Vegan faux fish burger (Non-vegan viewpoint)

[GarethC]

I was going to point that out, but never got around to it.

Respect is due to you I think for highlighting when one of your beliefs has been corrected. Many wouldn't do so.

That sounds a bit patronising. Apologies if so, it's not meant to be.

[smegal]

I noted Farmer Harry (v good video, by the way) commented on the ludicrous claim that beef or mutton has an inherently bad carbon footprint. The way he explains it is that even if ruminants do generate methane, it has only come from the plants they have just eaten... which only got their carbon out of the atmosphere while they were growing up to the point that they were eaten!

Correction...
A friend points out that although the carbon just goes round, in fact the ruminants are turning CO₂ into methane, a much more potent greenhouse gas, factor 28 times CO₂! (Although I found "estimated atmospheric half-life is about 9 years, compared with CO2's 100 years")
A

The point is that the methane is from ruminants doesn't lead to a net gain in the atmosphere (assuming numbers if ruminants remains constant) as the methane is from the carbon cycle and is constantly decaying and getting replaced.

The methane issue is used by people pushing an agenda to exaggerate the environmental harm caused by meat/dairy.

[Oldgreybeard]

The point is that the methane is from ruminants doesn't lead to a net gain in the atmosphere (assuming numbers if ruminants remains constant) as the methane is from the carbon cycle and is constantly decaying and getting replaced.

The methane issue is used by people pushing an agenda to exaggerate the environmental harm caused by meat/dairy.

Exactly this ^^^!

I find it really annoying that those with an agenda spend so much time and effort in trying to lie to people to make a false argument to support their cause. The bottom line is really to look at every single aspect of any activity and properly measure and assess its impact, using a common baseline.

[GarethC]

As I understand it, the main reason that cattle contribute to climate change is that clearing forest to make space for cattle and cattle feed is a major driver (I believe the biggest driver) of deforestation.

Is that not the case?

[Oldgreybeard]

As I understand it, the main reason that cattle contribute to climate change is that clearing forest to make space for cattle and cattle feed is a major driver (I believe the biggest driver) of deforestation.

Is that not the case?

Depends. For places like South America it's probably true, for North America and Europe it very definitely isn't. For countries with intensive cattle rearing the biggest impact is probably growing crops purely for feed for animals reared in sheds, if rearing cattle outdoors all year around then the impact is a lot lower. The whole thing is very complex, and cherry picking elements of farming practice in order to make a particular point doesn't help, yet is used by all sides in the argument.

We (as in my family) used to run a pig fattening business. It was grim, very grim, but was driven by market pressure. The supermarkets dictated the maximum price they'd pay, so suppliers like us had to work hard to reduce costs in order to make a living. By the early 1980's things were intolerable, so we sold up and got out, almost entirely on animal welfare grounds. To give an idea of the pressures on profit, the practice we adopted was to slaughter any pig that didn't eat in the morning - we simply couldn't afford to waste feed or get in a vet, as at most the profit we were making was around 4p per kg. The margins were so tight that we'd be lucky if we made a profit for all four 12 week fattening cycles in a year. Usually we'd lose money on at least one or two fattening cycles, so ran the unit at a loss for three to six months of the year.

My mother opted to move to a free range farm and switch to breeding Old Spots and Tamworths. It was more work, but her pigs lived a better life and there were people (outside the supermarket cartels) who were prepared to pay a premium for free range reared pigs, so overall the income was more reliable (although the peak income was lower). Although the environment wasn't an issue then, I strongly believe that the free range farm was far less carbon intensive, not least because we bought in a great deal less feed and stopped using processed feed packed with growth promoters and antibiotics.

[AE-NMidlands]

The point is that the methane is from ruminants doesn't lead to a net gain in the atmosphere (assuming numbers if ruminants remains constant) as the methane is from the carbon cycle and is constantly decaying and getting replaced.

The methane issue is used by people pushing an agenda to exaggerate the environmental harm caused by meat/dairy.

Exactly this ^^^!

I find it really annoying that those with an agenda spend so much time and effort in trying to lie to people to make a false argument to support their cause. The bottom line is really to look at every single aspect of any activity and properly measure and assess its impact, using a common baseline.

No, I do think that although the carbon just goes round, by converting CO₂ via grass to methane ruminants create a more potent greenhouse gas.
CO₂has an atmospheric half-life of over a hundred years, methane a lot less, but as Wikipedia says, it has a

global warming potential of 34 compared to CO2 (potential of 1) over a 100-year period, and 72 over a 20-year period

I still think meat is an important part of our diet though and hope that by eating well-produced meat we do least damage. (Note I'm sure that "expensive" doesn't necessarily correlate with "good.")

[Oldgreybeard]

No, I do think that although the carbon just goes round, by converting CO₂ via grass to methane ruminants create a more potent greenhouse gas.
CO₂has an atmospheric half-life of over a hundred years, methane a lot less, but as Wikipedia says, it has a

global warming potential of 34 compared to CO2 (potential of 1) over a 100-year period, and 72 over a 20-year period

How does the time factor impact real overall harm? Is it actually worse for the environment overall if methane is produced, that only has a relatively short atmospheric half life, or is it worse if CO2 is produced directly, that has a massively longer atmospheric half-life?

I don't think we can automatically assume that one is worse than the other in terms of long term climate change, it may well be that overall it's CO2 that dominates at the scale of 50 to 100 years, rather than methane, or it could be the other way around, as it depends on a lot of very complex interactions.

As mentioned earlier, the thing is extremely complex and difficult to properly understand. An example of just how complex it is was the debacle about sea surface temperature changes some years ago, where the measurements didn't match the climate models. Despite vast amounts of time and money having been put into climate modelling it turned out that the models weren't that accurate when it came to sea surface temperature changes.

I worked with a climate scientist from the Hadley Centre, years ago (not on climate research at the time). We had a lot of long conversations about climate modelling and how immature the process was then (this was around 2005). His main concern was that the media were cherry picking bits of climate research and not giving enough attention to the uncertainty around a lot of the predictions. Understandable, because even as a scientist I found the nuances of climate research very difficult to wrap my head around.

I think we know very roughly the range of possible outcomes, but almost certainly don't have a clue as to what may really happen in future. Things could be a great deal worse (or better) than the best guess predictions, simply because of the high degree of uncertainty in the modelling. The planet has a way of throwing the efforts of man aside in unexpected ways, and whenever this happens I'm reminded of James Lovelock and his Gaia hypothesis.

[AE-NMidlands]

No, I do think that although the carbon just goes round, by converting CO₂ via grass to methane ruminants create a more potent greenhouse gas.
CO₂has an atmospheric half-life of over a hundred years, methane a lot less, but as Wikipedia says, it has a

global warming potential of 34 compared to CO2 (potential of 1) over a 100-year period, and 72 over a 20-year period

How does the time factor impact overall harm? Is it actually worse for the environment overall if methane is produced, that only has a relatively short atmospheric half life, or is it worse if CO2 is produced directly, that has a massively longer atmospheric half-life?

I don't think we can automatically assume that one is worse than the other in terms of long term climate change, it may well be that overall it's CO2 that dominates at the scale of 50 to 100 years, rather than methane.

I thought that wikipedia quote was specifically phrased to show they had balanced the relative heating effects against the half lives, which is why they said what they did. Methane is much worse per molecule, but disappears quicker, so you get " 34 compared to CO2 (potential of 1) over a 100-year period, and 72 over a 20-year period." Worse in the short term, but at least it does go eventually.
Maybe you just reject the premise, but I am happy to take someone else's stab at the sums as better than just saying "I wonder?"

[Oldgreybeard]

No, I do think that although the carbon just goes round, by converting CO₂ via grass to methane ruminants create a more potent greenhouse gas.
CO₂has an atmospheric half-life of over a hundred years, methane a lot less, but as Wikipedia says, it has a

How does the time factor impact overall harm? Is it actually worse for the environment overall if methane is produced, that only has a relatively short atmospheric half life, or is it worse if CO2 is produced directly, that has a massively longer atmospheric half-life?

I don't think we can automatically assume that one is worse than the other in terms of long term climate change, it may well be that overall it's CO2 that dominates at the scale of 50 to 100 years, rather than methane.

I thought that wikipedia quote was specifically phrased to show they had balanced the relative heating effects against the half lives, which is why they said what they did. Methane is much worse per molecule, but disappears quicker, so you get " 34 compared to CO2 (potential of 1) over a 100-year period, and 72 over a 20-year period." Worse in the short term, but at least it does go eventually.
Maybe you just reject the premise, but I am happy to take someone else's stab at the sums as better than just saying "I wonder?"

I don't think anyone knows what the relative effect will be in reality. The models are far from being robust when it comes to changing just one factor, I believe. The one takeaway I had from working with a climate scientist for a couple of years was that the degree of uncertainty around the effect of specific climate influencing factors was extremely high. The general trends indicated by the models are probably right, but there is no way to be at all sure that individual forcing factors will have the assumed impact on climate change.

[GarethC]

I do understand that there is a debate as to whether cows on existing grass lands are a problem or not. The argument appears to be that the grass, if not eaten, would decompose releasing the methane anyway. So there is no net impact.

For that reason, I return to the deforestation impact, and the gargantuan environmental impact thereof. Yes deforestation affects South America (Amazon) and other places rather than Europe or North America. But that does not mean it is a problem to be solved just by the people of those continents.

Much of the meat produced via deforestation is for export. I.e. It is to meet Western demand. It appears convincing to me, then, that reducing meat demand here will reduce deforestation there. Am I wrong?

Another factor, is that producing meat is just very resource intensive in terms of land use (and water etc). If the land cows graze on, even if existing grassland, could instead be planted with trees (which must often be the case), would reducing meat demand not free up land for tree planting?