Op-Ed Argues 'Put Down the Burger' to Protect Earth's Biodiversity (nytimes.com) 234
"Earth is in the midst of the worst mass extinction since an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago — and this time, the asteroid is us." So says Michael Grunwald, an environmentalist, in an opinion piece for the New York Times.
But his larger point is that "biodiversity loss is not that complicated a mystery." The amount of area on planet earth devoted ot agriculture is now more than twice the size of North America. We're destroying and degrading the habitats of other species to grow food for our own. This means the fate of the world's bugs, bunnies and other creatures and critters — and what's left of the forests, wetlands and other habitats they call home — depends more than anything else on what we put in our mouths and how it gets made....
Humanity needs to start shrinking our agricultural footprint and expanding our natural footprint, after thousands of years of doing the reverse. This will be an extraordinary challenge, because we'll also need to produce more than 7.4 quadrillion additional calories every year to feed our growing population, in an era when climate-fueled droughts, heat waves, floods and blights could make it harder to grow food.... If we are serious about cleaning up the mess we're making for less influential species, there are four things individuals as well as nations and corporations can do. The first is to eat less meat, which would be a lot easier if meat weren't so beloved and delicious....
But the inconvenient truth is that when we eat cows, chickens and other livestock, we might as well be eating macaws, jaguars and other endangered species. That's because livestock chew up far more land per calorie than crops. Producing beef is 100 times as land-intensive as cultivating potatoes and 55 times as land-intensive as peas or nuts. Livestock now use nearly 80 percent of agricultural land while producing less than 20 percent of calories. Cattle are the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon, followed by soybeans, another commodity, which get fed to pigs and chickens.... If Americans continue to average three burgers a week while the developing world starts to follow our path, it's hard to see how the Amazon survives.
But it's at least possible that we could shrink agricultural footprints by shifting our diets toward meat made without livestock, like the plant-based substitutes offered by companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat or maybe someday cultured meat grown from animal cells.
Grunwald also recommends wasting less food. "About a third of the food grown on Earth is lost or tossed before it reaches our mouths, which means a third of the land (as well as the water, fertilizer and other resources) used to grow that food is also wasted."
The third way to ease the global land squeeze "would be to stop using productive farmland for biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel — and to stop burning trees for power." And finally, "farmers will have to supersize their yields enough to make a lot more food with a lot less land.
But his larger point is that "biodiversity loss is not that complicated a mystery." The amount of area on planet earth devoted ot agriculture is now more than twice the size of North America. We're destroying and degrading the habitats of other species to grow food for our own. This means the fate of the world's bugs, bunnies and other creatures and critters — and what's left of the forests, wetlands and other habitats they call home — depends more than anything else on what we put in our mouths and how it gets made....
Humanity needs to start shrinking our agricultural footprint and expanding our natural footprint, after thousands of years of doing the reverse. This will be an extraordinary challenge, because we'll also need to produce more than 7.4 quadrillion additional calories every year to feed our growing population, in an era when climate-fueled droughts, heat waves, floods and blights could make it harder to grow food.... If we are serious about cleaning up the mess we're making for less influential species, there are four things individuals as well as nations and corporations can do. The first is to eat less meat, which would be a lot easier if meat weren't so beloved and delicious....
But the inconvenient truth is that when we eat cows, chickens and other livestock, we might as well be eating macaws, jaguars and other endangered species. That's because livestock chew up far more land per calorie than crops. Producing beef is 100 times as land-intensive as cultivating potatoes and 55 times as land-intensive as peas or nuts. Livestock now use nearly 80 percent of agricultural land while producing less than 20 percent of calories. Cattle are the leading driver of deforestation in the Amazon, followed by soybeans, another commodity, which get fed to pigs and chickens.... If Americans continue to average three burgers a week while the developing world starts to follow our path, it's hard to see how the Amazon survives.
But it's at least possible that we could shrink agricultural footprints by shifting our diets toward meat made without livestock, like the plant-based substitutes offered by companies such as Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat or maybe someday cultured meat grown from animal cells.
Grunwald also recommends wasting less food. "About a third of the food grown on Earth is lost or tossed before it reaches our mouths, which means a third of the land (as well as the water, fertilizer and other resources) used to grow that food is also wasted."
The third way to ease the global land squeeze "would be to stop using productive farmland for biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel — and to stop burning trees for power." And finally, "farmers will have to supersize their yields enough to make a lot more food with a lot less land.
to feed our *growing population* (Score:4, Informative)
Re:to feed our *growing population* (Score:5, Insightful)
It actually looks like we are doing a surprisingly good job of curtailing our own population growth, at least based on the sudden enormous slowdown in birth rates worldwide (though there is still net positive growth, it isn't nearly what it has been for the past several decades).
Perhaps the best thing we can do for the environment is help less-developed countries get access to the same luxuries that wealthy first-worlders get, since there is a strong correlation between available luxury and nonviolent population shrinkage. If that doesn't work, we can export our legal and cultural trends that are overtly marriage-hostile, such as the whole "if you are the wealthier party then you become an indentured servant when your spouse abandons you" bit.
We could also normalize vat-grown meat, once the tech is advanced enough to get the costs down. Everybody thinks its gross now, but once it is cheap enough to be THE meat served at fast food restaurants, it will only take a few years to gain widespread acceptance.
The one strategy that is guaranteed to fail, and possibly even to backfire, is to ask people to abstain from eating meat "for the greater good."
Re: (Score:2)
What if COVID will do the job for us?
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.go... [nih.gov]
Re:to feed our *growing population* (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps the best thing we can do for the environment is help less-developed countries get access to the same luxuries that wealthy first-worlders get, since there is a strong correlation between available luxury and nonviolent population shrinkage.
And that is exactly what has already happened. When I was young, India and China were starving to death and at the same time multiplying uncontrollably. Today's industrial prosperity in Asia has put an end to population growth in both countries, just as it has in all other industrial countries. As China colonizes Africa, the same will happen there too.
Re: (Score:2)
The only reason birth rates are going down is because housing is too expensive. That could also be leveraged for the greater good by simply subsidizing only the first two biological children. Child 3 thru 8? No subsidy, No welfare, no immigration visa.
Re: (Score:2)
> we throw out carrots because they are crooked.
Are you just making things up now? You've never heard of diced carrot, carrot puree or carrot juice?
You throwing out a carrot doesn't count as Systemic Carrotism.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I don't carrot all about your opinions.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Red meat is a killer on a direct one-on-one basis when people eat it
l-Carnitine in omnivorous diets induces an atherogenic gut microbial pathway in humans [jci.org]
TLDR, eating food or supplements with carnitine in them encourage a gut-biome that converts carnitine to TMAO which is directly related to the generation of fatty plaques in arteries
If you are not going to quit eating red meat for the planet, then do it for yourself
Re: (Score:2)
If you are not going to quit eating red meat for the planet, then do it for yourself
"then do it for yourself".
That's the only reason for doing something, and pretty comes after a lot (most?) of your other needs are pretty much met.
Also, NO. Just like drinking Diet Coke that my friend assures me that converts into formaldehyde so that I feel I'm saving the undertaker some time, I eat meat to kill myself off early and "save the planet" from all of my would-be future pollution.
Now, is that Golden Bridge in my other pocket, or what?
Re: (Score:2)
Sounds like we should tell people to eat more red meat.
Dead people only contribute to AGW only once more as they decompose, not continuously like those pesky living ones.
Re: (Score:2)
Red meat is a killer on a direct one-on-one basis when people eat it
Umm... no.
Everyone who has ever eaten red meat and then died from injuries in a car wreck or house fire or gunshot wound or a thousand other things proves that red meat is not a "killer on a direct one-on-one basis." Not everyone who eats red meat dies from arterial plaques.
Re: to feed our *growing population* (Score:3)
Too much people and megafarms are the problems.
You need animals grazing interleaved with crops for best biodiversity since some plants and insects depend on that.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
And cold brutal nature will take care of that. Through disease. Or far more likely, people turning more and more murderous, cold and savage against other people for ever increasingly petty reasons. We are already seeing this now in American society.
"But but waaaa nooo!" Life is not a Disney movie, kiddo. The bad guys often win, the prince turns out to be a serial killer, and the lion chomps down the gazelle while the gazelle screams and thrashes in sheer slow torturous agony.
Re: to feed our *growing population* (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, there is enough "land" for everyone, the problem is that we waste food (go to a convivence store around midnight and see how much stuff just gets thrown away) because it's more profitable to overproduce food and then just throw it away if it doesn't sell at the demanded price, rather than giving it away. So that adds to the methane GHG and other waste pollution. There are also only three ways to solve that
1) JIT (Just in Time) - where all food must be ordered a month, or even several months in a
Re:Exactly backwards (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Globalist/liberals tended to support COVID control measures, so they actually saved lives in the last two years.
Except that saving lives through better healthcare reduces population growth.
The formula for reducing population is simple: Better healthcare, better nutrition, and better education. As childhood mortality declines, people choose to have fewer children and invest in them more.
The world's highest birthrate is in starving war-torn Niger. The lowest is in prosperous Korea.
Re:Far too slow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Far too slow (Score:5, Informative)
In fact if they post an article claiming the sky is blue, I'm going to look out the window.
Re: (Score:3)
But euthanasia is not a cause of death on it's own, it's a replacement for another (likely more prolonged and unpleasant) cause of death.
Re: (Score:2)
Sad really. AGW is a real problem and we are doing next to nothing to solve it
Yeah I know, it's been two decades since we've had any improvements in solar panels tech, or electric cars, or windmills or battery storage, etc. The state of technology is just so sad. No new renewable power installations for so many years. No housetop solar. Nothing.
Re: (Score:2)
How is too much livestock "not a problem"?
Does cattle not emit a shitload of greenhouse gasses?
Are we not growing food only to feed it to that cattle instead of just eating it?
Aren't forests being destroyed to create more pastures?
Re: (Score:3)
David Brower, a founder of the Sierra Club: "The goal now is a socialist, redistributionist society, which is nature's proper steward and society's only hope."
(OTTMAR EDENHOFER, UN IPCC OFFICIAL): Basically it’s a big mistake to discuss climate policy separately from the major themes of globalization. The climate summit in Cancun at the end of the month is not a climate conference, but one of the largest economic conferences since the Second World War... First of all, developed countries have basicall
Re: (Score:2)
> all of the globalists these days are strongly into de-population
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
The Century Initiative Board of Directors is chaired by co-founder Mark Wiseman, who was BlackRock's Global Head of Active Equities and ran Blackrock's Alternative Investment division at the time that the Initiative was founded[14][15] BlackRock's Alternative Investment division includes the firm's international real estate investment portfolio[16] and is reported to be actively purchasing single family hom
Re: (Score:2)
Umm....No [wikipedia.org]. Not even close. Nice researching, there, sport.
Toba not a Mass Extinction (Score:5, Informative)
The Toba volcano eruption in Indonesia wiped out the majority of life on earth.
No, it did not. It did almost wipe out humanity because we were a small, newly evolved species located in one geographic region and it is potentially the reason for the lack of genetic diversity in humans compared to other species but it was not a mass extinction event.
The Solution Is Simple. (Score:5, Funny)
Soylent Green.
Re:The Solution Is Simple. (Score:5, Funny)
You have no future in marketing, buddy.
Yeah, but (Score:2)
Every time somebody posts a pay-walled link, a kitten dies. What is he going to do about that?
Re: (Score:2)
Every time somebody posts a pay-walled link, a kitten dies. What is he going to do about that?
What paywall? The article is perfectly readable. The problem must be on your end.
Land intensive? (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Show me an industrial-scaled cattle farm where the animals are all fed by grazing casually on the vegetation around them. Whether the feed is made from food ingestible by humans, or from less useful grasses, it's all mostly modern intensive agriculture.
Re: Land intensive? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Land intensive? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Slash and burn? Maybe not, but there is lots of farmland that used to be forested. Even native americans burned off land to tailor it to their needs.
Try again sport. Almost all the farmland in North America is on the great plains which never had trees. The farmland in the south east was formerly swampland. And no, native americans didn't burn off land either. There is no need as there is a great deal of already naturally rich farmland in North America.
Re: (Score:2)
Eat Bugs! (Score:2)
I guess that really isn't being a vegan though. If it is a given that we can save the planet by getting rid of meat protein sources, it is much more efficient that we could save the planet by a general depopulation movement, and euthanize 90 percent of humanity.
Any volunteers?
Re:Eat Bugs! (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
No need for volunteers. Nature has a way of finding equilibrium all on its own.
We are definitely on the same page here.
Most of the people who believe that we can keep on producing more people.
We're already depleting resources pretty heavily, so while it is kind of possible, but we would have to lower the quality of life, or come up with a way to maintain it while using almost no resources.
Yes, better education can lower the birth rate. But there is an entire world, not just the standard suspects of the western world. And the Western world's version of lowering that birth rat
Re: (Score:2)
Now on the strategic point, let's take a hypothetical Western society that has an aging population because no one wants children any more. And a society that produces a lot of children. As resources deplete, who wins that war.
The ones with the most capable militaries?
Re: (Score:3)
Old dudes lose the bloodlust in general.
I think most Ukrainians would beg to differ & might be inclined to point in Vladimir Putin's general direction to give an example.
Re: (Score:2)
I've already done my part, I'm not having any children. It works extremely well at controlling population growth. Euthanasia is hardly necessary, given people die all on their own, although I know you have to bring that up for hysteria purposes and to occlude discussing real solutions.
If you don't want to reduce the population, you must reduce the standard of living (and that only works up to a point.) There isn't another option. Ignore the problem and nature will choose for you.
If humanity wants control ov
Re: (Score:2)
Plants have protein too. I think meat substitutes like plant based meats and lab grown meats will be important.
Sure. Any issues I have are with the humane processing of meat, and as soon as they get the lab meat going, I'll s witch in a New York minute. But for plant stuff, I just finished a Quorn based Lasagna for dinner. Try it if they have it across the pond - it is based on a fungus that grows on corn. Sounds a bit gross, but it makes a good meat substitute, Good taste and texture, and in Mexico, they use it a lot.
Indeed, they eat ant eggs in tacos there. I haven't had it, but want to try some day supposedl
Re: (Score:2)
I've had some nice meat substitute stuff too. I don't really care if it's exactly like meat, only that it's tasty.
Re: (Score:2)
Plants have protein too. I think meat substitutes like plant based meats and lab grown meats will be important.
They do, but there are certain amino acids which are either missing entirely or just not present in large enough quantities to maintain good health. That's why vegans have to take certain vitamin supplements to make up for those deficiencies.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that we already overprocess and season our food to the point where we don't even notice taste or texture of the underlying ingredients anymore, I guess most people wouldn't even notice.
The thing we need to solve now is cost. Which makes me wonder, if it takes 10 times the resources to produce meat, why isn't it cheaper to produce a plant based alternative?
Re: (Score:2)
I don't have kids. They cut into my profit margin.
I do have guns, though. They protect that profit margin if push comes to shove.
Fish... victim of acceptable turnover (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
All the fish available here are frozen. Waste should be zero.
Carnivores waste less (Score:3, Informative)
"About a third of the food grown on Earth is lost or tossed"
I'd wager, for the whole supply chain, the bulk of that waste is fresh produce. Extremely short shelf life, special (fragile) shipping and handling, and ugly veggies don't get sold.
Mean can (and often is) frozen for longer storage, and thus a less frantic shipment, and more import- a much longer window for consumption,
Want to reduce food waste? Eat meat.
Re:Carnivores waste less (Score:5, Insightful)
If 50% of the vegetables go bad, but it takes a ratio of 9 - 1, vegetable calorie in to meat calorie out, you're STILL doing better eating the vegetable.
It's a ridiculous and stupid oversimplification, but slightly less so than yours. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
That really is wrong, you don't have to eat meat to be healthy. There are a half a billion vegetarians in India alone. Beans are dense, so are grains.
Re: (Score:2)
Doesn't matter how "dense" meat is, the equivalent amount of nutrition from plants is going to require an order of magnitude less resources as input.
https://ourworldindata.org/env... [ourworldindata.org] (You'll need to change the chart to calories or protein)
Re: Carnivores waste less (Score:2)
If 50% of the vegetables go bad, but it takes a ratio of 9 - 1, vegetable calorie in to meat calorie out, you're STILL doing better eating the vegetable.
People are omnivorous. We need meat and fish, just like we need vegetables and fruits.
The ridiculous part is that, unlike "vegetarian", "meat-eater" doesn't require a 100% commitment to one specific subset of food: you're not required to eat only meat, and in fact, nobody does. Not taking that into calculation is dishonest at best.
For instance: 200 g of beef is about 1/4 of the day's calories. So a person having a giant burger, or a decently sized steak, om every lunch, would actually only save something li
Re:Carnivores waste less (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I live across the road from a commercial orchard. A lot of fruit gets tossed on the ground because it's not good enough.
It's still good enough for my applesauce though. The applesauce market must be more limited than I thought.
Vegan friendly propaganda (Score:5, Informative)
I am so tired of this "eating meat is destroying the world" crap. It is a myth that has taken hold so much that people who really should know better end up repeating it.
What is destroying the world is not meat. It is cheap meat. Factory farmed meat. Mono-culture meat.
Cows are evolved to eat grass, not grains. But they are forced to eat grain mixes because that is cheaper. That causes them not only produce more methane gas but their digestive systems turn septic. They get sick. Cramming them into feed lots makes sure any pathogen any of them catches is spread to all, then they have to be fed antibiotics. But it is cheap.
Pastured meat is a much different product. It doesn't stink like a stockyard. The cattle not only eat fodder natural to them but they also co-exist with many other species which keeps the local ecosystem healthy. The pasture is shared with small animals, birds, snakes, rodents. Rather than being collected in toxic cesspools their manure is worked back into the soil, re fertilizing it for the next season. Cows can live on land not suitable for farming: too steep, too rocky. As long as there are grasses to graze.
Not so cheap. But doable and sustainable. And not a problem with regard to greenhouse gasses.
Have you ever seen those rare photos and drawings of the bison herds that roamed the plains of America before the white settlers came in? The reports were of herds so vast you couldn't see the other end of them. Herds of tens of thousands. This wasn't an ecological disaster. This was the natural balance of nature. Native Americans lived on that resource not only for food, but clothing and shelter material. Many other species were adapted to that ecosystem.
Of course the European tribes came in and shot them all for fun. (I know I am going to be accused of wokeness here but that is what happened.) Then they commenced mono-crop farming to the extent that the topsoil that was built over thousands of years was gone in a generation.
Humans need either meat or dietary supplements which make up for the lack of meat. That is how we were evolved.
It is time to push back against the myths.
Re: (Score:2)
Here's one.
https://studyfinds.org/meat-su... [studyfinds.org]
Re: (Score:2)
It is time to push back against the myths.
Considering that such view got integrated into "green" world view, you will have about as much luck as convincing them that nuclear is safe and emission-free.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course the European tribes came in and shot them all for fun.
There was fun involved. But the slaughter of buffalo was designed to starve natives out (who depended on them). And to free up the land for agriculture, including the introduction of European bred cows which are a much more docile and easily raised species.
Isn't that the same thing? (Score:2)
As for me I think we better come up with a different solution because telling people they can't eat meat freaks them out and panics them and it results in a massive overreaction against any attempt to comb
Isn't it the deforestation the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
I am so tired of this "eating meat is destroying the world" crap. It is a myth that has taken hold so much that people who really should know better end up repeating it.
What is destroying the world is not meat. It is cheap meat. Factory farmed meat. Mono-culture meat.
Cows are evolved to eat grass, not grains. But they are forced to eat grain mixes because that is cheaper. That causes them not only produce more methane gas but their digestive systems turn septic. They get sick. Cramming them into feed lots makes sure any pathogen any of them catches is spread to all, then they have to be fed antibiotics. But it is cheap.
Pastured meat is a much different product. It doesn't stink like a stockyard. The cattle not only eat fodder natural to them but they also co-exist with many other species which keeps the local ecosystem healthy. The pasture is shared with small animals, birds, snakes, rodents. Rather than being collected in toxic cesspools their manure is worked back into the soil, re fertilizing it for the next season. Cows can live on land not suitable for farming: too steep, too rocky. As long as there are grasses to graze.
Not so cheap. But doable and sustainable. And not a problem with regard to greenhouse gasses.
Have you ever seen those rare photos and drawings of the bison herds that roamed the plains of America before the white settlers came in? The reports were of herds so vast you couldn't see the other end of them. Herds of tens of thousands. This wasn't an ecological disaster. This was the natural balance of nature. Native Americans lived on that resource not only for food, but clothing and shelter material. Many other species were adapted to that ecosystem.
Of course the European tribes came in and shot them all for fun. (I know I am going to be accused of wokeness here but that is what happened.) Then they commenced mono-crop farming to the extent that the topsoil that was built over thousands of years was gone in a generation.
Humans need either meat or dietary supplements which make up for the lack of meat. That is how we were evolved.
It is time to push back against the myths.
The problem is that forests are being razed in order to build farms, including for grass-fed beef. You're right about cows and grass. However, a viable ranch requires a lot of clear land, which means trees go. The environmental impact is less about cow farts and more about the amount of forest the developing world is cutting down to make room for the farmland.
I fucking love beef. I won't stop eating it. However, I am an adult and realize the industry is harming thed environment and will happily eat less beef and more pork/tuna/salmon/chicken. Hell, I'll eat bug protein if you make it tasty and cheap enough.
Beef is a deep part of American culture, probably to be inclusive to the Jewish population in the Northeast and major cities. In the South, pork is more prevalent because it is cheaper and just as nutritious and fucking amazing if you know how to cook it. However, it is true, most of us would be healthier eating smaller portions of meat and the planet would be in a lot better shape if we ate more chicken/pork/fish...and for most, less of it.
I'll never tell anyone to give up meat...vegetarian and especially vegan diets are stupid and lead to malnutrition if you don't carefully supplement. But maybe meat isn't needed for EVERY meal of the day? Maybe a slightly smaller portion of higher-quality meat would make you happier and healthier?
Re:Isn't it the deforestation the problem? (Score:4, Informative)
The deforestation is occurring in part to grow feed for cattle. Again this is a factory-farm model which is highly profitable but basically spends the environment for short-term gain.
There are huge areas of land on nearly every continent suitable for raising cattle of all types (not just beef) that do not require deforestation. Cattle should forage on the land they are grown on. It is much harder to do, hence more expensive, but it is sustainable.
The problem is not meat. The problem is cheap meat.
Grass forces cows into life-long diarrhea. (Score:2)
We keep them in meadows where all they have to eat is grass, though.
This is so bad for them that they suffer a life-long diarrhea: the meadows are full of cow patties.
Were they do get food that is healthy for them, they would shit normal turds like other large herbivores.
However, ryegrass grows much faster and a herd of cows on it is much cheaper to maintain then a forest with cows in it.
Jaguars and Macaws, Oh My! (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Arguing that there should be more free range cattle and less feedlot beef is perfectly valid.
Otherwise they can wander off and have carnal relations with equine of their choice.
Re: (Score:2)
Most free range cattle becomes feedlot beef for a short time. That's just how the product is processed. Unless some rancher uses a mobile abattoir for slaughtering.
Re:Jaguars and Macaws, Oh My! (Score:5, Informative)
Equine are horses. Bovines are cows (well cows are female bovines). Also, depending on the type of farming, you don't often keep males around for very long and you certainly don't keep them with a herd of cows. That's how you lose livestock (they will gore each other). In the past, there were a small number of bulls that were kept each in their own separate areas for breeding. Now we use artificial insemination.
PS You folks quite literally know nothing about farming, but you want to tell farmers how to grow food. You don't even know that all cows are female. Very few of you seem to realize that farming can't be done just anywhere. If there is livestock on the land, you almost certainly can't grow crops on it. If the grass is brown most of the year, you can't put many animals on that land. If the grass is green, you can put more. You only feed grains to cattle during the winters as letting them graze during the summer is free. The amount of misinformation here on this topic is staggering. Oh, and dairy cattle outlive their wild counterparts by 7 years on average (7 vs 14) as do breeding animals of the type used for meat. Please stop talking about a topic about which you have no experience. Your garden doesn't count, and neither does that field trip to a farm in grade school. If you have never worked on an actual farm or don't study agriculture, you don't know how any of this works.
Maybe if the commies had won (Score:3)
In a world without true solidarity, forcing the peons to make these level of sacrifices while the neofeudalists and their families jetset won't work. Through democracy we'll have our burgers. I doubt preaching will accomplish much either.
Shame about the planet's carrying capacity, but it is what it is. I think the singularity has the best chance of saving advanced civilization now (though not necessarily a human civilization).
Hamburgers aren't the problem (Score:5, Informative)
Nobody raises cattle to make hamburgers. Ground beef is essentially a waste product; cattle are raised for whole-cut meats.
If everyone stopped eating hamburgers tomorrow, it would have essentially no impact on cattle farming. The meat processing industry would have this massive glut of trimmings and low quality cuts they wouldn't be able to sell, though, which itself could be an environmental issue...
People need to reduce how much beef they eat, period. People need to stop eating steaks. Nobody's brave enough to say it, though, because holy shit would that make a lot of people mad!
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:3)
> The hamburger was a metaphor for beef in general, dude.
Why would you use a metaphor?
Hint: It wasn't being used as a metaphor. "If Americans continue to average three burgers a week while the developing world starts to follow our path, itâ(TM)s hard to see how the Amazon survives."
Not the equivalent of three burgers per week in beef. Just "three burgers."
When he says we need to eat less meat, he says "Limiting access to cheeseburgers can turn politicians into ex-politicians" - why not say steaks in
The thing about Jaguar (Score:2)
It tastes like chicken.
A hint for the city slickers. (Score:5, Informative)
Cattle ranches tend to be on marginal lands that are NOT GOOD FOR CROPS: mountainous, rocky, having little access to water, etc. Otherwise, crops, which are more profitable per square acre, would be grown there. Simple economics, supply and demand.
I will when they will (Score:5, Insightful)
When Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Bezos, et al stop eating delicious meat, then I too will consider it. Meanwhile I'm sick and tired of so called "elites" telling me to cut back as they fly around in private jets and enjoying exotic meals around the world all while lecturing us on how wasteful we are.
They can lead by example. I want to see Larry Fink switch from steak tartare to a plateful of crickets first.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
That will happen, if meat becomes 10 times more expensive.
I think you've got it backwards. Rich people don't have to give up expensive things, it's kind of the whole point of being rich.
The data says other areas need more attention ... (Score:5, Informative)
See green house gas emission by sector [ourworldindata.org]. Scroll down to the pie chart graph.
Livestock and manure make only 5.8% of the total.
Compare to other sectors, such as:
- energy use by industry (24%)
- transportation (16%)
- commercial and residential buildings (17.5%).
Even things like "unallocated" (7.8%) and fugitive emissions (5.8%) are more than the whole livestock sector.
And that is without considering that chicken and pork are lower impact than ruminants (beef and lamb). And there is always the route of changing cows' diet significantly reduces methane (e.g. grass rather than grain, seaweed, ...etc).
So, given all the above, which sector should be tackled first for the most impact?
Re: (Score:2)
>Livestock and manure make only 5.8% of the total.
Also, those emissions are already part of the current atmospheric carbon cycle. Unless we start feeding cows coal, crude oil, or peat bogs (I'm fairly certain none of those things work as cattle fodder), the carbon they're belching out began its journey as carbon from the air.
Re: (Score:3)
Ok let's address transportation by moving to public transport and EVs.
Nooo, it's only 16% of total! Why don't we do something about the other 84% first?
the easy solution (Score:5, Funny)
Give me cheaper protein and I'll eat less meat (Score:2)
I am a grown-up, though, and realize that if everyone ate all the beef I wish I could eat, we'd be
Put down the burger? (Score:2)
Give us some options (Score:2)
Most burgers are already put down (Score:2)
well at least mine doesn't breath anymore I think.
Let them eat Soylent (Score:3)
Rich people: enjoying burgers on private jets more (Score:3)
Rules for thee but not for me!
Re: Have you considered pork? (Score:2, Informative)
Here's the problem...some cuts prepared in some ways are absolutely heavenly, but if done "wrong" there's just a lamb-like aftertaste I can't stomach. Same for lamb, goat, and yeah even some cuts of beef that some people adore, I can't stand.
The moral of the story isn't that my culinary preferences must be respected or else defcon 1, the moral of the story is that you can't expect full compliance or even large-scale compliance when doing so conflicts with very visceral things like taste or religion or whate
No meat is fool-proof! (Score:3)
Here's the problem...some cuts prepared in some ways are absolutely heavenly, but if done "wrong" there's just a lamb-like aftertaste I can't stomach.
Isn't that true for any red meat? I'd say it's true for all meat, but I hate poultry and nothing can make turkey taste decent to me unless you dump a ton of hot sauce on it so I can't taste the turkey any more (mole or curry also do the trick)....but everyone I know thinks I'm crazy for hating poultry, so I'll assume it's a me thing more than a turkey thing.
As a 19yo, I tried buying a steak and cooking it at home...and it suuuuckkked...you gotta know what you're doing. As a 22yo, I got my own place, bo
Re: (Score:2)
We have pretty much entirely switched to porkburgers on account of pork sausage being ~40% of the price of hamburger, and the only part I don't like better is the texture. No matter how it's ground, it just doesn't chew the same as a cowburger.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I agree, but the buffalo on that scale are fundamentally incompatible with our land use system, so GLWT.
Re:forget the cows, bring back the buffalo (Score:5, Informative)
There were many thousands more buffalo in north america, than there are currently cattle
Bullcrap. There were about 30 million bison in pre-Colombian North America.
There are now 95 million cattle in America and 11 million in Canada.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
How many of those are calves? According to google, the number of cattle slaughtered yearly in the US, since 2000, is ~30M, and the average lifespan of a cow destined to become steak is 2 years.
How many people lived in north america in pre-columbian times? a single search tells me ~60M
How many people live in north america today? ~362M.
I'd say its a wash.
Re: (Score:2)
> Lead by example...
You mean by being a vegan, vegetarian, or just trying to reduce their meat take in? Pretty sure a lot of environmentalists already do that.
> and do yourself in
Not sure if you read the article, but it's not encouraging that people need to die.
Seriously, it's so sad to see
"Hey, this thing isn't sustainable and in the medium term will cause a massive decrease in the quality of living"
"Yeah well, how about you go kill yourself?"
Re: (Score:2)