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Comment by padjo | Hacker News Reader

Cramming billions of animals together in confined spaces is really going to come back to bite us some day.

Industrial farming has largely destroyed the effectiveness of our old antibiotics, and every new one that is developed, they get their hands on and start destroying the effectiveness of them, too. It's already biting us.

Me, I'm just waiting for the Great Bovine Rebellion of 2026.

Cows with guns: https://youtu.be/lyqDvojqxc8?si=38_FRX_-gDFtj1fl

Cows with guns - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FQMbXvn2RNI

Beat me by a minute of Indecision.

Wow thank you for this. I don't think I have even thought about this song in 20+ years, but somehow I still know every word.

Don't forget the karate cows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LxXjsQbCZR8

“Some day?”

It’s biting back at us today in the form of climate change. Beef production and agriculture accounts for a significant amount of GHGs.

Yet governments, people, the world continue to do nothing.

Confinement vs. other methods really don't have much of anything to do with methane production of cattle.

I think cows produce less methane if they have a grass diet but it's been a while since I've read about it.

2% seaweed in diet eliminates methane. Stupid it's not mandatory already.

Is there already a suitable supply chain for that to happen?

Algae grows ridiculously easily - If there was a market for this (likely one driven by mandates to eliminate methane), you could have thousands of tons of algae within months and millions of tons within years.

It's a staple of coastal people's diets the world over. There's half an aisle of it at the local Seattle-area groceries.

Also, I don't think algae and seaweed is the same thing?

Seaweed is a form of algae.

Interesting. I hadn't been paying attention to this, but it seems accurate: https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/feeding-cattle-seaweed-reduces...

Yes, assuming the research is correct, this would seem like the sort of thing that should be mandated.

Might be better to do it with a pollution tax. Punish losers but don't mandate a winner, you know.

A slight correction here. Beef production and the growth of corn and feed stock for beef production is the one that is responsible for extensive release of GHG.

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