.

kilotaras 8y ago

We would make a progress on some environmental challenges by simply taxing externalities and letting the market do it's work. Climate change - carbon tax. Trash Pollution - packaging and recycling tax.

sosense 8y ago

Get your daily dose of climate hysteria.