Anti-cow/herd vegans actively contribute to climate change, lol

BunnyKillBot

BunnyKillBot

BunnyKillBot

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In my time I have met a few people, usually wishy washy vegan/vegetarian types who have claimed cows contribute to global warming because they fart methane, and methane is bad mmmmkay, and I have never had an adequate response to them.

Well the other day, I was watched this TED talk about increasing desertification, where historic solutions have been to cull herd animal populations that were 'destroying the land' which actually produced worsening effects. His solution is to mimic nature, allow herds of methane farting animals to walk the earth again, pooing peeing dieing fertilising the soil, encouraging plant matter growth, reducing the effects of desertification, thus reversing climate change and saving the world.

http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savo...rld_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html

So to those cow-hating vegans out there, I say, Lol.

 
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“Desertification is a fancy word for land that is turning to desert, and this happens only when we create too much bare ground.. there's no other cause.."

My arse there isn't.
 
Oops, now it's "we know that it's livestock that causes desertification..."

I think he can't make up his mind.

I'm not sure who I should be lol'ing at presently?
 
Their argument would be that you'd just reduce the population of cows/sheep/pigs as they would not be bred for food, but left to roam in the "wild" - as such, the reduced population would also reduce the methane production.
 
So let me get this right, he slaughtered tens of thousands of animals because desertification had started to take hold.... then suggests that keeping them there would have prevented it from occurring in the first place?

I have no doubt the guy is sincere in his intentions it just doesn't seem to make any sense.
 
Overly critical there I think Biohazard. Having watched the whole talk I have to say he makes a pretty compelling case.

Cow hating vegans still have a pretty good case though, seeing as the vast majority of meat currently isn't produced in this manner.
 
Biohazard said:
So let me get this right, he slaughtered tens of thousands of animals because desertification had started to take hold.... then suggests that keeping them there would have prevented it from occurring in the first place?

I have no doubt the guy is sincere in his intentions it just doesn't seem to make any sense.
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He's pointing out that the whole understanding of and approach to limiting desertification up til now has been heavily flawed. Just watch the whole thing then make your mind up.

Interesting approach, anyway, and they're trialling it heavily so hopefully the results will speak for themselves.
 
It was the silly statements initially, I'm still listening but I find him quite contradictory.

If the theory is correct, our farming industry seems to work counter to it. Why animals in this instance couldn't be replaced by machinery to 'mimic nature' isn't clear to me either.
 
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I'm not some nancy boy-left-vegetarian, quite the opposite, but the veggies are correct.

Growing crops and then feeding them to cows/ other animal, and then eating the animal is always going to be less efficient (in terms of energy, and carbon dioxide emissions) than humans eating the crop. That's a simple fact.

My response as a meat eater is "I don't care".
 
Disco Boy said:
I'm not some nancy boy-left-vegetarian, quite the opposite, but the veggies are correct.

Growing crops and then feeding them to cows/ other animal, and then eating the animal is always going to be less efficient (in terms of energy, and carbon dioxide emissions) than humans eating the crop. That's a simple fact.

My response as a meat eater is "I don't care".
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This is of course completely true. Generally speaking, I think something like 90% of energy is wasted as you go up each trophic level.

However, in the talk he suggests that managing animals in this way also increases crop productivity by holding the animals occasionally on the areas where the crops are grown.

He also makes a statement that in the areas they're talking about animals are the only way of producing enough food for the people who live there... I'm assuming this is something to do with the difficulties in irrigating and fertilising the land enough to grow crops sustainably, which is less of a problem with animals as you can move them around as local resources become depleted.
 
Disco Boy said:
I'm not some nancy boy-left-vegetarian, quite the opposite, but the veggies are correct.

Growing crops and then feeding them to cows/ other animal, and then eating the animal is always going to be less efficient (in terms of energy, and carbon dioxide emissions) than humans eating the crop. That's a simple fact.
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But it's not that simple, cows mainly eat grass which we can't eat so in that respect (from a human point of view) it's very efficient as we are gaining energy by eating an animal that can gain energy by eating something abundant that we can't.

Grass will always be more prevalent than corn, easily available with very little work needed by the farmer.
 
BunnyKillBot said:
In my time I have met a few people, usually wishy washy vegan/vegetarian types who have claimed cows contribute to global warming because they fart methane, and methane is bad mmmmkay, and I have never had an adequate response to them.
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Ok, well I'm a scientist and I work in sustainability. Cows are indeed a large contributor to carbon emissions because of their methane. Which is why low carbon cows are being developed through selective breeding and changes to their foodstuff. Believe it or not, there is argument over what it actually is, but there is a UK standard cow and it's going to live in a box to have its carbon emissions monitored :D

estebanrey said:
But it's not that simple, cows mainly eat grass which we can't eat so in that respect (from a human point of view) it's very efficient as we are gaining energy by eating an animal that can gain energy by eating something abundant that we can't.

Grass will always be more prevalent than corn, easily available with very little work needed by the farmer.
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True, they do eat grass, but they also eat a lot of other stuff that we grow specifically to feed them. We'd never be able to produce enough cows if we fed them only on grass. In carbon terms, it is much more efficient to grow crops and eat them than it is to grow crops to feed cows (who are notoriously inefficient digesters) and then eat the cows. Rabbits are much more efficient at converting vegetation to meat than cows, and rabbit is tastymeat - we should all eat more rabbit!
 
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Fun fact for the day:

Kangaroo, whilst being quite nutritionally similar to Beef, has very few methane emissions due to the way the Kangaroo digestive system works or something.

Scientists are currently trying to work out if they can transfer the relative DNA to give this feature to cows.

kd
 
Jonny69 said:
True, they do eat grass, but they also eat a lot of other stuff that we grow specifically to feed them. We'd never be able to produce enough cows if we fed them only on grass. In carbon terms, it is much more efficient to grow crops and eat them than it is to grow crops to feed cows (who are notoriously inefficient digesters) and then eat the cows. Rabbits are much more efficient at converting vegetation to meat than cows, and rabbit is tastymeat - we should all eat more rabbit!
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But still we get different nutrients from eating meat than we do eating corn so it's not an easy direct swap.
 
:rolleyes:

as a vegan im pretty offended by this small mindedness, but I didnt expect any less from an OCUK poster. Anyway cows contribute to more Co2 than all the cars in the world. The diary and meat industries are inherently cruel to animals, they cant be any other way due to the amount of meat they need to produce and the impact on their own profits.

Diary cows are pumped full of hormones as are beef cattle, so you enjoy your daily dose of hormones from another species and I will enjoy my plant based diet. If the OP was going to post about this, perhaps lay off the stupid confrontational BS you child!

oh and biohazard just handed you, your ass on a plate lol
 
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