FFS

[RogueFarmer]

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/grass-fed-meat-is-worse-than-flying-from-nyc-to-london/

People are so fucking stupid.

[raw-al]

http://www.onegreenplanet.org/environment/grass-fed-meat-is-worse-than-flying-from-nyc-to-london/

People are so fucking stupid.

Aside from the obvious, the author forgot to factor in the carbon footprint of building and maintaining an aircraft, and an airline etc.

[RogueFarmer]

Aside from the obvious, the author forgot to factor in the carbon footprint of building and maintaining an aircraft, and an airline etc.

Mining the fuel, that the it's actually more like 14 pounds of beef and is completely negligent of the fact that pastures where grass fed cattle live absorb and sequester carbon.

[TylerDurden]

We really have to be extremely wary of such claims and not just laugh at them. We already have large numbers of countries desperately trying to ban raw dairy. Even, in France, the biggest French cheese companies once tried evilly to change the law so as to portray their pasteurised cheeses as being as good as raw cheeses according to the official labeling category. Then there was the attempt by the odious Florida State government to ban the sale of raw oysters, among others. So far, the "eat-less-meat" campaign has been  growing ever stronger, despite the poor science behind it. The authorities do not even have to ban the sale of meat. The hysteria over the UK BSE crisis in the 80s/90s( which was solely due to intensive grainfed etc. farming methods) directly led to the partial crippling of the grassfed beef industry forever afterwards as the relevant farmers  were no longer allowed to slaughter their cattle after 30 months of age due to stupid, draconian EU/UK laws.

The US still has some freedoms lacking in the UK such as the right to sign online petitions to one's Senator/Mayor etc., so I would highly recommend that RPD members do so. Here in the UK, I would not be surprised if the law was changed to force all meat to be precooked before sale, if ever a mass food-poisoning scare happened.

[Projectile Vomit]

Actually, as someone who does LCAs for a living and works with a lot with grass farmers (in the US northeast), the claims made in the article seem quite reasonable.

The carbon footprint of building and maintaining an aircraft is large, but that total footprint is spread across thousands of individual flights so when you're looking at a single flight the carbon footprint ends up quite small, most likely negligible.

Also, while in an ideal grass farming enterprise the grass does sequester carbon, I suspect that for the average grass-based enterprise this isn't true. The average grass farm, whether here in the US or across the pond in Europe, is poorly run and pastures most likely overgrazed. These farms probably don't sequester much carbon, and could very well be a net source of C to the atmosphere from the soil. And if you graze animals that have for generations been heavily grain fed, their genetics and microbiomes are not well suited to a diet of 100 percent grass so they do fart more methane.

While I think it's always useful to carry a healthy degree of skepticism when reading articles like the one RF linked to, I also think it's important not to dismiss then out of hand when they disagree with our closely held beliefs. Sometimes our beliefs aren't based on reality.

[RogueFarmer]

Even a poorly managed cow farm ought to produce a lot less carbon than intensive crop production would. Even poorly managed cow farms are usually building soil to some degree and not causing wanton erosion like crop farms do. All the fertilizer from the crop farms washes down stream and kills untold vast amounts of ocean life. Also another article stated that the method they used to produce the statistic 2 pounds was false and it would actually be more like 14 pounds. Even still, they are saying that the cows are more harmful to the environment than plains because cows produce more carbon. They aren't dumping that carbon up in the stratosphere and carbon isn't even bad for the environment so no, the article is not reasonable.

[sabertooth]

https://vimeo.com/80518559

I've posted this before in another thread, and its relevance to debunking the cow carbonization of the atmosphere myth, is self evident for anyone with common sense.

There is a tragic misunderstanding that has lead many to somehow believe "excess" CO2 in the atmosphere poses the greatest ecological threat to the planet, when a much more real danger to life on this planet is the depleting of organic carbon from our soils. The earth is a living entity and the lifeforms in the soil and oceans work to regulate the carbon cycle....because of deforestation, and the mono cultural raping of large areas of the land mass, the organic carbon is being striped from the land causing the soil to be sick and devoid of the organisms which are responsible for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere into the earth and using it to provide essential elements for life to flourish.

Regardless of what you eat.... be it Meat, Plants, fungus, ect......whatever grows from this world comes from the soil or originates from the oceans....and much of the worlds soil is becoming depleted....the soil of the earth after being monocropped, logged, reaped, mined, is becoming sick and this is leading to human suffering (here and now), while these so called ecologist are fucking around with bullshit theories of climate projections and prognostics of doom, which continue infect the gullible minds who were raised on propaganda. We are being told that.... in 50 years 100 years 150 years... they are not exactly sure...but they claim to know that human carbon emissions will be the doom this planet.

The Global warming CO2 farce is a great distracting Witch, which has cast a spell over the scientific community and is preventing our institutions and organizations from addressing the more pressing and relevant  issues in more rational and pragmatic ways.

[Projectile Vomit]

Great video Derek. As I said though, while these particular farmers might be doing an exceptional job with their grazing operations they should not be considered the norm. The vast majority of grass farms operating in the Americas, Europe and elsewhere around the world are environmentally damaging operations. It will take a huge culture change within animal agriculture for grass farming to have the positive benefit that people attribute to those precious few operations that do it well.