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Beef alone accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions with livestock in total accounting for 14.5%. That is not a rounding error by any means: https://openkno

Beef alone accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions with livestock in total accounting for 14.5%. That is not a rounding error by any means: https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492bb0b2-8b73-4e49-b188-8176b1d8c711/content https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492...

lagniappe 1y ago
Not interested pal, my family is going to eat meat. I'll be reasonable about other topics but this one's a non starter.
- leecoursey 1y ago
  Some people have such strong emotional connections to meat eating that no rational argument is going to penetrate through and make a difference.
- 000ooo000 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please avoid personal swipes like this. This is covered in the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- chneu 1y ago
  What a good patriot you are. Consume more. You must keep consuming. Your power comes from over consuming and taking lives. You can only be strong and well respected if you consume as much meat as possible. /S Beef is a status symbol food. The propaganda around it is strong and constant in countries like the US, where we're blasted with Christian-Patriot conquerer messaging constantly. (god gave us the earth and all animals to exploit. As the conquerers it is our right to exploit all things.) Start looking at all the ways US culture still pushes the over consuming conquerer mentality. We all joke about how capitalism is bad and then we fall for the propaganda to eat more beef. Look at how primed people are and how constant the messaging is. You can't go 5 minutes with beef being thrown at you. Once one starts to look at the constant capitalist advertising and societal propaganda telling us to keep over consuming it becomes really obvious. A lot of Americans get deeply offended at the mere idea of eating less meat. The propaganda and advertising is strong. Be a good patriot. Eat more beef to be a strong man. /S (The sarcasm in this comment is meant to convey how stupid the beef mentality is in countries like the US. Phrasing it in a sarcastic way showcases how obvious it can be )
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - doctordemen 1y ago
    [flagged]
xdennis 1y ago
The population of bison in the US before Europeans was similar to the current population of cows. Animals rights activists often hide this type of information to tie themselves to climate activism.
- rich_sasha 1y ago
  Beef CO2 emissions is more than cows breathing. Theres a lot of fuel burned when moving them around, making feed for them etc. I can't quite remember, but for every 100 calories of food eaten by cows, you end up with 3 calories worth of beef. So right there off the bat, beef CO2 / calorie is 30x higher than the plants they eat (or whatever the multiplier was). We didn't do any of these for the bison.
- chneu 1y ago
  Cattle and bison are nothing alike. I grew up ranching and have read the research on this. They don't graze the same, they don't migrate the same, they don't eat the same plants, they don't have the same predators, etc. infact, we massacred to near extinction several keystone species to make way for cattle. We also killed all the bison to cause famine in native American populations. The real facts are: 1) beef is optional. Great during food scarcity, not necessary when food is abundant. 2) beef is extremely inefficient to produce. We're talking 20x+(likely much higher) than plant based proteins. 3) beef is horrendous for the environment. 4) over consumption of beef is the cause of a ton of public health issues. 5) animal cruelty 6) industrial ranching creates diseases or facilitates their spread.
epistasis 1y ago
You linked to a global analysis, not one for the US, as I was talking about. I live in the US and am interested in tackling the massive massive amount of emissions from the US. People in the US emit far far more carbon than nearly anywhere else. Solving that huge problem means tackling transportation. People in the US sometimes focus on global action, but as a US resident it seems completely inappropriate to be telling people who emit far far less carbon that they need to stop eating beef, before people in the US have stopped far far worse activities.
- why_at 1y ago
  >as a US resident it seems completely inappropriate to be telling people who emit far far less carbon that they need to stop eating beef, before people in the US have stopped far far worse activities Why does it need to be one or the other? It's definitely true that the US has higher greenhouse gas emissions per person than most other places. Shouldn't we focus on reducing emissions anywhere we can? I've spoken to lots of Americans who are under the false impression that food miles are the most important factor when it comes to sustainable food, this article makes the case that it's actually meat. I think it's reasonable to say people should eat less meat (especially in the US) and we should also reduce emissions from transportation and energy.
  - epistasis 1y ago
    If somebody is looking to take personal action, sure go right ahead! But for systematic change, and systematic change is what's needed, there are sever political consequences for focusing on hugely unpopular actions that have little effect. Attacks on meat have empowered those who oppose climate action, which is just below 50% of the population in the US. Focusing climate action on meat consumption has been counterproductive, just as doomerism about climate action is used to make people feel helpless and then abandon taking any action at all. We have very little time to make massive climate strides, and anything that slows down the fastest action in the US, like prioritizing meat consumption and not placing it in the proper context, causes great harm to the cause. Just as focusing of food miles by hapless media has caused great harm for climate action.

lagniappe 1y ago

Not interested pal, my family is going to eat meat. I'll be reasonable about other topics but this one's a non starter.

leecoursey 1y ago
Some people have such strong emotional connections to meat eating that no rational argument is going to penetrate through and make a difference.
000ooo000 1y ago
[flagged]
- tomhow 1y ago
  Please avoid personal swipes like this. This is covered in the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
chneu 1y ago
What a good patriot you are. Consume more. You must keep consuming. Your power comes from over consuming and taking lives. You can only be strong and well respected if you consume as much meat as possible. /S Beef is a status symbol food. The propaganda around it is strong and constant in countries like the US, where we're blasted with Christian-Patriot conquerer messaging constantly. (god gave us the earth and all animals to exploit. As the conquerers it is our right to exploit all things.) Start looking at all the ways US culture still pushes the over consuming conquerer mentality. We all joke about how capitalism is bad and then we fall for the propaganda to eat more beef. Look at how primed people are and how constant the messaging is. You can't go 5 minutes with beef being thrown at you. Once one starts to look at the constant capitalist advertising and societal propaganda telling us to keep over consuming it becomes really obvious. A lot of Americans get deeply offended at the mere idea of eating less meat. The propaganda and advertising is strong. Be a good patriot. Eat more beef to be a strong man. /S (The sarcasm in this comment is meant to convey how stupid the beef mentality is in countries like the US. Phrasing it in a sarcastic way showcases how obvious it can be )
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- doctordemen 1y ago
  [flagged]

xdennis 1y ago

The population of bison in the US before Europeans was similar to the current population of cows. Animals rights activists often hide this type of information to tie themselves to climate activism.

rich_sasha 1y ago
Beef CO2 emissions is more than cows breathing. Theres a lot of fuel burned when moving them around, making feed for them etc. I can't quite remember, but for every 100 calories of food eaten by cows, you end up with 3 calories worth of beef. So right there off the bat, beef CO2 / calorie is 30x higher than the plants they eat (or whatever the multiplier was). We didn't do any of these for the bison.
chneu 1y ago
Cattle and bison are nothing alike. I grew up ranching and have read the research on this. They don't graze the same, they don't migrate the same, they don't eat the same plants, they don't have the same predators, etc. infact, we massacred to near extinction several keystone species to make way for cattle. We also killed all the bison to cause famine in native American populations. The real facts are: 1) beef is optional. Great during food scarcity, not necessary when food is abundant. 2) beef is extremely inefficient to produce. We're talking 20x+(likely much higher) than plant based proteins. 3) beef is horrendous for the environment. 4) over consumption of beef is the cause of a ton of public health issues. 5) animal cruelty 6) industrial ranching creates diseases or facilitates their spread.

epistasis 1y ago

You linked to a global analysis, not one for the US, as I was talking about. I live in the US and am interested in tackling the massive massive amount of emissions from the US. People in the US emit far far more carbon than nearly anywhere else. Solving that huge problem means tackling transportation. People in the US sometimes focus on global action, but as a US resident it seems completely inappropriate to be telling people who emit far far less carbon that they need to stop eating beef, before people in the US have stopped far far worse activities.

why_at 1y ago
>as a US resident it seems completely inappropriate to be telling people who emit far far less carbon that they need to stop eating beef, before people in the US have stopped far far worse activities Why does it need to be one or the other? It's definitely true that the US has higher greenhouse gas emissions per person than most other places. Shouldn't we focus on reducing emissions anywhere we can? I've spoken to lots of Americans who are under the false impression that food miles are the most important factor when it comes to sustainable food, this article makes the case that it's actually meat. I think it's reasonable to say people should eat less meat (especially in the US) and we should also reduce emissions from transportation and energy.
- epistasis 1y ago
  If somebody is looking to take personal action, sure go right ahead! But for systematic change, and systematic change is what's needed, there are sever political consequences for focusing on hugely unpopular actions that have little effect. Attacks on meat have empowered those who oppose climate action, which is just below 50% of the population in the US. Focusing climate action on meat consumption has been counterproductive, just as doomerism about climate action is used to make people feel helpless and then abandon taking any action at all. We have very little time to make massive climate strides, and anything that slows down the fastest action in the US, like prioritizing meat consumption and not placing it in the proper context, causes great harm to the cause. Just as focusing of food miles by hapless media has caused great harm for climate action.