- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
Outdoor extensive is being targeted hard by the anti- meat lobby (and the NBA
) as being bad because it takes longer to finish so emits more methane over its life. That only stands up under GWP100.
Alarming aspirations from latest climate report...
- Thread starter white_stuffed
- Start date
) as being bad because it takes longer to finish so emits more methane over its life. That only stands up under GWP100.Good luck with picking an avocado from your garden.
wanton dwarf
Member
Don't forget with transport from one part of the world to another you are moving Nitrogen, PK, water and other minerals which have to be replaced. The vehicle doing the transport also has an impact even to exist and maintained.
wanton dwarf
Member
Depressing reading.
A Menu for Change
In this report we make the case for a global shift towards more sustainable and healthier diets. Using the latest and most well-evidenced behavioural science, we have outlined 12 strategies for promoting sustainable diets.www.bi.team
And already, from a quick skim read of their summary report, a classic example of Poore and Nemecek data being presented with an agenda, and just plain wrong.
"The meat of the problem The agricultural sector is responsible for 26% of global greenhouse gas emissions" - no it isn't, the report is on the whole food system, NOT just agriculture.
View attachment 951059
A lot of the emissions from agricultural land would exist regardless of whether it was farmed or not .. unless Environmental lunatics are going to be out killing anything that tried to live, eat and breed on the land.
Even without any animals or insects eating vegetation there'd still be bacteria and fungi creating methane and CO2.
IMHO it's a brain dead argument for those with far too much time on their hands.
About time farmers worldwide refused to grow food to liven these good for nothings up.
To summarize my view on the subject:
We could bring all the cows in the UK indoors for the next 12 months, and the GHG emissions of UK plc would not change.
We could kick all the cows in the UK outside for the next 12 months, and the GHG emissions of UK plc would not change.
We could shoot all of the cows in the UK tomorrow, and the GHG emissions of UK plce would increase.
That is all that matters in the context of presenting our case, as a united industry, to the public and the politicians.
Anything else is an interesting and valid discussion to be had among ourselves about our own chosen system, but that isn't relevant to the outside world.
We could bring all the cows in the UK indoors for the next 12 months, and the GHG emissions of UK plc would not change.
We could kick all the cows in the UK outside for the next 12 months, and the GHG emissions of UK plc would not change.
We could shoot all of the cows in the UK tomorrow, and the GHG emissions of UK plce would increase.
That is all that matters in the context of presenting our case, as a united industry, to the public and the politicians.
Anything else is an interesting and valid discussion to be had among ourselves about our own chosen system, but that isn't relevant to the outside world.
- Location
- Devon
It's a global report.
Somebody somewhere will have avocados growing 'in their garden'.
That is the point I was trying to make. The location of the consumer is as much a factor as the location and method of production.
The 'confused' report was merely pointing out that the answer to eating 'environmentally ethically' is confusing.
And as has been said many many times before, the differences that are being highlighted between foods in the essential activity of feeding ourselves are quite insignificant compared to what we CHOOSE to do the rest of the time.
So true, they don’t talk about the cost of clean water, we all need it but at what cost never mind the treating of our waste.
If the only problems we had left were food and clean water then why would they be an issue.
If every lorry, tractor, car, was electric powered from solar panels, that make food and water less intensive without making any changes.
The great thing about C02 is that the planet can absorb it that’s why the levels of C02 in the air are not much worse than they are, we over power our planets ability to absorb it if we shifted all our vehicles to renewable tech of one form or another and the same for energy production then food production in all its forms will become a non issue.
The chart showed that of the 26% of Co2 that included all our vehicles needed to make food and transport food when that drops so will our total output of Co2.
That’s not to say we cannot find solutions, one is adding seaweed to food rations has been seen to reduce animal gas emissions by 80% until solutions are looked for we will never find them, so while I think these reports over blow the problems I think the solutions will come, I also believe finding humans balance with the world is important, that is true with every form of consumption.
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/climate-change-facts-2019
Number 5 is important regardless of where you stand on any topic.
- Location
- South Devon
What a load of Bull$hit - could and likely are not facts.
The 10 facts that prove we're in a climate emergency
6. Dengue fever could spread through much of southeastern US by 2050
10. The UK will likely miss its transport emissions targets
- Location
- Devon
I wonder what the science is behind the seaweed in ruminants diet.
We know that methane is part of a natural cycle anyway - returning to the soil to continue the life cycle. There is no net gain in methane in the atmosphere.
Does seaweed simply shorten that cycle? Or change it to some other form that makes it unavailable or less available to soil life?
I did say only 5 was important to this thread, I don’t want to debate climate change and facts, or non facts, I have had plenty of pointless arguments where so called facts are debated. Believe what you want.
I can see the changes of our climate, with my own eyes, I don’t need websites to tell me what I can already see with my own eyes.
If you cannot yet, give it time. Maybe when we are on the brink of our civilisations collapse you will, but regardless some of us do already.
the reality is regardless of what either of us believe is true, what will happen will happen. If that’s the break down of our food chain due to climate change that will end our civilisation in a matter of weeks when that happens, or if we don’t believe and it’s true. The result will be the same.
if it’s all a lie by science and media as you say, and your right, number 5 on that list is still important and may still end our civilisation. All it takes is one week without food to end or civilisation, the temperature rises are not going to be what’s ends us or the planet they will keeps going, but not with 7 billion people maybe a few hundred million if we are lucky.
we are rats on an island the moment the food dries up so do we. I believe as rats we should manage our planet and food chain to avoid running out of food, any time soon. If that means making actually sensible changes to our basic way of life so be it.
primmiemoo
Member
- Location
- Devon
Possibly, it either disrupts rumen flora that produce higher amounts of methane, or feeds rumen flora that produce least methane. Either way, unless you're living where ruminants have easy access to a supply, Rothamstead has shown that a simple sward including 10% clover reduces rumen methane.
Not that we need to be thinking about that, because it isn't the ruminant that's the problem, it's the use of fossil fuel that is the climate change problem.
I'd give a seaweed dietary supplement to improve trace element availability ~ it's healthy stuff, and I like to eat it, too ~ but there's no need to use it for reasons of mitigating climate change.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
By far the simplest way of reducing methane is to increase concentrate use and reduce long fibre and protein in the ration. Less rumination equals less methane production. Simple. Also increased yields or growth rate per cow reduces methane per unit of production.
- Location
- Devon
But all those things also increase fossil fuel usage, and as primmiemoo says, thats the actual issue. I say again, ruminant methane does not increase methane in the atmosphere, its part of a natural cycle, causing no net increase in methane. Unlike fossil fuels.
Still determined to beat yourselves up over different production systems lol. That is the problem with farmers. You all think about farming way, way too much. Why can't folks just agree that it really, really doesn't matter how many days a cow lives for, or how many of those days it spends indoors. It makes not a jot of difference to UK GHG emissions. There is nothing wrong our side of the farm gate.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
The actual issue is not something the powers that be or the lobby groups are in the least bit interested in. Isn't that obvious. All they are interested in is creating boxes and ticking them.
Cowabunga
Member
- Location
- Ceredigion,Wales
Absolutely agree. There's nothing we can do that will prevent them creating massive costs and hurdles in the way of livestock farming. Certain lobby groups have been persuading all and sundry that it is dirty, polluting of all aspects of the environment. People generally and politicians are following through on that regardless of any facts you think they ought to take account of.
You probably know what I think the long term prospects for ruminant agriculture, and as a consequence nearly all of UK agriculture is by now, and it looks more and more like it with every passing week. Short term is not the issue and most of us are currently in a brexit honeymoon period, as I forecast last year. The extra regulations and consequent costs are already being introduced . It is going to be unrelenting over the next few years with ever more costs and demands heaped upon us concurrent with reducing incomes.
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
The BBC has highlighted a classic case of that today:
Green energy tariffs often 'misleading' https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-56602674
However, some energy companies accuse others of "greenwashing" - using marketing spin to make "dirty" electricity seem clean.
"The sale of green tariffs increased remarkably in the period since 2015. In fact, it doubled between 2017 and 2018," says Rob Gross, the director of the UK Energy Research Centre.
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We explained to Su that Her supplier sources the majority of its electricity from the wholesale market, which includes energy generated by gas and coal.
Then it purchases cheap renewable energy certificates called REGOs to effectively "offset" this. That allows her supplier to legally call the electricity "100% renewable".
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REGO stands for Renewable Energy Guarantees of Origin. When a renewable unit of electricity is generated - for example, by a wind turbine - the regulator Ofgem issues a REGO to prove that this energy is green.
The person who owns that wind turbine is now allowed to sell the electricity and the REGO separately.
It means there is a marketplace where leftover REGOs are traded, and there are enough of them "going spare" that energy suppliers are able to purchase enough to cover the proportion of fossil fuels they sell to customers.
Some industry experts are supportive of REGOs and many agree that they have a role to play in expanding and supporting the renewable energy market.
The problem is how much they cost. They are cheap.
An energy supplier can make electricity from the wholesale market, which includes fossil fuels, look entirely green for just £1 or £2 per customer per year. The majority of UK energy suppliers are doing this to some extent.
I am far more optimistic with regards a future for agriculture. I believe we are very close to the battle lines being redrawn to lie where they always should have been, with UK ag and the environment movement on one side and global corporations with their nutrition tablets on the other.
And Government will, firmly, back our side. Why ? Because we deliver a shed load of public goods whereas nutrition tablets deliver none.
@The Man from the Ministry
white_stuffed
Member
I think I may have answered one of my own questions to Joseph Poore in this report: https://www.transportenvironment.or...0_11_Study_Cerulogy_soy_and_deforestation.pdf It does seems that the fraction is 60% animal feed value, 40% human. Even so, I'd like to know the maths in the model he used to allocate deforestation to food products because there is so much uncertainty about the drivers for deforestation and the initial use vs eventual use of the deforested land.
"The global soy market The soy crop is primarily an animal feed crop. While about 2% of global production is consumed directly by humans in products such as tofu Goldsmith (2008), about 90% of the global crop is crushed to produce soy meal for animal feed and soy oil, with the remainder fed to animals directly as soybeans OECD-FAO (2020). The price of soybean oil is higher (per unit mass) than that of soybean meal, but as shown in Figure 27 the meal still provides most of the value from the soybean crush because more meal is produced. Meal accounted for about two thirds of the value on average across the 20-year period shown."
"The global soy market The soy crop is primarily an animal feed crop. While about 2% of global production is consumed directly by humans in products such as tofu Goldsmith (2008), about 90% of the global crop is crushed to produce soy meal for animal feed and soy oil, with the remainder fed to animals directly as soybeans OECD-FAO (2020). The price of soybean oil is higher (per unit mass) than that of soybean meal, but as shown in Figure 27 the meal still provides most of the value from the soybean crush because more meal is produced. Meal accounted for about two thirds of the value on average across the 20-year period shown."
- Location
- Glen Clova, Angus, DD8 4RD
So, by this measure, 1/3 of the deforestation should be allocated to plant diets?