Can Cow Backpacks Reduce Global Methane Emissions? (bloomberg.com)

Slashdot reader schwit1 shares an article from Bloomberg which argues "It's time to have a conversation about flatulent cows." "Enteric fermentation," or livestock's digestive process, accounts for 22 percent of all U.S. methane emissions, and the manure they produce makes up eight percent more, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency... Methane, like carbon, is a greenhouse gas, but methane's global warming impact per molecule is 25 times greater than carbon's, according to the EPA.
Cargill has tried capturing some of the methane released from cow manure by using domed lagoons, while researchers at Danone yogurt discovered they could reduce methane emissions up to 30% by feeding cows a diet rich in Omega-3 fatty acids (mostly from flax seed). But now Argentina researchers are testing plastic "methane backpacks" which they strap on to the back of cows, and according to the article "have been able to extract 300 liters of methane a day, enough to power a car or refrigerator."

Comments

Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

The majority of methane from bovines exits from the mouth, not the rear end. Why do these morons not take a few moments to learn about the beasts before coming up with their idiotic ideas?

Re:Ignorant fools

[wonkey_monkey]

Maybe you should learn not to jump to conclusions lest you show yourself to be the moron.

The backpack manages to capture and collect the gases emitted through the cow’s mouth or intestinal tract via a tube inserted through the cow’s skin (which the researchers claim is painless).

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

I am quite sure it is painless for the researchers.

Re:Ignorant fools

[PolygamousRanchKid]

Maybe you should learn not to jump to conclusions lest you show yourself to be the moron.

The backpack manages to capture and collect the gases emitted through the cow’s mouth or intestinal tract via a tube inserted through the cow’s skin (which the researchers claim is painless).

It still sounds like a lot of stress for the cows. Their lives are miserable enough, adding this stuff would only make matters worse for them. Stress for a cow probably means less milk yield, and a longer growth period before it is ripe for McDonald's. Hell, it's like developing colostomy bags for cows.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Idk collecting a backpack containing 300l of cow fart sounds pretty painful.

Re:Ignorant fools

[RghtHndSd]

... and a longer growth period before it is ripe for McDonald's.

What would McDonalds want with a cow?

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

That's a nice, happy, clean cow out in pasture too in the article. The exact opposite of what people are actually eating. It's a muddy, grassless horror show out there, and I can't imagine how it would look with a thousand sickly cows wearing festering, manure-soaked backpacks permanently attached to their bodies.

But then, Cargill doesn't want you to stop eating meat. Just trust that they are working on a solution to the environmental catastrophe that is animal agriculture. If you've read anything at all about Cargill, you'll know that they are NOT to be trusted. The article seems to omit their dark history of political corruption and prosecution of small family farmers however.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Unless stress makes the cow gassy. You may double production and power BOTH your car and refrigerator if it had that effect! ... sort of like the matrix scene of people as batteries but with cows wearing balloons.

Re:Ignorant fools

[PolygamousRanchKid]

You might want to read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

On the other hand . . . good old Jacob Bronowski taught us the eating meat was a very important step in the Ascent of Man. Meat is a more concentrated form of protein, and freed up time to work on other stuff, besides food collection in the stone ages.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we reduce how much beef we eat. They are the worst form of food we can grow and produce. Takes way more resources to create than we ever get out of them. More people should eat goat or lamb or chicken or rabbit. All of which ate many times more efficient at meat production than any amount of beef.

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

You might want to read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

On the other hand . . . good old Jacob Bronowski taught us the eating meat was a very important step in the Ascent of Man. Meat is a more concentrated form of protein, and freed up time to work on other stuff, besides food collection in the stone ages.

That is a pretty outdated view in paleoanthropology. It's up there with "Man the Hunter" and "Meat Made us Human". To spare you the mountain of scientific articles, books, and studies on paleonutrition conducted by archaeologists (not those insane popular "paleo" journalistic writers), here is a Scientific American article explaining how your ancient "man" most likely arose from the ability to cook food and consume starches:
"Human Ancestors Were Nearly All Vegetarians" http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/human-ancestors-were-nearly-all-vegetarians/

You only need to look at any studies of ancient fiber consumption (derived from coprolite data) to arrive at the conclusion that our ancestors (recent and in the deep past) ate a shit-load of plants. Something like 10 times what the average westerner would eat on average.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Gawd, I got a vision of some kind of Dune guild navigator/Harkonnen cross cow cyborg. Ewww. I eat meat and love it, but at the same time cannot wait for lab grown meat so this ugly, filthy cattle industry can go the way of the horse carriage.

Re:Ignorant fools

[pixelpusher220]

meat likely did play a significant part in our rise as a species but that was well before organized civilization. It absolutely does not have to be that way in any modern society.

Re:Ignorant fools

[tomhath]

Perhaps the backpack looks enough like a pouch that McDonald's would be interested?

Re:Ignorant fools

[fustakrakich]

What would McDonalds want with a cow?

You do not want to know.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we reduce how much beef we eat[?]

Because beef tastes good!

They are the worst form of food we can grow and produce.

Who cares?

Takes way more resources to create than we ever get out of them.

So what?

More people should eat goat or lamb or chicken or rabbit.

Why? Beef tastes good!

All of which ate many times more efficient at meat production than any amount of beef.

Who gives a tinker's fuck??! We like the taste of beef! Don't be tryin' to make us eat cockroaches just so your politicians can have more fine roast beef after they finish their climate summit in the south of France!

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

The backpack manages to capture and collect the gases emitted through the cow’s mouth or intestinal tract via a tube inserted through the cow’s skin (which the researchers claim is painless).

Translation: Vivisection is entirely painless. Animals love to live with tubes inserted into their skin, and those pathogens coating the wounds just add to their pleasureful experience. Trust us, we're industry-funded "researchers"!

What financial incentives could CARGILL possibly in having us believe that vivisection is painless? They're practically independent, right?

Re: Ignorant fools

[tchdab1]

I'm also wondering if we'll eventually be eating modified cow-carcass torsos raised in an enclosed factory and connected to input and output tubes, making veal-raising look like organic farming.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Powercntrl]

That's a nice, happy, clean cow out in pasture too in the article. The exact opposite of what people are actually eating. It's a muddy, grassless horror show out there, and I can't imagine how it would look with a thousand sickly cows wearing festering, manure-soaked backpacks permanently attached to their bodies.

It probably looks like this. Nature is violent and gross. Ever hear of cookie cutter sharks? They're basically vicious little living hole saws, and they chew gaping holes into the flesh of pretty much anything they can get their mouth on. Oh, and then there's the mantis shrimp, which literally smashes its prey to death. I'll close with some appropriate song lyrics from The Lorax:

Well there's a principle of nature (principle of nature)
That almost every creature knows.
Called survival of the fittest (survival of the fittest)
And check it this is how it goes.
The animal that wins gotta scratch and fight and claw and bite and punch.
And the animal that doesn't, well the animal that doesn't winds up someone else's lu-lu-lu-lu-lunch (munch, munch, munch, munch, munch)

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Found the dumbfuck republican rancher. Looks like he crawled out from under his rock this morning.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Wycliffe]

On the other hand . . . good old Jacob Bronowski taught us the eating meat was a very important step in the Ascent of Man. Meat is a more concentrated form of protein, and freed up time to work on other stuff, besides food collection in the stone ages.

Meat is great for the hunter/gatherer who has the scrounge for food because you can eat the bird that found and ate the berries without having to find the berries yourself. Per calorie, hunting meat gives you more calories per calorie expended than hunting berries. So yes, it gave us slightly more time but the real time saving was agriculture. Raising crops gave us ton more calories per time expended. Raising almost any type of edible crop is far more efficient that raising or hunting for meat. If you look at modern humans, most modern humans ate primarily grains and supplemented here and there with meat and they have been doing this 20k+ years. You would have to go back further than written history to get to primarily meat eating ancestors. There are obviously exceptions but these exceptions are not in the areas that grew into modern society. Modern society grew out of a stable, stay in one place agricultural society. It was the agricultural society that gave us the extra manpower to advance.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Wycliffe]

More people should eat goat or lamb or chicken or rabbit. All of which ate many times more efficient at meat production than any amount of beef.

I've been eating a lot more pork and chicken lately partly because it is cheaper than beef. I would have no problem buying lamb, goat, or rabbit if I saw it in the store. I occasionally do see lamb but it's always considerably more expensive than even beef. If it's really more efficient, you would think you would see it more often and at a lower price point. I really like the taste of lamb and would gladly buy it if available. I've never had goat or chicken because I've never seen it. I've seen goat milk but it's always more expensive that cow milk and doesn't taste as good. There are plenty of consumers that would eat alternative meats especially if they were priced cheaper that beef and if they are truly more efficient then they should be able to be priced cheater than beef.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

I get that your family come from southern Europe mine is from Sweden and I can tell you that anyone just eating crops would die fast. Every few years there is a bad yeld but the forest contain all sorts of food including meat.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

He has a point. Go to the lab and make more energy and fart efficient cows. Some humans fart less then other so I'm serious.

Also stop feeding your cows antibiotics. It crashes my stomach and I assume it does the same for the cow

Re: Ignorant fools

[lxs]

Why not switch to eating humans?
That would both reduce methane emissions and stop overpopulation.

It's a win win scenario.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. I'm sure nobody here has ever heard of "survival of the fittest" as you call it.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

We should start with the meat-eaters so they get an idea of what it's like to be food, and see if they don't protest.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

They use one for the essence..

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Each year have a global IQ test.. The lowest scoring 10% would be food for the rest.

Re:Ignorant fools

[blindseer]

My guess would be the hide.

Re:Ignorant fools

[del_diablo]

The fuck is a plant? Cabbage? Cornflower? Apples? Grains? Weed roots?
I admit i skimmed the link, but it doesn't really say anything. "So humans don't get full benefit from eating cellulose, but they can still eat it", or at the least that is what it seems to be talking about.

I understand that we live in a era where the knowledge of what weeds is edible is resurrecting slowly, but one needs to be more specific.
I.E What ancestors of plants is eaten? What has been domesticated? What weeds did we eat back then, but didn't domesticate?
Its also worth noting that we eat meat differently today. Today we eat the prime meat, and who knows what happens to the blood or skin. Our ancestors would eat or preserve the whole animal, if possible. Eating the whole animal is a trend, that stopped close to modern times too.

Re:Ignorant fools

[drinkypoo]

You only need to look at any studies of ancient fiber consumption (derived from coprolite data) to arrive at the conclusion that our ancestors (recent and in the deep past) ate a shit-load of plants. Something like 10 times what the average westerner would eat on average.

They did that because they had to. We also know that virtually nothing in nature is actually a vegetarian. Almost everything is either carnivorous or omnivorous. Deer eat whole nests full of baby birds, for example. Dee-lish! I'm a vegetarian except for baby birds is the new I'm a vegan except for blue cheese and bacon. Meat is efficient and there are no vegetarian indigenous peoples. There may have been some, but they were probably eaten by some meat eaters in their cannibal phase.

Re: Ignorant fools

[drinkypoo]

I occasionally do see lamb but it's always considerably more expensive than even beef. If it's really more efficient, you would think you would see it more often and at a lower price point. I really like the taste of lamb and would gladly buy it if available.

Supply/demand. We often buy it cheaply at Grocery Outlet, however. They also often have Bison.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

In Romania times, they ate at least 20 different species of carrot (of all colors, greens, orange, blue, purple) and grain to make bread. Berries, olives, plums were the most easy to obtain fruits.

Fortunately, they had minced meat providing meatballs, burgers, stuffing and

Re:Ignorant fools

[pipingguy]

"studies of [...] coprolite data [...] ancestors [...] ate a shit-load of plants"

That was pretty funny.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

This is all about traditional farming, which is full of hormones, drilling holes into cows, having them stand on cement and packing them together as much as possible. Stress can be cured with more pills. Capitalism dictates US.

Captcha: petals

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

You really have no idea what "survival of the fittest" mean, do you ?
There are plenty of animals that don't "scratch and fight and claw and bite and punch" and are doing just fine.
Also almost every plant doesn't do that, are you saying they are not fit ?

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can figure a way of encouraging people to eat other things by all means. But usually when people suggest such things it is via force of some kind (taxation, regulation, legal, etc) which always end badly. I'm reminded of a Sci-fi (Seaquest DSV) where they had apparently outlawed beef, all of the members of the public were eating soy patties while the higher ups were having smoked ham and barbecued brisket quietly grown on farms in Central America I believe. You will virtually always start a black market by limiting supply and doing nothing about demand.

Re: Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Its called the "Feed Conversion Ratio". Beef and Sheep for meat purposes are virtually identical, and triple that of many other animals. Chicken (both eggs and meat) duck, pork, goose and turkey are all roughly in the same ballpark, though meat chickens are decently ahead of the pack, farm raised salmon are supposed to be next on the efficiency scale with milk (goat and cow) being the most efficient sources (one tenth the amount of feed is necessary to raising beef). Though circumstances can add a few variables, I raise chickens for eggs, only about 6. As they are free range over the past 2 years I've used maybe 4 bags of feed, with them getting the rest from the lawn in the form of bugs, worms, etc. With an average of 4 eggs per day that comes out to about 14 eggs per lb of feed bought. Pasture raised sheep/beef would also probably have much better (bought) feed to weight ratios. Though it should be noted that they are consuming more feed in reality, only a significant amount of it is being provided by natural sources.

Re:Ignorant fools

[HiThere]

Read the article instead of just the headline. As I skimmed it I found *NO* assertion that our ancestors were vegetarian. Not any of them. Instead the assertion was that many of them ate more vegetables that had been previously presumed. This is a quite different assertion.

There's also nothing outdated about assuming that in increase in the amount of meat eaten "was a very important step in the Ascent of Man". There's some argument about how much of that was fish or shell-fish, with some arguing that it was the shell-fish and similar dense calorie and protein resources that fostered tribal defense of territory...AFAIK the evidence for that is quite minimal, but the argument is reasonable.

Please note that meat eating became less important once cooking was developed. Cooking made vegetable calories much more digestible. But cooking was a relatively late accomplishment. (It also had other effects, e.g. it made meat much less likely to harbor parasites.)

That said, there is little reason to doubt that hunter-gatherers got most of their calories from vegetables, but ate as much meat as they could. (Well, not literally. People might eat, e.g., enough hippo to get sick, but they wouldn't really try to eat the whole thing.)

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

Meat is great for the hunter/gatherer who has the scrounge for food because you can eat the bird that found and ate the berries without having to find the berries yourself. Per calorie, hunting meat gives you more calories per calorie expended than hunting berries. So yes, it gave us slightly more time but the real time saving was agriculture. Raising crops gave us ton more calories per time expended. Raising almost any type of edible crop is far more efficient that raising or hunting for meat. If you look at modern humans, most modern humans ate primarily grains and supplemented here and there with meat and they have been doing this 20k+ years. You would have to go back further than written history to get to primarily meat eating ancestors. There are obviously exceptions but these exceptions are not in the areas that grew into modern society. Modern society grew out of a stable, stay in one place agricultural society. It was the agricultural society that gave us the extra manpower to advance.

The problem with this view is that it is all based on incomplete 1950's paleoanthropology. The research of that time was heavily biased by the weight of animal bone remains, which made it look like humans were evolving almost completely on meat. This view is considered laughable today in light of the fact that we understand that bones are the only macroscopic evidence that survives for millions of years, and hence it was obviously going to bias their view.

If you look at their dental calculus (reflecting the long-term diet that went in to their bodies) however, you have to say that as a population they were totally vegan. There isn't a shred of evidence suggesting that they ate large amounts of meat on a regular basis or even at a very small scale. Meat therefore would have likely been a starvation food, only relied on in rare cases. 1950's paleoanthropologists simply didn't have the tools to talk about the range of evidences we can study today, but the unsubstantiated cultural myths like "Meat Made Us Human" and "Man the Hunter" persist.

This makes perfect sense to biological anthropologists, who recognized very early on that humans do not possess a single biological adaptation to eating meat. If it were the defining characteristic on which our species evolved you would expect, at the very least, changes in the development of our gut and teeth. We certainly wouldn't have evolved to lose our incisors, nor would we have retained the intestinal tract of a frugivore. There is a great TED talk explaining modern paleoanthropology's complete dismantling of the meat hypothesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

There's also nothing outdated about assuming that in increase in the amount of meat eaten "was a very important step in the Ascent of Man". There's some argument about how much of that was fish or shell-fish, with some arguing that it was the shell-fish and similar dense calorie and protein resources that fostered tribal defense of territory...AFAIK the evidence for that is quite minimal, but the argument is reasonable.

Please note that meat eating became less important once cooking was developed. Cooking made vegetable calories much more digestible. But cooking was a relatively late accomplishment. (It also had other effects, e.g. it made meat much less likely to harbor parasites.)

That said, there is little reason to doubt that hunter-gatherers got most of their calories from vegetables, but ate as much meat as they could. (Well, not literally. People might eat, e.g., enough hippo to get sick, but they wouldn't really try to eat the whole thing.)

That is a very linear view of the development of our species and reads like an amateur paper for Anthropology 100. You've combined an outdated view of cultural evolution with and outdated model of biological adaptation and reached a 1950/1960's style conclusion. Garbage in, garbage out.

My suggestion is for you to look into modern studies of: ancient coprolite analysis, dental calculus analysis, studies of the consumption of starches like tubers, bone chemistry, the "meat made us human" myth, "man the hunter" myth, and the almost 50 years of critiques of linear evolution models in anthropology.

Re:Ignorant fools

[nowsharing]

Almost everything is either carnivorous or omnivorous.

You honestly don't know what an herbivore is?.... I mean, I'd love to talk about frugivores (every one of our closest relatives) and ruminants but if you can't wrap your mind around one of the most basic concepts in all of biology, it's going to be difficult.

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

... and a longer growth period before it is ripe for McDonald's.

What would McDonalds want with a cow?

Lips and arseholes probably, and maybe a hoof or two...

Re:Ignorant fools

[Anonymous Coward]

Which ancestors? The middens by coasts show huge consumption of shellfish. Humans do have a physical speciality. We are superb divers. It appears that when there was a terrible population narrowing humans survived by living on coastlines. Animals were a large part of the diet at that time. As the population narrowing was severe the genetic influence of these survivors was comparatively large.

    The article you linked was a "guest blog.: Not a peer reviewed rigorous presentation. Basically it is the completely unsupported musing of a single person. We do know that paleolithic peoples consumed a great deal of meat. We have the bone piles. We have the extinctions. We have the tools. We have the migratory herd following lifestyle evidence.

Re:Ignorant fools

[drinkypoo]

You honestly don't know what an herbivore is?

It's a near-mythical kind of creature that you've mostly imagined.

I mean, I'd love to talk about frugivores (every one of our closest relatives)

Which kind of ape hasn't been shown to occasionally eat at least insects if not actual meat?

but if you can't wrap your mind around one of the most basic concepts in all of biology, it's going to be difficult.

The fact is that most of those things which "never" eat meat occasionally eat meat, just like the average vegan.

Re:Ignorant fools

[ananamouse]

>It still sounds like a lot of stress for the cows.
Nothing like being so bloated they fall over. Browze through:
https://www.google.com/webhp?s...

No such thing as 'global warming'

[Anonymous Coward]

This bullshit (no pun intended) is getting ridiculous now. There is no such thing as 'catastrophic man-made global warming' (renamed 'climate change', which means nothing, since the climate is always changing, yet is ALWAYS meant to be taken to mean 'catastrophic man-made global warming'...)

www.climatedepot.com
www.wattsupwiththat.com

All of the 'scientists' promoting the LIE of 'global warming' benefit financially from their LIES.

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[Anonymous Coward]

Go find your own planet to trash you nutter.

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[NatasRevol]

So please tell us what happened to the 2 quadrillion pounds of ice that melted from JUST Greenland in JUST 3 years.

https://weather.com/news/clima...

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[Anonymous Coward]

All of the 'scientists' promoting the LIE of 'global warming' benefit financially from their LIES.

Trump 2016

Re: No such thing as 'global warming'

[Luthair]

Aliens took it. Obviously.

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[pahles]

It made te sea level rise 2.5 mm. It's in the article you referenced.

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[pixelpusher220]

WUWT has been thoroughly debunked. The guy didn't even graduate college!

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[NatasRevol]

Duh. But the deniers can't even admit that.

Re: No such thing as 'global warming'

[Anonymous Coward]

Idiot. The aliens have positronic molecular recombinators. They can make water.

Re:No such thing as 'global warming'

[blindseer]

It evaporated, blew to the south pole, and snowed on Antarctica.

Re: No such thing as 'global warming'

[The Mysterious Dr. X]

They can make water.

So can I, in a couple of hours.

Just stop raising cows

[mspohr]

Really.
Cow meat is bad for you (heart disease, stroke, cancer, etc.) and raising cow meat is bad for the environment.
Just stop eating cow meat... problem solved.
www.cowspiracy.com

Re: Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

A twist on Johnathan Swift: Maybe we should eat the vegetarians.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Nonsense.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

Although the article doesn't dare mention it, it is true that every single lifestyle disease of the developing world (cancer, atherosclerosis, stroke, etc) has the consumption of animal protein and fat at their heart. It's a dark secret that is finally getting some attention after a century of large-scale nutritional studies. Remind anyone of the tobacco industry?

Re:Just stop raising cows

[BitZtream]

Right, because the healthiest looking people on the planet are the vegetarians . . .

Also pretty awesome that you just blamed the three things that pretty much kill anyone who dies from 'natural causes' and blamed it on cow meat. You know vegetarians die from those exact same things in pretty much the exact same numbers ... RIGHT?

Nut job much?

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Gojira Shipi-Taro]

Fuck you. I like steak.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[eliphalet]

Get Fuzzy for 8/19/2016 | Get Fuzzy | Comics | ArcaMax Publishing http://www.arcamax.com/thefunn...

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Mr_Trebuchet]

I'll just leave this here... "Meat is Murder. Vegetarianism is Genocide." http://www.smbc-comics.com/?id...

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

diabetes

Re:Just stop raising cows

[tomhath]

That's been pretty much disproved. The real culprits seem to be flour and sugar. Enjoy your vegetarian diet.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

What, people are smoking cows, now?

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

That's been pretty much disproved. The real culprits seem to be flour and sugar. Enjoy your vegetarian diet.

"Disproved"? If you don't believe in science, then perhaps the evidence isn't very strong. If you read newspapers and industry sponsored "scientific journalism", you might also think there are health benefits to eating meat. For everyone who does believe in science however, start your investigation here:

Diet Patterns and Mortality: Common Threads and Consistent Results Marjorie L. McCullough Epidemiology Research Program, American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA J. Nutr. June 1, 2014. vol. 144 no. 6 795-796 http://jn.nutrition.org/conten...

Below are a handful more studies (with lifestyle, age, location, and income adjustments included) that all suggest that meat/dairy is the primary cause of the major diseases we are discussing. Even when you adjust to include "junk-food vegans", you see that they come out ahead. It's not just processed foods that are to blame, although an increased consumption of processed foods is linked to elevated heart disease in all populations.

M L McCullough. Diet patterns and mortality: common threads and consistent results. J Nutr. 2014 Jun;144(6):795-6.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24717365

M A Martinez-Gonzalez, A Sanchez-Tainta, D Corella, J Salas-Salvado, E Ros, F Aros, E Gomez-Gracia, M Fiol, R M Lamuela-Raventos, H Schroder, J Lapetra, L Serra-Majem, X Pinto, V Ruiz-Gutierrez, Ramon Estruch for the PREDIMED Group. A provegetarian food pattern and reduction in total mortality in the Prevención con Dieta Mediterránea (PREDIMED) study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2014 May 28;100(Supplement 1):320S-328S.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24871477

J Reedy, S M Krebs-Smith, P E Miller, A D Liese, L L Kahle, Y Park, A F Subar. Higher diet quality is associated with decreased risk of all-cause, cardiovascular disease, and cancer mortality among older adults. J Nutr. 2014 Jun;144(6):881-9.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24572039

G E Fraser, D J Shavlik. Ten years of life: Is it a matter of choice? Arch Intern Med. 2001 Jul 9;161(13):1645-52.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11434797

Thousands of peer-reviewed papers based on the large-scale studies below support the treating of lifestyle diseases by reducing or eliminating animal product consumption, paired with an increased consumption of whole plant-based foods. These are clinically valid paths to eliminating the diseases, which are most often more effective than prescription drugs, which are geared toward relieving symptoms (e.g. statins) but not the underlying causes of disease.
Large scale, long-term studies:
PREDIMED Studies: http://www.predimed.es/publica...
The Adventist Health Studies: https://publichealth.llu.edu/a...
The China Studies: https://scholar.google.com/sch...
The Nurses Health Study: http://www.nurseshealthstudy.o...
The EPIC Study: http://epic.iarc.fr/

When humans stop eating meat and switch to whole-food plant based diets, the rates of all leading causes of death (obesity, cancer, heart disease, and pretty diseases of inflammation) drop. To anyone with a scientific mind, modern nutritional-science's data should pretty much indict animal based foods as the direct cause of obesity, along with the consumption of heavily processed foods. It's no wonder that the nations with the highest meat consumption have the highest rates of lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.

A

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

Right, because the healthiest looking people on the planet are the vegetarians . . .

Also pretty awesome that you just blamed the three things that pretty much kill anyone who dies from 'natural causes' and blamed it on cow meat. You know vegetarians die from those exact same things in pretty much the exact same numbers ... RIGHT?

Nut job much?

The longest living group ever known are the traditional Okinawans, who are also primarily vegans.

You are correct however that It shouldn't surprise anyone that vegetarians would die from some of the same diseases as standard westerners. Vegetarians, in contast to vegans, get a significant portion of their calories from animal derived foods like dairy and eggs. Dairy and eggs are two of the worst offenders health-wise. They're extremely high in fat and cholesterol, thus leading to heart disease. They also lack the plant fiber that would have protected against cancer. In labs, the dairy protein casein acts like gasoline on a fire in fueling cancer growth. It's why almost all vegans are so for health reasons. They believe in science.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[macsimcon6500]

Now I KNOW you're crazy. The notion that fat and cholesterol lead to heart disease just isn't true, it's been totally debunked.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, Vegans don't eat 21+kg of seafood per year (which is down from traditional amounts), 18+kg of pork, and 7kg of beef per year

Re: Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod points!

Thank you very much for proving all these links. I will make a point of reviewing.

Anyone who truly tries to follow scientific principals should at least review the data before coming to conclusions and trolling.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[bugs2squash]

Yes, it's called pastrami

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Wycliffe]

When humans stop eating meat and switch to whole-food plant based diets, the rates of all leading causes of death (obesity, cancer, heart disease, and pretty diseases of inflammation) drop

Many of those articles like "Prevalence of obesity is low in people who do not eat meat. " is like saying "people who don't watch tv are less violent". There is a huge selection bias going on. Most people who don't eat meat or eat "whole food based diets" or almost any fad diet, yeah, they might cut out fat, or bread, or some other random bad guy but they also almost all cut out processed sugar. It's the sugar not the meat and fat that is killing us.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Z00L00K]

Just stop raising humans, less humans would decrease the load on the planet even more.

Cutting down to 1/4th of the population we have today would make a much larger impact.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

It's interesting how people will openly and knowingly endorse and defend a lifestyle that is predicated on the enslavement, torture and murder of millions of creatures annually. Like that's something to be proud of.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

Now I KNOW you're crazy. The notion that fat and cholesterol lead to heart disease just isn't true, it's been totally debunked.

I hate to burst your bubble, but you need to start reading research performed by non-industry sponsored scientists. Bloggers, magazine writers, and journalists are paid by the industry to spread lies about the health of consumer goods. Start with this statement paper summarizing the major literature and large-scale research directly linking cholesterol intake to heart disease:

The cholesterol facts. A summary of the evidence relating dietary fats, serum cholesterol, and coronary heart disease. A joint statement by the American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. The Task Force on Cholesterol Issues, American Heart Association.
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/circulationaha/81/5/1721.full.pdf

"This American Heart Association and National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute joint statement has reviewed the evidence of the direct role of cholesterol in the development of atherosclerosis and CHD. Numerous epidemiologic and laboratory studies have confirmed the continuous, positive correlation of elevated serum cholesterol levels to increased CHD risk. Clinical studies have shown that modification of serum cholesterol by diet or drugs can lower that risk. The benefits of modifying serum cholesterol levels extend to men and women, young and old, those with high-risk LDL serum cholesterol levels, and those with borderline high-risk levels. Furthermore, cholesterol interventions are cost-effective. The evidence more than justifies the current national program for cholesterol modification."

Re:Just stop raising cows

[drinkypoo]

Cutting down to 1/4th of the population we have today would make a much larger impact.

1/2 would probably be plenty. And they could live a lot more efficiently, e.g. proper use of insulation. With a little care which we're currently mostly not applying, the planet can probably support even more humans than we've got here now — and in luxury, not just survival. But right now things are just totally ack-basswards. Remember making hay while the sun shines? Now we make the sun shine, hey? What wankers we've turned out to be, as a species.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[mspohr]

If we stopped eating cows, we could support 5 times the current population on earth.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

Last time I checked, Vegans don't eat 21+kg of seafood per year (which is down from traditional amounts), 18+kg of pork, and 7kg of beef per year

Those stats are for modern Okinawans who have adapted a Western diet... Traditional Okinawans ate the least amount of meat ever recorded for a population. Hence, modern Okinawans suffer from the same lifestyle diseases as Westerners and they lost their life-span advantage. Anthropologists once thought they must have had some genetic advantage to live so long, but this theory was abandoned as the population shifted to the Western diet and gradually began to suffer from the same health problems as the West.

Like many traditional diets, theirs included a healthy amount of vegetables but that alone could not account for the almost total absence of cancer and autoimmune disease. Their avoidance of meat is widely known to be the defining characteristic of their longevity.

The Okinawan Diet: Health Implications of a Low-Calorie, Nutrient-Dense, Antioxidant-Rich Dietary Pattern Low in Glycemic Load
D. Craig Willcox, PhD, Bradley J. Willcox, MD, Hidemi Todoriki, PhD, Makot o Suzuki, MD, PhD
http://www.okicent.org/docs/500s_willcox_okinawa_diet.pdf

GCN2 and FGF21 are likely mediators of the protection from cancer, autoimmunity, obesity, and diabetes afforded by vegan diets
Medical Hypotheses, Volume 83, Issue 3, September 2014, Pages 365–371
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306987714002497

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Kernel Kurtz]

It's no wonder that the nations with the highest meat consumption have the highest rates of lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.

And the longest life expectancies.

Don't forget that....

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

It's no wonder that the nations with the highest meat consumption have the highest rates of lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc.

And the longest life expectancies.

Don't forget that....

The longest population-based life expectancy ever observed is in the traditional Okinawans, which were almost entirely vegan. The longest life expectancy is the Americans are the Adventists, who range from vegan to vegetarian. Both groups also show an almost complete lack of modern Western lifestyle diseases like atherosclerosis, cancer (except those vegetarian Adventists eating dairy and egss), and autoimmune disease.

Shining examples of the health benefits of avoiding meat, not only for a longer life, but also a higher quality of health overall. Watch Forks Over Knives for more health benefits: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt15...

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

And then you have Scandinavia, where people eat a lot of meat and drink a lot of milk (relative to the world). And there the life expectancy is almost as high as the Okinawans. Selection bias much?

Re:Just stop raising cows

[ausekilis]

Sure, eating healthier has its benefits, but not everyone is able to survive on a strict vegan, or even vegetarian, diet.

My Vegan Diet Almost Killed Me talks about orthorexia, which stems from "righteous fixation on healthy eating". Lets not forget Death by Veganism where two vegan parents were convicted of murder, involuntary manslaughter, and cruelty to their 6 month old child. Anecdotally, I have a vegetarian friend whose pediatrician told her she needed to start eating meat to promote the health and growth of her infant. The diet has worked well for her for years (decades?), yet when faced with breastfeeding, it just wasn't high enough on proteins the kid could use for growing up.

Everyone's body chemistry is different and we all have different dietary needs. You could have also pointed out those regions whose diets typically result in longer lifetimes (read: basically every diet that isn't "American"). As can be seen here:

The lower mortality from ischemic heart disease among vegetarians was greater at younger ages and was restricted to those who had followed their current diet for >5 y. Further categorization of diets showed that, in comparison with regular meat eaters, mortality from ischemic heart disease was 20% lower in occasional meat eaters, 34% lower in people who ate fish but not meat, 34% lower in lactoovovegetarians, and 26% lower in vegans. There were no significant differences between vegetarians and nonvegetarians in mortality from cerebrovascular disease, stomach cancer, colorectal cancer, lung cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer, or all other causes combined.

From this study we see that an asian diet (lots of vegetables, some fish, very little red meat) is actually better that strict veganism.

While I haven't actually read all of the articles you linked, I would suggest that lowering the amount of deep fried foods, fatty red meat, and focusing more on fish and vegetables would be promote overall health for a wider number of people.

Re: Just stop raising cows

[Z00L00K]

And live a lot more boring lives.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[nowsharing]

Sure, eating healthier has its benefits, but not everyone is able to survive on a strict vegan, or even vegetarian, diet.

You can absolutely survive on a fully vegan diet, and humans have been doing it for millions of years. The American Dietetic Association released a statement to this effect. They are the United States' largest organization of food and nutrition professionals, and represents over 100,000 credentialed practitioners — registered dietitian nutritionists, dietetic technicians, registered, and other dietetics professionals holding undergraduate and advanced degrees in nutrition and dietetics.
It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. A vegetarian diet is defined as one that does not include meat (including fowl) or seafood, or products containing those foods.
http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/2009_ADA_position_paper.pdf

As for the article you posted. You need to look at the source of your information before jumping to conclusions. Nina Planck (who wrote that NY times article), like most journalistic writers, has several financial ulterior motives for attacking vegans. For every vegan feeding their baby apple cider and soy milk there are thousand equally moronic meat eaters being jailed for the neglect of their children. Does that mean anything about eating meat, or just neglect in general?

From Nina Planck's own website and wikipedia page:
-Ms. Planck‘s London Farmers‘ Markets sell, among other things, “organic & outdoor reared meat, game in season, dairy“ and fish.
-Her website invites browsers to “Learn why butter and lard are good for you and corn oil and soy milk are not.
-She lives in New York City with Robert Kaufelt, proprietor of Murray's Cheese Store
-In 2003, she returned to the United States as the director of the New York Greenmarket program; she was dismissed after six months:

Also, there are an estimated 100 million vegetarians in the world ranging from strict vegans to lacto-ovo-pescatarians and everything in between. In every single large-scale non-industry funded nutritional study, vegans always exhibit the lowest levels of chronic lifestyle disease such as cancer and atherosclerosis. They also have the longest life-spans worldwide. Look in to the traditional Okinawans and the Adventists for a start.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, and everyone will be fucking miserable.

Re:Just stop raising cows

[Anonymous Coward]

It's bitztream, the autism-hating Slashdot troll!

Just call it what it is

[chispito]

Fart in a bag.

I'm not proud of this comment, but there it is.

Re:Just call it what it is

[bugs2squash]

cowlostomy bags

Re:Just call it what it is

[ThatsMyNick]

More like burp into a bag.

Sounds like a load of hot air to me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like a load of hot air to me.

Stop feeding them corn

[Anonymous Coward]

Let them eat grass.

You are all a bunch of farty cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Say moo, moo you farty cows. Fart more, mooBoy!

Great until one gets hit by lightning

[Anonymous Coward]

Then the entire herd explodes

Re:Great until one gets hit by lightning

[Tablizer]

Then the entire herd explodes

Instant burgers, Brilliant!

Strap a bag to liberals heads

[Anonymous Coward]

Problem solved.

Too late.

[johnsmithperson123]

Factory farms are about to drop the "farm" and become ground-beef printing operations. Only perhaps ten years off.

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fat chance! Most of the engineered meats so far have been lab samples only, and they always lack something (texture, flavour, taste, you name it). Most times they lack several things simultaneously.

However none of this matters. Fake meat has a huge image problem and I don't see that going away anytime soon. We can already get soy burgers and supposedly, some are pretty good. I've never eaten one though and it's because I have little interest. Why should I waste my time on fake meat?

As soon as you go down the road of "eat it for the environment/planet" route you've lost. Food must be compelling on it's own merits, and not be some sort of compromise for nebulous environmental benefits.

Want to make fake meat a success? Make it better than real meat. And stop calling it "meat", when it isn't. It needs to be it's own thing, not an imitation of something else.

Re:Too late.

[Wycliffe]

Want to make fake meat a success? Make it better than real meat. And stop calling it "meat", when it isn't. It needs to be it's own thing, not an imitation of something else.

I agree completely with this but imitating the real thing first is a useful step. Once you know the "formula" for beef and how it differs from pork, it should give you the ability to tweak it to make it better than beef.
We've done this quite a bit where we imitated nature until we surpassed it. They even did that in the movie Nemo. First, they recreated a scene as realistically as possible then they backed up and made it less realistic but more fantastical.

Re: Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fake meat? Do you have ANY IDEA what's in a burger or sausage, or any reformed meat?

Re:Too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Never trust the word of an academic researcher that tells you their product will be ready to market in 10 years. A ten year window means they're essentially still researching whatever they're trying to sell you on. Don't believe me? Consult xkcd ;)

https://xkcd.com/678/

Re:Too late.

[nitehawk214]

Yeah, its where "about to" = "maybe 50 years off".

Though I can see this actually happening.

New Periodic Table?

[stolidobserver]

It's interesting to learn about the noble gas Carbon......

I have a better idea

[Anonymous Coward]

What about cow jetpacks? Now that will be worth doing.

Re:I have a better idea

[Intron]

Cow with backpack full of gas + electric fence. Get the popcorn.

If you want to make the carbon issue look wacky...

[Applehu Akbar]

Keep coming up with ideas like this. "Deniers" love this sort of thing.

A life without steak ?

[aepervius]

Look you can be vegan or whatever if you want, but I think I'll take the risk and eat my juicy barbecued steak. As for the methane : it contribute only roughly 25% of the warming that CO2 does. The reason are simple : the half life of methane in the atmosphere is short and the quantity of methane are 1/200 of those of CO2. And then enteric fermentation is barely above 16% of total methane emission (all farm animals counted, not only cows). Coal mining , oil drilling and treatment is above that , about 19%. Then there are other sources, rice cultivation (12%), waste treatment and landfill (12%), burning of biomass (9%) look up wiki if you wish for more details and more importantly : the sources of citations. Sure we should keep in check, as long as we don't concentrate on "cow" and follow other venue , like reducing coal and oil CO2/Methane emissions.

Re:A life without steak ?

[nowsharing]

There certainly are a lot of interesting citations regarding animal agriculture:

"Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 on a 20 year time frame"
The Journal Science: Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions
Drew T. Shindell*, Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch, Gavin A. Schmidt, Nadine Unger, Susanne E. Bauer
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only

”Growing feed crops for livestock consumes 56% of water in the US.”
”55% of water consumed in the US is by private homes. 55% of water consumed in the US is for animal agriculture.”
Jacobson, Michael F. “More and Cleaner Water.” In Six Arguments for a Greener Diet: How a More Plant-based Diet Could save Your Health and the Environment. Washington, DC: Center for Science in the Public Interest, 2006.
http://www.cspinet.org/EatingGreen/pdf/arguments4.pdf

Livestock covers 45% of the earth’s total land.
Thornton, Phillip, Mario Herrero, and Polly Ericksen. “Livestock and Climate Change.” Livestock Exchange, no. 3 (2011).
https://cgspace.cgiar.org/bitstream/handle/10568/10601/IssueBrief3.pdf

”Livestock is responsible for 65% of all human-related emissions of nitrous oxide –a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide, and which stays in the atmosphere for 150 years”
United Nations Food & Agriculture Organization
http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.htm

”Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.”
Worldwatch Institute
http://www.worldwatch.org/node/6294

”1/3 of the planet is desertified, with livestock as the leading driver.”
UN, "Desertification, Drought Affect One Third of Planet, World’s Poorest People, Second Committee Told as It Continues Debate on Sustainable Development".
http://www.un.org/press/en/2012/gaef3352.doc.htm

”A farm with 2,500 dairy cows produces the same amount of waste as a city of 411,000 people.”
“Risk Assessment Evaluation for Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations.” U.S. Environmental Protection Agency – Office of Research and Development. 2004.
http://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPURL.cgi?Dockey=901V0100.txt

”130 times more animal waste than human waste is produced in the US – 1.4 billion tons from the meat industry annually. 5 tons of animal waste is produced per person in the US.”
Animal agriculture: waste management practices. United States General Accounting Office.
http://www.gao.gov/archive/1999/rc99205.pdf

You could read for months, or just watch Cowspiracy.

Re:A life without steak ?

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems that you're trying to say that livestock don't contribute to global warming. By your own statements:

"Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2"

"...nitrous oxide –a greenhouse gas with 296 times the global warming potential of carbon dioxide"

Sounds like CO2 is really relatively harmless.

"Livestock and their byproducts account for at least 32,000 million tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) per year, or 51% of all worldwide greenhouse gas emissions"

So if all that livestock CO2 were to instantly disappear (and stop being produced), it'd have 1% impact on global warming. So clearly there's somewhere else to look and we should stop wasting time blaming livestock for global warming. Thanks for clearing that up.

Re:A life without steak ?

[Kneo24]

”55% of water consumed in the US is by private homes. 55% of water consumed in the US is for animal agriculture.”

So 110% of water is consumed?

Re:A life without steak ?

[nowsharing]

”55% of water consumed in the US is by private homes. 55% of water consumed in the US is for animal agriculture.”

So 110% of water is consumed?

Good catch. It should read "5% of water is consumed in the US by private homes."

Re:A life without steak ?

[Gavagai80]

It could be that 10% of people raise livestock in their bedrooms.

Re:A life without steak ?

[rmdingler]

It could be that 10% of people raise livestock in their bedrooms.

Raising them. Exactly!

That's what I'm doing with the sheep in the bedroom...

700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[nowsharing]

We all know the backpack idea is bullshit, but at least it is raising some serious discussion about the scale of pollution due to industrial agriculture. The only solution is to cut back on meat consumption, but Cargill won't be issuing that in a press release any time soon.

EPA "Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions"
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions#agriculture

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[Vegan Cyclist]

Oh, come on, there are only about 1.5 billion cows on the planet, we got this backpack thing no problem!

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[nowsharing]

I hope the start selling the backpacks. I have a couple of colleagues in my lab who could power a small town.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[Vegan Cyclist]

ha ha..nice. The next post asks how these amounts can actually power anything - like, what fridge uses as much electricity as a car?? By their math, the gas from a day would power a car maybe 5km. On a serious note, the article doesn't discuss how the backpack works...I see some tubes, is there surgery involved? That adds another few layers of impracticality to it all as well.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[nowsharing]

ha ha..nice. The next post asks how these amounts can actually power anything - like, what fridge uses as much electricity as a car?? By their math, the gas from a day would power a car maybe 5km. On a serious note, the article doesn't discuss how the backpack works...I see some tubes, is there surgery involved? That adds another few layers of impracticality to it all as well.

The cows have to live with tubes inserted in their intestines, and god knows where else. Don't worry though, the researchers assure the public that this vivisection is "painless" for the cows!

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh thank you captin genius. Im glad you found THE ONLY SOLUTION. You are so fuckin smart, what would we do without you? Maybe we would waste our fuckin time trying to find ways to raise cattle while producing less greenhouse gases... or maybe we would try to create artificially gestated meat... what a fool's folly! Gee wiz, thank god you came along and shut the debate DOWN.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[Solandri]

The only solution is to cut back on meat consumption

You're making the common mistake of comparing against a nonexistent zero base state. If people stopped eating meat, we'd still need to raise cattle. They provide lots of useful byproducts like lubricants, waxes, insulin, gelatin, glue, leather, etc. If we got rid of all cattle, we'd have to find other means of producing these things, which would incur other energy and material costs, perhaps higher than the costs we pay with cattle.

Even if you were able to find a zero net-cost substitute for all these materials, eliminating cattle would not necessarily decrease methane production. You have to consider the entire ecosystem, not just the cows. Without cattle, grasses would grow longer, die, and decompose naturally. Some of the byproducts of that decomposition are (drumroll...) methane and CO2. Remember, this is a closed-loop system. Just because that final step of breaking down the cellulose to extract the stored solar energy happens in a compost heap instead of inside a ruminant's digestive tract doesn't necessarily mean you've improved things.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[special_agent]

>>> "EPA "Sources of Greenhouse Gas Emissions"

For realz you are going to cite the EPA as having some sort of expertise on what is good for the environment?
Pro Tip: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08... Navajo Nation Sues E.P.A. in Poisoning of a Colorado River

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[nowsharing]

The only solution is to cut back on meat consumption

You're making the common mistake of comparing against a nonexistent zero base state. If people stopped eating meat, we'd still need to raise cattle. They provide lots of useful byproducts like lubricants, waxes, insulin, gelatin, glue, leather, etc. If we got rid of all cattle, we'd have to find other means of producing these things, which would incur other energy and material costs, perhaps higher than the costs we pay with cattle. Even if you were able to find a zero net-cost substitute for all these materials, eliminating cattle would not necessarily decrease methane production. You have to consider the entire ecosystem, not just the cows. Without cattle, grasses would grow longer, die, and decompose naturally. Some of the byproducts of that decomposition are (drumroll...) methane and CO2. Remember, this is a closed-loop system. Just because that final step of breaking down the cellulose to extract the stored solar energy happens in a compost heap instead of inside a ruminant's digestive tract doesn't necessarily mean you've improved things.

There is no fallacy to the logic behind eliminating animal agriculture for environmental reasons. If cattle ceased to be raised, you wouldn't need to produce and transport billions of pounds of corn across the continent (Cattle are not raised on grass). You also wouldn't need to water that corn or the cattle themselves. The pasture would either be returned to nature (unlikely) or used for more efficient food production. Instead of feeding cows 10-20 pounds of grain to get one pound of their flesh, you could just feed populations 10-20 pounds of grains.

Cattle are also not a clean food source, nor could they be seen as part of a healthy energy-harvesting system as you suggest. The EPA estimates that 2,500 cattle produce as much sewage waste as a city of 411,000 people (roughly Miami). That untreated sewage would no longer be dumped into the environment, thus causing dead zones and worse.

As for finding alternatives to wasteful animal-based products, what is the logic behind your assertion that there is harm in using alternative products? All of the products you listed can be made from non-animal sources.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[drinkypoo]

The only solution is to cut back on meat consumption, but Cargill won't be issuing that in a press release any time soon.

One way to make massive improvements would be to return much of middle america to its prior state:

Overall, methane emissions from bison, elk, and deer in the pre-settlement period in the contiguous United States were about 70% (medium bison population size) of the current emissions from farmed ruminants in the U.S.

That's right, when there was so much food running around the country that it was considered a nuisance, they actually farted out less methane than what we see now. Most of the nation's food is grown in California, so we could convert most of the Midwest back to Bison range (nobody wants to live there anyway) and reduce our GHG dramatically by simply not raising beef at all. Cows are especially egregious producers of Methane.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[HiThere]

My thought as well. Even in very clean environments having a catheter inserted through one's skin is quite likely to lead to a life threatening infection. And that doesn't describe any barn or pasture I've ever seen.

Re:700 million metric tons of CO2 Equivalent

[Anonymous Coward]

You must have cow-orkers at your work place, then.

Through a ... cannula?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know very many farmers that would be terribly excited about putting a cannula into their livestock's digestive tracts.

Re:Through a ... cannula?

[Z00L00K]

I agree, it's a new vector for diseases and injuries. What happens when this is ripped out of the creature due to an accident?

Somehow I'm picturing the

[Anonymous Coward]

Tilaxeu

NOT "enough to power a car"

[legRoom]

In what world is 300 litres (presumed at STP) per day of natural gas enough to power a car? Even in something rather efficient like a Honda Civic, that's still only enough for about 5 km per day, or ~2000 km per year.

[300 L/d of methane] * [0.0364 MJ/L of methane] / [34.2 MJ/L of gasoline] = [0.319 L/d of gasoline equivalent]
[0.319 L/d of gasoline] / [6 L / 100 km (fuel economy of a modern compact sedan)] = [5.32 km/d]

Re:NOT "enough to power a car"

[BlueStrat]

In what world is 300 litres (presumed at STP) per day of natural gas enough to power a car? Even in something rather efficient like a Honda Civic, that's still only enough for about 5 km per day, or ~2000 km per year.

[300 L/d of methane] * [0.0364 MJ/L of methane] / [34.2 MJ/L of gasoline] = [0.319 L/d of gasoline equivalent]
[0.319 L/d of gasoline] / [6 L / 100 km (fuel economy of a modern compact sedan)] = [5.32 km/d]

One wonders if they may have been better off instituting a new measurement of the relative GHG output of cars vs cows in 'cows per mile'.

I even have a spiffy abbreviation for this metric that's sure to be a hit among programmers: CP/M!

Strat

Re:NOT "enough to power a car"

[kybred]

Assume a spherical cow in a vacuum...

Re:NOT "enough to power a car"

[sad_]

It's enough to power a car (for a short distance).

Most methane comes from Dams not Cows

[goombah99]

According to the estimates of the INPE researchers, dams are the largest single anthropogenic source of methane, being responsible for 23% of all methane emissions due to human activities.
https://www.internationalriver...

Thus irrigation for crops is worse on the environment than cows.

Vegans and mental illness

[xtronics]

There is good evidence that vegans have higher rates of mental illness - the question is if it is a cause or an effect?

Nutrition and Health – The Association between Eating Behavior and Various Health Parameters: A Matched Sample Study

http://www.plosone.org/article...

Also - from the abstract : ...Moreover, our results showed that a vegetarian diet is associated with poorer health (higher incidences of cancer, allergies, and mental health disorders), a
higher need for health care, and poorer quality of life. Therefore, public health programs are needed in order to reduce the health risk due to nutritional factors.

Re:Vegans and mental illness

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone who is sensitive and empathetic to the plight of animals will lead a very stressed out life, leading to increased health issues.
These people don't get to choose if they are empathetic to other animals or not, they just are.
For those of us who aren't afflicted by this condition, perhaps a little sympathy would be in order...but that's fairly unlikely isn't it? If we don't give a fuck about the wellbeing of non-humans why would we give a fuck about humans? We're all just stupid animals.

Re:Vegans and mental illness

[HornWumpus]

Get them a fainting couch?

The emotionally retarded should live in a colony somewhere. With family and friends forming a cordon to keep scammers etc out. They can all sing...fucking stupid animals.

They should have simply killed their own dinner at about age 10-12 and sorted this all out.

Re:Vegans and mental illness

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a meat-eater and i care about the wellbeing for non-humans..

I prefer meat from free-ranging animals.
I prefer meat from animals that lives on their original diet... Cows should be bread on grass, not corn..
I prefer meat from animals that don't get antibiotics just to make them grow faster...

I do this because it makes the meat taste better and gives the animal a better life at the same time..... And of course.. Slaughtering should be done in a way that is as painless as possible..

I know where this is headed

[SuperKendall]

Mecha-Cow is the only result of the path they are trampling down in a panicked herd.

Can I 'gift' one of these

[Snufu]

to the guy in the adjoining cubicle? Billable to the taco truck.

Methane is shortlived

[Actually, I do RTFA]

Methane added lasts about 8 years before leaving the atmosphere. CO2 lasts orders of magnitude longer. So, while it would produce a noticeable effect to cut the methane, at this point we're just replacing 2008's methane (maybe a little more, I know the number of cows has gone up post recession, but I don't know if it fell during the recession.)

Re:Methane is shortlived

[nowsharing]

Methane added lasts about 8 years before leaving the atmosphere. CO2 lasts orders of magnitude longer. So, while it would produce a noticeable effect to cut the methane, at this point we're just replacing 2008's methane (maybe a little more, I know the number of cows has gone up post recession, but I don't know if it fell during the recession.)

"Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 on a 20 year time frame"

"Evaluating multicomponent climate change mitigation strategies requires knowledge of the diverse direct and indirect effects of emissions. Methane, ozone, and aerosols are linked through atmospheric chemistry so that emissions of a single pollutant can affect several species. We calculated atmospheric composition changes, historical radiative forcing, and forcing per unit of emission due to aerosol and tropospheric ozone precursor emissions in a coupled composition-climate model. We found that gas-aerosol interactions substantially alter the relative importance of the various emissions. In particular, methane emissions have a larger impact than that used in current carbon-trading schemes or in the Kyoto Protocol. Thus, assessments of multigas mitigation policies, as well as any separate efforts to mitigate warming from short-lived pollutants, should include gas-aerosol interactions."

From: The Journal Science: Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions
Drew T. Shindell*, Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch, Gavin A. Schmidt, Nadine Unger, Susanne E. Bauer
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only

Re:Methane is shortlived

[Actually, I do RTFA]

I'm going to assume you know what you are talking about, so to clarifiy, is the article (and you) saying "a molecule of methane emitted is 25-100x as destructive over 20 years." Because that could coexist with what I was saying. It still could indicate that the CO2 is a scarier/longer term problem.

Re:Methane is shortlived

[drinkypoo]

Christ, just read the linked story, or google up which is more harmful, or do anything else to educate yourself as your nickname would imply. Methane is removed from the environment faster, but it's such a more serious GHG than CO2 that it's still better to simply burn methane than to let it be released.

Re:Methane is shortlived

[HiThere]

Additionally, when the methane is removed from the atmosphere it is commonly by converting it into CO2. So in addition to being a worse short term problem, it's also a long term problem.

The best apparent answer is to convert forests into peat bogs. Unfortunately, the existing peat bogs are drying out and threaten to catch on fire, returning their load of Carbon to the atmosphere.

Worse, the old peat bogs have turned into coal, which is also being returned to the atmosphere. Whoops!

Re:Methane is shortlived

[Anonymous Coward]

But as long as the cycle time is short it is not important how much it hurts the environment. Look, if the methane we have today causes "100 harm" to the climate then the methane we have will still only produce "100 harm" in 8 years (if we don't start raising MORE cows). But the coal/oil will with its much longer reabsorption time will cause times "10 harm" year one ,"20 harm" year two etc. And then in a hundred years the coal will cause "1000 harm" while the cows still only cause "100 harm".

Burning fossil fuels and Cow methane are two very different problems. Even if the individual pound of methane from Cows happen to affect the climate by "1 harm" or "10 harm" doesn't change that fact.

While it is true that meat production is a huge net polluter it's irrelevant unless we have population control. If we stopped producing meat and started going Vegan instead but then let the population reach 15 billion it would still all be for naught.

wind bags

[Anonymous Coward]

Won't be long before the environuts propose this for humans

Re:wind bags

[hambone142]

I suggest we put backpacks on politician's backs with a gas tube up their asses. That would provide energy for school buses to run on vs. cars.

Buffalo

[flyingfsck]

Man, it is a good thing we shot all the buffalo. Imagine how much methane they would have released...

Re: Buffalo

[Anonymous Coward]

Your crude attempt at sarcasm is misplaced at best. The accellerated growth and dedicated agriculture that gos into modern cows almost certainly means there is a far greater output of methane than there ever would have been from any natural equivalent species on this continent.

Re:Buffalo

[h33t l4x0r]

My history teacher told me Native Americans used the whole buffalo, but what about all the farts that were wasted?

So sick of this shit

[Anonymous Coward]

Livestock displace the billions of wild animals we slaughtered.
Does cow fart really contain that much more methane than buffalo fart?

Oooooor, they could just feed the cow food that it

[Anonymous Coward]

is best adapted to eat, instead, like grasses,

Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[Powercntrl]

I'm blowing my chance at moderating this story, just so I can say this: There's not a damn thing you can say or scientific study you can point to that will make me stop eating meat. Even if it meant becoming a "second amendment person" (thanks, Trump) and hunting animals, I would. I could watch a PETA "Meat is Murder" propaganda video while chomping down on a burger and it wouldn't faze me in the least. Like religion and most republican policies, my decision to eat meat isn't based on reason or logic. It's based on a deep carnal desire to devour animal flesh, compounded with my belief that it's also delicious.

If you truly were satisfied with your lifestyle choice, you wouldn't feel the need to seek validation by attempting to convince others to come to the same conclusion.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go put a "I'm with Her" sticker on my economy car, and then order some meaty Tuscan pasta on my iPhone from Pizza Hut.

Re:Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[nowsharing]

Like religion and most republican policies, my decision to eat meat isn't based on reason or logic. It's based on a deep carnal desire to devour animal flesh, compounded with my belief that it's also delicious.

I could see how outsiders might think that the reaction against animal agriculture is some kind of liberal BS, but the blame for the situation should always be equally placed on both sides of the aisle. Liberals cut just as many, if not more, corrupt deals with big ag as conservatives. The disappearance of small farmers is one of the most visible results. Even Gov. Schwarzenegger is campaigning hard against big ag right now, for both environmental (water shortages in particular) and health reasons (cancer, atherosclerosis, etc). I've met a lot of conservative vegans who usually come from families affected by cancer and heart disease. They just started looking in to the facts, which are non-political in nature.

Also, vegans are overwhelmingly vegans for health reasons, so it's not like they want to take away your right to eat meat. Those kind of complaints come from the often accusatory animal-right activist extremes of veganism.

Re:Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[Dog-Cow]

In which Universe do you live where vegans are overwhelmingly vegans for health reasons? I live in a country with a relatively high per-capita count of vegans, and I've never heard one say they chose that diet for health reasons.

Re:Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[pakar]

Would like to moderate this post with "Tasty"...

Re:Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[nowsharing]

In which Universe do you live where vegans are overwhelmingly vegans for health reasons? I live in a country with a relatively high per-capita count of vegans, and I've never heard one say they chose that diet for health reasons.

There usually isn't one reason that someone does anything. In the list of reasons why people go vegan, you'll find that about half choose veganism for health reasons, among other reasons, in most modern surveys.

Re:Ugh, the vegan preaching...

[wept]

> There's not a damn thing you can say or scientific study you can point to that will make me stop eating meat.

This is such a weird thing to say so proudly.

Sheep

[godel_56]

Australian researchers have developed an inoculation against some of the most common methanogenic bacteria found in sheep, supposedly reducing their methane output by about a third. It also makes a small amount of extra food available for the sheep to utilize. I don't know if this has made it out of the laboratory and into farms as yet (if ever).

Re:Sheep

[Reziac]

Interesting from a grazing efficiency standpoint. I do wonder what it does to total gut balance and mortality in the event of scours or other pathogenic processes.

But as to the nominal topic... in North America, there used to be about 20% more bison than there are cattle today. Bison mass about double what cattle do, and eat proportionately more -- therefore farted more, probably producing about twice as much methane in total. Somehow this failed to cause global warming.

A steep eco-tax on meat would be better.

[Qbertino]

How about paying for the abysmal eco-balance of meat production with a tax on meat instead of such harebrained ideas.
After all, we tax gas and cars, don't we?

Re:A steep eco-tax on meat would be better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't we round up all the vegetarians and hipsters as a cheap pork substitute?

They're already weak and malnourished, they won't put up much of a fight. The ecological benefits from a massive reduction in bullshit combined with less organic produce wastage will easily halve methane output worldwide.

If we then attach gasbag backpacks to all the fat cows in the USA as they enter Walmart, we can get it below 5% of current annual production.

Re:A steep eco-tax on meat would be better.

[Anonymous Coward]

Then i hope they will tax the vegetables to cover:
- Increases requirements for water alot there by increasing CO2 pollution - http://lmgtfy.com/?q=dams+co2+...
- Pesticide-pollution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
- Fertilizer-pollution - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Raise livestock close to a water-source and fields of grass they can eat.... Ie free-ranging...
http://www.opb.org/news/blog/e...

Then eat meat, fish, plants in a mix..... In winter when it's hard to get fresh vegetables eat more meat.. When it's easy to get vegetables then eat that... Eat locally produced things instead of stuff produced on the other side of the world.....

Distraction

[dbIII]

Blaming carbon dioxide on agriculture is just a distraction.

Re:Distraction

[Z00L00K]

I agree, it's something that is driven by green party fanatics that don't have a clue at all about reality. Humans have been farming for a long time, and we have a lot fewer wetlands today than we had a millennium ago. Wetlands are a primary source for methane. So it all evens out on that side.

Re:Distraction

[dbIII]

it's something that is driven by green party fanatics

You are looking in the wrong place. Despite being a very radical thing to do the people pushing this distraction call themselves "conservatives" - big city based right wing assholes.

enough to power a car ?

[ElRabbit]

But caws do not know how to drive !

300 liters of methane a day, enough to power a car

[Anonymous Coward]

so wisconsin dairy farms become the 'new' north dakota shale.......

Is there a gaseous form of carbon?

[tipo159]

From the summary:

Methane, like carbon, is a greenhouse gas

Carbon is a solid, not a gas.

A molecule of methane includes carbon.

Or, is carbon now synonymous with carbon dioxide?

Pro Tip: confiscate Al Gore's passport

[special_agent]

Not an expert on bovine methane emission, but globe-trotting, jet setter eco millionaires (and their tools) junketing the globe lecturing the 99% on what type of food is sustainable is not sustainable.

Re:Pro Tip: confiscate Al Gore's passport

[HiThere]

Maybe they could fly in the solar powered airplanes.

Re:Pro Tip: confiscate Al Gore's passport

[Kvasio]

actually, a single solution for bovine-generated methane (for example - a bacteria lowering emission) would have much cheaper "per unit" cost than "fixing" the next factory.

putting indians to shame

[Tom]

You know how they say that in ancient times, hunter-gatherer societies used all the parts of an animal? Very soon we can put them to shame. :-)

Re:putting indians to shame

[Anonymous Coward]

We very likely already do... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

stick what where? moo!

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone please feed this vegan to the wolves before it finds our steaks!

fish

[Anonymous Coward]

I would have thought meat came later,anyone living near water would have been eating shell fish and fish etc,as well as seaweeds etc.
I thought the latest theory is that early man navigated around coastlines,rather than trek across expanses of unknown territory,where you might find something to eat tomorrow,or you might not,compared with coast lines where you have to be very unlucky not to be able to find something to eat..

Hand-Wringing

[pipingguy]

All this worrying, so little time.

Do your part, veggies

[Anonymous Coward]

Eat a cow! Quit fucking slackin.

Carbon is a gas now?

[The Mysterious Dr. X]

Methane, like carbon, is a greenhouse gas, but methane's global warming impact per molecule is 25 times greater than carbon's, according to the EPA.

I assume they mean carbon dioxide, right? Because if they're talking about pure carbon, I can't imagine it stays airborne for long enough to have much of an impact.

Maybe that's why it's so much less effective than methane.

It's surgically attached.

[Anonymous Coward]

Just FYI, they surgically attach the piping to the cow's stomachs.

Not Hooking Up That Hose!

[BrendaEM]

Not me, you have to hook up the hose that connects the cow to the backpack.

Or eat less beef

[Anonymous Coward]

Prevention is better than a cure.

Who dreams up this crap

[Anonymous Coward]

As a testing method perhaps the backpack makes sense, but as a real world solution I doubt surgery on billions of cattle is all that viable. Most farm animals are raised in large canvas barns anymore here in the US. Methane also has a tendency to rise, so simply design the airflow of the structure to allow the methane to concentrate in a holding area at the top of the structure, pump it off into holding tanks and use it for something.

We're worrying about the wrong critter

[Cro Magnon]

I'm sure that the average politician emits at least 3 times the methane of the average cow.

Less Gassy Cows

[Anonymous Coward]

Gassy cows come from being fed rich grain. You can solve the problem by letting them eat the grasses for which they were designed. This is a lot cheaper solution. Healthier too.

More veggie talk

[peawormsworth]

I call BS on any person who claims: "We" need to do more about global warming... and at the same time includes beef or dairy in their diet.

Welcome to the Meatrix

[Anonymous Coward]

Bonus points if they collect enough methane gas to power their own slaughter and delivery...