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Huge Reduction in Meat-Eating 'Essential' To Avoid Climate Breakdown (theguardian.com)

Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's impact on the environment. From a report: In western countries, beef consumption needs to fall by 90% and be replaced by five times more beans and pulses. The research [PDF] also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet's ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades. Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets.

77 of 629 comments (clear)

  1. Better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Rather than exterminating hundreds of existing species of animals, how about we reduce our population growth to a number less than zero, and bring our own population down to sustainable levels?

    What happens when we get to 20 billion and can no longer subsist on soy protein and rice rations? Going after all of these leftist utopian dreams of state control over personal living is not going to solve the problem of how to feed an unsustainably-growing human population.

    1. Re:Better idea by olsmeister · · Score: 2

      Random lottery. Every year 3% of the population is harvested and eaten.

    2. Re:Better idea by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Rather than exterminating hundreds of existing species of animals, how about we reduce our population growth to a number less than zero, and bring our own population down to sustainable levels?

      What happens when we get to 20 billion and can no longer subsist on soy protein and rice rations? Going after all of these leftist utopian dreams of state control over personal living is not going to solve the problem of how to feed an unsustainably-growing human population.

      Except our current economic models of "growth" rely on undermining the value of labor and increasing consumption by more and more people to justify greater concentrations of wealth among the hereditary class.

      If we need the occasional war to thin the herd then the rich oligarchs can wait it out in some isolated corners of the world where they can "live a simple life" and write books about how it is all the fault of the dead poor people that created an sustained their extreme wealth in the first place yet were somehow expected not to kill one another fighting over the scraps.

  2. Cue the next disaster by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2, Insightful

    One hysterical scare story after another, all of which require drastic damage to the civilized nations.

            Does anyone still fail to grasp that this is about centralized control of individual behavior instead of the environment?

    1. Re:Cue the next disaster by AmiMoJo · · Score: 3, Insightful

      What stage is this again? We had denial, then we can't do anything about it anyway, then we can do something but China won't, and now it's down to wild conspiracy theories...

      Is this the last step? I hope so.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
    2. Re:Cue the next disaster by jeff4747 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Does anyone still fail to grasp that this is about centralized control of individual behavior instead of the environment?

      Option 1: the published science is actually true. (And since it's all published, you can feel free to replicate the studies and show they are wrong).

      Option 2: There is a shadowy cabal that consists of millions of people who all are out to destroy your individuality because of their perverse hatred of you. And despite there being millions of people who participate in this conspiracy, nobody has leaked evidence of the cabal's existence. Including the massive profit that a leaker would receive from all the industries that are desperately searching to discredit everything in this area of research.

      One of these options seems just a tad more far-fetched than the other.

  3. Doomed to fail by sjbe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Huge reductions in meat-eating are essential to avoid dangerous climate change, according to the most comprehensive analysis yet of the food system's impact on the environment.

    Asking people to voluntarily change their diet away from things they find tasty is doomed to failure. McDonald's isn't a multi-billion dollar company because people like eating broccoli. Any politician that suggests regulation of what foods people can buy is going to be out of a job rather quickly.

    1. Re:Doomed to fail by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      Synthetic meat is just silly. You have a bunch of muscle cells, and you feed them nutrients that they can live and grow on, and then you eat those cells. Why not skip all of that, and just eat the same nutrients yourself ?

      Real meat makes sense, because the muscle cells get fed real cow's blood, with immense complexity of nutrients that we cannot duplicate.

    2. Re:Doomed to fail by DaFallus · · Score: 2

      Then I guess its so long, and thanks for all the beef.

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    3. Re:Doomed to fail by gweihir · · Score: 2

      Power without accountability. Corrupts masses just the same as it corrupts individuals.

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    4. Re:Doomed to fail by skam240 · · Score: 2

      Of course there's abolutly no drive for creating a binding global government body to dictate what people can or cant eat. You're just making shit up.

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    5. Re:Doomed to fail by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      1) humans have difficulty digesting algae

      They don't feed algae to the synthetic meat cells.

      The question is whether it's worth the cost and whether the blood is actually relevant for flavor development (it isn't).

      No, it's relevant for the growth of the meat cells. They need all the proper nutrients. Also, these nutrients are then transformed to the nutrients in the final meat product. For instance, vitamin B12 in meat is required to make the cells grow (it's a vital part of their energy system). The muscle/fat cells don't make B12 themselves, it comes from the blood and is actually made by intestinal bacteria. When we eat the meat, we ingest that B12 again. If you grow meat in a petri dish, you need to add that B12 (there is no B12 in algae, for instance). That's just one example. Real blood contains many other nutrients as well that are necessary for the cells to grow.

      The main issue with synthetic meat at the moment is texture

      For you maybe. I care more about the nutritional value.

    6. Re:Doomed to fail by Brett+Buck · · Score: 2

      Except that that is *exactly* what this panel is suggesting. Keep up the good work!

    7. Re:Doomed to fail by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      You could make the same argument about most foods. Why spend time combining ingredients and preparing stuff when you can just eat each part individually or throw it all in a blender?

      Clearly there is a demand for things that are delicious.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  4. Quickly by Kazymyr · · Score: 2

    Invest in Beano!

    --
    I hadn't known there were so many idiots in the world until I started using the Internet -Stanislaw Lem
  5. Horse-manure prediction by mi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The "Horse-manure panic" was caused, at the end of the 19th century, by the "predictions" that "By the late 1800s, large cities all around the world were “drowning in horse manure”.

    The times have changed, but the term "horse manure" (equivalent in this context to the more common "bullshit") remains strangely apropos...

    --
    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    1. Re: Horse-manure prediction by jd · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Problem is, the population changed what they were doing, in part to avoid the problem.

      You know, if you stop driving at full tilt towards the brick wall, then the prediction that if you'd contributed you'd have hit it doesn't apply.

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
    2. Re: Horse-manure prediction by mi · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Problem is, the population changed what they were doing, in part to avoid the problem.

      a) That's not a problem; b) people switched to cars because they are better.

      The point is, we do not need to use the force of government to compel ourselves to change. And this opportunity to force others into doing, what they believe is good, is the real motivation behind the noises being made by "global warming" crowd, 99% of them far-Left partisans.

      --
      In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
    3. Re: Horse-manure prediction by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

      b) people switched to cars because they are better.

      And one of the primary ways they are better is they do not produce horse manure. And yes, this was actually a perk when cars were first becoming popular.

      The point is, we do not need to use the force of government to compel ourselves to change

      Sometimes we don't, and sometimes we do. The tragedy of the commons is a real thing and it can't always be fixed by asking nicely.

      And this opportunity to force others into doing, what they believe is good, is the real motivation behind the noises being made by "global warming" crowd, 99% of them far-Left partisans.

      Nope. There's plenty of people that understand climate change is happening are not "far-Left". Or even "left".

      But in the US we have a very large industry that has been created to convince a subset of our population that climate change isn't actually happening. Instead, there's a massive secret cabal out to harm you, personally via an incredibly awkward and inefficient plan. And despite the massive size of this cabal, nobody has leaked proof of its existence. Even though such a leaker would reap massive financial rewards from all the industries that don't want climate change to exist. This also ignores there are far easier and more direct ways to actually accomplish this supposed goal of hurting you, personally.

      Despite the fact that this story is about as unrealistic as "NASA faked the moon landing!", it has sold surprisingly well to certain groups who now cling to it as a religious belief.

  6. The question never asked by ToddN · · Score: 3, Insightful

    You see all kinds of articles bandying about the "9 billion people by 2050" figure.

    Not a single one ever asks "wait a minute, maybe there shouldn't BE 9 billion people by then?"

    1. Re: The question never asked by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If talking is dictating, democracy is slavery and war is peace.

      Besides, if you want to talk about dictating, start with the religious and the Tea Party. They're the ones who will not tolerate dissension and who demand everything is their way.

      In Britain, it's the religious who are threatening to overthrow May's government if they don't have things their way.

      When was the last time you heard threats to depose a government by a geneticist or mathematician?

      --
      It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  7. Not going to work by pak9rabid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Getting large swaths of people to agree on anything, much less actually changing their ways, isn’t going to happen, and any plan that relies on that will fail miserably and shouldn’t even be considered as a viable option.

    What’s ultimately going to save us from climate change are advances in technology (green renewable energy, electric vehicles, carbon capture devices, etc) that will allow people to largely preserve their current way of lives. Our focus should be on advancing these technologies and breaking the barriers that are currently making them difficult or impossible to implement.

  8. Re:KNEW it. by damn_registrars · · Score: 4, Insightful

    This is really simple math here. To feed livestock, we have to first raise plants. To raise those plants we have to invest time, water, space, fertilizer, etc. Then we have to get the plants to the animals to feed them. We know that in most cases we get about 1 pound of meat from an animal for every 10 pounds of plants we put into them, and that's completely ignoring the economic costs of getting the plants to them and everything else that goes in to that.

    We may recall that for a while we tried feeding the fattiest part of the cows back to other cows to speed up development, it turned out that didn't work out very well (economics not even considered in that part).

    If we're lucky though we'll be able to scale up lab-grown meat within the next few decades and we can get the benefits of meat without the costs of raising entire animals. While we do a good job of using a lot of the parts of the animals that are not usually considered edible, we still lose out on the deal.

    And this is coming from someone who really would love a good steak. I eat a fair bit of meat but I realize we may reach a tipping point here.

    --
    Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
  9. Or limit population growth... by siege72 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Switching to a plant based diet will reduce your carbon footprint by less than one ton/year. Having one fewer child will reduce it by _60_ tons per year.

    Source: http://www.sciencemag.org/news...

    The CO2 impact of children is the equivalent of burning a 55 gallon drum of oil, per week, per child.

    1. Re:Or limit population growth... by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      The earth could easily support ten times current population if people stopped eating meat.

      Total bullshit. Meat makes up a small percentage of all the resources we use up.

      Even without meat, we can't even support current population.

  10. And the real problem: 10 Billion people by gweihir · · Score: 5, Insightful

    If the human race does not get that problem under control fast, nothing else will save it.

    --
    Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    1. Re:And the real problem: 10 Billion people by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

      If the human race does not get that problem under control fast, nothing else will save it.

      This is perhaps the problem that humans are best equipped to handle. I mean, we could wipe out billions of people in less than an hour. ;)

      --
      Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
  11. Re:Save The Planet! by ToddN · · Score: 2

    Nah, I'd rather that the 2.5 billion future assholes in the pipeline just never get born.

  12. Re:Laughing out loud by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    PETA is on board the global warming hoax, apparently.

    You tell'em Billybob! I live here in Buttfuck, Potatohoe, US of Fucking A! Ain't no one gonna take my gas/Diesel guzzling pickup truck, guns, burgers, Bible, and football! It's all a hoax to destroy Capitalism!

    And those Liberuls, gays, and immigrants want to take all that away from us God Fear'in 'Muricans!

    I'm just glad that there's a billionaire who inherited most of his money in the Whitehouse who is gonna watch out for my white working class ass interests! You know he will!

    I can tell! My standard of living isn't declining as fast as we originally thought. And "free" health insurance? Fuck that! The free markets will take care it! So what that the insurance in my Medicaid non-expansion state costs twice as much as a make in a month. Our Republicans had to put a stop to that Socialist Obamacare and not accept federal money to help make it affordable. Because Barack HUSSEIN Obama! (Notice how clever I sound when I yell his middle name like it means something bad.)

    Yours,

    Elroy (Bubba) Jediah Jones.
    "Government Sucks!"

    *Posted from the Libraries free computers*

  13. Where did this line of thinking originate? by anegg · · Score: 2

    Let me guess... the folks who already think everyone else should stop eating meat, I bet.

  14. Re:KNEW it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Don't even need the lab grown meat. If impossible foods continues its expansion (see impossible burger at white castle) then the plant based meat substitute (that really does mimic beef scarily well) then the gound beef industry can switch over. This will not replace the fancy full cuts of beef; but, by percentage, that's the small slice of the beef industry.

    Now, getting the beef industry to relinquish the ground beef market is a different hurdle entirely...

  15. Re:KNEW it. by olsmeister · · Score: 2

    we may reach a tipping point here

    Tipping? Cows? I see what you did there! Hats off to you my friend.

  16. Re:KNEW it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is not a lie, but an untruth.

    We don't need to plant grain, to feed cattle. We can just let them eat natural grasses -- they taste better too.

    What's driving this behaviour isn't that it is required to feed grain, but that it is required in the current competitive loop! We currently have waaaaay more in the way of crops, than we need. 1/3 of our grain rots in the silos, and massive -- I repeat MASSIVE amounts of ground is fallow. Nothing planted, because it's not worth it with the price of grains so low.

    And this is in a market where large quantities of grain is fed to animals as well! Imagine the drop in prices on various grains, if we switched entirely to grass fed tomorrow!

    In my area of the world, most animals are fed hay. Hay that grows without fertilizer (people rotate crops, instead of fertilizing), and there's no shortage of water. Most don't irrigate at all.

    In this context? It's very close to a zero cost to the environment to eat meat. Might even be less, since the cost of trucking grain (less dense) is about space -- and meat packs more protein and energy into a smaller space.

    The great plains in the US are still there. They could easily start to feed cattle, instead of growing corn for gas. And if we stopped the absurd habit of making oil from soy, canola, and corn? And instead just ate animal fat/oils? Guess what, we'd be fine.

    It's all backwards. And every year more and more stories come out, about how animal fat isn't bad for you -- but, that various industries wanted animal fat to look bad.

  17. Re:Stop eating meat? by Oswald+McWeany · · Score: 4, Funny

    Over my dead body.

    Depends on how well cooked your body is.

    --
    "That's the way to do it" - Punch
  18. Re: KNEW it. by Miamicanes · · Score: 4, Informative

    We might not eat 100% of a cow, pig, etc... but the net waste is practically zero. AFAIK, practically every cell of a cow now has commercial value for something. A friend who once had a summer job at a slaughterhouse told me that most of the trash leaving a slaughterhouse comes from garbage cans in the offices & break room, and most of the remainder comes from the janitorial or maintenance departments (detergent containers, old knives, etc) & ends up getting recycled.

  19. Re:KNEW it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Of course it makes sense to feed lifestock with food that we humans can't digest anyway. Cows, chicken, sheep, goat, and rabbits are ideal candidates here. Having spent a third of my life on a homestead, I understand pretty well what kind of effort goes into growing 'meat'. We used chicken and rabbits as our biological lawn mowers, that would eat grasses and shrubs that would have been otherwise useless to us. And they provided us with eggs and meat. Meat is a nice source of food. You can cure it and make it last for a long time, when you need it. For example in winter, when other food sources are scarce.
    But if you do it this way, the meat 'grows' pretty slow. And that is the central issue here. We can't satisfy the gluttony that has been growing in the western world by letting lifestock feed off natural resources. In order to make them grow fast enough and in large enough numbers we have to grow their food on fields, where we could otherwise grow fruit and vegetable for human consumption.

  20. Welp earth is fucked by aepervius · · Score: 2

    There is no way whatsoever I am giving up meat. I am ready to reduce many things leading to CO2. But food enjoyment ? I am rioting if anybody try to pass a law stopping beef raising.

    --
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    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  21. Re: KNEW it. by tysonedwards · · Score: 4, Insightful

    But, isn't it also true that the vast, vast majority of the polluters is energy, manufacturing, and transportation? The environmental cost of food of any source is a rounding error compared to the energy industry. Transitioning to cleaner sources of energy - not this clean coal that is being pushed in the US - would be far more effective. This isnâ(TM)t a race of meters but of miles and these sorts of optimizations are far too little and too late to the point of being distracting of the real issues by making suburban liberals feel like âoeI can make a difference by eating healthyâ while driving to the store in their Subaru hatchback.

    --
    Thirty four characters live here.
  22. Re:KNEW it. by bluefoxlucid · · Score: 4, Informative

    Actually, something like 70% of our agricultural land isn't useful for growing human food. It's used for pasture, hay, and feed grain because you throw stuff out there and then go crudely harvest it. Pigs will eat corn cobs, so you can just dump an entire uprooted corn plant in front of the pig and that's that.

    That land isn't economically-viable for food production: you'd have to use a hell of a lot more irrigation, fertilization, and pesticides, with lower yields despite all that, plus more human investment. The amount of greenhouse gas and runoff involved per unit food produced would be massive. Instead, we'd pave over it, build cities, and employ the labor in new factories--assuming we could find a way to feed people.

    It has been observed that some regions grow beef entirely on waste byproducts, with 100% of their feed coming from corn stalks, wheat stalks, and the like. More often, it's that plus pasture. Irrigation and fertilization of feed crop is either not used or not used as intensively as for produce, and the use of cover crop also provides an alternative to moisture retention, fertilization, and weed control: legumes add nitrogen to the soil between crop cycles, vetch crowds out weeds aggressively, and any dense cover planting (including plantings during crop growth) retains moisture. Such cover crops also provide feed and forage for livestock.

  23. Re:KNEW it. by Mashiki · · Score: 2

    Thing is, "feeding the fattiest part of the cows" back to cattle was known as a bad idea for centuries. You can see it in older farm literature and so on with cattle having those symptoms. It's kinda like retroactively looking back through old medical reports from 150 years ago, when you see thing like "bad air" "swamp gas" and so on, and people suddenly realize that it wasn't either case but things like malaria. Anyway, ask yourself why it became such a big thing to do...mainly starting back in the 1980's. Give you a hint, but it was because governments lowered regulations allowing it due to demands from companies engaged in the factory farm business. This was right around the time that those factory farms started demanding that pickers, and so on should only be paid by weight and not hourly. Anyone who say picked tobacco, fruit, or whatnot back in the 1980's can remember that amazingly swift change all across the board, then the cries of "but we CAN'T find anyone who wants to work for $28/day. So we HAVE to import labor."

    To be honest? Genetic engineering of livestock will likely be the next frontier, much like the "green revolution" back 40-50 years ago. Thing is, can you get the stupid people and environmentalist groups to stop crying over GMO crops, livestock, and so on, making up bullshit and letting millions of people starve to death in some type of malthusian fantasy and believing that they're good people because of it? Cause that's one of the real problems right now. Greenpeace for example would rather people be blind, or die of starvation.

    --
    Om, nomnomnom...
  24. Citation needed by sjbe · · Score: 2

    I dunno, worked okay with junk food taxes in some places.

    Name one place where taxes resulted in a massive decrease in junk food consumption.

    But really the better solution is synthetic meat. Lower environmental impact, fewer antibiotics and other additives, and eventually should be a lot cheaper.

    Note that Better Tasting is not among the items you listed. Until better tasting is #1 on the list it's a waste of money, brains, and time even if you manage to convince people that the ick factor doesn't matter.

  25. Re:KNEW it. by cayenne8 · · Score: 2

    Don't even need the lab grown meat. If impossible foods continues its expansion (see impossible burger at white castle) then the plant based meat substitute (that really does mimic beef scarily well) then the gound beef industry can switch over. This will not replace the fancy full cuts of beef; but, by percentage, that's the small slice of the beef industry.

    Now, getting the beef industry to relinquish the ground beef market is a different hurdle entirely...

    You don't have to get the beef industry to stop grinding beef....just make the artificial stuff insanely cheap and the masses will largely run to that.

    Personally, I'd pay the higher prices still for the real stuff.

    I figure we already have enough chemical laden, over processed foods getting into my diet anyway, I'm trying to actively avoid them by mostly cooking at home, but when you dine out, well, you inevitably get some.

    But, make the artificial stuff good, and the masses will flock to it, and those with a bit more disposable income and taste will still get the real stuff.

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
  26. Re:If God didn't want us to eat animals... by jcr · · Score: 3, Informative

    The population will level off as prosperity increases. Japan and several European countries are already below replacement levels.

    -jcr

    --
    The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
  27. No thanks... by ewhenn · · Score: 2, Insightful

    From the Article:
    "Feeding a world population of 10 billion is possible, but only if we change the way we eat and the way we produce food,” said Prof Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.


    Yeah, sorry, I'm not interested in changing my food consumption so that people in other countries can have more kids than they can generate resources to care for. I delayed having kids until I was able provide a stable home and adequate resources to raise them, it was a conscious choice. Sorry, but I'm not going to change my ways just because some people who didn't think things through are in a bad spot. How about if you live in a desert you don't have 5 kids?

    1. Re:No thanks... by AmiMoJo · · Score: 2

      That's not the issue. It's not that they can't grow enough food, it's that if everyone eats lots of meat the planet can't sustain the number of food animals and the amount of methane that they produce.

      So either you are going to have to tell other people "sorry, I got here first and you will just have to do without meat, now excuse my while I enjoy this steak" or we all get together and find some other solution.

      Fortunately synthetic meat looks like it could solve a lot of these issues and be just as delicious, if not more so.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  28. Re:KNEW it. by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    The ground beef industry uses the waste products from the fancy cuts of beef industry. It's an almost free product.

  29. Re: Laughing out loud by jd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    This would be the hoax started in 1890 by a global elite that didn't exist for another hundred years, thus proving Doctor Who is real.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  30. Re: KNEW it. by religionofpeas · · Score: 3

    According to IPCC, CO2 contributes 3.5 times as much as methane. And only part of the methane comes from cow farts.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

  31. Re:If God didn't want us to eat animals... by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Half of Africa is getting ready to migrate to Europe and Europe doesn't have the determination to stop them. Partly because the media keeps screaming about climate refugees while their reduction in per capita water resources because of population growth dwarfs that because of climate change.

  32. Another false binary choice by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Look, the world is not binary. It's not 100 percent this way or 0 percent this way.

    It's a scale.

    The probability is that less than 10 percent of current meat eaters of beef will become vegetarian, and most of those due to heart attacks.

    A more likely scenario is if 90 percent of current beef consumers replace beef for all but one to two meals a week, and increase the amount of vegetables, fruits, and nuts gradually over time. It's fairly easy to change your diet slowly, experimenting with different choices, and ignoring all those ads on TV that try to get you to eat beef as manly, when actually any of us who grew up in the boonies know it's more manly to eat bison that grow up on scrub land, and learn how to eat a varied diet.

    --
    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  33. Re:KNEW it. by MobyDisk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    We know that in most cases we get about 1 pound of meat from an animal for every 10 pounds of plants we put into them, and that's completely ignoring the economic costs of getting the plants to them and everything else that goes in to that.

    Aha! But what if getting the plants to them was free? And what if the pound of meat was more nutritious than a pound of plant?

    The reason humans started domesticating livestock is that we don't digest grass very well. But livestock can digest grass and turn it into fertilizer, milk, meat, and work. There are places where it is environmentally and economically more sustainable to raise ruminants than to raise plants. The midwest of the united states, for example, is filled with grasslands where these animals natively thrive. The problem is that these animals are so tasty that humans decided to engage in the unsustainable process you described in order to make more of them. We grow plants elsewhere, truck it to the livestock, then gather burn the fertilizer from the livestock, then mine some coal or metal from yet another place, then derive fertilizer from the mine, truck it back to the plants so we can grow more of them, ...

    But a certain amount of this is actually okay. The 10 points of plants to 1 point of meat thing oversimplifies the process. We should be producing meat where meat is viable, and plants where plants are viable.

  34. Per this TED Talk, this is 100% backwards by bjdevil66 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Per this TED Talk, this is 100% backwards. We need to eat MORE cows.

    1. Re:Per this TED Talk, this is 100% backwards by danlip · · Score: 2

      Good link, but he is really saying we need better livestock management, not more livestock. We can use the livestock we have on marginal lands to improve the land and the climate; at the same time we get rid of the feed lots that are raising grain fed cattle.

  35. Re:Synthetic meat by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    Well, to be fair we cannot duplicate it now but that isn't evidence that we never could do so.

    The important part is to realize that the industry has no incentive. Look at baby formula. Everybody is apparently happy with current product, even though something simple as fatty acid profile from breast milk isn't duplicated. Instead, industry uses cheapest oils they can find to meet minimum standards.

    I agree, maybe with billions of investment, we can make an expensive duplication of real blood. In practice, they'll make something that's as cheap as possible that does the job well enough that people aren't dying too soon after they eat it. Preferably addictive.

  36. Re: Save The Planet! by jd · · Score: 2

    People aren't equal, and one person is truly insignificant.

    What we need is to greatly reduce unnecessary duplication of genes. You might find a hundred schizophrenics useful, or a thousand, but not a quarter billion.

    You certainly don't need three or four billion neurotypicals. I suspect one is sufficient, since normal genes will exist dispersed across everyone else.

    As long as all useful mutations are represented (schizophrenia, bipolar, autism, depression, synaesthesia, tetrachromatism - these are all useful, as are many others) then you don't need specific combinations in individuals.

    Individuals have limited worth, there are no souls and acquired knowledge can be acquired through books. You still need people, but people aren't the same as individuals.

    Indeed, as the body is a federation of many organisms - you are a gestalt, a superorganism - neither you nor I are individuals.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  37. Re:KNEW it. by Darinbob · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Not really, because so many plants are used to raise meat animals. Think of animals raised for meat as middle-men. For the same amount of calories there would be fewer overall plants consumed if you ate the plants directly rather than going through the meat middleman.

  38. Meat Made US What We Are by sycodon · · Score: 4, Informative

    As a new study in Nature makes clear, not only did processing and eating meat come naturally to humans, it’s entirely possible that without an early diet that included generous amounts of animal protein, we wouldn’t even have become human—at least not the modern, verbal, intelligent humans we are.

    Layman Terms

    If you want to get into the weed

    --
    When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  39. The 97% of scientists by rsilvergun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    who agree that climate change is both real and a threat seem to fail to grasp that. Here's the obligatory XKCD comic

    The ruling class has been able to keep the pleebs in line for thousands of years without Climate Change. They've got much, much better tactics to use than a complex boogie man like Climate Change. There's religion, racism, classism, war. All are much more effective at controlling a population. Easier to understand and proven to work. Hell, ignoring the damage from Climate Change is a better bet. It'll result in rampant food shortages, which are always an effective way to keep the working class in line (so long as you control who eats, which the ruling class does).

    I don't know if you really believe what you wrote, but, well, this is a science forum, and the science is settled. There's some details to work out, but they're details. Go do some reading on google, and step outside the right wing blogosphere and into actual scientific papers.

    --
    Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
  40. Opportunity cost by Solandri · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Study suffers from a common mistake - failing to account for opportunity cost. It incorrectly compares the environmental impact of livestock versus no livestock.

    A proper comparison takes into account opportunity cost - the next most likely alternative. In this case, if we reduced meat consumption, we wouldn't be raising huge amounts of cattle. But neither would we be hunting large grazing herbivores to extinction for meat. Meaning the reduction in cattle would be offset by an increase in buffalo, wild oxen, yak, deer (elk, moose), wild goats, etc. And aside from agricultural runoff and antibiotics, the net environmental impact of the change would be zero.

    It also fails to realize that almost all population growth is in developing countries, whereas most meat consumption is in developed countries. In fact several developed nations are experiencing population declines . You cannot take characteristics of the population with nearly zero population growth (rate of meat consumption), and apply it to the totally different population experiencing large population growth. The countries with large population growth are mostly poor nations where people live off subsistence diets consisting of grains and starches. In fact if one were to apply the study's flawed reasoning here, one would conclude that eating meat correlates with reduced population growth. And therefore to prevent the problems caused by a growing population, we need to get more people to eat meat.

  41. Re: KNEW it. by funny_smell · · Score: 2

    Ahh, but methane is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

    The (much) bigger radiative forcing of methane is already accounted for in the 3.5 times influence of CO2

  42. Re:KNEW it. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Our society has "advanced" to the point where the majority of the people in big cities have no clue how food is created. If we'd get out of our sterile, windowless office cubicles and actually travel around the country and observe the realities of our world, it'd be obvious that there are VAST stretches of land that do nothing but grow otherwise worthless grass and weeds that humans are not built for eating, yet are perfectly suitable for ruminant herds of cattle. This is converting inedible biomass into edible meat.

    The idea that we need to force everyone into a vegetarian diet in order to produce enough food to feed the world is outrageous. It's counter-productive, as switching everyone to a strictly vegetarian diet would actually REDUCE food supplies because now you can't make use of the worthless grass and weeds.

  43. Re:KNEW it. by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The nutritional content of a gram of beef is far, far higher than the nutritional content of a gram of grass that cows eat.

    This is because cows live off fat. The plenitude of stomachs allows the bugs to consume the fiber and turn it into short chain fatty acids, which the cow absorbs.

    A unit area of grassland supporting one cow, with the cow being eaten or milked yields more human nutrition per unit time than planting grains and eating them.

    Then there's the issue of killing all the wildlife to turn grassland into cropland that requires carbon-heavy fertilizing - you aren't going to fertilize with shit if you aren't eating cows.

    Or you can believe unscientific nonsense.

     

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  44. Re: KNEW it. by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

    Ahh, but methane is a MUCH more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.

    That has already been discounted in their numbers (look at the numbers in the column called "radiative forcing")

  45. Re:Laughing out loud by lgw · · Score: 4, Insightful

    "Aren't those rednecks funny with their redneck culture, they're not like real people"
    "Aren't those gays funny with their gay culture, they're not like real people"
    "Aren't those Jews funny with their Jewish culture, they're not like real people"
    "Aren't those Blacks funny with their Black culture, they're not like real people"

    None of these statements is OK. None of those jokes are funny. It is never OK to "unpeople" someone. It's not a fair tool in a political argument.

    Anyone who reads history has seen what lies at the end of that path, and it's not a destination we want to revisit.

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  46. Re:KNEW it. by Cyberax · · Score: 2

    Except that most cows are not grazing outside on the fields, they are eating grain or specially grown alfalfa.

  47. Re:KNEW it. by TechyImmigrant · · Score: 2

    So they get fat (with the wrong type of fat) and sick. That's cows in the US.
    Grains fatten humans too. Again, the US leads the way.

     

    --
    I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
  48. Re:If God didn't want us to eat animals... by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

    And Europe needs those immigrants because the internal birth rate is below replacement rate.

    Japan's economy has been in deep trouble for the last few decades because their birth rate is below replacement and they more-or-less do not allow immigration.

    As for Africa itself, birth rate is plummeting. It was quite high before, so it still has a ways to go.

  49. Re:KNEW it. by q_e_t · · Score: 2, Interesting

    It depends where/how. If you are talking sheep on steep uplands raised for meat, you aren't going to really be replacing that with crops, so you might continue to raise sheep that way, but you might reduce corn production for feeding beef cattle, although you might continue to raise corn-fed chicken. There are some instances where grazing is required to maintain certain habitats (some upland ones being examples).

  50. Um.. No.. by thesupraman · · Score: 2

    Just as soon as you grow the required multiple stomachs to process grasses.

    Oh dear, you didnt realise a large amount of the worlds sheep/cattle are raised on pasture?
    You didnt realise that the USs disgusting 'feed lot' system isnt the norm, and other countries generally avoid such fucked up approaches?

    Next you will be worrying about how much water the cattle 'consume' because as we know they have internal fusion reactors, and they
    dont just piss the water back out half a day later, as it returns to the natural cycle, and is cleaned up through the soil in a matter of weeks.

  51. Re:KNEW it. by Darinbob · · Score: 2

    Even when grazing cattle there is a whole industry devoted to raising alfalfa used only to supplement feed; especially in winter.

  52. Re:KNEW it. by Bongo · · Score: 2

    This is the whole point of why we should be eating ruminants: they eat GRASS.

    We feed them crops rather than their natural food, and it's incredibly stupid.

    I gather the statistic is that only 4 percent of land can be used for agriculture, but 40 percent can be used for grass and ruminants.

    The experts who write these reports claiming we should be cutting meat, are clueless, probably just specialists in the wrong fields.

  53. The answer is less people... by ClarkMills · · Score: 2

    ...people want lots of food but also cars, houses, mobiles, children, holidays... and the powering/maintenance/upgrading of most them all too...

  54. Re:If God didn't want us to eat animals... by jeff4747 · · Score: 2

    Most of them end up in welfare or the exact same work which is disappearing any way because of automation

    [Citation Required]

    Also, your alternative is to not have enough young people to support your economy, as Japan does.

  55. Re:Laughing out loud by winse · · Score: 2

    It's interesting to watch the double speak and who gets exceptions. This anti meat agenda is an us against them sort of thing much like other socialist crusades. I'm pleased as punch personally when people decide to go vegetarian. That makes my meat cheaper in the short term. Long term though I worry that forbidding meat in general will become fully canonized doctrine in the progressive church and then production will get threatened, taxed, and/or prosecuted even worse than it already is.

    --
    this sig is deprecated
  56. Re:KNEW it. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

    You forgot the easiest, which also can not only reduce growth, but also reduce population itself:
    4. War.

    Unstable war-torn countries tend to have the HIGHEST birthrates, and the fastest population growth rates.

    The country with the highest birthrate in Asia is Afghanistan.

    The highest birthrates in Africa are in Mali, Niger, and Angola.

    Birthrate by country

    People in war-zones move toward an r-selection reproductive strategy.

  57. Re:KNEW it. by losfromla · · Score: 2

    It's because they're vegans and vegetarians, thus their main driving force is a religious rather than a scientific viewpoint.

    --
    Only I can judge you.
  58. Re:KNEW it. by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 4, Informative

    The feed conversion ratio typically compares dry weight of feed to gross live weight of the animal. If you'd compare by nutrients, the numbers can be 3x worse because of water, bones, and intestines. Even for poultry it'd be better to eat the poultry feed directly instead of converting it into chicken.

    From WattAgNet.com:

    Bird performance in the commercial poultry industry has shown a staggering improvement over recent decades. Modern broilers weigh about 2.5 kg at 39 days, with a live-weight feed conversion ratio of 1.6 kg of feed per kilogram of body weight gain. Laying hens in modern commercial flocks typically produce about 330 eggs per year with a FCR of 2 kg of feed per kilogram of eggs produced.

    For white leghorns the FCR is closer to 1.5.

    Maybe that is somewhat inflated by water that isn't counted in the feed weight. But 3x? Hardly. (Birds get a lot of their water from the waste of their energy metabolism.)

    Meanwhile: Have you looked at what chickens eat? (I have - in detail - because my wife and I raise the birds.) If you want to make porridge of layer chow, grower chow, insects, grass, etc. you're welcome to try it. (Don't forget to include the fuel and other inputs of any cooking and/or processing you have to do to it to make it digestible by a human.) But I bet you'd have to eat a LOT more than 3x the weight of that gorp to actually absorb and utilize the nutrients you'd get from a roast chicken or a plate of eggs.

    I'll let the birdies do the chemical magic of turning that low-grade veggie junk into the raw material for tasty and nutritious meals.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way