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> The point of the exercise is to find alternatives that aren't so hard on the environment. Cows and grass are "the environment". Millions of years of evoluti
by ibz 4y ago
> The point of the exercise is to find alternatives that aren't so hard on the environment.
Cows and grass are "the environment".
Millions of years of evolution refined cows to be the best mechanism for converting grass into meat. Some hippy scientists think they can do better? I doubt.
- myshpa 4y agoThis is not a proper environment (= this is not right). https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2AB4XKW/kersey-colorado-a-cattle-feedlot-operated-by-five-rivers-cattle-this-feedlot-has-a-capacity-of-98000-cattle-the-company-feeds-nearly-a-million-c-2AB4XKW.jpg https://c7.alamy.com/comp/2AB4XKW/kersey-colorado-a-cattle-f... https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/feedlot-picture-id173601869 https://media.istockphoto.com/photos/feedlot-picture-id17360... https://www.africahunting.com/attachments/cattle-feed-lot-jpg.49213/ https://www.africahunting.com/attachments/cattle-feed-lot-jp...
- ibz 4y agoStraw man. Cows should be grazing, not being locked up and fed corn. Grazing cows actually make the environment better. So rather than blaming cows, blame the way they have been grown over the past 50 years or so.
- cute_boi 4y agoYes, the problem is scale. Also, we live in capitalism, so scaling is absolutely necessary to reap huge profits. Cows are not direct problem, just like gun violence?
- karagenit 4y agoI mean, photosynthesis is only about 1% efficient in the real world, whereas modern solar panels (the ones you can buy, not the ones in a research lab) are already at about 15%. I think there’s plenty of room for improvement in the efficiency of meat production too.
- ibz 4y agoDepends how you measure it. You can indeed achieve higher efficiency than nature if you look at a single number. Where nature always wins is the combined efficiency, because it acts as a whole. You example is great because it shows just that. Solar panels might give better absolute numbers but: they are not recyclable, they can't feed cows, they are manufactured in China using materials coming from mines around the world. They need complex set-up and maintenance. Grass if fully recyclable - in fact it builds soil after dying. It feeds other animals. It protects the soil from erosion. It mines its own materials while growing, in fact it even bootstraps itself given just a seed containing all the code that it ever needs. A F1 car is faster on a race track, but a bicycle gets the job done much more efficiently in most cities around the world for most tasks.
- dqv 4y agoCows over those millions of years didn’t have their populations artificially increased beyond sustainable levels for human consumption. The current system of animal agriculture isn’t good for the environment. We don’t have more land to make it sustainable. That’s why “hippy scientists” are trying to find alternatives.