Most comprehensive study to date on how avoiding meat & dairy is the single biggest way to reduce your ecological footprint (peer review link in article): theguardian.com/environment/20…
From abstract: "Most strikingly, impacts of the lowest-impact animal products typically exceed those of vegetable substitutes, providing new evidence for the importance of dietary change."
Poore and Nemecek consolidated data on the multiple environmental impacts of ∼38,000 farms producing 40 different agricultural goods around the world in this meta-analysis comparing various types of food production systems.
Labels that reveal the impact of products would be a good start. Consumers could then choose the least damaging options. Subsidies for sustainable and healthy foods, and taxes on meat and dairy, is likely necessary too though.
Massive increases in farmed animal numbers have led to a 332% increase in methane emissions from them from 1890-2014.
We need to be measuring methane (relative to CO2) with BOTH the warming impact of absolute emissions and the changes in over time. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gc…
Yet GWP* mostly hides the impact of baseline absolute emissions as if it didn’t contributed to warming.
The left graph needs to be transparent for every polluter.
GWP* mostly shows the difference between marginal and additional warming, as shown on the right graph:
Big oil is joining in on the regenerative ranching scam.
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Very little would be worse for the environment than if these partnerships are taken seriously and we delay action on the many real solutions.
🧵& receipts:
Oil & gas companies are of course throwing funds at anything that claims to drawdown carbon (see: CCS).
But the ability for oil and gas to benefit from the bucolic nonsense of ranching is dangerous.
Carbon market schemes are allowing the highest polluters (ie. these many oil and gas companies) to make sketchy carbon offset goals with little guarantees of even medium term storage permanence. The time-limited nature is especially the case with ag:
Methane digesters, propped up by the latest US CH4 reduction plan, rewards industrial dairy, beef & pig operations to produce more manure, usually by increasing # of animals farmed, net increasing CH4, & likely land use & resource use.
🧵 on why this is all a terrible plan:
These digesters are expensive, and much like the dairy industry now, largely wouldn't exist without subsidies.
In this case incentives for anaerobic digesters include property tax reductions, corporate tax credits, loan programs, & grant programs.
While some methane can be captured, the issues far outweigh any benefit, especially if it just increases factory farming and delays decarbonization. It's also been shown to increase the amount of ammonia and nitrogen that can leak into waterways.
"The livestock sector is currently the single major driver of habitat loss and degradation, which is in its turn a leading cause of species decline and extinction worldwide."
Important study + 🧵thread on this main driver of biodiversity loss:
"The production of livestock alters natural habitats not only via land-use change, but also through its outputs of agrochemicals, nutrients, sediments, antibiotics and hormones into natural environments."
"The multiple, synergetic, and ubiquitous past and present processes by which human carnivory threatens the world's biodiversity makes it arguably the most detrimental aspect of our ecology, from a conservation point-of-view."
Rewilding and allowing native grasses and animals to thrive again has huge ecological benefits. 🧵/1
@WilliamJRipple's et al. measurements as documented in 'Rewilding a Mountain' outlines this well in the semi-arid Hart Mountain antelope refuge in Oregon: rewildingamountain.com
In 1990, contrary to pressures by cattle groups, the land conservation stewards here voted to ban cattle grazing based on the science showing its ecological degradation to this riparian land. The result:
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The biodiversity increases, including much more birds and antelope, were clearly visualized and measured, further highlighting potentials in addressing the biodiversity crisis through rewilding land dedicated to grazing cattle.
There's huge variability in GHG estimates from animal agriculture.
Groups game the numbers to suit one's confirmation bias. The FAO has engrained corporate interests (Meat Secretariat) and use the lowest estimate (14.5%) and advocacy groups are drawn to the highest (51%+)
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What's important is knowing how the numbers are influenced so you can critically analyze it. And in reality, there's uncertainty and a huge amount of data that's missing to truly make an exact figure accurate.
This new study just out contributes to the clarification of the quantification of emissions, and asks why the dominant framing from the FAO avoids calls for reductions in animal consumption and the systematic changes needed to influence it.