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I'd be willing to bet that the total biomass of ruminants is much higher today than it was millennia ago due to domestication/humans. Ad a lot of that fossil fu

I'd be willing to bet that the total biomass of ruminants is much higher today than it was millennia ago due to domestication/humans. Ad a lot of that fossil fuel use and fertilizer is going to those domestic ruminants; you've gotta grow the food to feed your food, so it's a lossy process vs just eating the plants directly. It's not always that simple though; cattle can graze on marginal land and their manure/byproducts can be fed into other agricultural processes. It's not something I really know a lot about other than to know that it's all quite complicated. That said, I suspect if the world gave up beef, it would indeed make a significant dent in global warming. I'm far from a vegan and can recognize the above. When it comes to cruelty, that's a different axis. I believe beef is actually lower on that one since the cows spend a lot of their lives wandering in fields and getting to do more or less what they want. The finishing process where they are put into feedlots seems pretty bad but is rather short, and the slaughter is about as humane as can be; they are rendered unconscious instantly with a blow to the head and then insanguinated. Chickens are sort of the opposite; they are marginal in the scheme of global warming but live lives of immense cruelty. It seems hard to win.

photochemsyn 3y ago
Estimates hover around there being ~2x as many cows in North America today than there were bison in 1500, but there were also large deer and antelope populations at the time. The carbon went from atmospheric CO2 -> grassland biomass -> animal biomass + CH4 + CO2, and the CH4 was oxidized back to CO2, so this was largely a steady state situation, and it certainly can be a model for sustainable meat production. Estimates of the human population are more contentious (genocide denial is an issue) but 50 million for North America might be the upper bound. If everyone stopped eating meat, while fossil fuel production and consumption remain unchanged, there would be little or no noticeable effect on our current climate trajectory. If everyone kept eating meat, while eliminating fossil fuel use, then atmospheric CO2 and CH4 would stabilize in ~100 years. Practically, if meat was raised humanely without fossil fuels, it would be a good deal more expensive, so people would eat less of it, perhaps leading to a 50% cut in meat production.

photochemsyn 3y ago

Estimates hover around there being ~2x as many cows in North America today than there were bison in 1500, but there were also large deer and antelope populations at the time. The carbon went from atmospheric CO2 -> grassland biomass -> animal biomass + CH4 + CO2, and the CH4 was oxidized back to CO2, so this was largely a steady state situation, and it certainly can be a model for sustainable meat production. Estimates of the human population are more contentious (genocide denial is an issue) but 50 million for North America might be the upper bound. If everyone stopped eating meat, while fossil fuel production and consumption remain unchanged, there would be little or no noticeable effect on our current climate trajectory. If everyone kept eating meat, while eliminating fossil fuel use, then atmospheric CO2 and CH4 would stabilize in ~100 years. Practically, if meat was raised humanely without fossil fuels, it would be a good deal more expensive, so people would eat less of it, perhaps leading to a 50% cut in meat production.