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Cattle are ruminants which means they play an important part in grasslands cycle because they can eat things that most other animals cannot. Grasslands are sign

Cattle are ruminants which means they play an important part in grasslands cycle because they can eat things that most other animals cannot. Grasslands are significant carbon sinks and endangered in some areas. Grasslands need grazers like cattle, which are the keystone species that replaced bison, and losing them can release more carbon, cause flooding, and remove the natural habitat for other animals.

drewg123 3y ago
The problem is that cows contribute to deforestation in places where we can least afford it (eg, the Amazon rain forest), and those areas are far better carbon sinks than grasslands. I'm all for bringing the bison back; but we certainly do not need cattle.
- chrisfosterelli 3y ago
  I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle and if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad. Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad. Both of these can be true.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    > Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad. True > Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle Not really true. Cows graze on different plants than bison and have different grazing habits. It's not the same, and we can't really replace bizon with cattle, no matter how much would cattle farmers want us to believe that. https://grist.org/climate-energy/cattle-grazing-is-a-climate-disaster-and-youre-paying-for-it/ https://grist.org/climate-energy/cattle-grazing-is-a-climate... https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-confused/ https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-co... > if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad We can safeguard these grasslands by reforesting vast areas of livable land. If you truly support preserving these native grasslands, you'd likely advocate halting crop production, reintroducing bison, and protecting them through pasture reforestation for climate change mitigation. Agreed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085002/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/08... Climate impact of beef: an analysis considering multiple time scales and production methods without use of global warming potentials https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010 https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal... Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
    - chrisfosterelli 3y ago
      Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research. You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare but grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent except Antartica and cover a massive area of the Earth, much of which is land completely unsuitable to agriculture. Even for the portions that are suitable, I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields; in part because I think that would be an ecological catastrophe but mostly because absolutely nobody is going to go along with that plan. It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it. Similarly, based on your comments in this thread I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing.
      - myshpa 3y ago
        > Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research If cows are required for a conservation of some ecosystems (and I doubt it, sources?), let's have those cows. But those are not the reasons for keeping the remaining 99.99%. > You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare No, I'm not. > I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields I don't either, but we're doing exactly that right now ... for the cattle. 76% of soy is grown for animal feed. https://ourworldindata.org/soy https://ourworldindata.org/soy We would need just 25% of land to feed everyone on plant based diets. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares And we have to switch to those diets ... because when those developing countries develop, they'll want to eat what we do. If everyone were to adopt the western diet, we would need 5+ earths, and we don't have those. We currently import a lot of that meat / feed from other countries, but that's unsustainable. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471 Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds > It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it It'd be enough to remove subsidies for polluting sectors. Animal ag would be deeply unprofitable without those, and higher prices would make those products unattainable to most. > I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position No, I'm not. Animal agriculture is not necessary in this day and age. It's extremely destructive and is an obstacle to the mitigation of climate change and other aspects of overshoot, such as reforestation and dwindling biodiversity. > so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing As you wish.
- adamrezich 3y ago
  I knew cows were dangerous to the climate because of their farts, but I had no idea they were deforesting the Amazon—that's wild! someone should put a stop to them doing that—immediately, if not sooner. it's one thing to fart and fart and fart in the grasslands—killing the climate in the process—but Amazon deforestation? someone should lay down the law on these cows.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    > fart and fart and fart Funny. https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-percent-of-forests-in-the-past-300-years https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-pe... https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/terrible-trade-burger-today-rainforest-gone-tomorrow/ https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/terrible-trade-burger-... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8622 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8622 The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/argentina-lost-one-fifth-of-its-atlantic-forest-in-the-last-four-decades/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/argentina-lost-one-f... Argentina lost one-fifth of its Atlantic Forest in the last four decades https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/colombia-cattle-ranching-coca-amazon-deforestation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/colombia... Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report https://earth.org/major-companies-responsible-for-deforestation/ https://earth.org/major-companies-responsible-for-deforestat... 13 Major Companies Responsible for Deforestation https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/3-million-hectares-of-colombian-amazon-deforested-for-illegal-pasture-study/ https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/3-million-hectares-of-colo... 3 million hectares of Colombian Amazon deforested for illegal pasture: Study https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation What's Driving Deforestation? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-than-800m-amazon-trees-felled-in-six-years-to-meet-beef-demand https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-tha... More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/destruction-of-worlds-pristine-rainforests-soared-in-2022-despite-cop26-pledge https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/destruct... Destruction of world’s pristine rainforests soared in 2022 despite Cop26 pledge https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-02599-1/index.html?u https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-02599-1/index.ht... Trouble in the Amazon - "we are killing this ecosystem" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-z Tropical forests are approaching critical temperature thresholds
adamrezich 3y ago
but what about their farts though? I'm pretty sure the science has confirmed that cows are a net climate negative, on account of all the farting they're always doing.
- chrisfosterelli 3y ago
  Our current level of beef consumption is unsustainable and science has confirmed that cow methane emissions are a significant problem for climate change. This is not the same thing as "it would be good for the climate if cows went extinct because the entire environment is unsuitable to them".
  - adamrezich 3y ago
    so the only way to save the world from the seemingly-inevitable doom spectre of climate change is to have not too many cows, but also not too few? we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and strictly maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold?
    - chrisfosterelli 3y ago
      I'm not sure if that's logistically the best way, but yes, a healthy ecosystem is a matter of balance. Extremes tend to be bad. For another example, climate change is ultimately because we have too many greenhouse gases, but if we had no greenhouse gases, everyone on earth would freeze to death and it would be an icy wasteland. The problem is things are way out of balance. In essence, I'm not saying that our current meat practices are ideal. I'm saying is that it's just not a simply self-correcting problem. Cattle contribute about 14% of emissions which means that it won't reduce enough to solve climate change by itself, it'll just mean no cows, then no grasslands, and then no species that depend on grasslands. It'll just be another gradually worsening affect of climate change, not a self-invoked solution. The solution to anything with the ecosystem is a sustainable balance.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      Do you know how many cattle we do have? https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120 The total mammal biomass: - livestock (≈630 Mt) - humans (≈390 Mt) - wild marine mammals (≈40 Mt) - terrestrial wild mammals (≈20 Mt) Do you know how much land animal agriculture occupies (cattle being the most land-demanding)? https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land... https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets Do you know that animal species have experienced a 70% decline in just last 50 years, that we're driving nearly one million species to extinction, that we're in the sixth mass extinction which we'll manage in just 100 years probably, and that cattle is the main driver? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 Humans are driving one million species to extinction - landmark United Nations-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.12974 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.12974 More losers than winners: investigating Anthropocene defaunation through the diversity of population trends https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7... Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-global-food-system-primary-driver-biodiversity-loss https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob... Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boun... > we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold Yes, it's zero.

drewg123 3y ago

The problem is that cows contribute to deforestation in places where we can least afford it (eg, the Amazon rain forest), and those areas are far better carbon sinks than grasslands. I'm all for bringing the bison back; but we certainly do not need cattle.

chrisfosterelli 3y ago
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle and if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad. Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad. Both of these can be true.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad. True > Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle Not really true. Cows graze on different plants than bison and have different grazing habits. It's not the same, and we can't really replace bizon with cattle, no matter how much would cattle farmers want us to believe that. https://grist.org/climate-energy/cattle-grazing-is-a-climate-disaster-and-youre-paying-for-it/ https://grist.org/climate-energy/cattle-grazing-is-a-climate... https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-confused/ https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-co... > if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad We can safeguard these grasslands by reforesting vast areas of livable land. If you truly support preserving these native grasslands, you'd likely advocate halting crop production, reintroducing bison, and protecting them through pasture reforestation for climate change mitigation. Agreed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/085002/meta https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/08... Climate impact of beef: an analysis considering multiple time scales and production methods without use of global warming potentials https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal.pclm.0000010 https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal... Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
  - chrisfosterelli 3y ago
    Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research. You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare but grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent except Antartica and cover a massive area of the Earth, much of which is land completely unsuitable to agriculture. Even for the portions that are suitable, I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields; in part because I think that would be an ecological catastrophe but mostly because absolutely nobody is going to go along with that plan. It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it. Similarly, based on your comments in this thread I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing.
    - myshpa 3y ago
      > Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research If cows are required for a conservation of some ecosystems (and I doubt it, sources?), let's have those cows. But those are not the reasons for keeping the remaining 99.99%. > You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare No, I'm not. > I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields I don't either, but we're doing exactly that right now ... for the cattle. 76% of soy is grown for animal feed. https://ourworldindata.org/soy https://ourworldindata.org/soy We would need just 25% of land to feed everyone on plant based diets. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares And we have to switch to those diets ... because when those developing countries develop, they'll want to eat what we do. If everyone were to adopt the western diet, we would need 5+ earths, and we don't have those. We currently import a lot of that meat / feed from other countries, but that's unsustainable. https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471 https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471 Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds > It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it It'd be enough to remove subsidies for polluting sectors. Animal ag would be deeply unprofitable without those, and higher prices would make those products unattainable to most. > I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position No, I'm not. Animal agriculture is not necessary in this day and age. It's extremely destructive and is an obstacle to the mitigation of climate change and other aspects of overshoot, such as reforestation and dwindling biodiversity. > so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing As you wish.
adamrezich 3y ago
I knew cows were dangerous to the climate because of their farts, but I had no idea they were deforesting the Amazon—that's wild! someone should put a stop to them doing that—immediately, if not sooner. it's one thing to fart and fart and fart in the grasslands—killing the climate in the process—but Amazon deforestation? someone should lay down the law on these cows.
- myshpa 3y ago
  > fart and fart and fart Funny. https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-percent-of-forests-in-the-past-300-years https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-pe... https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/terrible-trade-burger-today-rainforest-gone-tomorrow/ https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/terrible-trade-burger-... https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8622 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8622 The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/argentina-lost-one-fifth-of-its-atlantic-forest-in-the-last-four-decades/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/argentina-lost-one-f... Argentina lost one-fifth of its Atlantic Forest in the last four decades https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/colombia-cattle-ranching-coca-amazon-deforestation https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/colombia... Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report https://earth.org/major-companies-responsible-for-deforestation/ https://earth.org/major-companies-responsible-for-deforestat... 13 Major Companies Responsible for Deforestation https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/3-million-hectares-of-colombian-amazon-deforested-for-illegal-pasture-study/ https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/3-million-hectares-of-colo... 3 million hectares of Colombian Amazon deforested for illegal pasture: Study https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation What's Driving Deforestation? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-than-800m-amazon-trees-felled-in-six-years-to-meet-beef-demand https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-tha... More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/destruction-of-worlds-pristine-rainforests-soared-in-2022-despite-cop26-pledge https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/destruct... Destruction of world’s pristine rainforests soared in 2022 despite Cop26 pledge https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-02599-1/index.html?u https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-02599-1/index.ht... Trouble in the Amazon - "we are killing this ecosystem" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-z Tropical forests are approaching critical temperature thresholds

adamrezich 3y ago

but what about their farts though? I'm pretty sure the science has confirmed that cows are a net climate negative, on account of all the farting they're always doing.

chrisfosterelli 3y ago
Our current level of beef consumption is unsustainable and science has confirmed that cow methane emissions are a significant problem for climate change. This is not the same thing as "it would be good for the climate if cows went extinct because the entire environment is unsuitable to them".
- adamrezich 3y ago
  so the only way to save the world from the seemingly-inevitable doom spectre of climate change is to have not too many cows, but also not too few? we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and strictly maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold?
  - chrisfosterelli 3y ago
    I'm not sure if that's logistically the best way, but yes, a healthy ecosystem is a matter of balance. Extremes tend to be bad. For another example, climate change is ultimately because we have too many greenhouse gases, but if we had no greenhouse gases, everyone on earth would freeze to death and it would be an icy wasteland. The problem is things are way out of balance. In essence, I'm not saying that our current meat practices are ideal. I'm saying is that it's just not a simply self-correcting problem. Cattle contribute about 14% of emissions which means that it won't reduce enough to solve climate change by itself, it'll just mean no cows, then no grasslands, and then no species that depend on grasslands. It'll just be another gradually worsening affect of climate change, not a self-invoked solution. The solution to anything with the ecosystem is a sustainable balance.
  - myshpa 3y ago
    Do you know how many cattle we do have? https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120 https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120 The total mammal biomass: - livestock (≈630 Mt) - humans (≈390 Mt) - wild marine mammals (≈40 Mt) - terrestrial wild mammals (≈20 Mt) Do you know how much land animal agriculture occupies (cattle being the most land-demanding)? https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land-Use-01.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land... https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets Do you know that animal species have experienced a 70% decline in just last 50 years, that we're driving nearly one million species to extinction, that we're in the sixth mass extinction which we'll manage in just 100 years probably, and that cattle is the main driver? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4 Humans are driving one million species to extinction - landmark United Nations-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.12974 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.12974 More losers than winners: investigating Anthropocene defaunation through the diversity of population trends https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7... Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-global-food-system-primary-driver-biodiversity-loss https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob... Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boundaries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boun... > we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold Yes, it's zero.