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titmouse | 11 months ago

I've seen suggestions that livestock can actually be a key component to carbon sequestration, if done correctly. I think it was mentioned in the documentary Kiss the Ground, narrated by Woody Harrelson, but I may be wrong. I believe the gist was that no-till farming and managed grazing helps to save the topsoil, sequester more carbon dioxide, and make something like cattle farming effectively carbon-negative (ie, they're actually helping to mitigate climate change). I'd recommend watching if you haven't, it shows some compelling examples such as a farmer who's the only one in his area farming this way, and he's also the only one who's having successful harvests while being environmentally conscious.

Also, farmed livestock don't automatically exist in a "living hell". Factory farms, yeah, but a properly-managed ranch should have happy, healthy animals.

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shlant|11 months ago

> make something like cattle farming effectively carbon-negative

The situations in which this is the case (which are oversimplified by the doc) are so specific and small scale that to think they will address the environmental impact without acknowledging the insane, unsustainable demand for meat is magical thinking. People love to point to ideas like this and stuff like feeding cows seaweed to avoid the reality of the dire need for significant shifts in our consumption behaviors.

> but a properly-managed ranch should have happy, healthy animals.

again - the percentage of meat that comes from these conditions is so small as to be virtually irrelevant in the context of the animal agriculture industry

slothtrop|11 months ago

> unsustainable demand

Scales with population growth, and immigrants don't come to the U.S. just so they can eschew meat. I don't see what's unsustainable about it. Land-use has barely budged. At any rate if the population didn't grow, the demand wouldn't either. As it happens, global population growth is projected to stall in less than 100 years.

Growth in the 1st world means more emissions and land encroachment, until innovation catches up. Electricity is being abated with renewables, but not concrete, ammonia, plastics, etc. There's no free lunch, if we want the juicy GDP growth, that's the price.

> again - the percentage of meat that comes from these conditions is so small as to be virtually irrelevant in the context of the animal agriculture industry

There's the consideration of our own personal choices and options having a place in the conversation, and the other consideration of prescription for improving conditions and/or emissions.

seec|11 months ago

Meat consumption hasn't grown at all in the last 20 years, in fact it has fallen in many of the rich industrial countries (not having highly demanding physical job allows to drop the protein requirements, so there is that).

Even in the US it has been rather stable. There are just more people getting out of poverty on the planet and they won't deny themselves consumption of this beneficial product just to fit to the ideology "du jour".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...

ipaddr|11 months ago

That's what they said about solar power but year after year the industry grows.

hombre_fatal|11 months ago

Those claims don't actually pan out in practice. See the Allan Savory vs George Monbiot debate as an example.

It's just feelgood greenwashing for people who don't want to consider changing their diet.

Kind of like the allure of finding people to tell you that butter and bacon are actually superfoods. How convenient that you were already eating those every breakfast.

seec|11 months ago

> How convenient that you were already eating those every breakfast.

Who is actually doing that? Who has enough time and money to actually do that? I'm confused because in EU it's an extremely rare thing and as far as I'm concerned in the US you have a whole section just for breakfast cereal.

So surely if there are people doing that, there are the minority and considering how in bad health much of the US population is, maybe, just maybe, they are onto something.