Grass fed beef/lamb can also sequester carbon and reduce emissions as a result, which can’t really be said of plants. Plenty of plant ag is horrible for the environment – palm oil, monocultures, etc etc, plant fertilizers are a huge source of GHG emissions, many fruits and veggies are regularly shipped around the world using up fossil fuels… there’s a lot of reasons why absolutist statements like that don’t work
If people say animal ag is more at fault for global warming than fossil fuels they’re flat out wrong. Doesn’t even come close
If every single person on the planet did everything they could to minimize their carbon footprint, and even just their environmental footprint in general, it’d still be hardly anything next to what corporations are doing.
The idea that veganism is the best for the environment is kind of a lie because transportation (aka carbon emissions) are a massive part of agriculture of any type and the main devil in climate change isn’t even agriculture in the first place.
Individual efforts to better the planet are great especially if tons of people do them but the devil causing climate change isn’t steak, it’s corporate greed.
The vegan diet uses no perennial cropland, making it a less
effective use of land than you might suspect.
Researchers found that the carrying capacity—the size of the population that can be supported indefinitely by the resources of an ecosystem—of the vegan diet is actually less substantial than two of the vegetarian diets and two out of the four omnivorous diets they studied.
So, to summarize: vegan isn’t the healthiest option for most, it’s not sustainable, and it’s not what are bodies are hard wired for. If you choose to be vegan, go ahead. But please stop pontificating about how superior it and you are.
It’s all about filling niches. Try growing enough veggie food in my area to be sustainably vegan. The rajneesh did it, but they had millions of dollars to make their equipment, thousands of people ALL working the fields every day, they took advantage of some strong microclimates, and they lived modestly. The grasslands here can grow hella cattle, sheep, alfalfa and grains, chickens are easy, and the ridges are perfect for goats. Gardens and orchards are not reliable due to late and early frosts and freezes, and importing loads of veggies isn’t very sustainable. And there are a lot of places with similar environmental conditions. Gotta balance it out! There’s no one right way! And the more people eat locally, the more their diets could change to match their conditions more closely which I think is neat.
People should also remember that even if crop fields are not monocultures, they’re still not a replacement for the habitat they’re built over. Non-intensive farming of food animals, however, preserves native habitat and vegetation. Some of the smaller cattle owners around here keep their herds on land that is unchanged from what it was before the cattle, save for fencing every few acres. Wildlife, especially birds, still get a lot of use out of those fields. There’s even a heron that calls one home. Sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, geese, and pigs can all do well where I am on native forage in the warm months, and hayfields are productive enough to supply for the winters. The fields are already there – this area was once all dairies – but they’re being replaced by strip malls because local animal products are not profitable anymore. A push towards eco-friendly animal farms and local eating would thus do wonders here – not only would it save our grazeland from development by making it worth working again, but it would preserve more of our landscape and our heritage, including heritage livestock breeds bred to thrive in non-intensive systems, many of which face extinction due to the predominance of intensive systems using production crosses. Already local vegetables and fruits are making a come back, but as I said, planting vegetables means taking away native flora, so I hope what stirrings of interest in local meat I’ve already seen continue to grow. What’s written above about the importance of meat in temperate regions is definitely true – we need balance if we want to protect our natural world, because for everyone here to eat vegan, we’d need to tear down many more fields and forests to make up for our short and unreliable growing season.
I’ve noticed that there are some people frantically scrambling to discredit this. First of all: if you take the PCRM (read: PeTA’s hired quacks) and Cowspiracy at face value, you’re really not in much of a position to complain about the reliability of the source.
Secondly: please note that the study in question is not some attempt to invalidate veganism. For one, even if anyone were really even trying to do that, it would be an exercise in failure; you can’t invalidate personal principle. And for another: at least the researchers who did this study don’t seem to have gone in with a foregone conclusion…which is more than can be said of a hell of a lot of the “sources” absolutist vegans invariably seem to cite.
Yup lol. Whenever they hammer on about sustainability as if large scale crop agriculture is completely benign, all while being like “THE MOST HARMFUL PART OF ANIMAL AG IS THE FEED…”
Also the whole “importing tropical fruit from Timbuktu to New York in January is SO MUCH BETTER FOR THE ENVIRONMENT than local beef” delusion lol. And increasing demand for produce in winter is a good idea. And forcing things to grow by changing the land and claiming it’s greener.
Almost like none of them actually know how agriculture even works or have a plan other than “make cows extinct, global warming is over”
anyway the fact that ppl literally think ppl should eat in a way that could jeopardize their health and no one should be allowed any animal protein anymore is gross and low key eugenics-y
there are people who N E E D animal protein to live, and that means that sustainable animal ag is a necessity. If it’s not even worth trying to make it sustainable then we’re pretty much screwed then aren’t we? (We’re not because fossil fuels are the real issue but w/e I guess)
Wild reindeer in the Arctic may soon be reduced to the stuff of children’s tales, according to a new report evaluating the impact of climate change in the area. Over the last twenty years, herd populations of wild reindeer and caribou in the Arctic tundra have dropped by more than half, according to the Arctic Report Card, an annual report that’s been releasing updates on the status of the Arctic environment since 2006. One of the report’s key findings: Arctic reindeer and caribou populations have declined by roughly 56 percent in the last two decades.
Scientists estimate there are around 2.1 million of the populations left in the area, though some herds experienced worse declines than others. In the Alaska-Canada region, for example, five herds were reduced by more than 90 percent, and don’t show any promising signs of recovering from this loss. The researchers noted that while it’s typical for herd numbers to fluctuate, many of the herds are exhibiting record low populations.
There is not one sole cause for the decline, but researchers in the report agreed that climate change in the Arctic was “an overarching factor.” Air temperatures in the Arctic from 2014 to 2018 have surpassed all previous records since 1900, and temperatures in the Arctic are warming at double the rate of the rest of the world, the report noted. In one example, caribou’s adaptability (or lack thereof) to the changing temperatures was linked to diminished pregnancy and calf survival rates due to consecutive years of poor weather conditions like drought.
Indigenous people in the area who rely on the reindeer and caribou for food security and as culturally significant symbols are facing a threat to their way of life due to the duration and severity of the declines, the report notes. Wild reindeer and caribou are also “a key species in the arctic food web,” the report continues, due to their essential role in the habitat’s food chain and ecosystem.
I’m so goddamn mad that oil companies have known climate change is real for decades and did everything to stop people from acting on it. I want to burn their offices down. I want to throw their CEOs into a fucking pit. The world is being destroyed because some filthy rich fucks saw the end coming and figured making money off it was better than saving it. That’s pure evil, plain and simple.
The massive downside to meaningful action on climate change is that if global warming is false were left with a clean environment and a sustainable economic model. What a bummer
ifesbob 