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I have the same kind of issue with people arguing that beef production uses to much water. In The Netherlands. One of the wettest deltas on earth. Where it rain
by spiderfarmer 3y ago
I have the same kind of issue with people arguing that beef production uses to much water. In The Netherlands. One of the wettest deltas on earth. Where it rains almost daily and cattle mostly drinks surface water that normally gets drained to the sea.
I’m an environmentalist myself, but repeating statistics without asking yourself if they are relevant is useless.
In this case though, the farms are using up water that doesn’t get replenished. You don’t need any statistics to show that this is not sustainable.
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/bovine-meat/reporter/nld https://oec.world/en/profile/bilateral-product/bovine-meat/r... > In 2021, Netherlands imported $1.77B in Bovine Meat, becoming the 5th largest importer of Bovine Meat in the world. Maybe they're talking about the global impact?
- kylebenzle 3y agoYes, and many are concerned with the biggest issue from beef production, not how much they consume but how much waste they produce, mostly methane.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoTrue, but that’s not my point.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoAnd we exported $2.56B according to that source. If you have leave people guessing on what your statistics mean, they’re useless. We have a harbor, everything that goes to Europe is counted as import and export. What does that mean for these numbers? Nobody knows. And the beef that is imported is probably from Ireland and the UK. Do they have deserts there? So even that number is useless. You’re just another example of someone repeating statistics that only lead to irrelevant discussions.
- ceejayoz 3y ago> And we exported $2.56B according to that source. If I have two babies, but murder one person, the net increase isn't really what folks will focus on. Environmental concerns with the beef industry are global because, as those import/export numbers show, it's a global industry. The Netherlands may be a good place to raise cattle water-wise, but unless you're gonna grow them all there, it doesn't really remove their impact elsewhere.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoYou’re mixing up different arguments making it impossible to respond.
- ceejayoz 3y agoIt's the same argument throughout; that "people arguing that beef production uses to much water" in the Netherlands aren't necessarily scoping their discussion to just the Netherlands, but the global beef industry and its impacts. "But it's wet here!" really misses their point.
- spiderfarmer 3y agoPoliticians here used it as a real argument during discussions about Dutch beef production. And sadly it went unchallenged. It’s still often repeated by people who are overly fanatic.
- ceejayoz 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
- spiderfarmer 3y agoLink dropping without context is just rude. Abusing statistics to make an invalid point is annoying no matter the actual goal.