[throwawaygimp]

I really want this to be real and rolled out, but I feel like even though we've been reading about this for years there is a (or a few) big show stoppers which no one is talking about. I hope that's not the case but I get the feeling that there are major issues which might make it implausible to do this.

It just seems like if it was that simple then governments would be pouring billions - no TRILLIONS - of research dollars into this. Cattle are such a big part of greenhouse emissions that if this really had legs without some underlying problem it would be funded like a war effort.

[tpxl]

> Cattle are such a big part of greenhouse emissions that if this really had legs without some underlying problem it would be funded like a war effort.

According to a brief search, cattle represent about 3.3% of greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation is 29%, electricity is 25%.

Seems to me better logistics (not transporting stuff that needn't be transported) and better electricity generation is worth more trillions than cows burping.

[spicymaki]

3.3% of greenhouse emissions seems too low. Global livestock overall may contribute to about 14% of greenhouse gas emissions[1]. There are also other forms of pollution including farm runoff (ocean dead zones , zoonotic disease), land use (forest destruction), soil degradation, etc.

[1] http://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/

correction: removed N2O nitrous oxide is also a greenhouse gas which is included.

[tpxl]

My source only looked at the US so numbers differ from global[0]. Your source also says 14.5% is all livestock, of which 9.4% is cattle (so about 3x globally compared to the US).

There are of course other forms of pollution, a big one we could easily tackle I think is water pollution by the textile industry [1]. So much clothing today is of garbage quality and completely unmendable (the fabric is too thin to be repaired ):, I tried).

[0] https://www.ars.usda.gov/news-events/news/research-news/2019...

[1] https://www.textiletoday.com.bd/water-pollution-due-textile-...

[throwawaygimp]

Good point.

Random thought experiment - how much should the global 'fund' be to attack greenhouse gas emissions. Not that it should be spent in proportion to % of total emissions, but I wonder what 3.3% of that number would be.

Say you spent 1T on cows, and spent it proportionally. That's a 30T fund overall. So around half from memory of what the US spent on the post 9/11 wars.

[cageface]

Rolling this out requires somehow harvesting and transporting massive quantities of seaweed to feed cows. It's not a practical solution.

[etempleton]

It would also not supplant grain, which is really what causes cows to emmit so many greenhouses gases. If you ate the grain that cows eat you would have terrible gas too. Grain is intended as a supplement to grass as it is loaded with different nutrients, salt, etc., but it also makes cows grow faster and produce more milk and so it is a competitive advantage for a farmer to feed more than is really required for the cows to be healthy.

Seaweed may be better than grass in regards to gas emissions, but probably not 99 percent better. However, grass or seaweed alone won’t let cows get fat enough fast enough. Time is money and it is a commodity market unless you specifically target the organic, non-GMO, grass-fed crowd, which, while growing, is still a niche market that adds a bunch of complications.

On some farms, grain only supplements the grass diet, but on many beef cattle farms a larger portion of their diet is grain so they grow and fatten up more quickly. Dairy cows often fair a bit better in this regard, although the calorically rich diet of grain is also good for increasing milk production, so they are fed a good bit of grain also.

The grain does serve a health purpose for cattle, it is just often probably given in excess of what would be required for optimal cow health.