
Meat is Horrible - SwellJoe
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/06/30/how-meat-is-destroying-the-planet-in-seven-charts/
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giomasce
On the specific issue of the carbon budget, there is a point I miss: what do
we count in the carbon dioxide emission by agriculture and livestock? In both
cases carbon emitted to the atmosphere is just carbon that was earlier fixated
from the atmosphere, since plants and animals have no other sources of carbon
(where there is a lot in the soil, but that counts as carbon that was already
fixated from the atmosphere). So, while industrial activities unilaterally
move carbon from oil fields to soil or atmosphere, growing plants or raising
livestock just move carbon back and forth between living bodies and
atmosphere/soil. In particular, it seems that having more more animals helps
reducing the amount of carbon in the air (but it also requires more energy to
handle them, so it increases oil usage, therefore the net effect is probably
bad).

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DanBC
Animals release methane, which is a much worse problem than just the carbon
dioxide.

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dozzie
Sea releases steam, which is much worse problem than carbon dioxide and
methane combined, when you count atmosphere concentration to the calculation.

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tzs
I have some doubts about the usefulness of the water usage numbers given. Most
of the water plants and animals take in is not retained long term or used in
chemical reactions that break down the water. It mostly ends up being released
by the organism back into the environment.

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SwellJoe
"released back into the environment", yes, along with all of the contaminants
introduced by the industrial agricultural system, and in a different place
from where it started. The "water" runoff from feed lots is considered toxic
waste to be managed, not a natural resource to be celebrated or conserved.

It's not a zero-sum game. There's a reason there's a (political, at leas in
the US) war being waged over water in every region where water is scarce and
cows are plentiful (likewise for many kinds of plant agriculture, admittedly,
but the water used for the same nutritional value of plant-based foods is
vastly lower).

Anyway, these are complex systems, sure. And, as with climate change science,
in general, there are all sorts of variables one can debate the precision of.
But, the general trend is in a dangerous direction. It's pretty widely
accepted now, by folks who study the subject, that meat consumption is a large
part of the equation. How much is debatable, but no one who studies the field
that I'm aware of is saying it isn't a big part of the picture.

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tptacek
The runoff is sealed off from the environment, but water vapor isn't. This
appears to be pretty well studied; for instance, just the non-waste biological
activity of an indoor lot of live cows can saturate the air, which then needs
to be vented.

I think 'tzs is just pointing out that the water consumption numbers here are
oversimplified. They probably are, right?

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SwellJoe
Yes, they probably are oversimplified, as is almost every number we talk about
when discussing climate change. It's a big topic, and very few people (maybe
actually nobody) understand _all_ of the facets of it in enough detail to
speak with authority on how they all interact.

~~~
tptacek
Sure. But sometimes the numbers are oversimplified but valid to a first
approximation, and others (like, perhaps, the water numbers for California
almonds) are so oversimplified as to be not helpful for discussion.

So then you're left wondering, which kind of number is this one? Does most of
the water used to produce beef return to the environment in the course of
raising the animals to their slaughter weight, or does most of it get retained
in concrete and plastic lined manure pits?

