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> Roughly 12% of GHGs are attributed to meat agriculture. The cause of anthropogenic climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, not the raising of animals

> Roughly 12% of GHGs are attributed to meat agriculture. The cause of anthropogenic climate change is the burning of fossil fuels, not the raising of animals for food. Burning fossil fuels releases carbon at a rate and in amounts that are too high for the natural mechanisms in the environment, that normally bind carbon, to cope with. The carbon gasses released by cows and other ruminants are part of the planetary carbon cycle that circulates carbon gasses between the atmosphere and the biosphere: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_carbon_cycle https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmospheric_carbon_cycle Plants bind carbon from the air, cows eat plants, bacteria in cows' stomachs ferment plants, fermentation releases the carbon bound by plants back into the air, plants bind carbon from the air. This cycle is stable, it's been going on for millions of years, and it has never caused climate change, not of the scale we see today. Climate change started with the Industrial Revolution, when fossil fuels began to be dug up and burned for power. Today, power production is responsible for almost 75% of all carbon emissions. The vast majority of this power production is from burning fossil fuels: https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sector-where-do-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-come-from https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector#sector-by-sec... If you're concerned about climate change and you want to raise the alarm, then raise the alarm about the continued burning of fossil fuels and the misinformation spread by the fossil fuel industry. Misinformation that seems to be very successfully co-opting the animal rights movement, I might add. You want to be "on the right side of history" as you say in another comment? Don't side with the fossil fuel industry by directing attention away from their role in climate change.

LesZedCB 5y ago
holy fucking shit, no. https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graphic_Framework01.pdf https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graph... i know there has been a lot of pushback because of the individualist nature of exxon et al's carbon footprint red herring. but reduction of emissions is a project every single individual, corporation, and government must be part of. we are are deeply intertwined, all terrestrials, all earth bound. and the anti-individualist shove-off of responsibility onto corporations is going to get us equally nowhere. _Both And_, people. https://www.drawdown.org/drawdown-framework https://www.drawdown.org/drawdown-framework
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  I don't understand. "we are are deeply intertwined, all terrestrials, all earth bound"? What does that have to do with my comment? What do you disagree with in what I wrote above? That anthropogenic climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels? That it's the fossil fuel industry that is responsible for that? What?
  - LesZedCB 5y ago
    food, land use and agriculture makes up 24% emissions. energy use is 25%. see the graphic I linked. to say "we should be primarily focused on energy" is ignoring an equally large factor. fossil fuels enabled the food and agriculture industry to grow in the climate destroying behemoth it is now. we need to restructure our diet and address food waste and production. we are all earthbound means that we all need to act, individual and corporation alike, because all our fates are tied to the reaction of the earth.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - cheese_goddess 5y ago
      The graphic you linked (https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graphic_Framework01.pdf https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graph...) shows the potential reductions from following the "Drawdown Framework", not actual emissions. That graphic also doesn't list any numbers. The numbers you quote, 24% and 25% come from a different graphic, titled "Emission Sources & Natural Sinks", found in the main page of the Drawdown Framework website, here: https://www.drawdown.org/sites/default/files/rainbow_forpress.png https://www.drawdown.org/sites/default/files/rainbow_forpres... In that graphic, 24% is listed as the proportion of CO₂ emissions from "Food, agriculture and land use" and 25% is from "Electricity production". The graphic also lists 21% for "Industry", 14% for "Transportation", 6% for "Buildings", and 10% for "Other Energy-Related Emissions". I think you took the figure for "Electricity production" to stand for the emissions from burning fossil fuels for all power production, which is not right. Industry, transportation, heating buildings etc all need power that is generated by burning fossil fuels. So it's not 25% but 76% that goes to generating power. The ourworldindata.org chart I linked lists pretty much the same figure and breaks it down in the same categories, also. The dradown.org graphic shows that 59% of the CO₂ released remains in the atmosphere, which is roughly consistent with the amount attributed to power production from burning fossil fuels. The rest of the CO₂ is bound in carbon sinks in the environment. The arcs of the graph that end in the legend "Current sinks" add up to 24 + 17 = 41%, which is plenty to cover our food production needs (given the 24% figure listed in the same graphic for all food production). That's what I say above in my comment: climate change is caused by excess carbon released into the environment by the burning of fossil fuels, not by farming. The environment can handle farming, even at the industrial scales we practice it today (which I agree is excessive and needs urgent reform). What the environment can't cope with is burning fossil fuels that release in days carbon stored over millions of years. Given all of the above, do you still disagree with my initial comment? If so, can you explain how you disagree?

LesZedCB 5y ago

holy fucking shit, no. https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graphic_Framework01.pdf https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graph... i know there has been a lot of pushback because of the individualist nature of exxon et al's carbon footprint red herring. but reduction of emissions is a project every single individual, corporation, and government must be part of. we are are deeply intertwined, all terrestrials, all earth bound. and the anti-individualist shove-off of responsibility onto corporations is going to get us equally nowhere. _Both And_, people. https://www.drawdown.org/drawdown-framework https://www.drawdown.org/drawdown-framework

cheese_goddess 5y ago
I don't understand. "we are are deeply intertwined, all terrestrials, all earth bound"? What does that have to do with my comment? What do you disagree with in what I wrote above? That anthropogenic climate change is caused by burning fossil fuels? That it's the fossil fuel industry that is responsible for that? What?
- LesZedCB 5y ago
  food, land use and agriculture makes up 24% emissions. energy use is 25%. see the graphic I linked. to say "we should be primarily focused on energy" is ignoring an equally large factor. fossil fuels enabled the food and agriculture industry to grow in the climate destroying behemoth it is now. we need to restructure our diet and address food waste and production. we are all earthbound means that we all need to act, individual and corporation alike, because all our fates are tied to the reaction of the earth.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    The graphic you linked (https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graphic_Framework01.pdf https://drawdown.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/Drawdown_Graph...) shows the potential reductions from following the "Drawdown Framework", not actual emissions. That graphic also doesn't list any numbers. The numbers you quote, 24% and 25% come from a different graphic, titled "Emission Sources & Natural Sinks", found in the main page of the Drawdown Framework website, here: https://www.drawdown.org/sites/default/files/rainbow_forpress.png https://www.drawdown.org/sites/default/files/rainbow_forpres... In that graphic, 24% is listed as the proportion of CO₂ emissions from "Food, agriculture and land use" and 25% is from "Electricity production". The graphic also lists 21% for "Industry", 14% for "Transportation", 6% for "Buildings", and 10% for "Other Energy-Related Emissions". I think you took the figure for "Electricity production" to stand for the emissions from burning fossil fuels for all power production, which is not right. Industry, transportation, heating buildings etc all need power that is generated by burning fossil fuels. So it's not 25% but 76% that goes to generating power. The ourworldindata.org chart I linked lists pretty much the same figure and breaks it down in the same categories, also. The dradown.org graphic shows that 59% of the CO₂ released remains in the atmosphere, which is roughly consistent with the amount attributed to power production from burning fossil fuels. The rest of the CO₂ is bound in carbon sinks in the environment. The arcs of the graph that end in the legend "Current sinks" add up to 24 + 17 = 41%, which is plenty to cover our food production needs (given the 24% figure listed in the same graphic for all food production). That's what I say above in my comment: climate change is caused by excess carbon released into the environment by the burning of fossil fuels, not by farming. The environment can handle farming, even at the industrial scales we practice it today (which I agree is excessive and needs urgent reform). What the environment can't cope with is burning fossil fuels that release in days carbon stored over millions of years. Given all of the above, do you still disagree with my initial comment? If so, can you explain how you disagree?