Vegetarianism pops up here pretty regularly. I have no problem with people who want to eat that way, but generally when a group starts in on how "everyone should" they better have a damn good case to support that assertion.

This post [and the video] just covers environmental factors, not ethics or animal cruelty.

A lot of things in this video I was already aware of [horticulture student] and some I wasn't. It looks like a few planks in the environmental case against meat are cases of half truths or spin if not outright lies.



TLDR:good video to keep handy in case you get in a "yo mama" internet battle with strident veggies

It is worth watching, but here are some screen caps and main points:

Meat is bad because of how much greenhouse gas is emitted by food animals.

Um, well it isn't nothing. But the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by cows and such is pretty negligible. There is a short bit w/an expert who has studied this and he says that if everyone in the US stopped eating meat then:



Cows take all the potable water.

Our friendly expert points out that this is blown completely out of proportion because the number that is used includes rainfall [green water] on grasslands. That rain is going to fall and be soaked up by grasses whether a cow eats the grass or not.



70% of potable ground water is used to irrigate crops; mostly big monocrops. On net it does take more potable ground water for a pound of beef than for a pound of grain or vegetables, but beef is much more calorie dense and higher in protein. Beef takes an average of 122 L of water per quarter pound vs. rice at 90 L, but it doesn't seem like a bad deal when you compare the nutritional value.



We could use all the food we are giving to cows and use it to feed humans instead.

Except not really. Instead there would actually be more waste in the system because ruminants can digest plant material from crops that would otherwise just be waste. The majority of what our fields produce we humans can't eat.



Too much land is used for raising livestock vs. growing food humans can eat directly.

AKA one of the biggest fattest lies.

Actually 2/3rds of our food producing land is marginal and we can only get food from it by grazing ruminants. Without grazing herds more people would suffer from hunger and malnutrition.



And all of that mass being eaten by cows doesn't just give us meat, milk, and leather in return. We also get about half of all the fertilizer we use on our crops [manure, bone meal, blood meal].



15% of global greenhouse gas emissions are from livestock.

Here we get lying with facts and numbers. As I understand it they take the percentage for each country and then average them.

Why is this some BS? Because in many developing nations livestock emissions are a higher percentage of emissions because it is a developing country and they have less emissions from things like cars and power plants.

Also because US meat and dairy is much more efficient [questionable here re:cruelty, but this is about the environment].

Production from 1 US Dairy Cow = Production from 10 Indian Dairy Cows



[cont.]

But methane is super bad. Much worse than other greenhouse gases.

There is some truth here, but also an important factor left out. The methane emitted by cattle is part of a stable natural cycle that isn't a man made problem. Grazing herds existed on the grasslands way before the industrial age and the video claims that in NA those herds emitted as much methane as 86% of current herds. Or, IOW, for a relatively massive increase in the number of humans the methane emissions from ruminants is only 14% higher by their estimate.





What's another big source of methane? Food waste in landfills. There is a lot more vegetable matter from food waste in our landfills than animal matter.



The largest source of greenhouse gas emissions is the burning of fossil fuels and it isn't even close.



So the next time an internet warrior tells you that you should stop eating meat because "the environment" you could tell them to watch this while you go eat a burger.

As if I need to justify it to someone else on their terms...

Meat is life

The only real argument that has any legs to stand on is an ethical one--in my opinion. And animal cruelty can be separated from eating animals, as an issue, as well.

I wish I could go vegetarian (including eggs and cheese/milk, not veganism), but I can't function properly mentally or physically. I have tried, and it won't work.

OP could have just made the thread that...just lol if I read the post

even if the environmental reasons were all in favour of veganism/vegetarianism phuck them

Nothing wrong with that.

Carnivore diet?

But I gave cliffs. And pictures.

Bill Gates is now the largest private farmland owner........

Will watch later.

This thread has potential.

- varied diet

- humans

chose 1

Good thread, thanks for all the info!

Of course if you compare it to the US monocrop-gmo-heavily mechanized agrictulture industry a huge pollutant mess like US meat industry wont seem that bad. It's like comparing Cancer to Aids and saying gee aids aint so bad!

The US agriculture industry is a huge inefficient mess, done so mostly by design to "feed" the unhealthy and messy food industry and culture. Just take a look at avg harvest in the US:



Corn for corn syrup for the twinkies, Soy for the feedlots and oil, and wheat to produce more twinkies and chit box bread.

US agro industry doesn't exist to feed people it exists to produce profits with heavy pesticide intensive monocrops. That's an undeniable truth, so again, when you compare such a travesty to another travesty it seems like the later is not so bad. Take another look at the chart above a mere 5.6% of all US harvest are the stuff that actualy feeds and nourishes you.

Now compare it to an sustainable approach meant to actually feed people in a healthy manner, The sustainable and organic Cuban agriculture model, free of pesticides, heavy machinery with a heavy emphasis on urban farming as well. It's a completely different approach to agriculture



And no I don't mean to turn this into a Capitalist vs communist or pro or anti cuban debate. I'm just trying to point out that the US agriculture industry is a mess and it exists to generate profits not to feed people. None of the points mentioned in the video make any sense when you compare them to a sustainable and organic agrictulture model that exists solely to feed people

Saved for later

Also this completely missguided, said plant material is crucial for sustainable agriculture. Only a retard would throw such valuable organic waste into landfills instead of composting it. Of course the industrial american approach to agriculture makes no use of compost since it relies on pesticides and petrol based fertlizers but everyhwere else said plant waste can be quickly and effectively turned into compost fo further grow more crops.
It's an endless loop of abundance in organic agriculture, you use your compost to grown more healthy organic crops and then you use the waste from harvesting and cooking itself to produce more compost, being able to discard petrol based fertilizers all together without soil depletion.

Composting can be done on a large scale too btw:



IF you've ever grown crops using organic compost you'll know the difference it makes

Homework assignment for you. Compare how many people the United States agriculture system feeds vs the Cuban system.

Edit: while I absolutely despise ethanol and feedlots even you cant deny that with the multi use that American crops get it lends to the notion of greater efficiency.

Lol ethics. Humans are the only species that comes up with this emotionally driven thinking.

You think a tiger feels bad as he bites a ghazel in the balls and brutally rips the dink of a living animal off while watching it slowly bleed out and scream as it eats it?

Humans are already the most just creature on this planet. The cow has minimal suffering during the slaughter process.



Most animals feel nothing towards humans either. Everyone's like oh but my cat loves me.

If you died your cat would be eating your body within three days while giving zero ****s.


A dog is about the only creature I think actually bonds to a human.

Check mate veggie cucks

5.6 % of US crops actually feed people with real food
100% of Cuban crops actually feed people

And no I don't want to turn this into a Cuba vs Usa debate I'm trying to point out the fact that the US agricutlure industry is a mess driven by cash mono crops instead of a desire to actually feed people. And now with oligarch like Bill gates buying all the farms you guys are in deep chit

You lack basic reading comprehension. You seem to have missed the point of my post completely.

But, yes, exactly, humans are the only creatures capable of ethical concern and reasoning. That is not a bad thing, being a "rational animal" is one of God's unique gifts to us.

fixed it for you, cuck.

land issue doesn't factor in rain forests cut down to grow cattle feed. This is also where the most damage to the environment occurs. Saying that factory farming billions of cows a year has a minimal effect on the environment is honestly extremely low iq. Not even a vegetarian but its just basic common sense.

People Eating Tasty Animals crew

Also, this. The entire video is low IQ drivel

I practice self sustainability so I won’t argue with your last sentence. The general population will be eating bugs and fake meat in ten years. That said back to my point, if 5.6% of us ag feeds 100x as many people as the Cuban model while making practical (in a sense as, once again, I hate ethanol, feedlots etc) use of the rest how does that make it an inferior system?

Great thread, thanks.

So your entire metric on a system is how many people are "fed" and I put it into quotation marks because eating twinkies and boxed cereal is not proper nutrition. Also:



IF usa agrictulrure is so successful at feeding people then why do they have to import so much fruit and vegetables from Mexico and Canada?

The USA DOES NOT have food sovereignty. if global trade comes to a halt people will suffer, Meanwhile Cuba, does.

Was hoping you might stop by since you probably know more about it than most. So far as I can tell ethanol is a scam.

In the US we have industrialized pretty much everything, including stuff that doesn't benefit from industrialization. Our monocrop practices appear to be unsustainable, but there are such strongly entrenched interests in favor of it I don't think it will end unless the government actually falls/changes.

Unsustainable isn't a political/environmentalist statement BTW. It's rooted in those college horticulture classes and my professor over 20 years ago who was teaching us about things like salt build up in the soil, weeds becoming resistant to herbicides like RoundUp [yes, over 20 years ago he was telling us that RU was becoming less effective], depletion of ground water [see: Ogallala aquifer], and the increased risk of mass crop losses due to monoculture/lack of crop diversity.

Decentralized food, or aka growing whatever you can wherever you are, would be a worthwhile public investment to improve our resilience overall.

Cutting down rainforests and trying to make them grasslands is poor land management, the same as letting brush grow in grasslands, or not thinning out forests to allow sun and rain to reach the understory.

It would make a lot more sense for them to do this:https://modernfarmer.com/2016/06/terra-preta/

I think that in most cases now we have a pretty good grasp on how to best utilize different types of land. Unfortunately government distorted markets and short-sighted profit seeking is leading us down a bad road.