Feb 2, 2022 06:51 AM
(This post was last modified: Feb 2, 2022 07:02 AM by C C.)
Will Yellowstone have yet another adversary to fight off in its tenth or twentieth season? Only the peyote shaman knows for sure...
- - - - - -
This is how much meat and dairy hurt the climate
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905...-rewilding
EXCERPTS: If the world were to end all meat and dairy production and transition to a plant-based food system over the next 15 years, it would prevent enough greenhouse gas emissions to effectively cancel out emissions from all other economic sectors for the next 30 to 50 years.
That’s according to new research published today in the journal PLOS Climate. The paper’s authors say such a shift would “substantially alter the trajectory of global warming,” as animal agriculture is estimated to account for around 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Pat Brown, a professor emeritus of biochemistry at Stanford University and the founder and CEO of the plant-based meat company Impossible Foods, and Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics and development at the University of California Berkeley, modeled the long-term “climate opportunity cost” of continuing business-as-usual meat and dairy production.
[...] But direct emissions aren’t animal agriculture’s only contribution to climate change; 30 percent of the Earth’s land is used to either raise farmed animals or to grow crops to feed them. The report’s authors model that restoring or “rewilding” all of that land to ecological health would create a massive carbon sink, capturing and storing carbon that otherwise would’ve added to climate change.
[...] A 15-year phase-out of meat and dairy is almost certainly not going to happen. And it’s worth noting that a massive shift to plant-based eating would financially benefit Brown and Eisen. Brown’s Impossible Foods is a highly valued maker of plant-based beef, pork, and chicken, while Eisen is an adviser for the company. Both are shareholders in the company. The authors disclose their conflicts in the paper.
[...] Despite the financial conflict of interest, the science appears solid, according to Matthew Hayek, an assistant environmental studies professor at New York University and a recent Vox contributor.
[...] It’s obvious but has to be restated: A 15-year phase-out of meat and dairy production is something that is only likely to happen in an academic model. It would be logistically impossible, and it would require significant state action, which is a political nonstarter; regulating meat production and consumption is universally politically toxic.
It would also be an impossible transition for the estimated 2 billion people, most in the global South, who raise their own animals for food and income, though they eat far less meat than consumers in rich nations.
[...] It’s a challenge governments and corporations — and the consumers who keep eagerly eating more meat — have largely ignored at our peril, producing ever more burgers, wings, and bacon and racking up a climate tab future generations will be left to pay.
[...] Aside from the logistical and political impossibility of phasing out meat and dairy production in 15 years, rewilding the land used to house and feed farmed animals would also be met with steep economic and political obstacles.
There is a major voluntary effort underway in the UK to do just this, which has seen some success, but it’s also rankled some farmers who worry they’ll be forced to change farming practices and be excluded from key decisions on how UK land is used.
We’d still need land to support a plant-based food system, but far less, according to Brown and Eisen. Right now, about one-third of Earth’s land is used to feed or house farmed animals, but if everything we ate was directly derived from plants, Brown and Eisen say we’d only need to use 7 percent of it...
[...] Eventually — for the reasons Brown and Eisen have bluntly laid out — governments will need to craft policy to change meat and dairy production in order to reach climate targets, especially those of high-income countries, which emit an outsized proportion of the global share of greenhouse gas emissions. Influencing consumer behavior and what’s available on fast-food menus and grocery store shelves — market-driven approaches — will be critical, but can only do so much.(MORE - details)
- - - - - -
This is how much meat and dairy hurt the climate
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22905...-rewilding
EXCERPTS: If the world were to end all meat and dairy production and transition to a plant-based food system over the next 15 years, it would prevent enough greenhouse gas emissions to effectively cancel out emissions from all other economic sectors for the next 30 to 50 years.
That’s according to new research published today in the journal PLOS Climate. The paper’s authors say such a shift would “substantially alter the trajectory of global warming,” as animal agriculture is estimated to account for around 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Pat Brown, a professor emeritus of biochemistry at Stanford University and the founder and CEO of the plant-based meat company Impossible Foods, and Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics and development at the University of California Berkeley, modeled the long-term “climate opportunity cost” of continuing business-as-usual meat and dairy production.
[...] But direct emissions aren’t animal agriculture’s only contribution to climate change; 30 percent of the Earth’s land is used to either raise farmed animals or to grow crops to feed them. The report’s authors model that restoring or “rewilding” all of that land to ecological health would create a massive carbon sink, capturing and storing carbon that otherwise would’ve added to climate change.
[...] A 15-year phase-out of meat and dairy is almost certainly not going to happen. And it’s worth noting that a massive shift to plant-based eating would financially benefit Brown and Eisen. Brown’s Impossible Foods is a highly valued maker of plant-based beef, pork, and chicken, while Eisen is an adviser for the company. Both are shareholders in the company. The authors disclose their conflicts in the paper.
[...] Despite the financial conflict of interest, the science appears solid, according to Matthew Hayek, an assistant environmental studies professor at New York University and a recent Vox contributor.
[...] It’s obvious but has to be restated: A 15-year phase-out of meat and dairy production is something that is only likely to happen in an academic model. It would be logistically impossible, and it would require significant state action, which is a political nonstarter; regulating meat production and consumption is universally politically toxic.
It would also be an impossible transition for the estimated 2 billion people, most in the global South, who raise their own animals for food and income, though they eat far less meat than consumers in rich nations.
[...] It’s a challenge governments and corporations — and the consumers who keep eagerly eating more meat — have largely ignored at our peril, producing ever more burgers, wings, and bacon and racking up a climate tab future generations will be left to pay.
[...] Aside from the logistical and political impossibility of phasing out meat and dairy production in 15 years, rewilding the land used to house and feed farmed animals would also be met with steep economic and political obstacles.
There is a major voluntary effort underway in the UK to do just this, which has seen some success, but it’s also rankled some farmers who worry they’ll be forced to change farming practices and be excluded from key decisions on how UK land is used.
We’d still need land to support a plant-based food system, but far less, according to Brown and Eisen. Right now, about one-third of Earth’s land is used to feed or house farmed animals, but if everything we ate was directly derived from plants, Brown and Eisen say we’d only need to use 7 percent of it...
[...] Eventually — for the reasons Brown and Eisen have bluntly laid out — governments will need to craft policy to change meat and dairy production in order to reach climate targets, especially those of high-income countries, which emit an outsized proportion of the global share of greenhouse gas emissions. Influencing consumer behavior and what’s available on fast-food menus and grocery store shelves — market-driven approaches — will be critical, but can only do so much.(MORE - details)