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The next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat. A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving
by softwaredoug 2mo ago
The next frontier will be meat consumption. Particularly red meat.
A single 1/4 beef hamburger emits 7-12 kg of carbon[1]. Compared to ~1.5kg of carbon driving your car 3 miles[2].
Not telling you to go full vegetarian, but I'm personally far less interested in a beef product unless you're going to guarantee its an extremely expert prepared steak. Most beef is mediocre.
1 - https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
2 - https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-typical-passenger-vehicle https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/greenhouse-gas-emissions-t...
- threatripper 2mo agoHow many miles does the burger drive my car? Not to question your numbers but they lack context. Also, it would be good for nature if there were fewer or no humans on this planet. But then there would be no human here to enjoy nature.
- alpineman 2mo agoSorry but this is just such an ignorant comment. You really need to read up on how agriculture contributes to global warming and loss of land/deforestation. What do you think cows eat, air?
- puchatek 2mo agoIf only they ate the thing that is the intuitive answer to your question! It would be bad enough with all the burping and farting but at least we would not destroy the rain forest so we could produce more soy for fodder
- recursive 2mo agoBurgers don't drive cars. People drive cars, and people eat burgers. Is that the context you were looking for? We've identified two ways to reduce carbon production. 1) reduce production per human. 2) reduce humans. Only the first one is being argued for here. Conflating it with the second is just a confusion.
- threatripper 2mo agoThe real crank you need to look at is where we dig the resources out of the ground. All of that will eventually end up in the atmosphere. Plug that hole. Stop digging and drilling. The invisible hand of the free market will take care of the rest. If red beef consumes too many resources then it will be too expensive to consume. Simple as that. Unfortunately fossil fuels make a lot of money and people are hungry for more, so we can't do anything about it really. We can only shift blame and distract to pretend we care.
- lopis 2mo agoNihilistic bullshit isn't the hot take you think it is. The problem isn't too many people. The planet couldn't handle billions more if we used resources correctly. Is your idea of "humans enjoying nature" extreme deforestation and water scarcety?
- greenleafone7 2mo ago[flagged]
- peterpost2 2mo agoExplain your thought process please.
- inigyou 2mo agoYou're not doing any better. The right reaction to a comment like that is to downvote and flag it, instead of adding to the spam.
- peterpost2 2mo agoSame applies to you too. I actually was curious about his reasoning though.
- greenleafone7 2mo agoMy reasoning is that you cannot save the environment by regulating and degrading human life. It's like claiming that you will cure someone by killing him, technically correct... but the kind of correct that works on a weird leftist brain only. The upper class are living lives so lavish, the emperors of Rome could have never dreamed off. We should change companies like Nestle, every single non-European company, data center companies, etc. from destroying our environment for profits. We should regulate the usage of jets and airplanes (for everyone, not just poor/middle class). What we should not do is say stupid stuff like cow-farts are destroying the environment and you need to eat bugs, or forced through digital currencies and social credit systems to only be able to go wherever the government tells you you can go. This is not even remotely near the realm of 'conspiracy theory', it's a reality for china/russia, and seriously studied by the EU, and even tentatively tried in the UK.
- peterpost2 2mo agoSorry but I feel like someone should tell you this: you sound completely perpetually online. Please go touch some grass and I mean that in the friendliest way possible.
- grunder_advice 2mo agoBeef is already too expensive for most people. Americans are probably the exception but I can assure you that most Europeans do not have beef heavy diets. Even culturally, pork (and now chicken) were the proteins of choice.
- oulipo 2mo agoIt's still way, way, too cheap compared to its climate impact
- qwerj 2mo agoYeah, since COVID and then the Nord Stream terror act they raised beef prices to unsustainable levels. Döner (which is cheap ground sausage like beef in practice) between 7 and 10 EUR now (was between 3,50 and 4). Blockhouse steak (tiny) is 48 EUR.
- dbspin 2mo ago'Europe' is a big place. Here in Ireland good quality beef is readily affordable, and not particularly more expensive than chicken or pork.
- grunder_advice 2mo agoYes, it's one of the few EU countries that is suitable for cattle.
- derrasterpunkt 2mo agoEvery European country has fields that are not suitable for agriculture that could be used for livestock.
- Gud 2mo agoSweden as well.
- logicchains 2mo ago>Beef is already too expensive for most people. Americans are probably the exception but I can assure you that most Europeans do not have beef heavy diets. Beef is too expensive for many Europeans because GDP per capita/standards of living are declining in many European countries. People in East Asia, the Middle East, Oceania and South America still eat plenty of beef too.
- qwerj 2mo ago[flagged]
- oulipo 2mo agoIndeed. And also it's not healthy, compared to veggies, or even leaner meats like poultry
- stavros 2mo agoWait, how does beef emit carbon? I thought the main problem with beef was methane, not carbon emissions. Ah, I see, your graph says CO2-equivalent, not CO2. It's the methane.
- parineum 2mo agoIt's the infrastructure required to create a pound of beef, including the farmed grains.
- stavros 2mo agoI don't think it is, I think it's the methane, which is by far the largest greenhouse gas contributor in the process. Besides, the other emissions go away once your energy production is renewables.
- puchatek 2mo agoGoing vegetarian would only cut it if you stayed clear of dairy. Gram for gram it's better to eat chicken than cheese for the climate.
- vouaobrasil 2mo agoI switched to fortified soy milk and haven't looked back. Milk is tasty but soy has less sugar as well and now I prefer it. Cheese is harder to make a substitute but eating it 1-2 per year satisfies my craving.
- bearLemma 2mo agoRight? I eat a mix of cereal and fruits for breakfast. I switched to soy milk at one point and can't go back. Normal milk is so sweet, it overrides any dry fruit flavor.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoMy research seems to indicate its about on-par with chicken. IE a chicken filet is about the carbon impact of 8oz of milk. And it seems here its about 1/4 carbon per kg of food as beef: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
- bhelkey 2mo ago>> Gram for gram it's better to eat chicken than cheese for the climate. reply >IE a chicken filet is about the carbon impact of 8oz of milk. They said cheese not milk. Note that it takes more than 1 unit of milk to produce 1 unit of cheese. From this source I found, they estimate ~10 input units of milk per output unit of cheese [1]. Assuming both of these are true, and assuming that the cheese making process produces no carbon, then a chicken filet would have the same carbon impact as .8oz of cheese or roughly a single slice of cheese. The cheese making process does produce carbon (e.g. heating the milk) but it also produces whey as a valuable byproduct. [1] https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_e/E216/ https://pubs.nmsu.edu/_e/E216/
- mikaeluman 2mo agoMeat, and red meat, is truly a miracle food. Dense in nutrients, satiating and of course tasty. Nature needs animals as well. In fact it is essential. Agricultural reform or innovation is certainly an avenue to explore; but this strange obsession with "stop eating red meat" is a bit too much.
- logicchains 2mo ago>Agricultural reform or innovation is certainly an avenue to explore; but this strange obsession with "stop eating red meat" is a bit too much. Most of the people pushing it are doing so because they believe it's immoral to eat meat, so they'll latch onto whatever excuse they can to try to stop people.
- gpvos 2mo agoMany, yes, but I think you misjudge the less vocal but large majority of people saying less meat is better for the climate and environment.
- Epa095 2mo agoBut you just read an argument, and then completely ignored it, instead started brining up other aspects of red meat. That most red meat is very co2 expensive compared to getting the proteins from other sources is a relevant argument for many of us, and not a particularly 'strange obsession' for those of us caring about reducing our co2 footprint.
- mikaeluman 2mo agoSorry I thought my point was clear. Grazing animals are part of a cycle. Any methane from digestion is broken down in the atmosphere and bound again to plant life and recycled. This is vastly different from drilling rock and letting out new carbon into the atmosphere at a drastic rate. That goes to my second point; if you keep cows (or other animals) and feed them grain, and use artificial fertilizer and add other fossil-fuel dependent machinery on top of that - yes then that becomes a problem. But it is mainly a problem if e.g. the population of cows drastically increases. In Europe and North America, it has decreased since at least the 50s; increasing in other parts of the world. So regardless of the downvotes - "we have to stop eating red meat due to co2" is way too simplistic.
- logicchains 2mo agoThere's tens of millions of well-armed Americans who'd rather die fighting then let anyone take away their right to eat red meat, so good luck trying.
- markvdb 2mo agoTo state the obvious, it's not about taking away the right to eat red meat, right? It's about trying to convince people to adopt a diet that is: - healthier - tasty - cheaper - a small contribution to keeping the planet livable for their children - as a sign of respect for $DEITY/the planet/... Many people will see some sense in at least one of the above arguments at one point in life.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoIt’s more effective to convince people 95% of beef is very mid. So you’re not missing anything I would never argue for banning red meat as it will certainly backfire and end up counterproductive.
- jmyeet 2mo agoI question the methodology of that 100kg (per kg) figure for beef, for several reasons: 1. It's not the true Carbon or CO2 figure. It's weighted for other greenhouse gases. That's kind of an issue because methane naturally breaks down (into CO2 and water) over time. The methane issue comes up all the time in such estimates (eg leaks in natural gas pipelines) where methane is a worse greenhouse gas but temporary (7-12 years) and CO2 is essentially forever (until sequestration or photosynthesis); 2. Production method really matters here. American beef, for example, is primarily grain fed. That grain requires fertilizer (more natural gas) and distribution. Australian beef, for example, is largely fed on natural grasses and vegetation, typically until the last 60-120 days where it's transitioned to grain for marbling. American cattle is also heavily fed on corn, which really shouldn't exist in the quantities it does; 3. Ecosystems are complex. One of the big causes of the dust bowl, for example, was the destruction of the great bison herds. Replacing the natural grasses with crops like wheat was just the last straw. The point of the bison is that they're heavy, like up to 2000+ lb heavy, and they leave deep hoof prints on the plains. Water collects there when it rains and feeds cgrasses and the aquifers. This has been backed up elsewhere too. China has had long projects to stop the desertification of the Gobi and spent a ton on planting trees with varied successes. You know what did work? Horses. They released horses and the same thing happened. Horse hoof prints allowed water to collect and grasses to grow and spread. Grasses, as it turned out, were key to stopping desertification, not trees. So the point is that certain ecosystems need large herd herbivores to survive. So if you got rid of cattle entirely, what other second order effects would there be? More practically, people just arne't going to give up meat. Sorry. Unless it become sprice prohibitve (as beef arguably is rapidly becoming now).
- quantumwannabe 2mo agoIt’s completely made up. All meat is carbon neutral because animals don’t produce carbon atoms from nothing. They get them from the plants they eat which in turn get their carbon from the atmosphere. The carbon cycle is basic scientific fact yet confidently ignored by people who hate things like logging and meat.
- anticorporate 2mo ago
- alpineman 2mo agoYeah, plus the ethical angle. It's a bit ridiculous that we have people researching the 'theoretical ethical treatment of LLMs' when we are doing such awful things to animals on a massive scale. We have dogs and cats as pets and we eat cows and pigs (in Western countries). As if cows and pigs didn't also have personalities, memories, parental bonds, the ability to feel pain. It's a mass wilful ignorance. What's the difference between us and animals? I would argue that it's our ability to take ethical decisions and not inflict suffering even if it goes against our base instincts.
- csomar 2mo agoWhere do you draw the line though? Because plants themselves (DNA-beings) are also alive. Unless you decide to go on a full mineral diet.
- alpineman 2mo agoIt's not about being alive, it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain. Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them. Plants don't remember your face, come up to you and want attention. Plants don't scream when they are killed (no matter what some edgy research shows). Or to put it more simply, would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground? I would imagine probably not. Would you feel bad pulling the lever and watching as a pig is lowered into a gas chamber? Or while slitting a cow's throat? I would imagine probably yes (hence why slaughterhouse employees have so many mental health issues and there is such high turnover).
- csomar 2mo ago> it's about having emotions and the ability to feel pain That's just a random line you have drawn. > Plants don't cry out for days when their children are taken away from them. Plants do feel pain and react to their surrounding. They are more primitive creatures though. > would you feel bad pulling a plant out the ground? Yes, I wouldn't do it and I am from a country where pulling an olive tree is illegal (with a jail sentence).
- iso1631 2mo ago[flagged]
- sleepyguy 2mo agoThe next frontier should be preventing forest fires. This is just Canada, imagine if we could prevent them around the world. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-emissions-from-massive-canadian-fires/ https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-... >Stoked by Canada’s warmest and driest conditions in decades, extreme forest fires in 2023 released about 640 million metric tons of carbon
- vkou 2mo agoForests burn and grow back. Healthy forests (not poorly-managed monoculture) are carbon-neutral on human timescales.
- sleepyguy 2mo agoForests need to be managed, the problem is Canada has very little private property and vasts amounts of Crown land that is not managed. These forests just gather fuel and then burn down every summer. They need to be managed or this is only going to get worse.
- volkl48 2mo agoWe tried "preventing forest fires" for about a century, and it's a large part of why they're burning so intensely and destructively now. Forest fires are a natural part of the life cycle of many forested regions - particularly in Canada and the Western US. Suppressing all fires as soon as possible means that dead, dry plant matter continues to build up for decades longer than it naturally would, creating a "tinderbox" effect where eventually you have vastly more intense and destructive forest fires than would typically have occurred if you'd just left nature alone in the first place. And because these fires have so much more concentrated fuel they also burn hotter and can make the recovery of the forest in the area take far longer to come back. The correct answer is to regularly perform controlled burns in areas near human settlement and to mostly leave things alone in areas away from it. Much of Canada's land area is literally uninhabited and dozens if not hundreds of miles from the nearest road, much less actual settlement. -------- Additionally: Strongly discourage new construction in the Wildland-Urban Interface (aka: low density settlement in a wooded setting, your typical picture-esque rural mountain home - that wood is meant to burn one day, taking your cute house with it). Beyond that, strict building codes for whatever does get built there + ordinances for maintaining the space around the home to reduce risk. Although to a significant extent, property insurers are basically already taking on this role in recent years. I have family out in the hills in CO, their insurance rates are multiple times that of their property taxes and they are now quite strict on evaluating properties in terms of risk-mitigation. And failure to adhere to all of what they want to see means you're getting dropped by the insurer and you will have a very hard time getting a different company to pick you up. ------ Anyway, as another poster noted: The forest grows back and recaptures all that carbon in a few decades, making those fires basically carbon-neutral.
- rdevsrex 2mo agoThis is the most Euro commie thing I've heard in a long while. Sure, get rid of factory farms and CAFO's, but I see nothing wrong with raising animals on family farms where they eat a nutritious diet in line with what they evolved to eat. Grass for cows, pasture and bugs for poultry, silvopasture for pigs. Anyone who wants to go vegan for ethical or environmental reasons is fine, but I hate this idea that all of us have to fall in line with your crazy ideas.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoDo whatever you want. I'm just sharing my personal choices based on what I've learned. What could be more American than that? :)
- alpineman 2mo agoThe problem is, you have to choose. Do you really think people can continue to eat meat 2-3 times a day, purely supplied by family farms where animals are able to roam free? The reality is that the only way to feed people's insatiable demand for meat is to use factory farms. You can't factory farm without causing suffering to animals, and you can't factory farm without use of antibiotics, etc. Also you say, 'evolved to eat'. Do you think people were eating meat every day throughout human history? This started after WWII with mass agriculture and factory farming. That's why so many cultures have beans and rice as their primary dish: it's a perfectly balanced protein. If 'evolved to eat' is your primary concern then actually you should be eating meat like once or twice a month, max. Evolution doesn't happen in less than a century.
- nec4b 2mo ago> Do you think people were eating meat every day throughout human history? This started after WWII with mass agriculture and factory farming. That's why so many cultures have beans and rice as their primary dish: it's a perfectly balanced protein. Yes people were eating meat most of the human history, because farming was invented much much later. If you have ever been in a temperate forest which covered most of the area of current Europe, northern America and northern Asia you would notice there isn't really much to eat besides wild game.
- CrzyLngPwd 2mo agoIn the spring I will get 3 cows with calf-a-foot who will graze the immense amount of herbal leys we have, as well as maintain our SSSI fields, and then in a few years some of them, the meanest, will go off to the abatoir to become the very finest and well fed beef that money can buy. We'll expand the herd, and do mob grazing to maintain our species rich grasslands and our SSSI fields, while also providing the best beef to those that appreciate it, family first of course. Grass fed and pasture fed, are not good enough. The cattle need a wide variety of food, which starts with more than grass or a monoculture pasture.
- leonidasrup 2mo agoThere was a German article comparing different traveled distances between German cities with CO2 impact of meat production. https://www.merkur.de/reise/reduzieren-sollte-besser-reisen-oder-besser-fleisch-verzichten-zr-13337511.html https://www.merkur.de/reise/reduzieren-sollte-besser-reisen-...
- belorn 2mo agoGetting people to agree to the same cultural diet is about as easy as getting people to agree to the same religion. If we could change culture and the global diet, there are many exciting low carbon foods being promoted, especially in aquaculture. Shellfish and seaweed do not rely on artificial fertilizer, fresh water, or people burning down the rain forest.