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It's going to be a very steep uphill battle to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from animal agriculture. Obviously it's impossible to get cows to stop farting and pooping. And cows are the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases amongst the animal agriculture industry. The methane emitted from cows is much more damaging to the environment than carbon dioxide as well.
The most effective method would be for a large percentage of the human population to at the very least swear off of beef/steak or dairy products in general. Weaning people off of cow meat will probably be easier because despite the taste and nutrition that people love, it could also be argued that such meat increases a person's risk for heart disease and early death. Plus there's the whole issue of the mass killings of cows in order to satiate the human appetite for cow meat.
Getting people off of dairy products will also be helpful but I predict it'll be harder. Dairy products aren't as harmful to human health and the cow doesn't need to die in order for us to obtain those products.
I was thinking about that, large scale campaign regarding foods high in cholesterol and emphasize beef is one of the offenders. Public opinion has relatively swayed against McDonald's fried food and soda etc, same should happen for beef.
I was thinking about that, large scale campaign regarding foods high in cholesterol and emphasize beef is one of the offenders. Public opinion has relatively swayed against McDonald's fried food and soda etc, same should happen for beef.
Multiple studies have shown that diets higher in beef and lower in carbs actually lower chol levels. Eating 6oz of beef/d will provide you with all the complete protein you need, most of the minerals and over half of most vitamins, while providing a mere 500 cal.
To get 60 gm of complete protein from a diet of rice, corn and beans, you'd have to eat 3200 cal worth (a sedentary lifestyle requires <1600 cal/d) and still only get about a third of the vitamins & minerals for your RDA. A serving of most veggies provides less than 10% of most vits & mins-- that's why the USDA recommends "10 servings a day."
Growing crops requires much more use of fossil fuel: tractors need to till, cultivate, plant, spread feretilizer, pesticides and herbicides and usually to harvest. Chores required to raise cattle can often be done on horseback or foot; very little fossil fuel use.
One should form opinions based on facts, not look for facts that support their religious beliefs.
edited to add: Once again folks--cattle passing gas do NOT increase atm[co2]. You only increase [co2] when you mobilize sequestered co2: burn fossil fuel, make cement, erupt a volcano or warm an ocean, etc.
Last edited by guidoLaMoto; 06-12-2017 at 06:10 AM..
Aaaarrgh! Fifth Grade science class: The Carbon Cycle, remember?
Grass converts sunlight plus h2o + co2 into glucose, then cellulose. Cows (et al.) eat grass and turn it back into energy + co2 + h2o. Net change in atm [co2] ZERO. (The little bit of ch4 in flatus is also quickly oxidized in the atm to co2 for complete re-cycling of C & co2.
The biggest emitter of co2 is The Ocean. The Ocean has cycles where it brings warming water to the surface and cooling water sinks. A warm ocean emits more co2 than a cool one. (Try opening a warm beer and a cold one. Which one has a bigger head?)
The Ocean warms or cools the atm, not the other way around. The Ocean controls the weather and the climate.
re: the other GHGs listed by MIsty... they are more potent on a molar basis, but occur in negligible amounts. Even co2 contributes so little to warming that it's signal is lost in the error of the data.
Another huge emitter of CO2 is Trees, yes, folks Trees, at night, trees and plants "gas off" about 1/2 of the CO2 they absorb during the day, which makes them one of the top producers of CO2 on the planet.
Another huge emitter of CO2 is Trees, yes, folks Trees, at night, trees and plants "gas off" about 1/2 of the CO2 they absorb during the day, which makes them one of the top producers of CO2 on the planet.
So 1 unit absorbed minus 0.5 units emitted equals a net emission? That's different math than I use.
Figure 1: Global carbon cycle. Numbers represent flux of carbon dioxide in gigatons (Source: Figure 7.3, IPCC AR4).
In this simple diagram from even the revered UN- IPCC, burning fossil fuel accounts for only 0.03% of the total co2 accounting. The other players serve as sources or sinks depending on other conditions: for ocean, a warming climate emits more, a cooling climate soaks up more (this is why the classic "delay" in the ice core data appears). For plants, it's a little more complex: "co2 fertilization."
But burning fossil fuel does bring carbon sequestered for millions of yrs back into the circulation. The question is not one of "does it affect things?" but "how much does it affect things?" Answer: too little to notice compared to natural factors.
How else do you explain the observation that atm[co2] has risen from 360ppm to 410ppm (up 14%) over the past 20 yrs, but temps haven't changed over that period? Warming from co2 balanced by cooling from other factors.
Another huge emitter of CO2 is Trees, yes, folks Trees, at night, trees and plants "gas off" about 1/2 of the CO2 they absorb during the day, which makes them one of the top producers of CO2 on the planet.
That is incorrect and it's not logical. Think about it.
They aren't producing it. They absorb something that already exists that had been produced by something else. They keep half of it for themselves and return the other half back, essentially having borrowed it during daylight hours. They can't be producers of something that had already been produced by something else. All they're doing is keeping half and recycling the other half of something else's product.
I was thinking about that, large scale campaign regarding foods high in cholesterol and emphasize beef is one of the offenders. Public opinion has relatively swayed against McDonald's fried food and soda etc, same should happen for beef.
I'm guessing you haven't been in a McDonald's lately.
A large scale campaign should be against flying. One flight cancels out everything else the average person does to cut down.
I think the long-term solution is going to require a number of things to happen:
-reforestation
-changing diet to heavily reduce animal products
-conversion to clean energy production
-conversion of yard equipment (lawn mowers, trimmers, leaf blowers, snow blowers, etc.) from internal combustion engines to electric or hand reel mowers
-transporation conversion from internal combustion engines to electric
-further improving efficiency of cooling/refrigeration technology
-altering genetics of livestock so they produce less methane
-banning recreational fires
Forest fires emit greenhouse gases and the carbon previously sequestered in the trees.
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