6 ms·

Or just don’t eat the cows it’s really not that hard

by albertgoeswoof 5y ago

mattmiller 5y ago
Parent just suggested a realistic and actionable solution and you replied a snarky totally unrealistic counter offer.
- awesomeusername 5y ago
  Bullshit. A large portion of the population have been vegetarian for a long time. How is something alive and well and growing be unrealistic
  - skeaker 5y ago
    Because it relies on the majority of the population to unanimously change their mind and diets. Between economic reasons (alternative diets can be more expensive to a family that has no time to cook every meal), health reasons, traditional reasons, societal conceptions, and downright stubborn people, it's essentially not possible without multiple generations worth of effort. That's much less realistic than changing mandated farming practices which could be done in a matter of years.
    - exdsq 5y ago
      Cows in world := 1,000,000,000 Seaweed per day per cow := 0.085kg Seaweed per year per cow := 31.025kg Seaweed per year for cow population := 31,025,000,000kgs Global seaweed production := 6,350,293,180kgs So, we'd need to increase seaweed production by 5 times. We would then need to distribute this from the largest producers (China, Japan, Korea) the countries that consume the most (Europe, US). This isn't a problem that can be solved by mandated changes in a matter of years, and I have no idea what the CO2 output would be for this sort of production and shipping.
    - drooby 5y ago
      Solid answer.. None of this needs to be binary this or that though. We can limit or eliminate our intake of meat products through personal choice AND engineer solutions to minimize environmental harm. We can do both and it does not have to be unanimous. Also, there absolutely is a very real cultural shift happening right now that is embracing flexitarian/vegetarian/vegan diets.
      - sam0x17 5y ago
        While the term "vegan" has seen a rise in popularity, "meat" and even "steak" have seen a more significant rise in the last 10 years: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=vegan,meat https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=v... I also don't have data on this, but I think there has been a much bigger rise in performative veganism than actual veganism. For example many popular twitch streamers say they are vegan, and then the next week viewers point out they are eating a cheeseburger on stream and they'll say "well I'm not today obviously".
- albertgoeswoof 5y ago
  You think it’s more realistic (and better for the environment) to farm seaweed at global beef production scale? You’d have to dredge up so much seaweed and ship it all the way to the cows, it would be insanely bad for marine environments and so expensive to do at that scale. Meanwhile growing feed from the ground can be done right beside the cows at rock bottom prices. There are millions (billions?) of people that don’t eat cows, it is not unrealistic for people to stop eating them, culture changes very quickly
  - ars 5y ago
    See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517488 You can skip the seaweed and just give the active ingredient.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    I don't think you understand the scale and flexibility of seaweed farming. But the feed itself is already poised to be adopted by large producers - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/world-s-top-beef-supplier-approves-methane-busting-cow-feed https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/world-s-t.... > it is not unrealistic for people to stop eating them It's unrealistic to force them unless necessary. Beef industry in some places is subsidized, demand can easily be curbed by removing subsidies or taxing. That isn't even on the table yet.
  - tw04 5y ago
    “I don’t know why we need birth control, people can just stop having sex until they’re ready to reproduce” When you start your response from a place that is unreasonable, nobody is going to give you the time of day. Telling people to just stop eating beef is both unreasonable and just flat out not going to happen in at least several generations with many steps in between - if it ever happens.
- jedimastert 5y ago
  I'm gonna invoke Poe's law here, but respond genuinely. The only reason beef is so popular is because it's available. It's pretty inefficient in terms of energy input to calorie output and produces even more carbon as a byproduct of it's production. Carbon-cost wise, it should be seen as a luxury. I also really don't think it would be an issue health-wise and diverting the market to other forms of food wouldn't really put too much strain on people's ability to provide enough food, calories- and protein-wise
  - lolsal 5y ago
    > The only reason beef is so popular is because it's available. You don't think cultures eating meat and integrating meat into their traditions has anything to do with it? It's difficult to separate the chicken and the egg here because farming meat was super cheap, accessible and beneficial (nutritionally, environmentally and financially) for a lot longer than the last 100 years. It's "good" to transition to a meatless diet for the sake of the environment. The world is going to have to massively change in order to do that, and the cultures and traditions of a lot of people are going to be casualties along the way. Please don't be so dismissive of that.
    - jedimastert 5y ago
      "Popular" was probably the wrong word. "Currently ubiquitous" would probably be better. > was super cheap, accessible and beneficial (nutritionally, environmentally and financially) for a lot longer than the last 100 years. Interesting sidenote, I recently heard someone talk about how cattle was an extra good form of livestock because it "converted" an inaccessible form of energy (grass, which humans can't eat) that would otherwise be sitting there useless, into a useable form. With (most) modern farming, this is no longer the case. Note that I never argued for a meatless diet, or even a beef-less one, and I don't think going to that extreme would be necessary or even the best outcome. And I recognize that doing so would mean many many generations of cultural shift and concerted effort. Just that beef farming in its current form should be considered more of a luxury in terms of cost to the environment than it currently is
  - tw04 5y ago
tobias3 5y ago
More realistic is taxing it (increasingly tax what you don't like till it goes away, like Tobacco). Problem is the milk price is connected to the meat price. Which makes half the supermarket more expensive through milk products. Maybe there is a technological solution to abort the bulls like we do for chickens nowadays and give the cows hormons for milk production.
lolsal 5y ago
Do you really think it's easy to drop meat consumption from the cultures of the world? Meat is a huge part of many cultures around the world, including mine. Stopping meat consumption overnight would close many restaurants and business immediately. I'm not arguing it's not a benefit, but I am arguing that it's hard.
- oregano 5y ago
  Stopping world cultures from eating meat is a huge problem. But what about at a personal level: With this information you now have- are you as an individual willing to go stop eating meat? I would argue that on an individual level it actually is pretty darn easy - especially with all the alternatives popping up the last 5 years.
  - lolsal 5y ago
    I'm not willing, no.
    - igetspam 5y ago
      Upvoting because of your honesty, not your position. The reason you can't reduce meat consumption, in spite of data, is because you don't want to. It's selfish but at least it's honest.
      - lolsal 5y ago
        I think a lot of people make choices in spite of data to the contrary. We fly on planes, buy plastic junk from Amazon overseas and replace electronics like they are going out of style. We're burning energy to have digital money and we focus on paper straws. I've done all of these things in the last year (except flying, but only because of the pandemic, not the environment). I play with my sliders all the time; I'm just not willing to slide so far in one direction that I give up my heritage. I challenge you to evaluate your own life choices with an equally critical lens. Thank you for the polite discourse.
    - 5y ago
sigzero 5y ago
That isn't going to happen unless it's somehow forced.

Or just don’t eat the cows it’s really not that hard

mattmiller 5y ago

Parent just suggested a realistic and actionable solution and you replied a snarky totally unrealistic counter offer.

awesomeusername 5y ago
Bullshit. A large portion of the population have been vegetarian for a long time. How is something alive and well and growing be unrealistic
- skeaker 5y ago
  Because it relies on the majority of the population to unanimously change their mind and diets. Between economic reasons (alternative diets can be more expensive to a family that has no time to cook every meal), health reasons, traditional reasons, societal conceptions, and downright stubborn people, it's essentially not possible without multiple generations worth of effort. That's much less realistic than changing mandated farming practices which could be done in a matter of years.
  - exdsq 5y ago
    Cows in world := 1,000,000,000 Seaweed per day per cow := 0.085kg Seaweed per year per cow := 31.025kg Seaweed per year for cow population := 31,025,000,000kgs Global seaweed production := 6,350,293,180kgs So, we'd need to increase seaweed production by 5 times. We would then need to distribute this from the largest producers (China, Japan, Korea) the countries that consume the most (Europe, US). This isn't a problem that can be solved by mandated changes in a matter of years, and I have no idea what the CO2 output would be for this sort of production and shipping.
  - drooby 5y ago
    Solid answer.. None of this needs to be binary this or that though. We can limit or eliminate our intake of meat products through personal choice AND engineer solutions to minimize environmental harm. We can do both and it does not have to be unanimous. Also, there absolutely is a very real cultural shift happening right now that is embracing flexitarian/vegetarian/vegan diets.
    - sam0x17 5y ago
      While the term "vegan" has seen a rise in popularity, "meat" and even "steak" have seen a more significant rise in the last 10 years: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=vegan,meat https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=v... I also don't have data on this, but I think there has been a much bigger rise in performative veganism than actual veganism. For example many popular twitch streamers say they are vegan, and then the next week viewers point out they are eating a cheeseburger on stream and they'll say "well I'm not today obviously".
albertgoeswoof 5y ago
You think it’s more realistic (and better for the environment) to farm seaweed at global beef production scale? You’d have to dredge up so much seaweed and ship it all the way to the cows, it would be insanely bad for marine environments and so expensive to do at that scale. Meanwhile growing feed from the ground can be done right beside the cows at rock bottom prices. There are millions (billions?) of people that don’t eat cows, it is not unrealistic for people to stop eating them, culture changes very quickly
- ars 5y ago
  See my reply here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517488 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28517488 You can skip the seaweed and just give the active ingredient.
- slothtrop 5y ago
  I don't think you understand the scale and flexibility of seaweed farming. But the feed itself is already poised to be adopted by large producers - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/world-s-top-beef-supplier-approves-methane-busting-cow-feed https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-09-09/world-s-t.... > it is not unrealistic for people to stop eating them It's unrealistic to force them unless necessary. Beef industry in some places is subsidized, demand can easily be curbed by removing subsidies or taxing. That isn't even on the table yet.
- tw04 5y ago
  “I don’t know why we need birth control, people can just stop having sex until they’re ready to reproduce” When you start your response from a place that is unreasonable, nobody is going to give you the time of day. Telling people to just stop eating beef is both unreasonable and just flat out not going to happen in at least several generations with many steps in between - if it ever happens.
jedimastert 5y ago
I'm gonna invoke Poe's law here, but respond genuinely. The only reason beef is so popular is because it's available. It's pretty inefficient in terms of energy input to calorie output and produces even more carbon as a byproduct of it's production. Carbon-cost wise, it should be seen as a luxury. I also really don't think it would be an issue health-wise and diverting the market to other forms of food wouldn't really put too much strain on people's ability to provide enough food, calories- and protein-wise
- lolsal 5y ago
  > The only reason beef is so popular is because it's available. You don't think cultures eating meat and integrating meat into their traditions has anything to do with it? It's difficult to separate the chicken and the egg here because farming meat was super cheap, accessible and beneficial (nutritionally, environmentally and financially) for a lot longer than the last 100 years. It's "good" to transition to a meatless diet for the sake of the environment. The world is going to have to massively change in order to do that, and the cultures and traditions of a lot of people are going to be casualties along the way. Please don't be so dismissive of that.
  - jedimastert 5y ago
    "Popular" was probably the wrong word. "Currently ubiquitous" would probably be better. > was super cheap, accessible and beneficial (nutritionally, environmentally and financially) for a lot longer than the last 100 years. Interesting sidenote, I recently heard someone talk about how cattle was an extra good form of livestock because it "converted" an inaccessible form of energy (grass, which humans can't eat) that would otherwise be sitting there useless, into a useable form. With (most) modern farming, this is no longer the case. Note that I never argued for a meatless diet, or even a beef-less one, and I don't think going to that extreme would be necessary or even the best outcome. And I recognize that doing so would mean many many generations of cultural shift and concerted effort. Just that beef farming in its current form should be considered more of a luxury in terms of cost to the environment than it currently is
- tw04 5y ago

tobias3 5y ago

More realistic is taxing it (increasingly tax what you don't like till it goes away, like Tobacco). Problem is the milk price is connected to the meat price. Which makes half the supermarket more expensive through milk products. Maybe there is a technological solution to abort the bulls like we do for chickens nowadays and give the cows hormons for milk production.

lolsal 5y ago

Do you really think it's easy to drop meat consumption from the cultures of the world? Meat is a huge part of many cultures around the world, including mine. Stopping meat consumption overnight would close many restaurants and business immediately. I'm not arguing it's not a benefit, but I am arguing that it's hard.

oregano 5y ago
Stopping world cultures from eating meat is a huge problem. But what about at a personal level: With this information you now have- are you as an individual willing to go stop eating meat? I would argue that on an individual level it actually is pretty darn easy - especially with all the alternatives popping up the last 5 years.
- lolsal 5y ago
  I'm not willing, no.
  - igetspam 5y ago
    Upvoting because of your honesty, not your position. The reason you can't reduce meat consumption, in spite of data, is because you don't want to. It's selfish but at least it's honest.
    - lolsal 5y ago
      I think a lot of people make choices in spite of data to the contrary. We fly on planes, buy plastic junk from Amazon overseas and replace electronics like they are going out of style. We're burning energy to have digital money and we focus on paper straws. I've done all of these things in the last year (except flying, but only because of the pandemic, not the environment). I play with my sliders all the time; I'm just not willing to slide so far in one direction that I give up my heritage. I challenge you to evaluate your own life choices with an equally critical lens. Thank you for the polite discourse.
  - 5y ago

sigzero 5y ago

That isn't going to happen unless it's somehow forced.