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Enteric fermentation only accounts for 30% of emissions, while emissions from fertilizer for plants is highly underestimated: https://www.sciencedirect.com/sci

Enteric fermentation only accounts for 30% of emissions, while emissions from fertilizer for plants is highly underestimated: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048969718302754 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S004896971... I'm glad that I can eat a meat-and-dairy-based diet and am not forced to fill my calories with garbage plant-based substitutes. If you want to work on reducing enteric fermentation emissions with technology, I'm all for it. If you want me to cut my consumption of meat to save a few percent of methane that will do next to nothing for climate change, then get off my lawn.

daneel_w 6y ago
"I'm glad that I can eat a meat-and-dairy-based diet and am not forced to fill my calories with garbage plant-based substitutes." Must they be garbage substitutes? Must your vegetabilic food look and taste like a meat facsimile? I hear this perspective often from meat-eaters when they contrast their diet to a vegetarian diet, and I cannot understand it.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  You can't understand that people like meat, eggs and dairy and that they don't want to miss out on them?
  - daneel_w 6y ago
    I certainly understand it, but surely you have more on your plate than just eggs, cheese and steaks to provide calories. For what it's worth I've come across several excellent meat facsimiles. I don't worry about any potential harm coming from a smaller portion of a proper cooked meal being a processed product.
DangitBobby 6y ago
Keep in mind that it takes much more fertilizer to feed a cow that is then converted to food than it would to just grow the food. The 30% likely doesn't take into account the gigantic portion of fertilizer emissions that wouldn't exist if we weren't feeding so many cows, etc.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  I'm aware of that, but beef is a vastly superior food than the produce that is fed to the cows. If it was just about calories, you could just drink HFCS all day.
  - DangitBobby 6y ago
    Even with the inefficiency of nutrient variety to support a healthy diet, it would be so.
    - gridlockd 6y ago
      I don't believe there's such a thing as a healthy plant-based diet. That's just me speculating though, nobody even knows what a healthy diet is. From a nutritional perspective however, animals can do things for us that we can't even do in the lab, let alone at industrial scale. It might be possible to create some sort of fortified plant-based diet that has all the nutrients in a form that the body can actually absorb, but even then, that doesn't mean this is the route free people will go. Even if you could change western food culture to make people to stop eating animal-based-food in favor of that plant-based Frankenfood, you will not change the food culture of rest of the world, which is shaking its head at white saviorism.
Edman274 6y ago
Are you of the impression that if everyone just ate beef, chicken, cheese and milk that we would cut emissions drastically? You know that animals eat food, and the food they eat is grown in crops, and the crops use fertilizer ... right? Even if emissions associated with growing crops are higher than expected, if the number of people that they feed is higher than the number that can be fed through meat, then reducing meat consumption is a win. If 30 percent of methane comes from industrial meat farming and 20 percent comes from industrial rice farming but our industrial meat feeds 1 billion people and our industrial rice feeds 2 billion people, I don't understand how that's an irrelevant concern. It's very convenient to form opinions in such a way so that no personal changes in consumption are ever required.
- gridlockd 6y ago
  > Are you of the impression that if everyone just ate beef, chicken, cheese and milk that we would cut emissions drastically? No. > You know that animals eat food, and the food they eat is grown in crops, and the crops use fertilizer ... right? Yes. > Even if emissions associated with growing crops are higher than expected, if the number of people that they feed is higher than the number that can be fed through meat, then reducing meat consumption is a win. I disagree, because plant-based food is inferior, therefore it is a loss. From a pure nutrition perspective, meat and dairy isn't as inefficient as you might think. You could probably cut down on some emissions by feeding people Soylent or some other food that had better been served to livestock instead, perhaps you can even brainwash people into doing that voluntarily. That doesn't mean it is a better outcome. > If 30 percent of methane comes from industrial meat farming and 20 percent comes from industrial rice farming but our industrial meat feeds 1 billion people and our industrial rice feeds 2 billion people, I don't understand how that's an irrelevant concern. It's not just about feeding people, but feeding them well. White rice is probably responsible for the huge rates of Diabetes in Asia. Brown rice is poorly digestible. Altogether, it is not very nutritious either. > It's very convenient to form opinions in such a way so that no personal changes in consumption are ever required. Don't get me wrong, my opinion is borne out of self-interest, it's not about moral grandstanding. Even if a meat-based diet was better for no other reason than being more delicious, it wouldn't change my position fundamentally. You're very welcome to change your consumption, just don't force it on me.

daneel_w 6y ago

"I'm glad that I can eat a meat-and-dairy-based diet and am not forced to fill my calories with garbage plant-based substitutes." Must they be garbage substitutes? Must your vegetabilic food look and taste like a meat facsimile? I hear this perspective often from meat-eaters when they contrast their diet to a vegetarian diet, and I cannot understand it.

gridlockd 6y ago
You can't understand that people like meat, eggs and dairy and that they don't want to miss out on them?
- daneel_w 6y ago
  I certainly understand it, but surely you have more on your plate than just eggs, cheese and steaks to provide calories. For what it's worth I've come across several excellent meat facsimiles. I don't worry about any potential harm coming from a smaller portion of a proper cooked meal being a processed product.

DangitBobby 6y ago

Keep in mind that it takes much more fertilizer to feed a cow that is then converted to food than it would to just grow the food. The 30% likely doesn't take into account the gigantic portion of fertilizer emissions that wouldn't exist if we weren't feeding so many cows, etc.

gridlockd 6y ago
I'm aware of that, but beef is a vastly superior food than the produce that is fed to the cows. If it was just about calories, you could just drink HFCS all day.
- DangitBobby 6y ago
  Even with the inefficiency of nutrient variety to support a healthy diet, it would be so.
  - gridlockd 6y ago
    I don't believe there's such a thing as a healthy plant-based diet. That's just me speculating though, nobody even knows what a healthy diet is. From a nutritional perspective however, animals can do things for us that we can't even do in the lab, let alone at industrial scale. It might be possible to create some sort of fortified plant-based diet that has all the nutrients in a form that the body can actually absorb, but even then, that doesn't mean this is the route free people will go. Even if you could change western food culture to make people to stop eating animal-based-food in favor of that plant-based Frankenfood, you will not change the food culture of rest of the world, which is shaking its head at white saviorism.

Edman274 6y ago

Are you of the impression that if everyone just ate beef, chicken, cheese and milk that we would cut emissions drastically? You know that animals eat food, and the food they eat is grown in crops, and the crops use fertilizer ... right? Even if emissions associated with growing crops are higher than expected, if the number of people that they feed is higher than the number that can be fed through meat, then reducing meat consumption is a win. If 30 percent of methane comes from industrial meat farming and 20 percent comes from industrial rice farming but our industrial meat feeds 1 billion people and our industrial rice feeds 2 billion people, I don't understand how that's an irrelevant concern. It's very convenient to form opinions in such a way so that no personal changes in consumption are ever required.

gridlockd 6y ago
> Are you of the impression that if everyone just ate beef, chicken, cheese and milk that we would cut emissions drastically? No. > You know that animals eat food, and the food they eat is grown in crops, and the crops use fertilizer ... right? Yes. > Even if emissions associated with growing crops are higher than expected, if the number of people that they feed is higher than the number that can be fed through meat, then reducing meat consumption is a win. I disagree, because plant-based food is inferior, therefore it is a loss. From a pure nutrition perspective, meat and dairy isn't as inefficient as you might think. You could probably cut down on some emissions by feeding people Soylent or some other food that had better been served to livestock instead, perhaps you can even brainwash people into doing that voluntarily. That doesn't mean it is a better outcome. > If 30 percent of methane comes from industrial meat farming and 20 percent comes from industrial rice farming but our industrial meat feeds 1 billion people and our industrial rice feeds 2 billion people, I don't understand how that's an irrelevant concern. It's not just about feeding people, but feeding them well. White rice is probably responsible for the huge rates of Diabetes in Asia. Brown rice is poorly digestible. Altogether, it is not very nutritious either. > It's very convenient to form opinions in such a way so that no personal changes in consumption are ever required. Don't get me wrong, my opinion is borne out of self-interest, it's not about moral grandstanding. Even if a meat-based diet was better for no other reason than being more delicious, it wouldn't change my position fundamentally. You're very welcome to change your consumption, just don't force it on me.