
We must change food production to save the world, says leaked report - perfunctory
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/aug/03/ipcc-land-use-food-production-key-to-climate-crisis-leaked-report
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dustinmoris
Facts:

\- The meat over-production has a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions

\- Humans naturally didn't eat the amounts of meat which we consume today

\- Humans don't need to eat large quantities of meat for any health of fitness
reasons

\- Eating large amounts of meat increase the chances of certain cancers

Therefore, given that there is nothing natural about eating meat at the
current levels and given that there is no health benefit of eating this much
meat and even has some negative impact and given that the meat production is
contributing to the demise of our planet, it's only logical to drastically
reduce our meat consumption. Laws need to be drafted. Taxes on meat need to be
risen, etc.

All those fatsoes which claim they couldn't live without meat should be
treated like smokers: a dying breed of humans inflexible of understanding the
above logic. There's always going to be some fat guy who thinks that eating
McDonals burgers every day is normal, but the reality is that it's not and one
day these people will be dead and new generations will have grown up in a
world where it's normal to eat more veg & fruit and will think "how weird is
it that people once ate an entire cow just for breakfast", just like kids
today think "how weird is it that someone was allowed to light up a cigarette
on an airplane where the smoke is affecting everyone around them and where
open fire is generally considered a risk".

~~~
masklinn
While you're completely right on the "calories available per energy expended"
point, nutrition has come around to thinking that meat is a source of
"fatsoes" (what with being mostly protein and fat), and

> \- Humans naturally didn't eat the amounts of meat which we consume today

Humans "naturally" ate whatever was available and edible, in northernly
latitude they certainly ate ridiculous amounts of meat what with most of the
food available outside of high summer being hunted or fished. Humans are _not_
a vegetarian species, and their survival on a strictly vegetarian diet is non-
trivial.

Furthermore, our staple cereal carbs literally didn't exist in the "natural"
diet timespan, the sources of carbs would have been fruits (where and when
available at all) and fibrous and starchy tubers, so your appeal to nature
isn't exactly helpful to feeding the world while solving climate change.

Finally:

1\. not all meats are equal, poultry has an FCR of about 2 (that is 2 units of
feed will produce 1 unit of chicken or eggs), rabbits and pigs are around
3.5~4 and beef cattle is ~6.

2\. of note, dairy is worse than beef on an FCR basis.

3\. OTOH not all feed are equal and I don't know that FCR takes this in
account (cattle being fed raw roughage while poultry or fish is fed
concentrate)

4\. feed can be a side-product of other food production (e.g. straws) or it
might be produced on lands otherwise inclement to human food production, or as
part of a rotation scheme

~~~
dustinmoris
> Humans "naturally" ate whatever was available and edible, in northernly
> latitude they certainly ate ridiculous amounts of meat what with most of the
> food available outside of high summer being hunted or fished. Humans are not
> a vegetarian species, and their survival on a strictly vegetarian diet is
> non-trivial.

For the most part of our existense we didn't eat much or any meat. Only when
humans invented the farming of livestock we started our journey to the (over)
consumption of meat.

Our teeth, nails and inability to easily digest raw meat and other physical
properties are also a testament to the fact that we were not designed to hunt
and eat meat as much as we think we do.

~~~
masklinn
> Our teeth, nails and inability to easily digest raw meat and other physical
> properties are also a testament to the fact that we were not designed to
> hunt and eat meat as much as we think we do.

I don't know where you got that idea. Our teeth are pretty standard omnivorous
and we have archaeological evidence of hunting long predating modern humans
(we're talking >2MYA).

> Our teeth, nails and inability to easily digest raw meat

As opposed to our ease of digesting raw beans, grains and tubers, which at
best we literally can't do and at worse are actively toxic unless extensively
prepared?

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lnsru
By not throwing away 1/3 of food in western world would make world saving much
easier: [https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2018/aug/20/f...](https://www.theguardian.com/global-
development/2018/aug/20/food-waste-alarming-rise-will-see-66-tonnes-thrown-
away-every-second)

------
seren
Even if climate change open up more land for agriculture near the Arctic
circle, I don't think that fertile soil will magically move there.

Are we going to try to move billions tons of soil ? That does not seem really
feasible. So all in all we are going to see the total surface of arable land
diminishes in the coming decades.

~~~
valw
That said, about 40% of arable land is currently being used to grow cattle
fodder. So there's a big opportunity here: if we drastically reduce our meat
consumption (especially beef and lamb), which is not a huge effort, we can
significantly reduce GHG emissions, stop deforestation, and reclaim arable
land.

~~~
habnds
Every stat I hear about meat production is shocking. 40% is lunacy. For anyone
interested, the book, Diet for a Hot Planet takes a close look at this topic.

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sanxiyn
IPCC politely requested media not to quote or cite the draft report. Of
course, media ignored it.

Let's just wait a few days. Can't you wait?

[https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/07/16/media-reports-draft-
special-r...](https://www.ipcc.ch/2019/07/16/media-reports-draft-special-
report-climate-change-and-land/)

------
nashashmi
This makes me think of Alan Savory calling for the reduction of elephant
population to save the land from overgrazing and then later regretting it.

Today he preaches using cattle and herds to turn deserts green.

"We were wrong before and we are wrong again." \- Allan

~~~
perfunctory
Unfortunately the majority of beef we eat does not come from grass fed cattle.

~~~
simonsarris
Most beef cattle in the USA are raised on pasture from birth in the spring
until autumn (7 to 9 months). Then for pasture-fed animals, grass is the
forage that composes the great majority of their diet. Many cattle are then
fattened before slaughter in feedlots and are fed small amounts of hay
supplemented with grain, soy and other ingredients in order to increase the
energy density of the diet (fattiness carcass weight, etc).

(And a lot of this cattle raising is done on huge tracts of land which used to
be grazed by Bison, which we nearly eradicated, and replaced their biomass
with cow biomass.)

I think its somewhat disingenuous to say the majority of the beef we eat does
not come from grass fed cattle. But if you want more purely pasture raised
animals, that is mostly an economic argument which is somewhat separate from
what's best for the land, etc.

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nesadi
We need to do a lot of things, not just change food production. We should do
all of these things, not just change food production. I'm not sure why people
are so laser focused on cattle when we need to make drastic cuts _everywhere_.
This isn't an either-or. This isn't optional. "Preferences" are irrelevant
when it's between an uninhabitable earth for large parts of the human
population and a habitable one.

I'd love to own a car and I'd love to eat 500g of beef everyday, but that's
utterly unsustainable, so I don't.

~~~
avip
The report is about land use, not CC mitigation in general.

Also, the beef problem is conceivably solvable. It’s the lowest-hanging fruit
around.

~~~
nesadi
It's no more easily solvable than transportation or travel habits or any
number of other sources of GHG. I think you underestimate how hard it will be
to force people to change their eating habits significantly, but it's a change
that needs to be made, just like a lot of other changes.

~~~
AstralStorm
Surprisingly easy. Just make it extremely expensive and most people will
switch to Indian kind of diet. (Or Chinese before extreme availability of
poultry.)

~~~
nesadi
You could do the same for a lot of things. And it still isn't as easy as
you're imagining. Just look at Americans screaming about freedoms and gun
ownership. It's the same clusterfuck. Pretending it's otherwise is just
delusional.

------
Merrill
The combination of climate change and increased competition from a growing
population will make meat unaffordable for all but the very rich.

"We're Already Starting To Ration Our Corn" \- Perfect Storm Could Send Spot
Prices Higher - [https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-03/were-already-
start...](https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-08-03/were-already-starting-
ration-our-corn-perfect-storm-could-send-spot-prices-higher)

------
alanwil2
That will be a NO for me. Beef, bison, and eggs are my favorite.

The premise that food production is causing climate change is wrong. The ship
Indiana Harbor, 1,000 ft long, delivers coal from Superior to a power plant
near Detroit 2 times a week. It hauls 6 train loads of coal at one time. That
power plant receives 3-4 shipments a week. Just one plant...but, cows are the
problem...LOL!

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTWLbO9GgCc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTWLbO9GgCc)

~~~
lm28469
There are bigger issues that should be taken care of for sure, but the current
food industry is a mess, especially the meat industry.

I personally don't think completely stopping eating meat makes sense, but
surely there are steps between 300gr of meat everyday (avg us consumption) and
no meat at all. Especially considering the amount of low quality ultra
processed junk most people eat.

People bitch about not being able to have an impact on pollution all the time
but stopping eating meat is probably the next best thing you can do after
selling your car. And you're right in a way, it's not an excuse to give a free
pass to other things.

~~~
jotm
If we're talking individual contributions, here's a few easy ones: buy new
equipment less often, paint roofs and walls white/silver/reflective, use
gravity fed heating systems (more up to house builders), if you have a garden
grow edible plants, maybe have a chicken coop, use a bicycle for short trips.

And yet, one trip on a yacht equals dozens of families doing the above. So
people say, why should I suffer if those people don't?

~~~
llukas
Yacht? You meant jet?

~~~
jotm
Don't even get me started on those :)

