Heatwave

[Fergie 307]

That's hilarious! You weren't aware of any consensus!

If people bothered to read stuff completely and in context. My observation was that I was not aware of any consensus on what the NATURAL underlying trend is, as opposed to our contribution, and it's exact causes. Our contribution is not in doubt, not is the fact that in the short term, by which I mean the last say 100 years, our behaviour has been the biggest factor driving this.

 

[guineafowl21]

Someone’s dietary choices are a private matter, but I’m moved to comment when things start to get preachy.

More or less every adult, if they were honest with themselves, knows that some pretty rotten stuff happens to animals (again, sentient creatures, not that dissimilar from us) in order to make their dinner taste different.

I don’t quite get it. Do laying hens and dairy cows not count?
-How many (male) chicks are slaughtered in the production of laying hens? Millions.
-Almost all laying hens are slaughtered well before their natural lifespan (usually about 1 year old).
-Ditto dairy cows.

The slaughter happens in exactly the same facilities as those which process the animals for meat. You don’t happen to eat the resulting muscle and fat tissue, but the process nonetheless continues to make your food.

Is that really something we just want to turn a blind eye to? We grow food to feed these animals to eat, cut out the middle bit and just grow food to eat.

Again, I assume you eat eggs and milk which is the ‘middle bit’. If we all went vegetarian there would be no-one eating the spent hens and cows, which would be a tremendous waste.

Eggs are nutritionally different from wheat, and both form part of a balanced diet. Meat is nutritionally different from grass, the major diet of all ruminants. I would concede that farming has got a little obsessed with grain feeding cattle in recent times. We should switch over to more grass-reared stock, since grass is extremely easy to grow, and requires hardly any fossil fuel input compared to cereal crops.

Issues of poor welfare and sustainability are not necessary parts of meat production (which is the same as dairy/egg production, but the meat is not consumed). It can be improved rather than just stopped.

It’s unlikely I’ll change your world views, of course, but you both subscribe the the same industry that you’re arguing against. Animals are reared and slaughtered for your dinner; you simply ‘don’t inhale’. That is no basis for sanctimony.

 

[Jacob]

If people bothered to read stuff completely and in context. My observation was that I was not aware of any consensus on what the NATURAL underlying trend is, as opposed to our contribution, and it's exact causes. Our contribution is not in doubt, not is the fact that in the short term, by which I mean the last say 100 years, our behaviour has been the biggest factor driving this.

Non-human causes and effects are under continuous study - El Nino, solar activity etc. There's no great conflict of opinion on these - or on an overall separate "NATURAL underlying trend"
The "consensus" is that taking into account all that is known then the current indications of CC are largely anthropogenic.

 

[Jacob]

Someone’s dietary choices are a private matter, .......

Not according to George Monbiot George Monbiot: “Agriculture is arguably the most destructive industry on Earth”

 

[Fergie 307]

Non-human causes and effects are under continuous study - El Nino, solar activity etc. There's no great conflict of opinion on these - or on an overall separate "NATURAL underlying trend"
The "consensus" is that taking into account all that is known then the current indications of CC are largely anthropogenic.

I agree, my observation is simply that there must be an underlying natural trend, so what is it, and what are it's causes? This is important. We can, if there's the will, stop out own contribution, and even reverse some of the consequences of the damage we have done. But if there is a longer term natural upward trend then this will also have consequences, which we may not be able to influence. In practical terms I entirely agree that our own immediate emphasis needs to be on putting our own house in order. Any underlying natural trend, whatever it may be, is likely to be much slower. The speed with which we are damaging our own home is breathtaking. So I agree we need to get out various governments to take this much more seriously. It's all very well for governments to put measures off because they may have a short term adverse economic effect or, God forbid, cost them votes, but if we don't get a grip then the long term effects are likely to be catastrophic.

 

[Jacob]

I agree, my observation is simply that there must be an underlying natural trend, so what is it, and what are it's causes? .....

Well you tell us! Why should there be an underlying trend in the first place?
Lots of variable causes and effects over time don't amount to a trend unless there is an identifiable trend

 

[guineafowl21]

Not according to George Monbiot George Monbiot: “Agriculture is arguably the most destructive industry on Earth”

I disagree with George Monbiot, whose opinion is one of many (roughly, say 7 billion) and who is a vegan campaigner with a book to sell. I would love to have a debate with him, starting with:

Compare the soil health, biodiversity and sustainability of-
- A 7-year grass ley, fertilised with animal dung, with that of
- A cereal (monoculture) field that is rattled to crumbles and dust every year, and fertilised with industrial NPK, then sprayed with herbicide, fungicide, insecticide and growth regulators.

 

[Lorenzl]

I wonder if there is enough productive land available to feed every one as a vegetarian?

I suppose we could cut all the forests down to provide more if required.

 

[Sideways]

"Intelligence is not a winning survival trait”
(Netflix Love Death & Robots" short animation)

Seems true to me. It simply gives us greater capability to destroy our environment faster and faster.

Frankly we're a plague on the planet and we're going to wipe ourselves back to the stoneage.
Nothing wrong with that. Species populations rise and fall. Nature will grow back over millennia.
Maybe the Octopii will do a better job of it next time around.

 

[Jacob]

I disagree with George Monbiot, whose opinion is one of many (roughly, say 7 billion) and who is a vegan campaigner with a book to sell. I would love to have a debate with him, starting with:

Compare the soil health, biodiversity and sustainability of-
- A 7-year grass ley, fertilised with animal dung, with that of
- A cereal (monoculture) field that is rattled to crumbles and dust every year, and fertilised with industrial NPK, then sprayed with herbicide, fungicide, insecticide and growth regulators.

He's an environmental campaigner yes, being vegan is secondary.
One thing is certain - the 7 year grass ley can't feed many people, and in the real world meat comes at a cost of massive deforestation
The alternative you describe isn't the only alternative.

 

[Jacob]

"Intelligence is not a winning survival trait”
....

Has its ups and downs! The good news is that reproduction is good for species survival, if not for the individual.

 

[Jacob]

I wonder if there is enough productive land available to feed every one as a vegetarian?

I suppose we could cut all the forests down to provide more if required.

It's the other way around.
Vegetarian diet uses about a tenth* of the land required for meat equivalent. Not least because massive acreages are given over to animal feed production.
*PS it says 25% here If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares. Either way - very large differences

 

[guineafowl21]

I wonder if there is enough productive land available to feed every one as a vegetarian?

I suppose we could cut all the forests down to provide more if required.

A good question. What to fertilise the ground with, considering the 3-fold hike in fert prices this year? And where does the excess cereal straw go? How about giving to to livestock as ‘bed and breakfast’, then chucking it back on the field to improve the soil?

He's an environmental campaigner yes, being vegan is secondary.
One thing is certain - the 7 year grass ley can't feed many people, and in the real world meat comes at a cost of massive deforestation
The alternative you describe isn't the only alternative.

In my experience, the veganism disproportionately comes forward in one’s views.
No the grass patch won’t feed as many, but there’s much more land that can grow grass than can grow crops. Cereal monocultures are a biodiversity wasteland, and it makes no sense to turn over our grazing paddocks to it.

Yes, the meat industry needs to improve. No, it doesn’t make sense to ban it. As above, objective reasoning seems to move me towards mixed farming, a cycle.

 

[Jacob]

A good question. What to fertilise the ground with, considering the 3-fold hike in fert prices this year? And where does the excess cereal straw go? How about giving to to livestock as ‘bed and breakfast’, then chucking it back on the field to improve the soil?

In my experience, the veganism disproportionately comes forward in one’s views.
No the grass patch won’t feed as many, but there’s much more land that can grow grass than can grow crops. Cereal monocultures are a biodiversity wasteland, and it makes no sense to turn over our grazing paddocks to it.

Yes, the meat industry needs to improve. No, it doesn’t make sense to ban it. As above, objective reasoning seems to move me towards mixed farming, a cycle.

Unfortunately you are quite wrong, and I'll miss lamb chops just as much as anybody else.
The 4 times area crops up here too Chart Shows What the World’s Land Is Used For … and It Explains Exactly Why So Many People Are Going Hungry
Every study says similar. It's not exactly news.

 

[guineafowl21]

Unfortunately you are quite wrong, and I'll miss lamb chops just as much as anybody else.
The 4 times area crops up here too Chart Shows What the World’s Land Is Used For … and It Explains Exactly Why So Many People Are Going Hungry

Sheep are perfect for grazing land that cannot be tilled, and don’t respond well to intensive (grain-based) diets. Pretty much all lamb is grass-fed. They are an excellent example of sustainable livestock farming.

If the world went vegan, we would have no dung for the fields, and rely entirely on industrial fertiliser. There would be nowhere for the cereal straw to go, nor for waste products such as draff/brewers’ grains. The article assumes that 1 billion hectares of monocultures (and sprays...) is necessarily better than 4 billion of mixed. It’s certainly arguable.

 

[Tris]

Current estimates are 5x the land area is required to produce 1kg of meat protein compared to plant protein. This is for protein only, not total mass.
Current ag policy is incentivising a reduction in grain feed to ruminants.
Talking to the guys who do crop bagging here they were saying that a lot of their customers are growing crops for anaerobic digester s rather than feed, although much of that acreage has come out of rapeseed production

 

[Jacob]

Current estimates are 5x the land area is required to produce 1kg of meat protein compared to plant protein. This is for protein only, not total mass.
Current ag policy is incentivising a reduction in grain feed to ruminants.
Talking to the guys who do crop bagging here they were saying that a lot of their customers are growing crops for anaerobic digester s rather than feed, although much of that acreage has come out of rapeseed production

Bio gas from waste sounds OK.
Growing crops for bio gas sounds like bringing on the catastrophe!
https://www.biogas-info.co.uk/about/feedstocks/

 

[Jacob]

Sheep a...... are an excellent example of sustainable livestock farming.

......

..... if true, a very rare example.
But much of highland Britain could be seen as a sheep grazed desert and also highly destructive of the massive "carbon sink" of peatland ecosystems.

 

[guineafowl21]

..... if true, a very rare example.
But much of highland Britain could be seen as a sheep grazed desert and also highly destructive of the massive "carbon sink" of peatland ecosystems.

‘Very rare’? Lamb is a major meat type. As is venison, and cattle could be reared the same way. In short, yes the meat industry needs to improve, no, I don’t agree that because crops are more efficient, we should stop meat production. It’s a rather negative and somewhat extremist view. The middle way is normally the best way.

Grazing of heathlands maintains them. If it didn’t happen, you would have regen forests (and you’d have to cull out the deer as well). This is happening very near to me. Projects to improve things like this are more convincing to me than people who have decided not to eat meat telling everyone else not to, for spurious reasons.

 

[John Brown]

If people bothered to read stuff completely and in context. My observation was that I was not aware of any consensus on what the NATURAL underlying trend is, as opposed to our contribution, and it's exact causes. Our contribution is not in doubt, not is the fact that in the short term, by which I mean the last say 100 years, our behaviour has been the biggest factor driving this.

I apologize for quoting you out of context.