5 ms·

I don't understand. All meat is made from recycled carbon dioxide (plants, e.g. corn & grass, take CO2 out of the atmosphere and "recycle" it, that's then fed

by tomp 4y ago

I don't understand. All meat is made from recycled carbon dioxide (plants, e.g. corn & grass, take CO2 out of the atmosphere and "recycle" it, that's then fed to animals to grow meat). As I always like to says, cows are just recycled grass. Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels).

qayxc 4y ago
> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). How so? Even the article itself brings up various reasons that don't include CO2 emissions; deforestation and water use for example. Cattle in particular are a major source for methane emissions - a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. The direct contribution to global warming (via methane emissions) is very low, yes. The problem arises from feeding and waste removal. It's a multi-dimensional issue and no, cows are not just recycled grass - if that were the case they wouldn't have the same impact. Most dairy cows (appr. half the overall cow population) are fed maize, soy, and high-energy supplements in order increase yield. Silages are also frequently used and the fermenting process also adds to the GHG emissions. > Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). That doesn't make sense. Modern farm operations rely heavily on fossil fuels and fertiliser. This isn't the 18th century anymore, there aren't herdsmen watching over cows grazing on meadows. This: https://www.agdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bg-dairy_barn_parlor-001-1968.jpg https://www.agdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bg-dairy_... is what a modern dairy farm looks like and these feed pellets https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/pellet-feed-for-cows-picture-id459106227 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/pellet-feed-for-cows-pi... aren't made of just grass either. It's a romanticised image that many still have in mind when thinking of meat production, but it's a heavily mechanised industry today and pictures like this https://ak0.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4426340/thumb/1.jpg https://ak0.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4426340/thumb/1.jp... don't reflect a large part of the industry anymore.
- tomp 4y ago
  Deforestation & water use aren’t a problem in the first world. Maize & soy are also made from captured CO2 like grass. Yes the remaining CO2 released is from energy & transport (oil) used, but that is solved not by demonizing meat, but by improving energy generation (nuclear & solar instead of oil/coal/gas)
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    > Deforestation & water use aren’t a problem in the first world. Yes. We pay the third world to do it for us. Lucky we live in different worlds, and what happens there doesn’t impact us, right? > by improving energy generation You are still not accounting for the surface used and the long multi-year process that’s growing a cow.
shinryuu 4y ago
Chemical composition matter. Scenario one: CH4 + 2 02 Scenario two: 2 H20 + C + 02 Scenario three: C02 + 2 H2 + 02 All of the above have the same molecules but they have a wildly different impact on from a climate change perspective.
- tomp 4y ago
  Not long term they don’t. CH4 breaks down into CO2 in a few decades, forming a natural cycle. The only long-term climate impact is from additional CO2 from fossil fuels.
  - rbanffy 4y ago
    Which is why the article points out that offsetting meat production entirely from fossil fuel would require unrealistic changes. Going vegetarian would be easier, but, if (and it’s a big if, as many experts highlighted) they manage to accomplish even a small part of their goal, the impact is still very large.
  - virgildotcodes 4y ago
    If you are constantly pumping CH4 into the atmosphere over the long-term then you have a long-term climate impact as a result. This is without even taking into account whether the increased heating from the "short-term" impact of CH4 over a few decades causes us to hit tipping points sooner than otherwise, or that in the best case scenario we may have been able to avoid hitting at all.
    - tomp 4y ago
      No that’s not how physics works. If you keep pumping a constant amount of CH4 into the atmosphere, it keeps degrading into CO2, which is transformed into grass, which is transformed into cows. It’s a cycle. There is no long-term impact.
      - virgildotcodes 4y ago
        Let's say you have 100 units of CO2, and 0 units of CH4 in the atmosphere, you are producing 100 units of warming per year. Then you do something that converts 20 of those units of CO2 to 20 units of CH4, you are now producing 80 x 1 + 20 x 84 = 1,760 units of warming per year. If you are performing this action at a rate that keeps replenishing the CH4 as quickly as it is degrading, let alone faster than it's degrading and subsequently increasing the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere, the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere is constantly being kept higher than it would be were you not performing this action, for as long a term as you continue to perform it. So you've now ended up with a planet that is constantly experiencing more warming than you would have otherwise. If the permafrost requires 1,000 units of warming to melt and release its stores of CO2 and CH4, then this further makes the difference between triggering this tipping point or not. Am I misunderstanding something?
127 4y ago
>Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). It's not either or. Recognizing the cost in fossil fuels, does not magically reduce the cost in meat production.
0daystock 4y ago
> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). Maybe because most of the petrol industry serves the animal agriculture industry and hundreds of billions of animals it needs to raise and kill annually? Or did you think they don't require any inputs nor produce any outputs other than a corpse?

by tomp 4y ago

qayxc 4y ago

> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). How so? Even the article itself brings up various reasons that don't include CO2 emissions; deforestation and water use for example. Cattle in particular are a major source for methane emissions - a much more potent greenhouse gas than CO2. The direct contribution to global warming (via methane emissions) is very low, yes. The problem arises from feeding and waste removal. It's a multi-dimensional issue and no, cows are not just recycled grass - if that were the case they wouldn't have the same impact. Most dairy cows (appr. half the overall cow population) are fed maize, soy, and high-energy supplements in order increase yield. Silages are also frequently used and the fermenting process also adds to the GHG emissions. > Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). That doesn't make sense. Modern farm operations rely heavily on fossil fuels and fertiliser. This isn't the 18th century anymore, there aren't herdsmen watching over cows grazing on meadows. This: https://www.agdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bg-dairy_barn_parlor-001-1968.jpg https://www.agdaily.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/bg-dairy_... is what a modern dairy farm looks like and these feed pellets https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/pellet-feed-for-cows-picture-id459106227 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/pellet-feed-for-cows-pi... aren't made of just grass either. It's a romanticised image that many still have in mind when thinking of meat production, but it's a heavily mechanised industry today and pictures like this https://ak0.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4426340/thumb/1.jpg https://ak0.picdn.net/shutterstock/videos/4426340/thumb/1.jp... don't reflect a large part of the industry anymore.

tomp 4y ago
Deforestation & water use aren’t a problem in the first world. Maize & soy are also made from captured CO2 like grass. Yes the remaining CO2 released is from energy & transport (oil) used, but that is solved not by demonizing meat, but by improving energy generation (nuclear & solar instead of oil/coal/gas)
- rbanffy 4y ago
  > Deforestation & water use aren’t a problem in the first world. Yes. We pay the third world to do it for us. Lucky we live in different worlds, and what happens there doesn’t impact us, right? > by improving energy generation You are still not accounting for the surface used and the long multi-year process that’s growing a cow.

shinryuu 4y ago

Chemical composition matter. Scenario one: CH4 + 2 02 Scenario two: 2 H20 + C + 02 Scenario three: C02 + 2 H2 + 02 All of the above have the same molecules but they have a wildly different impact on from a climate change perspective.

tomp 4y ago
Not long term they don’t. CH4 breaks down into CO2 in a few decades, forming a natural cycle. The only long-term climate impact is from additional CO2 from fossil fuels.
- rbanffy 4y ago
  Which is why the article points out that offsetting meat production entirely from fossil fuel would require unrealistic changes. Going vegetarian would be easier, but, if (and it’s a big if, as many experts highlighted) they manage to accomplish even a small part of their goal, the impact is still very large.
- virgildotcodes 4y ago
  If you are constantly pumping CH4 into the atmosphere over the long-term then you have a long-term climate impact as a result. This is without even taking into account whether the increased heating from the "short-term" impact of CH4 over a few decades causes us to hit tipping points sooner than otherwise, or that in the best case scenario we may have been able to avoid hitting at all.
  - tomp 4y ago
    No that’s not how physics works. If you keep pumping a constant amount of CH4 into the atmosphere, it keeps degrading into CO2, which is transformed into grass, which is transformed into cows. It’s a cycle. There is no long-term impact.
    - virgildotcodes 4y ago
      Let's say you have 100 units of CO2, and 0 units of CH4 in the atmosphere, you are producing 100 units of warming per year. Then you do something that converts 20 of those units of CO2 to 20 units of CH4, you are now producing 80 x 1 + 20 x 84 = 1,760 units of warming per year. If you are performing this action at a rate that keeps replenishing the CH4 as quickly as it is degrading, let alone faster than it's degrading and subsequently increasing the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere, the amount of CH4 in the atmosphere is constantly being kept higher than it would be were you not performing this action, for as long a term as you continue to perform it. So you've now ended up with a planet that is constantly experiencing more warming than you would have otherwise. If the permafrost requires 1,000 units of warming to melt and release its stores of CO2 and CH4, then this further makes the difference between triggering this tipping point or not. Am I misunderstanding something?

127 4y ago

>Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). It's not either or. Recognizing the cost in fossil fuels, does not magically reduce the cost in meat production.

0daystock 4y ago

> Everyone blaming "meat" for global warming is just a shill for the petrol industry, distracting from the real cause (fossil fuels). Maybe because most of the petrol industry serves the animal agriculture industry and hundreds of billions of animals it needs to raise and kill annually? Or did you think they don't require any inputs nor produce any outputs other than a corpse?