[8fingerlouie]

When did cows become the great climate scapegoat ?

A calf is not killed to provide milk. They're weaned from an early age while the mother continues to provide milk for up to 2 years. Milking cows will provide up to 40 liters twice a day.

The calf, like the mother, will eventually be killed for meat, but that is the reality of all meat we eat.

As for drinking milk, the official recommendation in Scandinavia is drinking 0.5L/day.

[chris1993]

Bobbie calves are taken from the cows and slaughtered. Pet food or veal. I grew up in a dairying region.

[8fingerlouie]

It might be so where you live, but that’s not how it works here. Bulls are allowed to grass until they’re 12+ months, and then slaughtered. Female cows becomes dairy cows, and old dairy cows becomes food.

[PZ81JUXJE7uJ]

> When did cows become the great climate scapegoat ?

Since the whole process is highly inefficient. The cow needs more than 100 litres of water a day. It eats a lot, it produces methane. All that, just for your 80 litres of milk a day.

[8fingerlouie]

So let me get this right. Because humanity has been pumping greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere for centuries up to a point where it threatens our very existence, there suddenly isn’t room for cows anymore ?

Yes, a cow produces methane, so did the millions of buffaloes roaming the prairies a couple hundred years ago. And so does just about every other herbivore. It’s natural.

What’s not natural is humanity’s insistence on being transported around to just about everywhere, preferably alone, in a vehicle that has room for 6 or more.

The other day I was shopping and came across a cheese that said, manufactured in Denmark, packed in Poland. I’m guessing the cheese produced way more greenhouse gasses on its way to and from Poland than the cow did producing the milk that went into the cheese.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

[PZ81JUXJE7uJ]

Just read up on the emissions of animal agriculture and transportation and be enlightened my friend. You will see their emissions are not that different in size.

[8fingerlouie]

I'm aware they're almost similar, but in my optics only one of them is really needed. The other is "nice to have".

That being said, at least in the EU, emissions from agriculture is about 40% less than the transport emissions, and still dropping while transport is increasing.

https://ec.europa.eu/clima/policies/transport_en