[notheyarent]

The seaweed pellets they add to cows food that eliminated most of their emissions must be the most ingenious climate policy and breakthrough. Before these were invented we were looking at a situation where meat consumption (or at least beef) may have to be phased out.

The rapid development of battery technology must be a close second. I remember as a kid in the 1990s it was difficult to get good rechargeable batteries to power a RC toy car. They were often huge battery packs that would over heat, last a few minutes per charge and takes ages to power up. Now we have people carrying cars driving hundreds of kilometres on quick charging batteries.

[kuhewa]

The Asparagopsis supplements I think you are referring to are arguably clever, but

> Before these were invented we were looking at a situation where meat consumption (or at least beef) may have to be phased out.

They haven't really changed the game, at least not yet. But assuming optimistically they can reduce cow methane emissions and downsides can be avoided [1], the magnitude of the reduction [2] probably will not make or break the continuation of the cattle industry.

[1] https://www.murdoch.edu.au/news/articles/seaweed-might-not-b... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/13/seaweed-...

[throwapine]

Emission is only one of many problems with animal agriculture. Others include:

- Land use (over-grazing, deforestation for pastures and feed crops, most of crops grown are for farmed animals, etc.)

- Water use

- Inefficient feed -> food conversion

- Nutrient runoff leading to eutrophication

- Increasing risk of zoonotic diseases and antibiotic resistance

- Bioaccumulation (of PFAS, pesticides, heavy metals, microplastics, etc.)

[hi-v-rocknroll]

These are the most important, by far, as they are existential threats:

1. Pandemic evolution

2. Antibiotic resistance

A distant third is GHGs / climate change, and then the other issues that matter only if we stay alive.

[audunw]

It should be said that, whether these are really problems depends heavily on how animal agriculture is done.

In many cases animals graze on marginal land that can’t be used to grow human food directly. In these cases the alternative ways to get the same protein production could imply cutting down land in other countries to grow protein rich crops for humans.

Water use doesn’t have to be high. In the US it’s a product of industrialised animal agriculture, bad subsidies and free water rights that farmers are forced to use unless they want to use those rights.

Animals can convert food that humans can’t eat into food that we can eat. In some cases they eat the part of the plant that we don’t.

EU has prohibited all routine use of antibiotics in farming. Other countries should follow.

And there are upsides of animal agriculture as well. They are often a critical to do regenerative agriculture. In the best case they eat grass from land that we can’t grow stuff on, eat parts of the plants that we can’t eat ourselves, and give us high quality fertiliser that greatly improves soil quality. There’s a reason farm animals have been with us for millennia.

That said we should absolutely eliminate all heavily industrialised animal agriculture, which means we have to reduce meat consumption. It would be interesting to know how much meat we could eat if all meat production was sustainable.

[gr__or]

> In many cases animals graze on marginal land that can’t be used to grow human food directly. In these cases the alternative ways to get the same protein production could imply cutting down land in other countries to grow protein rich crops for humans.

Just to make the implicit explicit: the current reality of meat production is feeding livestock with protein rich crops grown on cut down land in other countries. An alternative’s model scalability and economic viability has not been shown yet.

So the hope of such a thing existing in the future should probably not influence how you choose to nourished yourself today

[throwapine]

Agree broadly with what you're saying, especially ending industrial animal agriculture and reducing meat consumption.

As you implied, continuing current levels of meat consumption for 8 billion humans, even with regenerative techniques, will still result in substantial increases in land/water use and other negative impacts. We should be sceptical of regenerative grazing claims as well, as they are often pushed by the industry, without sufficient evidence.

I'm hesitant to say just because we've been farming animals for thousands of years is good justification for continuing it (at least at this scale on non-marginal lands). After all, it did lead directly to the problems we face today, as people clung on to traditional methods without thinking even as they migrated and new technologies/knowledge became available. For example, European colonists brought hard-hoofed cows, sheep, goats, horses, and deer to Australia, despite the country's native fauna all being soft-footed, leading to soil compaction and many resultant ecological issues. Now almost 50% of Australia's land surface area is used for red meat farming, and it is the leading cause of deforestation in many parts of the country.

On plant parts that humans can't eat, perhaps it's fine to let wild animals eat them, further improving biodiversity (after all we need a healthy biosphere of many species providing ecosystem services for long-term human survival), or we can compost or process into other products. I'd be looking into stock-free organic farming and precision fermentation as new promising approaches as well.

[whatshisface]

>meat consumption (or at least beef) may have to be phased out.

Subject to the realities of global politics, it's the habitability of the equator and the low incidence of tropical diseases in the Southern US that would have been phased out.

[giarc]

Is the seaweed actually in use beyond some test farms or research herds?

[kuhewa]

Apparently it has been commercially available to cattle growers since 2022 but not sure on uptake https://www.future-feed.com/buy-asparagopsis

[giarc]

I wonder if "low carbon cattle" exists in the grocery stores. I'd actually pay a premium for this.

[kuhewa]

https://www.wired.com/story/low-carbon-beef/

[giarc]

Thanks for that. However, I would agree with those against that labelling. "beef producers to market their meat as low-carbon. Producers who can prove that their cattle are raised in a way that emits 10 percent less greenhouse gases than an industry baseline"

10% is nothing.

[kuhewa]

Me as well. There is a lot of hype around 'regenerative' agriculture and livestock now as well, but one really needs to see detailed life cycle analyses to know the full footprint of a food choice

[Log_out_]

or you just dont aitravel in one year and can eat meat for ten