this seems like a self-correcting problem, doesn't it?
according to science, cow farts cause climate change, climate change causes temperatures to rise, high temperatures kill cows, dead cows can't fart (well, after their last big one, anyway).
Cattle are ruminants which means they play an important part in grasslands cycle because they can eat things that most other animals cannot. Grasslands are significant carbon sinks and endangered in some areas. Grasslands need grazers like cattle, which are the keystone species that replaced bison, and losing them can release more carbon, cause flooding, and remove the natural habitat for other animals.
The problem is that cows contribute to deforestation in places where we can least afford it (eg, the Amazon rain forest), and those areas are far better carbon sinks than grasslands.
I'm all for bringing the bison back; but we certainly do not need cattle.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle and if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad. Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad. Both of these can be true.
> Natural forests should remain natural forests and converting them to grasslands to satisfy our unsustainable meat habit is also bad.
True
> Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle
Not really true.
Cows graze on different plants than bison and have different grazing habits. It's not the same, and we can't really replace bizon with cattle, no matter how much would cattle farmers want us to believe that.
> if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad
We can safeguard these grasslands by reforesting vast areas of livable land. If you truly support preserving these native grasslands, you'd likely advocate halting crop production, reintroducing bison, and protecting them through pasture reforestation for climate change mitigation. Agreed?
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research.
You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare but grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent except Antartica and cover a massive area of the Earth, much of which is land completely unsuitable to agriculture.
Even for the portions that are suitable, I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields; in part because I think that would be an ecological catastrophe but mostly because absolutely nobody is going to go along with that plan.
It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it. Similarly, based on your comments in this thread I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing.
> Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle and saying they don't is simply brushing away decades of conservation grazing research
If cows are required for a conservation of some ecosystems (and I doubt it, sources?), let's have those cows. But those are not the reasons for keeping the remaining 99.99%.
> You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare
No, I'm not.
> I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields
I don't either, but we're doing exactly that right now ... for the cattle. 76% of soy is grown for animal feed.
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
And we have to switch to those diets ... because when those developing countries develop, they'll want to eat what we do. If everyone were to adopt the western diet, we would need 5+ earths, and we don't have those. We currently import a lot of that meat / feed from other countries, but that's unsustainable.
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds
> It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it
It'd be enough to remove subsidies for polluting sectors. Animal ag would be deeply unprofitable without those, and higher prices would make those products unattainable to most.
> I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position
No, I'm not. Animal agriculture is not necessary in this day and age. It's extremely destructive and is an obstacle to the mitigation of climate change and other aspects of overshoot, such as reforestation and dwindling biodiversity.
> so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing
> Cows absolutely have a place in the grasslands cycle
> grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent
Not all cattle are equal and not all grasslands evolved with cattle.
In the US bison and cattle aren't quite the same, and in Australia there were no cattle until introduced by Europeans .. now Australia has feral cattle damaging the natural grasslands:
I knew cows were dangerous to the climate because of their farts, but I had no idea they were deforesting the Amazon—that's wild! someone should put a stop to them doing that—immediately, if not sooner.
it's one thing to fart and fart and fart in the grasslands—killing the climate in the process—but Amazon deforestation? someone should lay down the law on these cows.
but what about their farts though? I'm pretty sure the science has confirmed that cows are a net climate negative, on account of all the farting they're always doing.
Our current level of beef consumption is unsustainable and science has confirmed that cow methane emissions are a significant problem for climate change. This is not the same thing as "it would be good for the climate if cows went extinct because the entire environment is unsuitable to them".
so the only way to save the world from the seemingly-inevitable doom spectre of climate change is to have not too many cows, but also not too few? we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and strictly maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold?
I'm not sure if that's logistically the best way, but yes, a healthy ecosystem is a matter of balance. Extremes tend to be bad. For another example, climate change is ultimately because we have too many greenhouse gases, but if we had no greenhouse gases, everyone on earth would freeze to death and it would be an icy wasteland. The problem is things are way out of balance.
In essence, I'm not saying that our current meat practices are ideal. I'm saying is that it's just not a simply self-correcting problem.
Cattle contribute about 14% of emissions which means that it won't reduce enough to solve climate change by itself, it'll just mean no cows, then no grasslands, and then no species that depend on grasslands. It'll just be another gradually worsening affect of climate change, not a self-invoked solution. The solution to anything with the ecosystem is a sustainable balance.
Do you know that animal species have experienced a 70% decline in just last 50 years, that we're driving nearly one million species to extinction, that we're in the sixth mass extinction which we'll manage in just 100 years probably, and that cattle is the main driver?
Humans are driving one million species to extinction - landmark United Nations-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems.
if your solution to a problem involves the complete global forced extinction of a species, not only does it show that somewhere along the way you were somehow misguided—it also shows that you're not exactly living in the same shared reality that the rest of us live in.
> solution to a problem involves the complete global forced extinction of a species
I've never argued for a forced extinction; that's just silly. We're driving numerous species to extinction by favoring only a few animal species and devastating ecosystems to support their breeding and proliferation.
Let's argue that we should maintain an equivalent population of cows and water buffalos. Would that be enough? We could allow these cows to freely roam on grasslands, reserving the remaining grazing lands for other animals whose habitats we have taken from them. Seems fair?
> you're not exactly living in the same shared reality that the rest of us live in
Thank you ... I don't want to. I couldn't look my children in the eyes when they'll learn what we've done with the world.
Cattle's main problem is not their farts; that's probably just a greenwashing attempt to discredit a critique of animal agriculture and the need to switch to plant-based diets.
Some effects of animal / cattle farming:
Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Cattle farming is a significant contributor to methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Burps and manure decomposition.
Deforestation: land is cleared for cattle grazing and to grow feed crops, leading to deforestation and habitat loss. 50+% of pastures were originally forests.
Loss of Biodiversity: the expansion of cattle farming leads to loss of biodiversity as natural habitats are converted into grazing lands, animal ag. is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss.
Water Usage: cattle farming requires substantial water resources for drinking, irrigation, and feed crops, contributing to water scarcity in some regions.
Land Degradation: overgrazing by cattle can lead to soil erosion and degradation, reducing land's fertility and ability to support vegetation.
Antibiotic Use: cattle are often raised with the use of antibiotics, contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Waste Management: handling and managing the large quantities of manure produced by cattle is a challenge, leading to potential pollution and odor issues.
Oceanic Dead Zones: runoff from cattle farms containing excess nutrients contributes to the creation of oceanic dead zones—areas of water with low oxygen levels that can't support marine life.
Eutrophication: nutrient-rich runoff from cattle operations causes eutrophication in water bodies, leading to excessive plant growth, oxygen depletion, and harm to aquatic ecosystems.
Energy Intensity: raising cattle requires significant energy inputs for feed production, transportation, and processing.
Land Use Competition: competition for land between cattle farming and crop production can exacerbate food security challenges.
Indirect Environmental Impact: cattle farming's environmental impact extends to the entire supply chain, including transportation, processing, and distribution of beef products.
I can't recommend enough Alex Epstein's site[0] on true, powerful, and succinct talking points on today's most important energy, environmental, and climate issues.
interesting. this seems to imply that you want people to draw their own conclusions on scientific subjects—instead of deferring to any authority—as it is impossible for one to know whether said authority is in any way motivated by profit incentives.
(unless, of course, said authority is a religious text, such that deferring to said authority is a conscious act of faith.)
Animal agriculture, especially cattle, is one of the least efficient ways to produce food in terms of energy and land use. Its responsible for almost 10% of greenhouse gases.[1]
One of the best things you can do for the planet it to stop eating meat and dairy.
As a vegan of more than a decade, I say this maybe with a bit of resignation, but also with an eye towards practicality...? This is probably not an effective way to combat climate change.
Even if we got the entire world to go strictly vegan, overnight, it would be nowhere near enough of a cut in emissions to make a meaningful difference. And doing so would eradicate most of the world's culinary and lifestyle cultures, which are large parts of who they are. It's a good way to make lots of enemies while accomplishing little aside from a sense of vague self satisfaction.
Environmentally, losing ruminant food supplies that can convert inedible grasses into human sustenance would also be a shame (in a land use sense, vegetarianism would be better than veganism). We don't have the teeth or stomaches to eat most native grasses, unless we either GMO the shit out of them (or us) or else eat their seeds as grains.
I think maybe it would be better for people to spend their time, money, and energy on more effective changes (say, political or science or engineering) instead... bang for buck, overthrowing personal diets is so a huge ask for such a small return. Just IMO.
And that's just the emissions. When we switch to renewables, we have to store/sequester the CO2 already in the atmosphere.
Animal agriculture takes so much lands, and carbon potential of reforestation/rewilding of grazing lands is so big, that we could store whole 1.5 Celcius carbon budget in forests there and stop the warming, reverse it, enable biodiversity to rebound and repair the water cycle (stop droughts).
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds.
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
> Environmentally, losing ruminant food supplies that can convert inedible grasses into human ...
What exactly am I wrong about? I don't doubt that decreasing animal ag would decrease emissions.
My argument was simply that it's not enough on its own (it isn't, since it's only a quarter of emissions as you pointed out). Yes, reforestation can help, but that's not synonymous with stopping animal ag, although of course there is overlap. And more significantly, that doing so at the necessary scales would be incredibly disruptive to world cultures and economies. Most people simply wouldn't stand for it. It hasn't ever been a realistic solution, despite decades of trying.
I also think it's a bit unnecessary to accuse me of lying... why would anyone be deceptive about their diet..? I was eating a tofu scramble as I was writing that, in fact. FWIW I've spent way too much time on HappyCow. My undergrad was also in environmental science (part of the reason I went vegan), and we've read a lot of these sorts of papers. I've dressed up in chicken suits and handed out PETA pamphlets. Anyway, it's a silly accusation. Whatever I eat personally wouldn't change the fact that most of the world is not going to go vegan or vegetarian, and we're not going to replant enough forests, on a timescale to matter.
It's too little, too late for that. The climate is getting worse despite rising awareness of dietary impacts (and way better vegan foods these days)... it's just not making a noticeable difference. We need more drastic actions. Covid did way more for emissions than decades of vegan propaganda, for example, and yet things went right back to the status quo afterward.
> My argument was simply that it's not enough on its own
There is not a magic bullet at this point ... we have to do many things to correct the overshoot.
> reforestation can help, but that's not synonymous with stopping animal ag, although of course there is overlap
Animal agriculture occupies as much space as all our forests do. The overlap and deforestation that have occurred over millennia are highly significant.
> doing so at the necessary scales would be incredibly disruptive to world cultures and economies
There are many reasons why we need that. Without abundant biodiversity we might see collapse of animal populations, and we might lose remaining pollinators, for example. We won't have any economy without those services we take for granted from the nature.
If you're ethical vegan, you'll know that culture is just stories we tell ourselves, and those stories are/were very often wrong (like slavery, for example). I don't have to tell you that with animal ag. we're taking something from those animals that isn't ours to take. I'll suppose from now on that you're a vegan and I don't have to explain this to you anymore.
It's something we have to do, no matter what anyone thinks. We don't have enough space to feed everyone a meat and dairy diet in the quantities that Westerners consume. We could attempt to do so, but that would result in the total collapse of ecosystems and our own demise.
One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American.
> and we're not going to replant enough forests, on a timescale to matter
We don't have to replant them. It would be enough to allow those pastures to rewild or reforest themselves. Here's an example of how the land can look when kept free from animal agriculture for 30 years:
35 comments
[ 4.6 ms ] story [ 91.6 ms ] threadaccording to science, cow farts cause climate change, climate change causes temperatures to rise, high temperatures kill cows, dead cows can't fart (well, after their last big one, anyway).
https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/milk-heal...
I'm all for bringing the bison back; but we certainly do not need cattle.
True
> Cows have a place in the natural grasslands cycle
Not really true.
Cows graze on different plants than bison and have different grazing habits. It's not the same, and we can't really replace bizon with cattle, no matter how much would cattle farmers want us to believe that.
https://grist.org/climate-energy/cattle-grazing-is-a-climate...
https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/publications/grazed-and-co...
> if climate change makes those grasslands uninhabitable to them then that is bad
We can safeguard these grasslands by reforesting vast areas of livable land. If you truly support preserving these native grasslands, you'd likely advocate halting crop production, reintroducing bison, and protecting them through pasture reforestation for climate change mitigation. Agreed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biotic_pump
https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/10/8/08...
Climate impact of beef: an analysis considering multiple time scales and production methods without use of global warming potentials
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare but grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent except Antartica and cover a massive area of the Earth, much of which is land completely unsuitable to agriculture.
Even for the portions that are suitable, I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields; in part because I think that would be an ecological catastrophe but mostly because absolutely nobody is going to go along with that plan.
It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it. Similarly, based on your comments in this thread I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing.
If cows are required for a conservation of some ecosystems (and I doubt it, sources?), let's have those cows. But those are not the reasons for keeping the remaining 99.99%.
> You seem to be under the impression that every grassland is just a forest that humans have stripped bare
No, I'm not.
> I don't subscribe to the notion that we are going to solve the climate crisis by paving over every square inch of natural habitat with soy fields
I don't either, but we're doing exactly that right now ... for the cattle. 76% of soy is grown for animal feed.
https://ourworldindata.org/soy
We would need just 25% of land to feed everyone on plant based diets.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
And we have to switch to those diets ... because when those developing countries develop, they'll want to eat what we do. If everyone were to adopt the western diet, we would need 5+ earths, and we don't have those. We currently import a lot of that meat / feed from other countries, but that's unsustainable.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds
> It's not a solution if you can't convince anyone of it
It'd be enough to remove subsidies for polluting sectors. Animal ag would be deeply unprofitable without those, and higher prices would make those products unattainable to most.
> I don't think you're going to be convinced of any moderation on your position
No, I'm not. Animal agriculture is not necessary in this day and age. It's extremely destructive and is an obstacle to the mitigation of climate change and other aspects of overshoot, such as reforestation and dwindling biodiversity.
> so I'm not sure there's much more benefit to discussing
As you wish.
> grasslands are naturally occurring in every continent
Not all cattle are equal and not all grasslands evolved with cattle.
In the US bison and cattle aren't quite the same, and in Australia there were no cattle until introduced by Europeans .. now Australia has feral cattle damaging the natural grasslands:
https://news.csu.edu.au/feature/are-feral-cattle-the-brumbie...
it's one thing to fart and fart and fart in the grasslands—killing the climate in the process—but Amazon deforestation? someone should lay down the law on these cows.
Funny.
https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-pe...
https://www.globalwitness.org/en/blog/terrible-trade-burger-...
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8622
The drivers and impacts of Amazon forest degradation
https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/argentina-lost-one-f...
Argentina lost one-fifth of its Atlantic Forest in the last four decades
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/feb/19/colombia...
Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report
https://earth.org/major-companies-responsible-for-deforestat...
13 Major Companies Responsible for Deforestation
https://news.mongabay.com/2023/05/3-million-hectares-of-colo...
3 million hectares of Colombian Amazon deforested for illegal pasture: Study
https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation
What's Driving Deforestation?
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/02/more-tha...
More than 800m Amazon trees felled in six years to meet beef demand
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jun/27/destruct...
Destruction of world’s pristine rainforests soared in 2022 despite Cop26 pledge
https://www.nature.com/immersive/d41586-023-02599-1/index.ht...
Trouble in the Amazon - "we are killing this ecosystem"
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06391-z
Tropical forests are approaching critical temperature thresholds
In essence, I'm not saying that our current meat practices are ideal. I'm saying is that it's just not a simply self-correcting problem.
Cattle contribute about 14% of emissions which means that it won't reduce enough to solve climate change by itself, it'll just mean no cows, then no grasslands, and then no species that depend on grasslands. It'll just be another gradually worsening affect of climate change, not a self-invoked solution. The solution to anything with the ecosystem is a sustainable balance.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2204892120
The total mammal biomass:
- livestock (≈630 Mt)
- humans (≈390 Mt)
- wild marine mammals (≈40 Mt)
- terrestrial wild mammals (≈20 Mt)
Do you know how much land animal agriculture occupies (cattle being the most land-demanding)?
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
Do you know that animal species have experienced a 70% decline in just last 50 years, that we're driving nearly one million species to extinction, that we're in the sixth mass extinction which we'll manage in just 100 years probably, and that cattle is the main driver?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-01448-4
Humans are driving one million species to extinction - landmark United Nations-backed report finds that agriculture is one of the biggest threats to Earth’s ecosystems.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/brv.12974
More losers than winners: investigating Anthropocene defaunation through the diversity of population trends
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7...
Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
Biodiversity conservation: The key is reducing meat consumption
https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/press-release/our-glob...
Our global food system is the primary driver of biodiversity loss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_boundaries#Nine_boun...
> we need to get together as an entire global species and determine and maintain some Optimal Bovine Population Threshold
Yes, it's zero.
I've never argued for a forced extinction; that's just silly. We're driving numerous species to extinction by favoring only a few animal species and devastating ecosystems to support their breeding and proliferation.
Let's argue that we should maintain an equivalent population of cows and water buffalos. Would that be enough? We could allow these cows to freely roam on grasslands, reserving the remaining grazing lands for other animals whose habitats we have taken from them. Seems fair?
> you're not exactly living in the same shared reality that the rest of us live in
Thank you ... I don't want to. I couldn't look my children in the eyes when they'll learn what we've done with the world.
Some effects of animal / cattle farming:
Greenhouse Gas Emissions - Cattle farming is a significant contributor to methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. Burps and manure decomposition.
Deforestation: land is cleared for cattle grazing and to grow feed crops, leading to deforestation and habitat loss. 50+% of pastures were originally forests.
Loss of Biodiversity: the expansion of cattle farming leads to loss of biodiversity as natural habitats are converted into grazing lands, animal ag. is the biggest driver of biodiversity loss.
Water Usage: cattle farming requires substantial water resources for drinking, irrigation, and feed crops, contributing to water scarcity in some regions.
Land Degradation: overgrazing by cattle can lead to soil erosion and degradation, reducing land's fertility and ability to support vegetation.
Antibiotic Use: cattle are often raised with the use of antibiotics, contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Waste Management: handling and managing the large quantities of manure produced by cattle is a challenge, leading to potential pollution and odor issues.
Oceanic Dead Zones: runoff from cattle farms containing excess nutrients contributes to the creation of oceanic dead zones—areas of water with low oxygen levels that can't support marine life.
Eutrophication: nutrient-rich runoff from cattle operations causes eutrophication in water bodies, leading to excessive plant growth, oxygen depletion, and harm to aquatic ecosystems.
Energy Intensity: raising cattle requires significant energy inputs for feed production, transportation, and processing.
Land Use Competition: competition for land between cattle farming and crop production can exacerbate food security challenges.
Indirect Environmental Impact: cattle farming's environmental impact extends to the entire supply chain, including transportation, processing, and distribution of beef products.
[0]: https://energytalkingpoints.com/
What a load of pseudo-scientific bullshit.
Maybe stay away from political for-profit think tanks if you're interested in truth.
(unless, of course, said authority is a religious text, such that deferring to said authority is a conscious act of faith.)
One of the best things you can do for the planet it to stop eating meat and dairy.
[1]: https://youtu.be/-k-V3ESHcfA?t=591
Even if we got the entire world to go strictly vegan, overnight, it would be nowhere near enough of a cut in emissions to make a meaningful difference. And doing so would eradicate most of the world's culinary and lifestyle cultures, which are large parts of who they are. It's a good way to make lots of enemies while accomplishing little aside from a sense of vague self satisfaction.
Environmentally, losing ruminant food supplies that can convert inedible grasses into human sustenance would also be a shame (in a land use sense, vegetarianism would be better than veganism). We don't have the teeth or stomaches to eat most native grasses, unless we either GMO the shit out of them (or us) or else eat their seeds as grains.
I think maybe it would be better for people to spend their time, money, and energy on more effective changes (say, political or science or engineering) instead... bang for buck, overthrowing personal diets is so a huge ask for such a small return. Just IMO.
We have to stop fossil fuels, absolutely, that's a prerogative. But animal agriculture is 60% of emissions from food sector (26% of total emissions).
https://ourworldindata.org/emissions-by-sector
And that's just the emissions. When we switch to renewables, we have to store/sequester the CO2 already in the atmosphere.
Animal agriculture takes so much lands, and carbon potential of reforestation/rewilding of grazing lands is so big, that we could store whole 1.5 Celcius carbon budget in forests there and stop the warming, reverse it, enable biodiversity to rebound and repair the water cycle (stop droughts).
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares
https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/World-Map-by-Land...
How much land are we talking about.
https://ourworldindata.org/drivers-of-deforestation
https://phys.org/news/2022-08-global-forest-area-capita-decr...
New study finds global forest area per capita has decreased by over 60%
https://www.discovermagazine.com/environment/weve-lost-35-pe...
We’ve Lost 35 Percent of Forests in the Past 300 Years
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357
Global food system emissions could preclude achieving the 1.5° and 2°C climate change targets
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
A global shift towards healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds.
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/15/4110/htm
Which Diet Has the Least Environmental Impact on Our Planet? A Systematic Review of Vegan, Vegetarian and Omnivorous Diets
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z
Assessing the efficiency of changes in land use for mitigating climate change
https://journals.plos.org/climate/article?id=10.1371/journal...
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
> Environmentally, losing ruminant food supplies that can convert inedible grasses into human ...
My argument was simply that it's not enough on its own (it isn't, since it's only a quarter of emissions as you pointed out). Yes, reforestation can help, but that's not synonymous with stopping animal ag, although of course there is overlap. And more significantly, that doing so at the necessary scales would be incredibly disruptive to world cultures and economies. Most people simply wouldn't stand for it. It hasn't ever been a realistic solution, despite decades of trying.
I also think it's a bit unnecessary to accuse me of lying... why would anyone be deceptive about their diet..? I was eating a tofu scramble as I was writing that, in fact. FWIW I've spent way too much time on HappyCow. My undergrad was also in environmental science (part of the reason I went vegan), and we've read a lot of these sorts of papers. I've dressed up in chicken suits and handed out PETA pamphlets. Anyway, it's a silly accusation. Whatever I eat personally wouldn't change the fact that most of the world is not going to go vegan or vegetarian, and we're not going to replant enough forests, on a timescale to matter.
It's too little, too late for that. The climate is getting worse despite rising awareness of dietary impacts (and way better vegan foods these days)... it's just not making a noticeable difference. We need more drastic actions. Covid did way more for emissions than decades of vegan propaganda, for example, and yet things went right back to the status quo afterward.
There is not a magic bullet at this point ... we have to do many things to correct the overshoot.
> reforestation can help, but that's not synonymous with stopping animal ag, although of course there is overlap
Animal agriculture occupies as much space as all our forests do. The overlap and deforestation that have occurred over millennia are highly significant.
https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
> doing so at the necessary scales would be incredibly disruptive to world cultures and economies
There are many reasons why we need that. Without abundant biodiversity we might see collapse of animal populations, and we might lose remaining pollinators, for example. We won't have any economy without those services we take for granted from the nature.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
If you're ethical vegan, you'll know that culture is just stories we tell ourselves, and those stories are/were very often wrong (like slavery, for example). I don't have to tell you that with animal ag. we're taking something from those animals that isn't ours to take. I'll suppose from now on that you're a vegan and I don't have to explain this to you anymore.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E7JE8j5Ncmw
> is not going to go vegan or vegetarian
It's something we have to do, no matter what anyone thinks. We don't have enough space to feed everyone a meat and dairy diet in the quantities that Westerners consume. We could attempt to do so, but that would result in the total collapse of ecosystems and our own demise.
https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability...
One study estimates it would take just over 5 Earths to support the human population if everyone’s consumption patterns were similar to the average American.
https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do...
> and we're not going to replant enough forests, on a timescale to matter
We don't have to replant them. It would be enough to allow those pastures to rewild or reforest themselves. Here's an example of how the land can look when kept free from animal agriculture for 30 years:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VZSJKbzyMc
> The climate is getting worse despite rising awareness of dietary impacts ... it's just not making a noticeable difference
But it would ... at scale.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/917471
Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 within planetary limits may be achievable
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449
How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets?
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-03565-5
What humanity should eat to stay healthy and save the planet
> We need more drastic actions
What would those be?