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Eating beef is a great way to prove that you don't care about the environment (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 days ago by to c/justpost@lemmy.world
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Beef is by far the most environmentally costly food most people can put on their plate, which is why choosing it over alternatives is such a telling signal. Per gram of protein, beef produces many times the greenhouse gas emissions of chicken, eggs, or legumes, mostly from cattle methane and from the forest cleared for pasture and feed. It also demands far more land and water than almost any other common food. These facts are widely published and easy to find, and cheaper, lower-impact options are available in nearly every grocery store. So when someone keeps choosing beef anyway, they are showing that the environmental cost isn’t a factor in their decision. Nobody has to be perfect, but picking the highest-impact option when better ones are easy to reach is a pretty clear statement of priorities.

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[–] 3 points 1 day ago (7 children)

The problem is you're looking at one aspect of a biocycle, a slice, you have to look at the entire life cycle. Ruminants living in a natural environment are net carbon sequesters. Ruminants cause the grass to grow deeper, a deeper and vibrant root system sequesters more carbon, creates more topsoil.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (6 children)

    Im sure this is not enough to compensate the enormous quantity of methane the cows make. If not please show me evidence. Having one billion cows is not natural and we are suffering the consequences and grass does not absorb that much carbon.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago (5 children)

    Im sure this is not enough to compensate the enormous quantity of methane the cows make.

    I'm sure your hyperbole isn't right.

    If not please show me evidence.

    Right back at you, show me that ruminants living in their natural environments eating their natural food are net negative to the environment. You can't, because they are part of the environment, you can't have soil without them.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (4 children)

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43452-3 Also Why i have to give you a source, when its a fact that the lifecycle of 1kg beef is from 30kg of CO2 to 100 kg of CO2?

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  • [–] 2 points 1 day ago (1 child)

    The problem is you’re looking at one aspect of a biocycle, a slice, you have to look at the entire life cycle.

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43452-3

    Despite its title it does not take into account the entire biocycle, it does not do a carbon cycle assessment either. which the authors implicitly acknowledge "there is no additional warming under a constant level of CH4 emissions"... i.e. they recognize a stable ruminant population does not result in infinite warming.

    Also Why i have to give you a source

    Because the title of the post is "Eating beef is a great way to prove that you don't care about the environment". So eating natural beef on natural pastures eating natural food doesn't demonstrate a lack of care for the environment.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 day ago

    There is no additional warming because methane breaks down in the atmosphere eventually, so if we generate x quantity in 2026 and the same quantity in 2030, global warming will not increase. That does not mean that the stable amount of methane in the atmosphere right now is low and does not contribute to climate change. And if we consume more livestock due to an increase of population, the warming will increase. This is what i understand

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago* (1 child)

    Like many papers studying this, the authors cite Poore-Nemecek 2018, a flawed study.

    One of its biggest flaws is that it calculates using an outdated "global average" which isn't applicable at feedlot level, and especially not to different regional farming methods. The authors use GWP-100, which overstates the effect of CH4, since methane is short lived. They underestimate the carbon benefits of avoiding land use changes by more than 10x (corrected in 2019), and also assume an instantaneous switch to a completely plant based diet, a completely unrealistic assumption. I could go on, but you get the idea.

    I encourage you to continue reading the literature, especially the sources that they cite. You will find that many papers cite Poore Nemecek.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    Well i dont know if you tell the truth, but obviously you know more of this than me. I will still not eat beef or cut a lot the consumption because it is the environmetalist consensus. Maybe you tell the truth and in 10 years they say eating beef is not that bad for what you say, but to be save i will not eat it and i will be happy if someone reduce their beef intake

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