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by dashundchen
3222 days ago
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Agriculture and forestry is listed as the second largest sector with 24% of GHG emissions, second to energy production at 25% so I'm not sure where you're getting that information in your second link. Animal agriculture is a huge drain on resources and the environment. There's clear cutting of the Amazon for cattle feed and grazing. Cows and cattle emit huge amounts of methane, many times more potent in climate change than CO2. Nearly a quarter of ice free land in the world is dedicated to animal ag. Some estimates put 20 kg of grain for a single kg of beef. That is not efficient. https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?artic... check out this link. Yes every human activity uses energy. Does that mean we shouldn't try be consious in limiting our consumption and be damage we inflict on others? |
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That second sector includes quite a few things. For example deforestation for non livestock agriculture, city building, etc. None of which are alleviated by vegetarianism.
Also note this:
> This estimate does not include the CO2 that ecosystems remove from the atmosphere by sequestering carbon in biomass, dead organic matter, and soils, which offset approximately 20% of emissions from this sector.
So in practice this 24% is really 19.2%, and less than that is really caused purely by livestock.
> Some estimates put 20 kg of grain for a single kg of beef. That is not efficient.
Indeed, but chicken or pork produce less emissions than fruits or even dairy products.
http://imgur.com/a/Rwm5R
> Does that mean we shouldn't try be consious in limiting our consumption and be damage we inflict on others?
Sounds good in theory.
In practice if you care about suffering, you should realise that agriculture is one of the biggest environmental disasters of the last couple thousands years. Agriculture has destroyed (and destroys) entire ecosystems.
And before you argue about organic agriculture: that would not feed 7 billion people. Maybe aquaponics / hydroponics could save the world, but it remains to be seen.
If you do really care about emissions and your impact on the planet you could do a number of things like not having kids and getting out of the industrial lifestyle. Many have done it (I tried and failed). Otherwise there is really no moral high ground in vegetarianism.