Solar farm sheep trials Oz / US

[Oliver90owner]

The sort of outdoor raised, grass fed, animal husbandry practiced in the UK is carbon negative (he carbon is sequested in the soil). The story about meat being automatically bad for the climate is PETA nonsense.

You are joking? Or b*llsh*tting?

How much meat products in the UK are fed on only grass? What is the ‘efficiency’ of growing grass and then using it to feed cattle?

The vegans have you totally strapped on that! Far more carbon-neutral food could be produced if the animals didn’t eat the vegetable matter that could be grown where they feed. Additionally, methane and carbon dioxide production would virtually cease - both good to limit climate change - and neither is sequestered anywhere.

The human population of this planet, plus all the animals they farm for food (or just own as a sign of wealth) are the only climate-change problems we have - apart from burning fossil fuels. Educate me otherwise, please, if you can.

[Stinsy]

The sort of outdoor raised, grass fed, animal husbandry practiced in the UK is carbon negative (he carbon is sequested in the soil). The story about meat being automatically bad for the climate is PETA nonsense.

You are joking? Or b*llsh*tting?

How much meat products in the UK are fed on only grass? What is the ‘efficiency’ of growing grass and then using it to feed cattle?

The vegans have you totally strapped on that! Far more carbon-neutral food could be produced if the animals didn’t eat the vegetable matter that could be grown where they feed. Additionally, methane and carbon dioxide production would virtually cease - both good to limit climate change - and neither is sequestered anywhere.

The human population of this planet, plus all the animals they farm for food (or just own as a sign of wealth) are the only climate-change problems we have - apart from burning fossil fuels. Educate me otherwise, please, if you can.

The studies aren't hard to find. A simple internet search will find them for you.

I also frequently hike through fields of mixed grazing with sheep and cows. The diversity of flora and fawna in these fields is incredible and you can imagine the landscape being grazed by ruminants for millennia. Arable fields on the other hand are monoculture deserts sterile of all life except the foodcrop. I've stopped eating grains and seed oils because I see the damage these crops do the the environment with my own eyes.

[Mart]

The sort of outdoor raised, grass fed, animal husbandry practiced in the UK is carbon negative (he carbon is sequested in the soil). The story about meat being automatically bad for the climate is PETA nonsense.

You are joking? Or b*llsh*tting?

How much meat products in the UK are fed on only grass? What is the ‘efficiency’ of growing grass and then using it to feed cattle?

The vegans have you totally strapped on that! Far more carbon-neutral food could be produced if the animals didn’t eat the vegetable matter that could be grown where they feed. Additionally, methane and carbon dioxide production would virtually cease - both good to limit climate change - and neither is sequestered anywhere.

The human population of this planet, plus all the animals they farm for food (or just own as a sign of wealth) are the only climate-change problems we have - apart from burning fossil fuels. Educate me otherwise, please, if you can.

Only my understanding, but I think the UK has some (not all) good animal husbandry with grass fed animals especially on some poor quality farming land, or as an example, unsuitable Welsh hillsides for sheep. However, sadly, you have a strong argument when we look at the planet as a whole, and humans make up about ~35% of the mammalian mass, and 'our' livestock and pets make up another ~60%. Wild mammals (land and sea) only make up about 5% of the total mass.

I'm a hypocrite*, I eat meat, but have cut down beef, whilst being aware that the Western diet would require several more planets worth of land, if adopted by all, whilst the Indian diet could be met, for the whole population, with less land than is currently farmed.

*I can only hope that farmed insects / protein, newer vegetable based products (like the Impossible Burger) and eventually lab grown meat can 'solve' the problem.

[Mart]

Addendum.

Having posted the above, I refreshed my Cleantechnica tab and this article popped up. Perhaps Karma .... perhaps I should have looked first?

Moo! Boo Hoo! Investments In Global Livestock Are Falling Due To Climate Change

Global livestock investments are declining due to the climate crisis. Widespread deterioration of ecosystems and the planet’s declining ability to adapt to these impacts are being felt across all regions. Adverse climate change impacts on agriculture and crop production, including species loss and mass mortality events, some of which are irreversible, have already occurred.

Livestock is projected to face additional and more severe heat stress as the world gets warmer.

What is the big picture of economic losses in global livestock due to climate change? At just 2°C of warming, livestock numbers will decrease by 7% to 10% by 2050, resulting in $10 billion to $13 billion in economic losses. Changes in precipitation rates in Brazil, for example, are projected to result in annual losses of up to $155 million.

Is there any hope? The latest IPCC Working Group III report released in April focuses on mitigation options, outlining the key role that the agriculture, forestry, and other land use (AFOLU) sector plays in rising greenhouse gas emissions and in potential mitigation.

What is likely to happen without changing the way Big Agriculture works? Without adaptation measures, there will be significant losses to livestock feed crops over the 21st century, including declines of 2.3% per decade for corn and 3.3% per decade for soy. The WGII report suggests that throughout tropical and subtropical regions, beef and dairy production losses could be even worse, resulting in losses up to $9 billion per year for dairy and $31 billion per year for beef by the end of the century — approximately 7% and 20% of the global value of production of these commodities in constant 2005 dollars.

Are any strategies working today to help with adaptation and mitigation? Yes. Specialized breeding, species switching to increased shade, infusing more ventilation, and mixed crop-livestock systems like agroforestry are helping to enhance diversity.

How expensive are adaptation and mitigation strategies, really? The AFOLU sector has a high mitigation potential at a relatively low cost, with the highest potential coming from reduced deforestation in tropical regions.

Where do plant-based alternative proteins fit in? Diversification into sustainable protein production and diets high in plant protein is one way to reduce key risks. Chapter 5 of the IPCC WGII report suggests that alternative protein sources could lead to significant reductions in land use for pastures and crop-based animal feed. Chapter 12 of the WGIII report cites plant-based alternatives and cellular agriculture as possible transformative food system mitigation options with multiple co-benefits for animal welfare, land sparing, lowered risk from zoonotic diseases, pesticides, and antibiotics use. Alternative proteins could amount to 64% of the global protein market by 2060.

Yet big beef producing countries like Argentina, South Africa, and Brazil opposed including a reference to plant-based diets in the IPCC report, with a preference for promoting the adoption of “balanced diets” as a demand side measure.