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I generally see this argument pushed by vegans whose central issue is really animal rights, which is a valid concern, but the claim that a 100% vegan world, all
by photochemsyn 4y ago
I generally see this argument pushed by vegans whose central issue is really animal rights, which is a valid concern, but the claim that a 100% vegan world, all other things being unchanged, would be one free from fossil-fueled global warming is simply not true.
Generally speaking the claim is that significant amounts of agricultural energy go into growing grain for animals, and that domestic animal populations result in methane emissions, so eliminating the animal populations means less methane and you'd also need less agricultural production as everyone would eat vegan diets, if I've spelled it out adequately.
However, this doesn't change the need for electricity generation and transportation fuel to move food and materials around the world, or from farms to cities, or for industrial production and heating and cooling, so that's where the electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and storage systems are needed so we can phase out the fossil fuels from the energy mix. Yes, that's going to be cheaper and more sustainable than trying to expand uranium fission.
Furthermore, in the pre-industrial era in North America for millenia there were large populations of bison, estimated variously at perhaps 50% of the domestic cattle population (which is where the biogenic methane is coming from). For example:
(2012) "Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States"
Overall, enteric CH4 emissions from bison, elk, and deer in the presettlement period were about 86% (assuming bison population size of 50 million) of the current CH4 emissions from farmed ruminants in the United States.
There are plenty of decent arguments for eating less meat, but I don't think 'fixing the climate' is really a very strong one.
- tcfhgj 4y ago> but I don't think 'fixing the climate' is really a very strong one. and why is that?
- CodeSgt 4y agoThey say why in the rest of the comment.
- ncmncm 4y agoBut they don't, really. They just try to distract us, instead. Works on some.
- cheese_goddess 4y agoBecause everyone on the planet going vegan tomorrow will not fix the root cause of climate change which is burning fossil fuels. Three quarters of Greenhouse Gas emissions are caused by burning fossil fuels in sectors other than agriculture (in general, not just farming): https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector Namely energy use in industry and buildings, and transportation. Even taking into account the power used for transport, storage etc, of food, the food system as a whole accounts for one quarter of emissions: https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions So even if we stopped eating any food at all tomorrow, we'd still not be stopping climate change, which is caused ... say it with me ... by burning fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels. <-. ,---' | This! That thing right there is the cause of climate change and that's the thing what we have to address, and address immediately.
- ncmncm 4y agoAssuming a "vegan" agenda is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. Not breaking the climate so much is plenty of reason. That reason does not conflict with renewables displacing fossil fuel use. We need to do both.
- photochemsyn 4y agoCrappy science in the name of a decent moral agenda is still crappy science, I'm afraid to say.
- ncmncm 4y agoYou assume that the number of ruminants is invariate. You assume that only North American ruminants participate. You assume that excess from farming to feed livestock, foreign and domestic, does not count. That is crappy science.