Can Meat Eaters be Easy to Offend?

[Lightknight]

The thing is, America doesn't import a ton of agriculture. We have such a huge agricultural industry right here that importing is mostly only done for specific types of products (like wine from France rather than wine altogether) or things that can't be grown here. So if the cost of X is more here, then that means that the cost will only go higher the further it goes.

Sorry, I have no idea how to get my point across without being condescending. Have you looked at a map recently? United States big. Really, really big.

If I were to buy french wine, it would technically by imported. However, the distance between my country and France is just a few American states.

Are you starting to understand? Distances within the United States may be greater than distances between countries. Basic foods that are produced within the US itself may be transported over much greater distances than imported foods I might eat (like citrus fruits from Spain, or something). If you want to talk about carbon foot prints and get the numbers right, you have to look at the actual distance of transportation (as well as the method and so on, of course), instead of whether something is imported or not.

And because the United States is so big and diverse, you'd need to be dumb as a brick to assume there's one eco-friendly diet for the whole nation. So please, stop misuing numbers to simplify issues to suit your arguments. Broccoli or lettuce is not some drain on the environment if you live in a region where it's easily grown.

So you're saying the numbers in the US would be worse because of distance traveled? Why would it be better or worse for the plant industry than it would be for the beef industry? Both need to travel.

 

[Lightknight]

Yes, vegetarians eat cheese. That's why they're included in the vegetarian models I presented. As of 2003 (let me know if you find a newer article comparing what vegetarians eat with what omnivores eat on average in the US), vegetarians ate 24% more cheese than omnivores did.

Which is why Western vegetarians shouldn't even be looked at. Most cultures eat some form of animal, but if you actually take total animal products consumed, your average Filipino is more vegetarian than an American vegetarian.

I'm sorry, but I'm really not cool with this "in-crowd" bullshit. Vegetarians can eat products obtained from animals as long as it isn't part of the animal itself and that the animal wasn't killed in the process of producing it. You're thinking "Vegan" more than you're thinking "Vegetarian" if you're having a problem with consumption of cheese or eggs (unfertilized). Dismissing vegetarians who eat cheese as less than authentic is absolute elitist garbage and should be taken with offense on their behalf.

If you think Vegans are superior to Vegetarians, then it's your prerogative to think that. But it isn't right to force vegan definitions on vegetarianism.

Wow ... swing .... and-ah-miss!

Did you really not understand the connotation I was driving at?

My point wasn't 'in crowd' bullshit. My point wasn't a discussion about vegans and vegetarians. My point was, that all your meandering diatribes about how vegetarian diets are actually worse by US standards, was that the reason why they are worse is because the common diet of people beyond a Western sphere has less animal products regardless if they're vegetarian or not.

Ask the average Filipino what their favourite dish is ... most of them will say a pork dish. Filipinos love pork. They will still eat far less than their Western counterparts on average depite a love affair with pork. This is why we shouldn't be looking at Western vegetarians to see what a decent vegetarian diet should look like... because they still consume more animal products than non-vegetarians elsewhere.

How is this difficult to understand?

Cheese is a low emission product (emission by calorie) and is a considerable portion in vegetarian diets in America and Europe. A calorie of cheese is less costly than pork and pork is already a low emission food item. The two high emission meats are beef and goat.

It would be different if we were talking about a high emission product. But cheese isn't a problem. Neither is yogurt or eggs and their emission rates include the livestock emissions. It's just that dairy cows have significantly different conditions than meat cows.

 

[Lightknight]

Yes, vegetarians eat cheese. That's why they're included in the vegetarian models I presented. As of 2003 (let me know if you find a newer article comparing what vegetarians eat with what omnivores eat on average in the US), vegetarians ate 24% more cheese than omnivores did.

Which is why Western vegetarians shouldn't even be looked at. Most cultures eat some form of animal, but if you actually take total animal products consumed, your average Filipino is more vegetarian than an American vegetarian.

I'm sorry, but I'm really not cool with this "in-crowd" bullshit. Vegetarians can eat products obtained from animals as long as it isn't part of the animal itself and that the animal wasn't killed in the process of producing it. You're thinking "Vegan" more than you're thinking "Vegetarian" if you're having a problem with consumption of cheese or eggs (unfertilized). Dismissing vegetarians who eat cheese as less than authentic is absolute elitist garbage and should be taken with offense on their behalf.

If you think Vegans are superior to Vegetarians, then it's your prerogative to think that. But it isn't right to force vegan definitions on vegetarianism.

Wow ... swing .... and-ah-miss!

Did you really not understand the connotation I was driving at?

My point wasn't 'in crowd' bullshit. My point wasn't a discussion about vegans and vegetarians. My point was, that all your meandering diatribes about how vegetarian diets are actually worse by US standards, was that the reason why they are worse is because the common diet of people beyond a Western sphere has less animal products regardless if they're vegetarian or not.

Ask the average Filipino what their favourite dish is ... most of them will say a pork dish. Filipinos love pork. They will still eat far less than their Western counterparts on average depite a love affair with pork. This is why we shouldn't be looking at Western vegetarians to see what a decent vegetarian diet should look like... because they still consume more animal products than non-vegetarians elsewhere.

How is this difficult to understand?

Cheese is a low emission product (emission by calorie) and is a considerable portion in vegetarian diets in America and Europe. A calorie of cheese is less costly than pork and pork is already a low emission food item. The two high emission meats are beef and goat.

It would be different if we were talking about a high emission product. But cheese isn't a problem. Neither is yogurt or eggs and their emission rates include the livestock emissions. It's just that dairy cows have significantly different conditions than meat cows.

It's a serious part of most Indian and Middle Eastern vegetarian diets too. Halumi, Labneh, Paneer, whatever you want to call it, it's in a lot of foods. Dairy in India (and Pakistan) is huge. It might be fair to say "A lot of Asia" other than China and Japan relies on cheese. Mongolians and Nepalese for instance, basically live on various forms of cheese and butter. In fact the only vegetarians that don't usually eat cheese (other than vegans) traditionally are Japanese and Chinese Buddhist vegetarians. That has to do with cultural tastes for cheese and dairy though, not some grand design. Tofu tends to fill the role in those cultures that cheese does everywhere else.

Of course, India has more vegetarians than any other country, by far, more than the next top three put together. India's vegetarians eat a ton of dairy, including fresh cheese. It is in fact, a dietary staple.

Thanks for that elaboration. I wonder if in the other poster's mind does this mean that India's vegetarians shouldn't count as vegetarians either? Just the small percentage of people on an Island of his choosing should count?

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Cheese is a low emission product (emission by calorie) and is a considerable portion in vegetarian diets in America and Europe. A calorie of cheese is less costly than pork and pork is already a low emission food item. The two high emission meats are beef and goat.

It would be different if we were talking about a high emission product. But cheese isn't a problem. Neither is yogurt or eggs and their emission rates include the livestock emissions. It's just that dairy cows have significantly different conditions than meat cows.

You know ... fuck it, I'm just going to copypasta

It's not an assumption. We actually have hard evidence to show the devastation of grazing even small hooved livestock like goats and sheep.

The problem with running livestock is that it requires far more lang usage. Also, it takes years to replenish soil nitration and absorption rates of CO2, N2O, and water ... which is the biggest factors in determining the viuability of land. Orchards, grain and vegetable crops require less land and the nitration and absorption value of water are less affected, not only that CO2 absorption and nitration of N2O are far higher for far longer. Let me remind you, that N2O is roughly 292 times more impactful on global warming than carbon dioxide by unit ... more means to have helpful nitrating bacterium consolidating that into N2 is almost 300 times more meaningful to curbing global warming than simply cutting carbon dioxide emission alone.

This is why only looking at purely emissions is fucking stupid. You need to look at denitration, soil compaction, and soil erosion. Grazing actively destroys immeasureable quantities of land and its ability to sink emissions. You know what will destroy the Earth's ability to correct emissions usage? It will be continual desertification. One of the best ways to stop that is planting orchards and crops....

( http://www.israel21c.org/top-10-ways-israel-fights-desertification/ )

As more and more people realise this, it's why cattle industries keep pretending that cattle can totally reverse desertification by grazing more on distressed land. Apparently Chile's overgrazing desertification problems can be solved by running more livestock. Yeah ... and copious amounts of heroin helps you become more assertive. It's gotten so comically pseudoscience like that it's looking every part like the 80s and 90s attempts by big tobacco to pretend smoking doesn't cause lung cancer. Apparently 'big cattle' haven't realised that the most barren places on Earth second to oil fields are cattle yards.

Livestock might produce less emissions, but they in turn create fewer means to to sink emissions back into the soil, and have them transformed into beneficial (or at least neutral) gases. As I was saying before ... even if the volumes were twice as high than livestock, it isn't enough to cover the desertification and denitration of the soil that is thankfully avoided with crop and orchard development on farms to a far greater extent by using less land and commiting less land to soil compaction and erosion by grazing.

People have known that for millenia. Prior bulk livestock ownership, most long term pastoralist communities recognized that shepherds that had the ability to range their herds further around (much like migratory herd animals in the wild) had consistently better soils than small xcommunities that had to pen themselves closer in. The modern world, however, cannot allow that return to highly mobile livestock herds. To be a succesful livestock owner and earn a decent paycheque to live off, you need thousands of heads of livestock.

Also, you can't compare housing development to agriculture. You NEED infrastructure to survive as a modern civilization. You need that shopping center to survive. Been that way since antiquity. Well, replace supermarket with massive public markets, but otherwise the same. More over, there's effective city planning knowledge that can limit pollution, maximise High density housing potential, and decrease necessary private travel to reduce pollution. We have that technology and knowledge basis, and we'd be going backwards in terms of pollution if we exchanged supermarkets and consolidated commercial zones with cottage industries. That is in stark contrast to meat production. You don't need livestock to survive. They are incomparable ... it's like comparing the necessity of a society to work, and being able to spend your weekends merely relaxing. One is a necessity, the other is merely 'nice'. They are incomparable uses of time.

To run a thousand heads of cattle, you need 2,500 acres of decent grazing each year to be ecologically sound. Each year or two. And all that land will still be continually depleted simply for doing so. Ever seen what 6 or 7 large flocks of sheep will do over a pasture? They will permanently, and I mean even thirty years later, bore lines pof dead earth all over it. Super compacted earth that will be visibly for half a century. I've seen a property that was given as a land parcel to a former WW1 veteran ... it was bad land that he was parceled and nobody tried running livestock on it afterwards given it was pretty rocky terrain ... 60 years after everybody stopped running livestock on it, you could see these wide road like litho-structures where nothing grew.

That's not sustainable, regardless of your command of arithmetic.

It is far better to have half of that land usused, and transforming CO2 and N2O into environmentally beneficial gasses, than merely dying earth.

As I was saying before. Highly commercially viable vineyards in Europe. Been operating for centuries. I guarantee you, exchange that agricultural production value by acre with livestock? Far sooner that land will be destroyed. Gone. Eventually you start having to supplement nearly all goodness once gotten from grazing with grain feed, and when it gets to that point there's nothing you can do with the land BUT run cattle on it. And for what? It's a wasteful practice. It could be an entirely averted cycle of continual destruction of land if humans collectively agreed that meats and cheeses should be rare luxuries, to be enjoyed as rare luxuries. We'd be doing ourselves and the environment, and food security in general, a world of good.

(Edit) Oh ... before I forget, I finally found a free version of that academic paper that effectively detail C sequestration numbers of the world's growing desertification process....

( http://imedea.uib-csic.es/master/cambioglobal/Modulo_II_cod101606/M%C3%B3dulo%204.%20Desertificaci%C3%B3n%20y%20Cambio%20Global/Lal,%20potential_of%20desertification%20control%20through%20C%20soil%20sequestration%20LAL.pdf )

If you don't bother to read that either, I'll save you the time. Cut back grazing and stock numbers, increase rotational crop practices, increase land irrigation programs, promote vegetative cover. Unless you feel like losing 5.8 million hectares of land to desertification each year. Desertification that is already accountable for 40% of our total GHG emissions.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Do you not understand the difference between the economies of scale in raising cattle for slaughter, for meat, and keeping them for dairy? You seem to be confusing the two, as though the norm for those vineyards you mention is to chop down the vines with each harvest. There's a reason the Massai for instance, can afford to raise cattle... for MILK (and blood)

Do you not understand that that livestock used for dairy purposes are also grazed on distressed lands? Maintain harvest after harvest of grapes is the point. The soil would not handle similar volumes if you ran livestock trying to meet the same quotas. Even if I were to conceive that livestock meant for dairy purposes we're following similar rotational grazing practices in places like India, or Mongolia ... still makes it irrelevant when we are losing 5.8 million hectares of land each year, and one of the biggest culprits is purely the grazing of animals on distressed lands.

In fact by reducing stock numbers in Botswana and instead implementing new farming practices, not only have they begun to slowly reverse desertification, but they're looking to produce greater volumes of food for local communities. Not only that they are helping to convert more land into effective measures of carbon sequestration.

Grazing of animals in ever greater numbers is uniformlily bad. And has shown to be bad, in every climate and continent of the world barring Antarctica. More livestock lead to the single greatest push to desertification and the single biggest leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions. And there is more than enough proof that effective, modern cropping practices can reverse desertification, the single leading cause of global greenhouse gas emissions.

We have actively tested how modern cropping practices can reverse desertification, in Israel, In Saudi Arabia, in Texas. Why then would a focus on farming practices not be the answer? Grazing animals in ever larger volumes to meet food demands has done nothing but worsen the problem. The answer has always come back the same ... less grazing, more rotational crop farming, more irrigation programs.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I don't know, or if it's just that we all need to be like 10% of the population of Taiwan. The truth is that vegetarianism without a lot of animal products is a small minority of the world of vegetarians, never mind the world.

Who said only vegetarians? I said people in general consume less animal products than Western vegetarians. Which is why Western vegetarians should not be considered the best people to examine when thinking of effective vegetarian diets. Mainly because it wouldn't be, mainly becauyse there is EVIDENCE that merely increasing grazing animals to meet food demand is WORSE than a greater focus on crops and orchards.

If this the best argument you have, then it's no argument.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

You're going to have to show me some evidence of dairy cattle being culpable in this, not cattle for slaughter. To be honest, I don't buy what you're selling. You're like those annoying people in California who go on about not watering a lawn when the majority of their water is already used for agriculture.

Really ... really? All human domesticated grazing animals are responsible for this. Anywhere where people have run livestock over drylands ... are responsible for this. Also, you'll be happy to note that modern crop rotations in places like Saudi Arabia actually lower salinity, improving access to groundwater, helping to promote vegetative cover that increases water absorption.

You want to attack part of the remaining 5% on the grounds that grazing is evil, not that grazing to supply all of the world's hamburger and steak desires is evil? Come off it. Not to mention that you don't have to use grazing land as a cow's primary food source. It's an economic issue, not a technical one. The same with the lack of methane recapture. You want people to change human dietary history, because for some warped reason you think that's more realistic than alternatives?

This is why people don't take vegan preaching seriously, including committed vegetarians.

Oh ... then you must have missed the part where I have repeatedly stated I'd be willing to consume a fox if it would help promote hunters slaughter them (edit: Actually, to be fair ... I said I'd be willing to if it's safe to do so, but apparently it is and so I am). Certainly sounds like vegan preaching to me. Hell, I even repeatedly stated that I love animal products. It's just that I recognise that it's not very useful to make animal products a huge part of our diet, especially when there are better options available. Hell, I've even repeatedly pointed to the fact that INSECTS TASTE AWESOME and I regularly consume them in large volumes. To the point where I reckon more of us should eat insects.

I have even suggested that you shouldn't be a vegetarian for ecological reasons, what you should be is also be rooting for insect cuisine. So I've even spoken out against vegetarianism solely on the basis of the ecological argument. Totally 'vegan preaching', I agree. Guilty as charged.

Yes, it's an economic issue. One we're not likely to solve any time soon. But what we can do is promote good farming practices in countries, to protect people's food security, rather than pretending that losing millions of hectares of necessary carbon sinks each year is a sustainable practice. Also, hell no do I think it's 'evil'. The practice isn't evil, it's stupid. The fact that we aren't helping more communities to reverse desertification and help people achieve the best returns on their labour, as well as address at least part of the problem of GHG emissions, is stupid. It's not evil. There are people who want to learn new ways of farming that both offers greater yields, requires less labour, and maintains the good of their land longer. There's a WHOLE lot of places asking people for tractors, greater education, a shot at intergenerational success.

We lose nothing by at least asking whether a community wants to learn something that will make them more successful and guarantee their livelihoods and the livelihoods of their children and grandchildren. What is 'warped' about doing something that we will need to do eventually? What good is knowing of improved farming practices if you're not willing to teach people? Certainly not as warped as assuming that nobody wants to learn how to be more successful, and hiding behind a pathetic example of Hume's guillotine.

Once again ... not asking that people give up animal products. I'm saying we should focus our food supply efforts on crops and orchards. Of which can be used to both provide greater food supply, decrease desertification, increase food security, improve carbon sequestration, improve the long term viability of land. There is evidence to show that this is a better way to address growing food demand than livestock and start making a noticeable dent on environmental concerns that also need to be addressed. If you have a problem with that, I don't care anymore.

 

[SuperScrub]

Say you like your steaks well-done and you'll have the answer to your question.

Ever get the feeling that people that like well done steaks just have never had a good cut of beef before?

No and since what other people choose to do with their steak isn't any of my business I don't care.

People who are really into steak get irritated because if you cook a steak well done most of the flavoring that differentiates one grade of beef from another gets lost, so they see it as wasteful. I've noticed this most often in restaurants since they usually get higher quality pieces of meat.

I'm someone who prefers well done, even though I'm aware of these facts. So I try to go cheap so as to cause the least offense <.<, usually just chuck steak.

And people who choose to get irritated because people like their steak a different way annoy me more than vegetarians and vegans ever possibly could.

 

[Loonyyy]

You want to attack part of the remaining 5% on the grounds that grazing is evil, not that grazing to supply all of the world's hamburger and steak desires is evil? Come off it. Not to mention that you don't have to use grazing land as a cow's primary food source. It's an economic issue, not a technical one. The same with the lack of methane recapture. You want people to change human dietary history, because for some warped reason you think that's more realistic than alternatives?

This is why people don't take vegan preaching seriously, including committed vegetarians.

That would be because you've looked at CO2 emissions, and not greenhouse gas emissions, which should be an obvious error to anyone familiar with high school chemistry. Specifically methane, the primary source of which is the livestock industry (Though not in the US). IIRC, the figure that the livestock industry makes up is closer to 19% of total greenhouse emissions worldwide, although that figure is from some time ago. And you know, methane is a far more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. A bit of that pesky physical chemistry.

So I'd guess that this would be the part where we stop taking you seriously, having apparently diagnosed a terrible case of veganism, the horror.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

That would be because you've looked at CO2 emissions, and not greenhouse gas emissions, which should be an obvious error to anyone familiar with high school chemistry. Specifically methane, the primary source of which is the livestock industry (Though not in the US). IIRC, the figure that the livestock industry makes up is closer to 19% of total greenhouse emissions worldwide, although that figure is from some time ago. And you know, methane is a far more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. A bit of that pesky physical chemistry.

So I'd guess that this would be the part where we stop taking you seriously, having apparently diagnosed a terrible case of veganism, the horror.

Yar ... and it's not even a case of methane alone either. We know grazing on distressed lands causes desertification, which reduces the soil's means to provide effective management of even worse GHGs also. People who think greater livestock numbers are the answer to rising food demands are completely ignoring the many millions of hectares we lose, yearly, to desertification because of it. Also ignoring the fact that a focus on increasing new cropping techniques actively fight desertification, and increase a struggling society's means of guaranteeing food security.

Grazing isn't even the only problem of livestock. Even if you somehow removed all grazing from the running of livestock worldwide (impossible, but let's pretend shall we?), you'd still have the problem of soil compaction and river and creek bed erosion, raising salinity as you either have to clear more land to accomodate cattle or run more cattle on smaller lots, ... rather than leaving more land to native grass and tree cover. If you remove grazing, then you have to commit more high yield environments to feed production. Rather than commiting such sectors and labour for food production to limit expansion of farmland.

Regardless of either it compounds existing bad agricultural habits and significantly reduces our means to meet food targets worldwide or guarantee food security going into the future.

Apparently it's 'vegan preaching' to assume a society should guarantee their food security by decreasing stock numbers and grazing. I'll be sure to brand every scientist I meet with the label and bury my head in the sand. Fortunately due to soil erosion and that our drylands are disappearing so fast I'm left with numerous options of which sands to do so.

We've only lost half our topsoil in 150 years. No biggie. Topsoil ... pffh ...

 

[Lightknight]

Cheese is a low emission product (emission by calorie) and is a considerable portion in vegetarian diets in America and Europe. A calorie of cheese is less costly than pork and pork is already a low emission food item. The two high emission meats are beef and goat.

It would be different if we were talking about a high emission product. But cheese isn't a problem. Neither is yogurt or eggs and their emission rates include the livestock emissions. It's just that dairy cows have significantly different conditions than meat cows.

You know ... fuck it, I'm just going to copypasta

You think I'm not reading what you're saying, I am but you're not getting that you're making a case against beef when you and I are discussing dairy.

Meat cow production =/= dairy cow production. You are repeatedly citing studies on meat cows as though they're the same as dairy cows but they're not. There is no "cattle" or one shoe fits all where it comes to bovine farming of any kind. We already know and agree that beef production creates a higher ecological cost than most other food types.

Meat and dairy cattle have different emission rates, different feed, and different impacts on their local environment.

Article: http://www.iflscience.com/environment/new-study-says-beef-10x-more-damaging-environment-chicken-pork-or-dairy-foods

Study it is citing (in addition to source of the quote and tables below): http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996.abstract

There is a reason why beef is 10x more damaging to the environment than chicken pork and dairy foods. The study above includes land usage which you have been focusing on and is from 2014 which should help discussion.

"Our calculations reveal that the environmental costs per consumed calorie of dairy, poultry, pork, and eggs are mutually comparable (to within a factor of 2), but strikingly lower than the impacts of beef. Beef production requires 28, 11, 5, and 6 times more land, irrigation water, GHG, and Nr, respectively, than the average of the other livestock categories."

Like I said, pork, poultry, cheese, milk, and eggs are all relatively low emitters with a highly efficient calorie per pound ratio. They're actually within one-two points of tofu in emission per calorie to give you a frame of reference here.

So, do you get it now? Beef cattle take 28 times more land than dairy cattle, 11 times more irrigation water than dairy cattle, emits 5 times more green house gases and even 6 times more reactive nitrogen. Cows produce calories in milk FAR more efficiently than cows produce calories in meat. They might as well be different species when discussing environmental impact (though dairy cows are almost always different breeds than the beef cattle breeds).

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F2.medium.gif

Even the way that pasture is being used in dairy production is different for dairy cows than in meat cows. Above you can see that while the overall land use is less than half that of meat cows, dairy cows still have more of their total land devoted to pasture land. But below you can see the incredible difference in the environmental burden on the land where the meat cows' pasture incurs 8 times (eyeball estimate) the cost of dairy cow pasture despite dairy cows using more pastured land.

http://www.pnas.org/content/111/33/11996/F3.medium.gif

What's more is that the feed calorie to human consumed calorie ratio is by far the best for dairy amongst all items in the list.

Complaining about dairy as though it were beef is abhorrently wrong. Please understand, I have not ignored your premise, I have rejected the given you've based your premise on that all cow related products are produced the same.

For what it's worth, I agree that we would benefit greatly from reforming the beef industry's methodology. It's just that the dairy industry is doing just fine if not great.

 

[Loonyyy]

That would be because you've looked at CO2 emissions, and not greenhouse gas emissions, which should be an obvious error to anyone familiar with high school chemistry. Specifically methane, the primary source of which is the livestock industry (Though not in the US). IIRC, the figure that the livestock industry makes up is closer to 19% of total greenhouse emissions worldwide, although that figure is from some time ago. And you know, methane is a far more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2. A bit of that pesky physical chemistry.

So I'd guess that this would be the part where we stop taking you seriously, having apparently diagnosed a terrible case of veganism, the horror.

Yar ... and it's not even a case of methane alone either. We know grazing on distressed lands causes desertification, which reduces the soil's means to provide effective management of even worse GHGs also. People who think greater livestock numbers are the answer to rising food demands are completely ignoring the many millions of hectares we lose, yearly, to desertification because of it. Also ignoring the fact that a focus on increasing new cropping techniques actively fight desertification, and increase a struggling society's means of guaranteeing food security.

Grazing isn't even the only problem of livestock. Even if you somehow removed all grazing from the running of livestock worldwide (impossible, but let's pretend shall we?), you'd still have the problem of soil compaction and river and creek bed erosion, raising salinity as you either have to clear more land to accomodate cattle or run more cattle on smaller lots, ... rather than leaving more land to native grass and tree cover. If you remove grazing, then you have to commit more high yield environments to feed production. Rather than commiting such sectors and labour for food production to limit expansion of farmland.

Regardless of either it compounds existing bad agricultural habits and significantly reduces our means to meet food targets worldwide or guarantee food security going into the future.

Apparently it's 'vegan preaching' to assume a society should guarantee their food security by decreasing stock numbers and grazing. I'll be sure to brand every scientist I meet with the label and bury my head in the sand. Fortunately due to soil erosion and that our drylands are disappearing so fast I'm left with numerous options of which sands to do so.

We've only lost half our topsoil in 150 years. No biggie. Topsoil ... pffh ...

Livestock is a problem, but it's not one that you're going to see go for a long time. Meat and dairy are staples, and you'll face a fairly heavy pushback culturally, but at the very least, we should be working towards reducing overall consumption of meat. Raising animals for slaughter is an incredibly inefficient process, and most Western diets overdo the amount of meat consumption anyway. Pretty much everyone could do with less of it, if only it weren't so damn tasty, and the focal point of most meals. Insects are interesting, but I don't think we'll see a lot of uptake of that for a long time, lab grown meat is interesting, and the price has recently fallen dramatically, but I'm not sure how efficient that is though.

A lot of our livestock land is overstressed. The sheer amount of cattle we need, and the way property works, encourages the overuse of the land for livestock, and prevents rotation. The land simply doesn't get the chance to regenerate.

It's funny, the way our diet has turned out is actually a bit of a nuisance for us. There's quite a few cultures that due to the unavailability of large amounts of meat have come up with other diets that are often more nutritious, and potentially better for the environment. It's just sort of a weird effect.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

cut

No, you don't get it. We need to collectively cut down on grazing, all grazing. That is what every scientist is telling us, and no ... You can't just substitute all grazing of milk production livestock worldwide with feed. You can't even do that with the dairy supply in Australia or the US. Australia has to pasture 80% of its total dairy cattle. In order to fill our desire for dairy-vbased products we've doubled herd numbers on larger farms that haven't increase in size. I don't give a flying fuck about emissions because emissions isn't even the biggest problem we're facing. 20% of our dairy cattle range on land consider 'high' as a chance of desertification.

In fact, dairy cattle farms are decreasing due to changing environmental conditions and market consolidation by large dairy companies, dairy cattle numbers are still same.

In all instances there was degradation of land viability.

It's not a matter of 'reform' ... it is too expensive, too land intensive, to keep running the same numbers of livestock as we do. We've lost 20% of drylands, we've lost 24% of productive lands. The single largest source contributor to greenhouse gases is desertification. It makes up 35 to 40% of our total GHG accumulation. It is the worst man-made natural disaster and greatest reduction of biodiversity that we will ever face, and even if we stopped it right now, it would take centuries to repair the damage that is done.

Spoiler: This is an FAO estimate of soil compaction, largely down by running livestock

Spoiler: This is an image of absolute soil health

Fine, dairy cattle are less worse than beef cattle by their own emissions ... they still contribute to desertification worldwide. They're still many times worse than rotational crop growing at dealing with the real issue of land loss. 'Reform' implies that that all we need to do is tweak something. We have to radically re-examine how we use land. But even that shouldn't be so daunting because at the moment, we lost 3.4T Euros worldwide from the effects of soil degradation last year. There is economic reasons why combating soil degradation is viable. Pretending like we can continue following the same agriocultural practices we have done is not going to help us. By all means, keep animal products ... but it's stupid to assume we can continue eating them in the same volumes and expect nothing to change.

( http://www.unccd.int/Lists/SiteDocumentLibrary/Publications/Desertificationandclimatechange.pdf )

Soil contributes to greater carbon sequestration than anything else, and if we don't maintain it, if we don't start moderating how we feed people, we won't put a dent in lowering emissions. Livestock are not the answer to meeting food security and supply. It's retaking land from desertification. Making lost land bloom again. The best way to do that is through modern crop development and less livestock. Dairy cattle are still worse than modern cropping practices. We should be raising land reclamation as a greater priority to finding means to feed people and combat climate change than meat and dairy.

More livestock will weaken our capacity to fight soil degradation.

 

[minkus_draconus]

Say you like your steaks well-done and you'll have the answer to your question.

Ever get the feeling that people that like well done steaks just have never had a good cut of beef before?

My wife was raised is a bad environment were proper food preparation was not a common thing so if any meat product is not "fully cooked" (no red) to her it is unsafe. This is something that is non negotiable. It stems from something that was done to her that shaped her life. She knows what safe internal temps are.

Sometimes bad life events shape you in way no amount of knowing otherwise can undo. No amount of top shelf steak would change that. It's not simple.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Livestock is a problem, but it's not one that you're going to see go for a long time. Meat and dairy are staples, and you'll face a fairly heavy pushback culturally, but at the very least, we should be working towards reducing overall consumption of meat. Raising animals for slaughter is an incredibly inefficient process, and most Western diets overdo the amount of meat consumption anyway. Pretty much everyone could do with less of it, if only it weren't so damn tasty, and the focal point of most meals. Insects are interesting, but I don't think we'll see a lot of uptake of that for a long time, lab grown meat is interesting, and the price has recently fallen dramatically, but I'm not sure how efficient that is though.

A lot of our livestock land is overstressed. The sheer amount of cattle we need, and the way property works, encourages the overuse of the land for livestock, and prevents rotation. The land simply doesn't get the chance to regenerate.

It's funny, the way our diet has turned out is actually a bit of a nuisance for us. There's quite a few cultures that due to the unavailability of large amounts of meat have come up with other diets that are often more nutritious, and potentially better for the environment. It's just sort of a weird effect.

That's the thing ... you don't need to get rid of all livestock. We can keep the livestock and livestock numbers that we have, just don't increase their size. Reclaim lost land and you'll regain the best ability to store and process into organic compounds carbon and other greenhouse gases. Not only is soil the greatest source of GHG mitigation, but by reclaiming places of heavy soil erosion through viable crop growing and reduction of grazing, to promote greater vegetative cover, you also build up the natural GHG sinks of vegetation also.

I'm not saying get rid of animal products. I'm saying that a focus on land reclaiming by cropping and orcharding, and having these accomodate a greater share of our diets, is the way to go. Botswana is a perfect example that greater livestock numbers accelerates poverty and malnutrition because of desertification and overstocking. A rslow return to sustainable crop development and reduction of cattle in favour of soil conservation is slated to help feed more people.

The thing is that if we were merely to implement these strategies in developing countries, we could raise their living standards and contribute lasting action to dealing with climate change. You can't do it with livestock however. But that's not even the point we should be looking at. You're saying that people see meat and dairy as a staple, we will need to reduce livestock numbers as we lose more land regardless.

So either we look at new diets and new land reclamation strategies by choice ... or we suffer major food crises in 20 years where similar losses in agricultural production and viable land will serve to push us well below necessary supply. Either/or, something is going to change. We can either be smarter with land now, or we'll have no choice but to do something down the track.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

So you're not going to prove what you're saying, just say a lot more of it? Well, can't say I didn't see that coming. I asked for you to show me, and if you can't, don't bother talking to me any more. Cattle for global dairy demand are orders of magnitude less damaging to the environment than global beef demand (see LightKnight's post). In fact it isn't even close. Show me your data specific to DAIRY and we can talk.

The way to prove that you're not "Vegan Preaching" is to show someone proof when they ask for it, not go on and preach for half a dozen paragraphs. You're just some random person online to me, I DON'T CARE ABOUT YOUR PASSION. I care about evidence you might have to support a theory you're putting forward, nothing more.

So the study I put up showing the effects of desertification and charted tested soil conservation programs and reducing grazing as the most effective options in food security and reclaiming land wasn't 'sciencey' enough? Yeah, Cambridge sucks like that. Or do you disbelieve the FAO's warnings on the loss of viable land due to overgrazing?

Or the link between desertification and greenhouse gases?

Or do you disbelieve in the overgrazing of Botswana and especially the region of Sandveld has critically worsened soil erosion?

I'm not your mum. You are more than couple of clicking on the links I gave to LightKnight. I'm done playing this game.

Also, just for your perusal.

http://www.rala.is/rade/ralareport/darkoh.pdf

A comprehensive study of specifically the Botswana problem and history of desertification in the region, if you'd like to see what even short term grazing of livestock can do in drylands without a focus on soil conservation efforts.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

You: "BEEF BEEF BEEF! STUDIES ABOUT THE IMPACTS OF ALL CATTLE!"
Everyone else: "Beef and Dairy... very different."

I'll say it again though, as LightKnight has tried to explain to you already, they are different. Practically different animals. It's like damning Solar energy as evil and polluting because it exists in the same Energy Sector as coal. Get over it.

I don't know if you're trying to screw around for agenda purposes, or if you're just too upset to get it. Fortunately I have the benefit of not caring.

Actually, no. All overstocking was criticised if you bothered to read anything. Botswana is a fantastic example of what happens when you try to increase stock supply, regardless of livestock type (as cattle was not the only abundant stock type), to meet food demands and market. Are you telling me that Botswana could replace all its livestock with dairy cattle and fair better? Any increase in livestock to meet food supply is going to come with a corresponding degree of environment pressure to provide feed, or pasture.

In fact .... comparative studies of the Dairy industry in Australia (another high semi-arid/arid country) state that dairy production alone make up 12% of our national water usage. That it requires in Australia 800 litres of water ... to provide 1 litre of milk. That in order to get those volumes you need high pasture AND grain feeding.

For starters, dairy cattle cannot be run in most places. It is literally impossible to run substantial dairy operations viably without major grazing. We cannot look at dairy production to suitably feed people going into the future. Hence why there's been a push for soy-based products in places like North Africa and elsewhere as people are looking for alternatives. We don't have the land or the water resources to increase any form of dairy production.

Dairy cattle specifically in Australia is a failing industry. It is far more viable to simply run 2000+ heads of dairy cattle on farms rather than previous commercial numbers of an average of 263 prior the 1950s, to be commercially viable. We've gone backwards in terms of total dairy farms, yet total dairy cattle heads have remained largely inert. Regardless of this concentration, there is no means to be able to shift dairy production from grazing to feed. In fact half of our dairy production requires large quantities of both.

Lands are being degraded so fast that dairy production alone accounts for 25-30% of fertiliser sales in Australia to maintain necessary pastures. Raising dairy cattle numbers is not the answer to food security, or maintaining healthy lands. Fortunately I'm not telling people to get rid of all livestock. I'm saying that land reclamation, reduction in grazing, and modern cropping practices is more effective of feeding people and should be looked at to provide necessary foodstuffs to meet current and future demands on food and combat GHG emissions.

US standards are not very standard. Comparing US soil quality to most of the world is a joke. Australian dairy production has a higher emission rate even without factoring soil erosion and desertification. Primarily because the soil is already distressed ... but the funny thing is, Australian soil quality is a better representation of places like Africa, Middle East, Greater Asia region ... so if you plan to run more livestock to meet demand, you had best look at regional studies of soil conservation and sustainability. By looking at places like Botswana? Saying additional livestock, ANY GRAZING LIVESTOCK, is suitable means to meet food demand is dead wrong. At best, it's a short term measure, at worst it accelerates poverty and malnutrition.

 

[Lightknight]

cut

No, you don't get it. We need to collectively cut down on grazing, all grazing. That is what every scientist is telling us, and no ... You can't just substitute all grazing of milk production livestock worldwide with feed. You can't even do that with the dairy supply in Australia or the US. Australia has to pasture 80% of its total dairy cattle. In order to fill our desire for dairy-vbased products we've doubled herd numbers on larger farms that haven't increase in size. I don't give a flying fuck about emissions because emissions isn't even the biggest problem we're facing. 20% of our dairy cattle range on land consider 'high' as a chance of desertification.

In fact, dairy cattle farms are decreasing due to changing environmental conditions and market consolidation by large dairy companies, dairy cattle numbers are still same.

You're saying that we need to cut down on all grazing, but the land impact of dairy cattle are extremely minor. Cutting down on even 10% of beef cattle would be the equivalent of wiping out the entire dairy industry. Do you believe that we need to have zero degradation?

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/soillosscauses.gif

I mean, coffee, cotton, palm oil, soybean and wheat all erode topsoil faster than it can maintain itself. While grazing is responsible for 35% of the degradation worldwide, agriculture is also responsible for 30% of it.

Heck, in the US, agriculture is responsible for 66% of soil degradation and grazing is still around 30%. So the claim that grazing is the great evil doesn't even come close to agriculture here whereas in places like Africa and Oceana those numbers are flipped.

So just proclaiming that we need to cut down on grazing doesn't make sense. Not when it is comparable to other categories and in some cases much less.

You're being too absolute and too discriminatory in general of one area. Not only do we need to eat, but the solution is improvements in soil sustainability rather than not supplying milk, cheese or meat. Grazing isn't the problem, over grazing is. Do you have numbers to support that dairy farming overgrazes at the same rate as beef grazing? I've already shown numbers that dairy cows require a tenth of the land that beef cows require so there's already a variance in land usage present.

It is financially advantageous for farmers to manage top soil and there are all kinds of practices that specifically address this because it saves a lot of money in the long term. Well managed grazing and manure application can actually improve the top soil in the pasture.

Better grazing regulations? More incentives centered around topsoil preservation? Those are things I can get behind. But no grazing at all? That's ridiculous.

 

[Lightknight]

cut

No, you don't get it. We need to collectively cut down on grazing, all grazing. That is what every scientist is telling us, and no ... You can't just substitute all grazing of milk production livestock worldwide with feed. You can't even do that with the dairy supply in Australia or the US. Australia has to pasture 80% of its total dairy cattle. In order to fill our desire for dairy-vbased products we've doubled herd numbers on larger farms that haven't increase in size. I don't give a flying fuck about emissions because emissions isn't even the biggest problem we're facing. 20% of our dairy cattle range on land consider 'high' as a chance of desertification.

In fact, dairy cattle farms are decreasing due to changing environmental conditions and market consolidation by large dairy companies, dairy cattle numbers are still same.

You're saying that we need to cut down on all grazing, but the land impact of dairy cattle are extremely minor. Cutting down on even 10% of beef cattle would be the equivalent of wiping out the entire dairy industry. Do you believe that we need to have zero degradation?

http://www.globalchange.umich.edu/globalchange2/current/lectures/land_deg/soillosscauses.gif

I mean, coffee, cotton, palm oil, soybean and wheat all erode topsoil faster than it can maintain itself. While grazing is responsible for 35% of the degradation worldwide, agriculture is also responsible for 30% of it.

Heck, in the US, agriculture is responsible for 66% of soil degradation and grazing is still around 30%. So the claim that grazing is the great evil doesn't even come close to agriculture here whereas in places like Africa and Oceana those numbers are flipped.

So just proclaiming that we need to cut down on grazing doesn't make sense. Not when it is comparable to other categories and in some cases much less.

You're being too absolute and too discriminatory in general of one area. Not only do we need to eat, but the solution is improvements in soil sustainability rather than not supplying milk, cheese or meat. Grazing isn't the problem, over grazing is. Do you have numbers to support that dairy farming overgrazes at the same rate as beef grazing? I've already shown numbers that dairy cows require a tenth of the land that beef cows require so there's already a variance in land usage present.

It is financially advantageous for farmers to manage top soil and there are all kinds of practices that specifically address this because it saves a lot of money in the long term. Well managed grazing and manure application can actually improve the top soil in the pasture.

Better grazing regulations? More incentives centered around topsoil preservation? Those are things I can get behind. But no grazing at all? That's ridiculous.

I'll leave it to you, if he's not going to listen to anyone, he might as well not listen to one person instead of two. That said, I would let it go, you've made your point with evidence and he's made his with nothing. It's a game over at this point.

Well, this is more specific information on causes of soil degradation as well as facts that grazing with correct soil treatment can make the soil better than before.

So I just want to make perfectly clear that not only is dairy farming less severe on the environment than beef farming, which the poster still doesn't accept despite the volumes of evidence, and to show that in a lot of places it isn't even the worst offender of soil degradation. In the US I would be more justified in saying that we need to stop growing food than the poster is in saying we need to stop grazing since agriculture is 66% of the degradation here.

Regardless, it has been beneficial to my own understanding to be able to go out and actually research these facts. So even if I'm not making any headway in the discussion I am still learning.

 

[MishaK]

cut

No, you don't get it. We need to collectively cut down on grazing, all grazing. That is what every scientist is telling us, and no ... You can't just substitute all grazing of milk production livestock worldwide with feed. You can't even do that with the dairy supply in Australia or the US. Australia has to pasture 80% of its total dairy cattle. In order to fill our desire for dairy-vbased products we've doubled herd numbers on larger farms that haven't increase in size. I don't give a flying fuck about emissions because emissions isn't even the biggest problem we're facing. 20% of our dairy cattle range on land consider 'high' as a chance of desertification.

In fact, dairy cattle farms are decreasing due to changing environmental conditions and market consolidation by large dairy companies, dairy cattle numbers are still same.

In all instances there was degradation of land viability.

It's not a matter of 'reform' ... it is too expensive, too land intensive, to keep running the same numbers of livestock as we do. We've lost 20% of drylands, we've lost 24% of productive lands. The single largest source contributor to greenhouse gases is desertification. It makes up 35 to 40% of our total GHG accumulation. It is the worst man-made natural disaster and greatest reduction of biodiversity that we will ever face, and even if we stopped it right now, it would take centuries to repair the damage that is done.

Spoiler: This is an FAO estimate of soil compaction, largely down by running livestock

Spoiler: This is an image of absolute soil health

Fine, dairy cattle are less worse than beef cattle by their own emissions ... they still contribute to desertification worldwide. They're still many times worse than rotational crop growing at dealing with the real issue of land loss. 'Reform' implies that that all we need to do is tweak something. We have to radically re-examine how we use land. But even that shouldn't be so daunting because at the moment, we lost 3.4T Euros worldwide from the effects of soil degradation last year. There is economic reasons why combating soil degradation is viable. Pretending like we can continue following the same agriocultural practices we have done is not going to help us. By all means, keep animal products ... but it's stupid to assume we can continue eating them in the same volumes and expect nothing to change.

( http://www.unccd.int/Lists/SiteDocumentLibrary/Publications/Desertificationandclimatechange.pdf )

Soil contributes to greater carbon sequestration than anything else, and if we don't maintain it, if we don't start moderating how we feed people, we won't put a dent in lowering emissions. Livestock are not the answer to meeting food security and supply. It's retaking land from desertification. Making lost land bloom again. The best way to do that is through modern crop development and less livestock. Dairy cattle are still worse than modern cropping practices. We should be raising land reclamation as a greater priority to finding means to feed people and combat climate change than meat and dairy.

More livestock will weaken our capacity to fight soil degradation.

Why do you insist on grouping "All grazing" together instead of discussing the very different elements of it independently?