4 ms·
There are so many lower hanging fruit for reducing emissions of and sequestering existing carbon. If you simply restored the majority of the US great plains ba
by greenonions 6y ago
There are so many lower hanging fruit for reducing emissions of and sequestering existing carbon.
If you simply restored the majority of the US great plains back to a bison centered ecosystem instead of cattle, you'd produce a similar resource (bison meat) in large quantity while reducing emissions, and the tall grass would sequester an enormous amount of carbon.
- jkinudsjknds 6y agoSounds dubious. It sounds anything but simple. Converting from cow meat to bison meat would certainly have different economics so who knows what would happen. Sequestering carbon in the grass would probably help, but let's not say "enormous" as if to imply that it would solve the problem. I don't have numbers and transitioning from cows to bisons could plausibly have some positive effects. But its hard to compare it to plans like messing with ocean chemistry in terms of scale.
- boxed 6y agoWould it though? I don't see how because if it did sequester a lot of carbon (not just a one time chunk but over time) then the world would have way less carbon in the atmosphere than it did before industrialization.
- wongarsu 6y agoMost of the effect is just that plants are mostly made out of carbon, so having more plant mass means more carbon in plants and less in the atmosphere. It's the same for trees. It's a sink of fixed size, not a bottomless barrel we can dump infinite amounts of CO2 into. That doesn't make it useless though.
- 24gttghh 6y agoI was about to say most of the plains are used for growing corn and not grazing land but I was wrong, partly. Its mostly cropland in the Northern/Central plains, but mostly grazing/pasture land otherwise. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/maps-and-state-rankings-of-major-land-uses.aspx https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/major-land-uses/maps-...
- mdorazio 6y agoWorth noting also is that major crops grown there, like corn and soybeans, are primarily used as animal feed [1][2]. A decent chunk of corn is also used for ethanol additives to gasoline. The best thing we can do for the environment by far is reduce consumption of beef and dairy products. [1] https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feedgrains/feedgrains-sector-at-a-glance/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/crops/corn-and-other-feedgra... [2] https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexistence-soybeans-factsheet.pdf https://www.usda.gov/sites/default/files/documents/coexisten...
- X6S1x6Okd1st 6y agoIf you are interested in the environmental impact of what you eat this resource is great: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#you-want-to-reduce-the-carbon-footprint-of-your-food-focus-on-what-you-eat-not-whether-your-food-is-local https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#you... Note that you don't need to go vegan or vegetarian to reduce the impact, e.g. replacing any beef with pork or chicken is huge! It's way more important than cutting out milk. If you primarily eat ground beef consider trying impossible, there are good vegan butters at this point and some okay attempts at cheese. All of those reduce the impact.
- staplers 6y agoThe best thing we can do for the environment by far is reduce consumption of beef and dairy products. This is very false. Source: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
- baggy_trough 6y ago"simply"