Climate Change and Livestock Production

"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo) 12/06/2019 at 13:24 • Filed to: None

6

37

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Some of you will smash me for this post, but so be it. I want to share something with you that I have been exposed to for a while, and I find really interesting.

One of the speakers at this conference (I have been on the bill with him before) is Dr. Frank Mitloehner, of UC Davis, a climate science researcher focused on the role that livestock plays in climate change. I really encourage those of you interested in this issue to look at his work. The vast majority of his work is funded by public funds - he is not an industry shill, and he openly states that climate change is real (not a DENIER, so keep your pointing fingers and heretic-burning torches in your pockets). His message is that we cannot eat our way out of climate change, and that fossil fuels, not livestock, is the real issue. Carbon in the atmosphere due to livestock is contained within the carbon cycle, and consumed by plants, particularly with the fact that there millions fewer ruminant animals in North America than there were a hundred years ago (we killed all the bison). He is not the only one discussing this.

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

Fossil fuels release sequestered carbon from the earth , and increase atmospheric carbon dioxide out of balance with the planet’s carbon cycle that is driving climate change. I am not doing it justice with this simplistic explanation, but having heard him speak a number of times over the years, his research is compelling. He hates the right vs. left division, and has met with AOC and her staff several times in the last year, and he is encouraged by these meetings that he can make all sides of the debate listen to the science. His real criticism is not for lefty politicians, who he believes will listen and respond to the truth, but for the media that does not present the full story, and promotes ideas like “meatless Monday” which, even if achieved, will have no impact whatsoever.

He cites numbers showing that the world cannot produce enough fruits and vegetables to feed a rapidly growing population if everyone went vegan- the math shows we cannot meet our nutritional needs, and he has fascinating data to show that livestock production in the United States and Europe is not a problem with respect to climate change because of our massively increased efficiency. We have increased meat and dairy production incredibly, while dramatically reducing the number of animals. China, for example, a nation with the most pigs of anywhere in the world, has a 40 percent mortality rate in their pig production, a number that would never be tolerated here. India has the most cows in the world - and they don’t eat them, leading to a massive impact on climate due their long lifespans. Africa has terrible inefficiency in its livestock production. As he puts it, we know how to fix this because we used to be them. His challenge, as he states it, is to communicate this science to the public and to our leaders so that we focus on helping the developing world achieve the food production efficiencies that have reduced the environmental footprint of Europe and North America to levels where they are not drivers of climate change. A big part of his message is that people need to look more deeply at climate change than the media is presenting, because the science is complex and only a small part of it is actually being discussed.

It is really interesting stuff, and I encourage you to read up on him. You can follow him on Twitter at @GHGGuru. He has a blog at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! There, he says:

As a professor and extension specialist at the University of California, Davis, I have the privilege of working on these issues. I teach hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students each year and I see firsthand their concern and commitment. Anyone who believes our so-called Millennials and Gen Z-ers are going to be our undoing, I wish you could see what I see. They are passionate, smart and willing to take a stand.There are many conversations in our social and traditional media spaces, around our dinner tables, and in our homes and offices about how we can work toward a “sustainable” planet. In launching this blog, I’m aiming toward creating a forum to share ideas and talk about our next steps as we prepare for 2050 and a projected world population of 10 billion. I hope we’ll also be able to work together to create a space that puts forth scientific-based evidence so as many people as possible have accurate data on which to base their decisions.My academic position has me working closely with the agricultural industry – farmers, feed companies, NGOs, my colleagues at UC Davis and other highly regarded educational institutions, world environmental and health organizations, to name a few – to benchmark and reduce negative impacts of farming on the air we breathe and the climate. Simply put, we must better understand the role of agriculture in nourishing our world. At the same time, we need to know where to focus our attention for cleaner air and a stable climate.“Simply put, we must better understand the role of agriculture in nourishing our world. At the same time, we need to know where to focus our attention for cleaner air and a healthy climate.”

Ok, go ahead and smash me now.  

CalzoneGolem > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:33

4

I don’t know why anyone would smash you for this. It seems perfectly reasonable to me.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:36

1

tldr

stop farting future burgers damnit

its your fault the maximum speed is going to be 100kmh here

Thomas Donohue > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:42

0

How about I just go get a double at SmashBurger?

I obviously haven’t read it yet (I will), but my concern is the amount of deforestation required to accommodate the extra livestock in places like Mexico and South America (US livestock numbers have  been slowly declining over the last 20 years, while SA production has exploded) . Also, I think our environment was much more capable of sustaining itself when all the bison were running around. To his point, however, there are many contributors to the environmental problem.

Having said that, I’m having a steak tonight, so I’ll shut up now.

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:43

3

Just stopping Cruise Ships would do wonders.

facw > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:46

1

You’re right about the carbon cycle stuff. It’s essentially the same reason burning the Amazon isn’t actually that big of a deal for global warming: The Amazon Is Not Earth’s Lungs

There may be some difference in the sense that my understanding is that people are less worried about the C02 output of cows and other livestock, and more about their methane production, which is a more potent greenhouse gas. I think that still should be cycled with time.

He cites numbers showing that the world cannot produce enough fruits and vegetables to feed a rapidly growing population if everyone went vegan- the math shows we cannot meet our nutritional needs 

This seems wrong on its face though. If everyone went vegan we wouldn’t need to feed livestock, and so could convert those pastures and fields for producing human food. Since livestock are way less than 100% efficient, you would have more food available. Granted, livestock can eat things we can’t so maybe some of that land would be unsuitable for growing human foods, but tons of livestock is just fed corn, and most pasture land is fertile enough to grow some sort of crop. Given how much you have to feed a cow to produce a pound of beef (for corn fed cows, you see numbers anywhere from 2:1 to 20:1 depending on how you measure), we really shouldn’t have any food shortages doing away with livestock (I don’t have any idea if the same is true if you eliminated open water fishing).  

Highlander-Datsuns are Forever > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:47

6

I am very left wing and I disagree with about 50% of your political views but am also very much pragmatic. Protein is a necessary and desirable thing to eat. What this UCD professor has stated makes perfect sense to me. Meat hate seems to be a relatively new thing to target to lower our impact on the environment. Other things we can do are: have less children, don’t buy huge gas guzzling trucks, don’t carry on useless global wars, live in a reasonable sized home, things like that are much more effective than not eating meat on Monday .

MonkeePuzzle > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:53

1

Ash78, voting early and often > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 13:58

1

My cynical side always though the methane thing was overblown, and that the “go vegan” push (for climate) was just some kind of weird conflation of two traditionally left-championed ideas — veganism and climate change — meeting in a dark room and coming up with a plan to join forces to...confuse people?

To be fair, the left wing does have a very broad constituency and a similarly hard time keeping its messages straight/concise because there are simply so many of them. So it makes sense to try to package them for easier consumption. Seems pretty effective, honestly.

Nothing > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 14:01

3

I won’t claim to be far left or anything, but is the general consensus of “regular” democrats that livestock is the driver of climate change? I don’t think so. If so, they’re fairly quiet about it in my neck of the woods, which is surprising, given my proximity to Boulder.

shop-teacher > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 14:05

6

Good.  There’s no friggen way I’m going vegetarian.  I’d stop driving first.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 14:12

4

Thanks for posting this. Coming from (originally) a farm family— and livestock producer— I always cringe when I see the sound-bite-based condemnation of whole industries. Usually the truth is FAR more nuanced. And far more elusive.

Your colleague makes a great point that most of the carbon is probably captured “in-cycle”... and I would add that the means of production probably influences the outcome a lot too. Heavily grain-fed beef is likely to have a much bigger net hoof print (sorry, could not resist) than grass -fed and waste-forage-fed beef.

I DID get flamed recently for asking an obvious question on one of the Kinja sites of “Does anyone know what the carbon footprint is for “Impossible Beef” burgers?”. The “fat” and “caloric” levels of those burgers is insanely high, which is counter-intuitive, so I thought it was worth at least asking if maybe all the fat-calories-additives had a high carbon content in production.

I was informed, quite haughtily, that “All beef production” was ridiculously high carbon and I must be an idiot for not seeing “obviously” that Impossible Burgers were far better for the planet. Oh.

It’s funny these days how people claim to “KNOW” something when they seem to have “NO IDEA” what supports their KNOWLEDGE... a curse of the modern age...

Sovande > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/06/2019 at 14:21

2

Running a leaf blower produces 300 times more pollutants than driving a car for the same amount of time. Running a lawn mower for an hour produces as much pollution as driving a car for 100 miles.

Ban lawn care!

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Sovande 12/06/2019 at 14:24

1

Mine’s battery powered

Sovande > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire 12/06/2019 at 14:26

1

Ban batteries!

WRXforScience > facw 12/06/2019 at 14:37

2

Those are the parts I had issues with too, Methane and grains/crops for people is less food intensive than feeding livestock and eating them (that’s just a thermodynamics fact).

Really, the biggest issue with livestock production are the overuse of grains instead of a grass fed diet and the use of feed pens alongside overuse of antibiotics to promote rapid growth.

In the post WWII era we figured out how to increase production and industrialize farming. It worked, farms produce more food than ever; however, some of the production methods have ecological consequences that we overlooked (pig waste makes the entire state of Iowa smell terrible and it contaminates the water).

People in the US should reduce their meat consumption and substitute more chicken for beef and pork (chicken is inherently less impactful on the environment but has its own issues).

Farming is getting better as far as environmental impact, the farmers are among the first to realize that some of the practices are harmful to the environment which is where they make their livelihoods from.

I read through the transcript and it looks like the speaker supports most of the best practice that’d re duce the environmental impact of livestock.

JawzX2, Boost Addict. 1.6t, 2.7tt, 4.2t > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 12/06/2019 at 14:52

1

Meat hate is a political and economic tool to sell more profitable products. It directly targets lower income people and producers who use less mech anized producti on.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 15:02

1

The problem with methane is that even though it is short lived it is 30x better at trapping heat than the other greenhouse gases, which is why discussing it as a percent of total emissions isn’t quite right . Methane is a problem that will make things worse, but it’s not just from cattle, there are a lot of natural sources too. One of the bigger issues besides heard size is that as the permafrost melts it releases trapped methane which in turn helps heat things up even more.

While we don’t need to “ban cattle”, reducing human created methane emissions will have the quickest impact on reducing the greenhouse effect. Methane is currently estimated to contribute about 20% of the heating due to greenhouse gases and about 60% of methane is human generated . So if we were to cut out all methane sources right now we could reduce the greenhouse effect by 12% within a decade.

Now, that’s not remotely possible, but it is still worth discussing what we can do to reduce methane emissions here and abroad.

I also take issue with his assertion that cattle are used to feed on “marginal land” that can’t be used for other crops. If that’s all we did with cattle, sure that’s fine, but with how many feed lots we have and dairy barns that buy feed like corn that’s simply not the case for many places. About 36% of corn goes to cattle feed (and don’t even get me started on ethanol). That’s fertile productive land that could be used to grow food for human consumption instead of cattle.

That’s a long way of saying that while I agree that fossil fuels are the biggest issue, it wouldn’t hurt to reduce the amount of cattle there are either.

MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s > Sovande 12/06/2019 at 15:04

1

I love my electric yard tools. They are quiet, clean, and always start. I have an old lawn tractor in my garage who’s engine is bad...my plan is to convert it to electric as well. 

LastFirstMI is my name > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 15:50

0

I agree- but then I’m a barbarian that still uses drinking straws....

This doesn’t address the massive water consumption our current system requires- I grew up on top of  the Ogalalla aquifer, and in our lifetime we will watch plains farming wither and die. Free range beef is environmentally sound, but irrigating the desert to raise grain for beef is not sustainable....

My X-type is too a real Jaguar > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 16:42

1

I can’t believe that pork mortality figure in China, that is a terrible stat.  Like you said we figured it out years ago and it is not hard.

DasWauto > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 16:49

0

As a livestock producer, thanks for sharing this. I don’t have the energy to fight the meat hater  trend but I’m glad there are others who do and do so with the science to back it up.

BJ > Sovande 12/06/2019 at 16:54

1

Yes yes yes! Man, I hate seeing those gas-powered leaf-blowers so that the city can save 10 minutes of time raking them up... Just leave the fucking leaves in the park and let nature work on the problem.

gin-san - shitpost specialist > shop-teacher 12/06/2019 at 16:57

0

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with it, if one makes that choice.

Meat is too delicious for me to give up entirely, but I’m all for buying it as ethically as possible whether it’s in terms of animal treatment or buying from local farms (as I posted here previously).

gin-san - shitpost specialist > DasWauto 12/06/2019 at 17:00

0

I think the meat hater trend is, as usual, a loud minority.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 17:08

0

Well I have to say I’m disappointed. I didn’t find anything you wrote to be smash-worthy.

If you want me to smash you, you have to do something like deny climate change is happening, say that Tesla is going bankrupt and nobody wants what they are selling or claim that the Chevette was the greatest car ever.

gin-san - shitpost specialist > ImmoralMinority 12/06/2019 at 17:12

0

This was a very interesting post and discussion - I guess we do need something other than shitposts from time to time.

People like me are partly to blame; I never really thought much about having some vegetarian meals per week - that’s usually just how it ends up happening for me anyway. It seemed to make sense, but I was never bothered enough about the issue to actually look into it. However, I’m always willing to say I’m wrong or change my view if I learn new things.

So far, this stuff makes sense to me, but it’s still not going to change the way I eat, the same as when I was told meat is killing the planet.

FYI, I don’t think you need to be defensive with these kinds of posts , but maybe you’ve had bad arguments here that I’ve missed. We all need to hear opposing perspectives from time to time so that we can learn.

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 12/06/2019 at 17:12

2

“Usually the truth is FAR more nuanced. And far more elusive.”

Yup. And this reminds me of a recent discussion I heard on the radio about the future of the oil industry and how green policies will essentially kill the oil industry... which struck me as stupid because there is way more to the oil industry than just producing gasoline and diesel fuel.

Even in a fully green economy, there will still be need for oil-related products such as plastics, lubricants and a whole bunch of other products .

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Sovande 12/06/2019 at 17:14

0

Nah... just make it so you have a choice between a cord-electric mower, battery-electric mower or a manual push mower (what I personally use).

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > Highlander-Datsuns are Forever 12/06/2019 at 17:18

0

And replace the gasoline mower with an electric or manual one, replace the leaf blower with a rake and broom, replace the motorcycle with either a bicycle or an electric motorcycle, turn off the A/C, get grid-tied solar panels mounted on your roof and improve the insulation in your home

Manwich - now Keto-Friendly > shop-teacher 12/06/2019 at 17:21

0

Which would you do first... switch from coffee to blood or go vegetarian?

Nibbles and I would like to know!

:-p

DasWauto > gin-san - shitpost specialist 12/06/2019 at 17:23

1

Agreed, but it’s problematic nonetheless. 

Sovande > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 12/06/2019 at 17:23

0

Ban choices!

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 12/06/2019 at 17:37

0

Yep, on that one anymore— whenever it comes up— I just post those links to the lists of the THOUSANDS of products that rely on petroleum in production— from cosmetics to paints to fertilizers. It’s a fascinating list.

I’m all in favor of reducing consumption, BTW, but it’s gonna a be a long march.  Me buying a Tesla or a solar panel isn’t moving the needle much right now.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish 12/06/2019 at 21:13

0

the issue is the cumu lat ive amount of calories it takes to make the beef burger. everytime you go up another notch in the food chain at @90% of the calories are lost. So for a 600lb cow you’ll need 6k lbs of grain

“ A new study has found that the Impossible Burger has a carbon footprint 89% smaller than a traditional beef burger.”

https://www.vanderbilt.edu/sustainability/2019/03/impossible-burger-has-89-smaller-carbon-footprint-than-beef/

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas 12/06/2019 at 21:52

0

!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!

This is completely false. Most of the calories are coming via cellulose, not the grain. Ruminants have the ability to convert cellulose into sugars, proteins and meat. Any agricultural university extension report will give you the real data.  It’s appalling the nonsense that gets recited as “facts”.

-Former midwest farm boy, FFA member and cattle rancher

shop-teacher > gin-san - shitpost specialist 12/06/2019 at 22:41

0

Agreed on all counts.

shop-teacher > Manwich - now Keto-Friendly 12/06/2019 at 22:41

1

Blood. Definitely blood.