[gruez]

>> Dramatically reducing meat consumption is the single best thing the average westerner could do to limit their environmental impact[...]

> b) Because there is evidence that meat production done right IE intensive rotation grazing or silvopasture where the meat is grazed on a small section of land at a time and most of the land is left fallow most of the time can actually drastically increase ecosystem services. It allows the land to function as native prairie or savanna.

There's no way the method of meat production that you described can produce meat to sastisfy current US demand, let alone increasing demand from the developing world. Therefore practically speaking, reduction of meat consumption will still be needed.

[dbingham]

Yes, agreed, reduction of meat consumption does need to happen. But saying "we should reduce meat consumption and ensure the meat produced is produced through these systems" is very different from putting it at the top of the list and drawing almost all focus to it.

[jshen]

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u...

[dbingham]

Did you actually read the study linked in the article? They didn't measure anything. They used accepted values for each phase of the process taken from databases. In several areas there weren't - notably around pasturing - there wasn't good data. So they more or less fudged and "accounted for it in their error bars".

Meanwhile, here's a study I found, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, that found that under the right circumstances, grass finished, rotationally grazed cattle can actually act as a carbon SINK. Not a carbon producer. Now that's one study and I have no idea of the quality and trustworthiness of the journal it's in, but it lines up with other studies I've read on the topic. And it tracks with the ecological model. There are ecosystems where these animals belong and in those ecosystems they play a key role in building the soil, and soil building is one of the key methods of carbon sequestration.

http://www.thefutureoffoodjournal.com/index.php/FOFJ/article...

Here's another study I found showing that many factors play into whether grazing hoofed animals builds soil or erodes it. Grass type, soil type, rainfall patterns - they all matter.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.12144

Again, single study, no idea of the quality of the journal, but it goes to show that these questions are not definitively answered. These lifecycle analyses that people keep pointing to are using a limited set of data sets that have huge deficiencies.

And that's why I push back on these narratives so hard. They are not well founded. Every time I dig into the studies being referenced, I find massive assumptions and huge deficiencies and a paucity of actual measurement.

[jshen]

I have no idea why you keep bringing up these very niche methods that can’t produce the volumes of beef that people consume today by a very large margin. It’s like saying that it would use a lot less carbon to ride your bike from Los Angeles to New York than to fly there. It’s an absurd comparison. Honestly, what point do you think you’re making?

[dbingham]

These are only niche methods because we haven't invested in them and they hold an enormous amount of promise.

The dialog around agriculture and sustainability all too often is akin to telling people to just cut their power consumption rather than discussing or exploring non-emitting sources of energy.

You say I have some weird axe to grind, because I keep pushing back on people saying that meat consumption is a much bigger contributor to GHG emissions than it is. Yet you keep insisting that I'm somehow not accounting for a meat reduction as a piece of the puzzle when I have readily admitted that it should be a piece of the puzzle multiple times, and have happily conceded that it will be necessitated if we switch to the more sustainable, but less productive modes of producing it.

I think I've made my point pretty clearly, and repeatedly. Seems to me like your the one with an axe to grind, one not supported by the data.

[jshen]

Again, no where in your list of what we should do did you include meat consumption. When you talk about these methods, that are unproven at scale, you do NOT mention the implications regarding the amount of meat that can be produced that way.

My suggestion that people eat one less meat based meal per day is far less drastic that if all meat was produced with the methods you are advocating. Yet, you imply that I am the one calling for the drastic action.

Edit: let me ask you this, what are you actually proposing? Should the government ban meat that isn’t produced the way you suggest? If not, what are you proposing that will have a bigger impact than my suggestion that people eat one less meat based meal a day?

[jshen]

There is more to the environment than carbon footprint. Meat production is the leading cause of deforestation, it’s the biggest user of water in the south west, the cause of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and that’s ignoring the horrific conditions in factory farms.

[jshen]

while shifting to a vegetarian meal one day a week could save the equivalent of driving 1,160 miles.

Carbon Footprint Factsheet | Center for Sustainable Systems

https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability...