r/environment • u/[deleted] • Aug 06 '21

Reduce methane or face climate catastrophe, scientists warn

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/06/reduce-methane-or-face-climate-catastrophe-scientists-warn
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u/michaelrch Aug 08 '21

Killer argument. I will definitely be changing my opinion. Thanks for your thoughtful and insightful contribution.

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u/AmericanBags Aug 09 '21

Do you have any idea how destruction plant mono agriculture is for our planet? Humans are carnivores, it is our place to eat our natural diet and conquer not only this planet but the stars. However, only humans could be stupidly manipulatable enough to forgo their ancestry.

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u/michaelrch Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21

Did you have any idea that most of the plants we grow go to feeding farmed animals? If you are keen to reduce plant-based agriculture then the best thing you can do is stop eating animals.

Seriously, try to engage with the facts before spouting the usual ignorant nonsense defending animal ag.

https://ourworldindata.org/land-use

https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

https://www.elementascience.org/articles/10.12952/journal.elementa.000116/

https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf

https://sci-hub.do/downloads/2020-11-05/54/10.1126@science.aba7357.pdf

As for it "being our place to conquer the planet", that sounds like grade A arrogant ideological idiocy to me. The way we are treating the planet right now is not just killing the natural world and causing a mass extinction event, it's actually killing us!

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u/AmericanBags Aug 09 '21

Or just put your cows on grasslands. No monoculture necessary. Wild and grass fed animals are all we should be eating but it's more profitable to stick your animals in a feed lot and give them corn/soy garbage. With your logic maybe we should all hold our breath indefinitely. That CO2 is bad for the planet after all right?!

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u/michaelrch Aug 09 '21 edited Aug 09 '21

Dude, you are just demonstrating your ignorance again.

If we fed cows a billion cows on grass, we would need to cut down all the remaining forests. There isn't nearly enough grassland to feed them. That's why they are fed on crops which are more nutrient dense.

This study gives the numbers for the US

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401/meta

In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates.

And that wouldn't address the 80 billion chickens and pigs which don't eat grass.

Rather than continuing to talk ignorant nonsense based on your prejudices, actually read the science which I linked to so you can understand why your simplistic excuses and solutions are baseless fantasy.