Can less beef consumption cut down on global warming?
Answer:
Yes of course it could. But I am going to take global warming and methane totally out of the question to answer it.
This was a massive issue with lots of debate in the UK in late 1979, early 1980. I grew up in a family who owned a butcher's business so meat was incredibly important to my family. 'Why You Don't Need Meat' was THE book I read at 14 that changed my life.
The message in this book is clear and simple: Commercial meat production is wasteful at every stage you have massive losses, Inputs are Enormous, Outputs are tiny. There are MASSIVE losses at EVERY stage: in resources, in housing, feeding, breeding, vet's bills, financial, government subsidies/grants, animal death, animal welfare organizations, right they way through to butchery - high percentage loss and cooking losses.
Eating meat is totally wasteful. Commercial Meat Production is the worst. Totally Free range self feeding, self caring animals are the Permaculture answer. For example chickens which lay eggs, self care, self feed, eat insects, scratch out weeds, provide meat, fertilize the soil as they go, self populate etc.
The other answer is only to take enough wild meat from the wild.
The best answer is don't eat meat, eat the source plants.
I was a vegetarian for seven years and a vegan for a while.
There is no defensive argument for me eating meat now other than I like it.
So lets kill all the cattle.
You are absolutely right but I really doubt that it will happen. Living on a ranch myself we have never had to worry about it because people aren't going to turn into vegetarians, or start eating turkey or pig instead it just won't happen unless you get rid of all the fast food restaurants in the U.S. Which is good for us producers but bad for the environment.
But on a brighter note I did hear that they are coming out with a feed that will help lower the cattles methane problem so there is still hope that you can have your meat and eat it to :)
Animal methane is a factor, but carbon dioxide from fossil fuel consumption is probably far more important.
I don't believe so. If this is true then as early as ages ago when dinosaurs are present there should be greater global warming before than now since there are bigger animals and more methane being generated by these creatures.
You are correct! A great source of methane does come from cows!! not only does the waste of the cows produce so much methane but also the energy input of raising the cattle is very high!! Most of the plants grown today is to feed the cattle! Also a great amount of water goes into the cattle and food growth for it!
cattle do produce greenhouse gasses but our agricultrual practices won't change easily so our best bet is to continue to excessively butcher and consume them instead of giving those delicious greenhouse gas factories long lives of producing climate changing flatus.
actually its very little methane produced. by a cow
cows have a potive impact on an environment
cows are creatures opf habit so they walk the same paths so only little vegitation is disturbed
also they eat vegutation allowing regrowth
there manurure is good fertiziler thats not harmful to the envirionment
my grandma grew great foods organically using dirt that was mixed with decayed hay/manurere/and mud/dirt
the dirt around a cow hay ring is very good to use
bn
Yes, and the pollution from raising cattle goes far beyond methane production. It takes massive amounts of grain and water to raise a cow. If beef were not subsidized it would cost 30 dollars a pound for those reasons. Livestock farms pollute the water and soil. They take up land that could be used to raise plant food yields that could feed many more people than could be fed on the livestock yields. Just one of the many good reasons to become vegetarian.
Yes, livestock and manure account for about 5% of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions:
http://cait.wri.org/figures.php?page=wor...
So if we managed to cut our beef consumption in half, we'd reduce global warming by about 2.5%. Not a huge amount, but a fairly significant contribution.
Let me get this straight. Cows contribute to global warming because of their methane production. So the solution is to STOP consuming beef allowing more cows to live and producing more methane contributing to more global warming. Typical liberal idea that has worse consequences than the original problem.
No, because you'll have to eat something, so the amount of corn based foods in your diet will increase if you quit eating beef, unless you plan on eating fish all of the time. and farmed fish are fed pellets made from corn.
now that I have you on the subject of corn. your are probably scratching your head wondering why corn is so bad, but take a look at he effects of nitrogen based fertilizers.
Don't get me wrong, the idea does look good on paper, but I'm afraid, it just won't work the way people think it will. Better idea to use the waste to produce fuel, and develop methods of remediating the gases as they are produced.
Currently, research is being done to reduce the amount of N2O produced by nitrogen based fertilizers, which will eliminate a big portion of the greenhouse gases resulting from livestock production. then all we need to do is deal with the ones tha are produced by their own biological processes, which is currently be worked on.
People need to quit thinking so drastic, and start doing the things that will save you money on your utility bills, leave the rest up to science, unless they admit failure.
all boycotting beef will accomplish, is putting family owned farms out of business, to make it easier for the fuel/energy industry to buy up their land and monopolize the green fuel industry.
This is true, but not so much for the methane that they produce. The real problem is the stunning amount of resources that are used and pollution that is created by the production of meat. And of all of the meats, beef is sadly the most costly.
Even if you think that global warming is a myth, the factory farm industry is frighteningly destructive to the environment. And if you have any shred of sympathy for the plight of animals, morally reprehensible. It's one thing to kill and eat something. It's an entirely different story to torture something its whole life, pump it full of hormones, and then kill and eat it.
The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.
More Questions and Answers: