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https://plantbasednews.org/news/environment/george-monbiot-regenerative-grazing-in-debate/ https://plantbasednews.org/news/environment/george-monbiot-r... ‘It’
by myshpa 3y ago
https://plantbasednews.org/news/environment/george-monbiot-regenerative-grazing-in-debate/ https://plantbasednews.org/news/environment/george-monbiot-r...
‘It’s Pseudoscience’: George Monbiot Blasts Regenerative Grazing In Heated Debate
“So any story that says it’s good to be farming these livestock, it’s good to be eating these livestock, is a story which justifies among the most devastating processes on Earth,” he said. “It is climate science denial.”
Monbiot linked this denial to the interests of major corporations like McDonald’s, General Mills, JBS, and the Murdoch Network, who he says have “backed and weaponized” the idea that grazing cattle is environmentally beneficial. “The story is false,” he said. “When you make a grand claim such as this one, that livestock can mitigate climate change, either you produce the evidence for that claim or if you cannot produce the evidence you withdraw the claim. The evidence has not been produced, the claim does not stand.”
"A 2017 University of Oxford study titled Grazed and Confused accepted that managed grazing systems could sequester some carbon back into the soil. It added, however, that this was only around 20-60 percent of the emissions that the cattle produced in the first place. What’s more, after a few years soil reaches carbon equilibrium, meaning it cannot sequester any more."
"A review article published in the International Journal of Biodiversity highlighted that land left free from grazing had more biodiversity. “Published comparisons of grazed and ungrazed lands in the western US have found that rested sites have larger and more dense grasses, fewer weedy forbs and shrubs, higher biodiversity, higher productivity, less bare ground, and better water infiltration than nearby grazed sites,” it said."
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-confused/ https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-co...
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-bad-climate https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-...
"This report concludes that grass-fed livestock are not a climate solution. Grazing livestock are net contributors to the climate problem, as are all livestock. Rising animal production and consumption, whatever the farming system and animal type, is causing damaging greenhouse gas release and contributing to changes in land use.
'Ultimately, if high consuming individuals and countries want to do something positive for the climate, maintaining their current consumption levels but simply switching to grass-fed beef is not a solution. Eating less meat, of all types, is.’"
- olddustytrail 3y agoSo we should wipe out all grazing animals? All buffalo, elephants, rhinos, zebra, deer and antelope? They're all contributing to global warming?
- hombre_fatal 3y ago"So we should X?" is usually a signal that you're about to not track/engage with what someone said. I'm reminded of Cathy Newman's interview of Jordan Peterson where her only retort the whole time was "So you're saying that <something he didn't say>." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMcjxSThD54 -- A classic, even if you don't like the guy) For example, they are talking about cows we farm into existence at the tune of 1.5 billion global population, not a few million wild animals.
- olddustytrail 3y agoNo, I'm asking the commenter to consider the consequences of what they're saying. It is not "a few million wild animals"; there were an estimated 60 million bison in North America alone around 1800. Why was it ok then but we can't have grazing animals now? I think the linked article makes a poor argument.
- lukas099 3y agoI'll take a stab even though I don't really have an overall opinion on the issue. It was ok then because we weren't facing a climate crisis due to carbon cycle disruption then. Also, wild bison are different from domesticated cattle. One of the effects of the bison was shifting the boundaries between forest and grassland; now that they're gone more of the grassland is becoming forest, which IIRC captures less carbon than grassland. Also bison are native animals that might affect local ecosystems in many other different ways than our introduced cattle.
- myshpa 3y agoWe've had an estimated 30-60 million bison in the US, now we have 100+ million cows. And cattle and bison differ in their grazing behavior and ecological impact, making a direct environmental comparison unfair due to their distinct roles in shaping ecosystems. It's our cattle and farming methods that are wiping out all wildlife. https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction The 2022 Living Planet Report found that vertebrate wildlife populations have plummeted by an average of almost 70% since 1970, with agriculture and fishing being the primary drivers of this decline. 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://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-biodiversity-species-plantbased https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22287498/meat-wildlife-bi... The way we eat could lead to habitat loss for 17,000 species by 2050 Two recent studies underscore the danger the meat production system poses for biodiversity. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-climate-crisis-biodiversity-approached.html https://phys.org/news/2023-04-climate-crisis-biodiversity-ap... The climate crisis and biodiversity crisis can't be approached separately https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/ Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption