5 ms·

Meat is not the problem. Long before people there was more animals alive on this planet and they pooped, farted and ate each other at a scale that we can't imag

by 6d6b73 6y ago

Meat is not the problem. Long before people there was more animals alive on this planet and they pooped, farted and ate each other at a scale that we can't imagine. Just think about the bison, or passenger pigeons.

lumberingjack 6y ago
Absolutely this as a native American one of my biggest dreams is to view America before all of the forest was completely removed from the entire country and to see all of mega herds of whitetail deer and bison roam free. Carrier pigeon phlox so large they block out the sky for half a day
- gbrown 6y ago
  Interestingly, much of the current young woodland would have been gone, replaced by prairie and oak savanna.
gbrown 6y ago
Citation needed? They ate grass instead of corn, and spread their waste over vast areas of wilderness, ready to be incorporated back into the plantlife. Also, a quick Google search says there were 30-60 million bison roaming the plains. Today, there are 95 million cows, and another 70 some million pigs.
- 6d6b73 6y ago
  Not all cows are used for meat. Bison, and pigeons are just two examples, but as you can imagine, all over planet there were billions of animals that are not either extinct or close to being extinct. How about european bison, aurochs, wild pigs, and many many more. Cows are just one example of the bovine family. I don't claim that farmed meat does not contribute anything, but it's not the only, or even main problem of the climate change. Start a garden, and see for yourself how much resources it takes to grow enough plant food to feed your family,and compare that to a number calories you can get from one cow.
  - gbrown 6y ago
    No offense, but you appear to be just making up your numbers and inventing the conclusions from whole cloth. Nobody would dispute that the biosphere was richer and more diverse in the past, but all of those animals were part of a global equilibrium (at least on the order of 10s of thousands of years, nothing is permanent). Currently, the animals in our food system are not. I do garden extensively, and I know how difficult it is to produce food for a whole year. I also know that feeding carbon intensive corn to cows to eat is a thermodynamically loosing game calorie-wise. If you want to pay for regeneratively raised, grass fed beef from farms with integrated waste management, good for you. If you think your 99c hamburger at a fast food restaurant isn’t part of a climate and ethical catastrophe, I think you’re being willfully ignorant. Personally I’m a vegetarian, but the main thing I care about is that people eat less meat, which was more sustainably and ethically raised. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C16&q=cows+methane+contribution&oq=cows+methane+contri https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C16&q=cow...
  - aaaxyz 6y ago
    >all over planet there were billions of animals that are not either extinct or close to being extinct There used to be more diversity amongst animals but that doesn't change the fact that there is 3 times more cattle in North America now than there used to live in the wild. >I don't claim that farmed meat does not contribute anything, but it's not the only, or even main problem of the climate change. Climate change does not have a "main problem", it's multiple minor causes that each need to be addressed (and agriculture is a big one). >Start a garden, and see for yourself how much resources it takes to grow enough plant food to feed your family,and compare that to a number calories you can get from one cow. Are you implying the cow doesn't need to be fed? Cows need a lot more water and land per gram of protein or per calorie than fish, poultry or legumes. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.515..518T/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.515..518T/abstra... https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987
totetsu 6y ago
contemporary cows are fed a homogenous diet that make their burps and farts a lot worse than wild foraging animals.
- 6d6b73 6y ago
  Yes, but that's not problem of meat, just farming.
  - perfunctory 6y ago
    If we were farming sustainably (only grass fed etc.) we wouldn't be able to produce as much meat as we do today. Which implies that on average everybody would eat less meat. Much less.
    - totetsu 6y ago
      Grasses that have been developed for pastoral farming still lead to more methane burps. Current research seems to be focused on breading grasses / other pasture crops, and breading animals that produce less methane, Vaccines that could be given to animals, Inhibitors that could be added to their diet[1], and modeling of the methane formation process. But yes, the simplest way to reduce it would be to reduce the number of animals, by eating less meat. [1] https://www.pggrc.co.nz/files/1501479614891.pdf https://www.pggrc.co.nz/files/1501479614891.pdf

by 6d6b73 6y ago

lumberingjack 6y ago

Absolutely this as a native American one of my biggest dreams is to view America before all of the forest was completely removed from the entire country and to see all of mega herds of whitetail deer and bison roam free. Carrier pigeon phlox so large they block out the sky for half a day

gbrown 6y ago
Interestingly, much of the current young woodland would have been gone, replaced by prairie and oak savanna.

gbrown 6y ago

Citation needed? They ate grass instead of corn, and spread their waste over vast areas of wilderness, ready to be incorporated back into the plantlife. Also, a quick Google search says there were 30-60 million bison roaming the plains. Today, there are 95 million cows, and another 70 some million pigs.

6d6b73 6y ago
Not all cows are used for meat. Bison, and pigeons are just two examples, but as you can imagine, all over planet there were billions of animals that are not either extinct or close to being extinct. How about european bison, aurochs, wild pigs, and many many more. Cows are just one example of the bovine family. I don't claim that farmed meat does not contribute anything, but it's not the only, or even main problem of the climate change. Start a garden, and see for yourself how much resources it takes to grow enough plant food to feed your family,and compare that to a number calories you can get from one cow.
- gbrown 6y ago
  No offense, but you appear to be just making up your numbers and inventing the conclusions from whole cloth. Nobody would dispute that the biosphere was richer and more diverse in the past, but all of those animals were part of a global equilibrium (at least on the order of 10s of thousands of years, nothing is permanent). Currently, the animals in our food system are not. I do garden extensively, and I know how difficult it is to produce food for a whole year. I also know that feeding carbon intensive corn to cows to eat is a thermodynamically loosing game calorie-wise. If you want to pay for regeneratively raised, grass fed beef from farms with integrated waste management, good for you. If you think your 99c hamburger at a fast food restaurant isn’t part of a climate and ethical catastrophe, I think you’re being willfully ignorant. Personally I’m a vegetarian, but the main thing I care about is that people eat less meat, which was more sustainably and ethically raised. https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C16&q=cows+methane+contribution&oq=cows+methane+contri https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C16&q=cow...
- aaaxyz 6y ago
  >all over planet there were billions of animals that are not either extinct or close to being extinct There used to be more diversity amongst animals but that doesn't change the fact that there is 3 times more cattle in North America now than there used to live in the wild. >I don't claim that farmed meat does not contribute anything, but it's not the only, or even main problem of the climate change. Climate change does not have a "main problem", it's multiple minor causes that each need to be addressed (and agriculture is a big one). >Start a garden, and see for yourself how much resources it takes to grow enough plant food to feed your family,and compare that to a number calories you can get from one cow. Are you implying the cow doesn't need to be fed? Cows need a lot more water and land per gram of protein or per calorie than fish, poultry or legumes. https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.515..518T/abstract https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2014Natur.515..518T/abstra... https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987

totetsu 6y ago

contemporary cows are fed a homogenous diet that make their burps and farts a lot worse than wild foraging animals.

6d6b73 6y ago
Yes, but that's not problem of meat, just farming.
- perfunctory 6y ago
  If we were farming sustainably (only grass fed etc.) we wouldn't be able to produce as much meat as we do today. Which implies that on average everybody would eat less meat. Much less.
  - totetsu 6y ago
    Grasses that have been developed for pastoral farming still lead to more methane burps. Current research seems to be focused on breading grasses / other pasture crops, and breading animals that produce less methane, Vaccines that could be given to animals, Inhibitors that could be added to their diet[1], and modeling of the methane formation process. But yes, the simplest way to reduce it would be to reduce the number of animals, by eating less meat. [1] https://www.pggrc.co.nz/files/1501479614891.pdf https://www.pggrc.co.nz/files/1501479614891.pdf