Generally speaking the claim is that significant amounts of agricultural energy go into growing grain for animals, and that domestic animal populations result in methane emissions, so eliminating the animal populations means less methane and you'd also need less agricultural production as everyone would eat vegan diets, if I've spelled it out adequately.
However, this doesn't change the need for electricity generation and transportation fuel to move food and materials around the world, or from farms to cities, or for industrial production and heating and cooling, so that's where the electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and storage systems are needed so we can phase out the fossil fuels from the energy mix. Yes, that's going to be cheaper and more sustainable than trying to expand uranium fission.
Furthermore, in the pre-industrial era in North America for millenia there were large populations of bison, estimated variously at perhaps 50% of the domestic cattle population (which is where the biogenic methane is coming from). For example:
(2012) "Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States"
Overall, enteric CH4 emissions from bison, elk, and deer in the presettlement period were about 86% (assuming bison population size of 50 million) of the current CH4 emissions from farmed ruminants in the United States.
There are plenty of decent arguments for eating less meat, but I don't think 'fixing the climate' is really a very strong one.
Not breaking the climate so much is plenty of reason. That reason does not conflict with renewables displacing fossil fuel use. We need to do both.
and why is that?
https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
Namely energy use in industry and buildings, and transportation.
Even taking into account the power used for transport, storage etc, of food, the food system as a whole accounts for one quarter of emissions:
https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
So even if we stopped eating any food at all tomorrow, we'd still not be stopping climate change, which is caused ... say it with me ... by burning fossil fuels.
Burning fossil fuels. <-.
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This!
It is that the binary presentation implies an either-or when in fact both are helpful.
Plus it just shits on people and nobody likes that.
There is carbon-negative beef, and there are plants that require enormous amounts of artificial soil additives. Probably the biggest factor is whether the meat comes from a ranch in your general area and if the bell-pepper in your salad was flown in from holland.
What seems obvious to those of us interested in the topic is clearly quite foreign to most people in this forum after reading the comments.
> "not ... that people disagree"
I sure hope you bike (or drive a conflict-free electric car, I guess?) and are powered by your own solar panels if you feel this way.
I agree however on biking (or public transport). I will always try to live max 15-20km away from work, such that I always can use a bike or a velomobile.
Please don't try to make ad hominem arguments, thanks.
And how do you come to this conclusion?
https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...
We need to both (a) reduce emissions from transport, and (b) reduce emissions from agriculture.
The parent poster was implying (presumably, because my original post was saying “we should do both” in response to a post that said “(a) is irrelevant, only (b) matters”) that anyone not doing (b) was killing the planet, and I’m pointing out here that if that’s true, anyone not doing (a) is also killing the planet.
We need both! It’s not optional! Half these conversations are “ok sure but X is really all that matters!” — and that is completely false.
We need to reduce or eliminate emissions from all sources, full stop.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_...
Making a difference requires reducing travel, reducing the use of all heavy transport, reducing meat consumption.
Solar panels are great, but you don't get let off the hook because you've gone and spent the cash to do it and be guilt free from there on
After a quick look, the data doesn’t seem to support your claim?
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
I still get the feeling that 40% of the electricity globally being generated from coal is a far bigger problem.
Because of the war, coal usage is actually increasing.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/24/all-the-european-c...
Those fancy Tesla’s are helping move the world to EVs, which will help the world reduce the 100 million barrels of oil we use every single day.
"Agriculture" appears to measure the emissions generated directly from agricultural processes themselves, as well as "secondary" combustion inputs. This includes "enteric fermentation in domestic livestock, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soil management, liming, urea fertilization, and field burning of agricultural residues". However, based on my reading -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- large parts of the agricultural process are included in each of the transportation, electricity, and industry categories. Thus the effects of agriculture would be seen downstream and upstream in these other categories. For example, any agricultural use of electricity is included in "electricity", not "agriculture".
An aside on meat specifically: since meat production involves more inputs, such as feed, livestock, and additional processing, you would have to account for these when comparing to a non-meat diet. For example, every cow involves the transportation of the cow, the (industrial) production of fertilizers needed to grow its feed, the production of the materials to package the feed, the transportation of the feed to a facility for packaging, the transportation of the packaged feed to a farm, the transportation of the cow to a slaughtering facility, the refrigeration of the cuts of meat, etc. The emissions generated during these steps would belong to the transportation, industry, and electricity categories, not even counting the extra emissions included in the agriculture category. While all food production would have steps such as these, clearly there are more steps in meat production because there are more inputs.
Now, back to the original point of transportation versus agriculture: the report says that 25% of the transportation category is "freight" -- I believe the shipping I described above would be included in this. However, to your point, around 60% of transportation is due to passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks, which is quite significant and likely mostly personal use (rather than agricultural), and that's where changing transportation methods can make a difference. I'm too tired to find what percent of industry and electricity are related to the agricultural process, but you would need to calculate this and compare it to personal transportation use in order to get a fair comparison.
In my personal opinion, I think we should both reduce meat consumption and personal vehicle use. No need to pick favorites.
https://www.mekkographics.com/meat-consumption-by-country-an...
The United States, China and Brazil produce the most beef:
https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
In my reading, there is a great inequality in distribution of both consumption and production and if both could be equalized downwards, that would mean a significant reduction overall.
I looked at the document, and it doesn’t seem to include the embedded CO2 from Urea production (fertiliser) which would be a large emission omission. Perhaps it shows up in the detailed breakdown somewhere.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
According to the article, 26% of all GHG emissions are from food production.
Of that:
31% of all food production comes from livestock and fisheries.
27% comes from crop production, with 6% for animal feed and 21% for human food.
24% comes from land use, 8% for human food and 16% for livestock.
18% comes from ransport and other emissions from the supply chain.
> Such recommendations include for example: having a mostly plant-based diet, focus on seasonal and local foods, reduction of food waste, consumption of fish from sustainable stocks only and reduction of red and processed meat, highly-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.
https://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-dietary-guideli...
But a plant-based diet is not vegan (although a vegan diet is plant-based), it's a diet where the majority of calories come from plants:
> A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods.[1][2][3] Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.[4][5] They do not need to be vegan or vegetarian[6][7] but are defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption.[8][9]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant-based_diet
For example, the Mediterranean diet is a plant-based diet:
> The principal aspects of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits,[3] and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, and low consumption of non-fish meat products.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet
A plant-based diet includes fish, dairy, eggs and meat, although meat in moderate to small quantities.
Vegans certainly like to pretend that "plant-based" means "vegan", but that's just their propaganda. Please don't help spread such lies.
White Oak Pastures even claims to have a negative carbon footprint[0], according to a report by a third party which, if I remember correctly, also authored the report behind one of the vegan burger's sustainability claims.
0: https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grass...
There's a reason why cattle farming went from extensive to intensive methods.
And it anyway affects only the US, a very small fraction of world population or land area. That the US is a very large part of the problem, e.g. importing beef, does not help.
Reducing amount of meat can be, but you can give a shit and reduce your impact much more while still eating a lot of meat.
People screaming that unless you reduce meat intake you’re killing earth are as narrowly minded focused on single issue as people screaming that unless you buy an EV, you’re killing earth.
1. Vegetarian, living in a McMansion in an USA suburb in a desert, driving big SUV everywhere and flying for work every month to the other coast.
2. Meat eater, living car free in a small flat in London, taking subway everywhere and train to travel for work to Manchester.
Is meat eating part most impactful life choice they’re making?
# Own and drive an SUV everywhere
# Flying for work every month
Think how much factory farmed meat is consumed. We kill and process ~80B animals per year.
For most folks meat is more affordable than buying an SUV or flying every month.
Getting people to heavily reduce or cut out meat & dairy and move to a more plant based diet will have a greater impact in reducing environmental impact.
This is based on an Oxford Uni study and also recommended by the IPCC. I’ll add sources later.
But it’s not an either or.
We need to do both and more.
It’s a tough challenge and we should have started yesterday.
Interesting times ahead… I wonder what the world will be like in 30 years.
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Edit: adding some sources
1) https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
2) “In addition to climate mitigation gains, a transition towards more plant-based consumption and reduced consumption of animal-based foods, particularly from ruminant animals, could reduce pressure on forests and land used for feed, support the preservation of biodiversity and planetary health, and contribute to preventing forms of malnutrition (i.e. undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity) in developing countries. Other co-benefits include lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and reducing mortality from diet-related non-communicable diseases.”
From: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/
3) “Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions. At the same time the food system is also responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”
From: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201603-plant-based-di...
Also: don't drive a car to begin with. Use muscle power wherever possible. All weight that's not you and not your stuff and that's transported is a waste of energy.
Moving a 2500kg+ car to transport a 100kg human to buy less than 20kg of groceries? Only humans could come up with that.
It's also true that EVs are not a sustainable solution.
But solar panels are not to be sneered at.
There's a lot of evidence backing these 3 points up.
Yet, individual lifestyle changes can only achieve so much. The world needs society-wide political change.