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I feel like I hardly ever get to talk about ag anymore because there's so much other bullshit going on. So I'm going to subject you to a thread on where the root of "we must end animal ag to save the planet" is, and why it's bad.
Pretty much everyone advocating for an end to animal ag and claiming livestock make up a disproportionate amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the world is working from one seminal document.
That document is a 2006 report from the UN titled "Livestock's Long Shadow" that claimed both that livestock are responsible for 18% of global GHG emissions and that this is more than transportation.
There was a problem with methodology however, spotted by Dr Frank Mitloehner of UC Davis ( @GHGGuru) - the authors counted EVERYTHING against livestock (emissions from growing feed, deforestation, etc) but only counted emissions from burning fossil fuels to move for transpo.
This is, clearly, not an apples to apples comparison. For a good comparison you'd have to count every step of manufacturing involved in transpo, extracting and refining fuels, maintenance, disposing of decommissioned vehicles, etc etc. AND burning fossil fuels.
The authors themselves admitted the problem, and also that their livestock numbers were, shall we say, hinky. A later revision using 2005 as a reference year dropped the number to 14.5% of global GHG emissions.
I will pause briefly to link you to:
The original UN report (>300 pages) http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
Revision: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/en/publications/tackling_climate_change/index.htm
Brief article summarizing Dr Mitloehner's criticism of the original report: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/7509978/UN-admits-flaw-in-report-on-meat-and-climate-change.html
The original UN report (>300 pages) http://www.fao.org/3/a0701e/a0701e00.htm
Revision: http://www.fao.org/ag/againfo/resources/en/publications/tackling_climate_change/index.htm
Brief article summarizing Dr Mitloehner's criticism of the original report: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/earth/environment/climatechange/7509978/UN-admits-flaw-in-report-on-meat-and-climate-change.html
From a current perspective another area where this (and other reports, like CLARA https://www.climatelandambitionrightsalliance.org/report/ ) fall short is in their assumption that forestation is a universal good regardless of location.
Everywhere you turn, you can find someone telling you on the basis of reports like these to plant more trees, trees everywhere.
But let's cut to some research from Dr Pawlok Dass et al at UC Davis: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/grasslands-more-reliable-carbon-sink-trees/
But let's cut to some research from Dr Pawlok Dass et al at UC Davis: https://www.ucdavis.edu/news/grasslands-more-reliable-carbon-sink-trees/
Dr Dass pointed out that trees store the majority of the carbon they sequester in their trunks and leaves, which is to say: above ground. And if you are in a place like California, where the forests regularly burn, there goes all that stored carbon into the atmosphere.
Grasses, however, grow absolutely massive root systems. That's where they're sequestering carbon - down in the soil, sometimes very very deep in the soil. Grasses can burn and the vast majority of carbon they've locked away stays that way.
To get a visual, check out the graphic here: https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/wps/portal/nrcs/detail/il/plantsanimals/?cid=nrcs141p2_030726
On the far left is Kentucky bluegrass, standing in for the boring ass turf grass on your lawn which isn't doing shit for anyone. The native prairie grasses and plants to the right? Look at those gorgeous roots!
On the far left is Kentucky bluegrass, standing in for the boring ass turf grass on your lawn which isn't doing shit for anyone. The native prairie grasses and plants to the right? Look at those gorgeous roots!
And then you have scientists like @PasturesPolitic doing the work to prove that these carbon sequestering native grasses can in fact feed our animals.
To pull this all together - Livestock's Long Shadow did not account for the carbon sequestration of the grasslands grazed by livestock, because of the whole tree fetish thing.
So to sum up - what people are working off of is a 12 year old report that deliberately manipulated data to make livestock farming look much scarier than it actually is, and that does not account for more recent science on grasslands for eg.
The conversation is extremely not settled. But thanks to scientists like @GHGGuru, @ExLibrisHolland, @PasturesPolitic, and others, farmers like me can have a great idea of best practices to make livestock farming sustainable.
Anyway thank you for coming to my TED talk. Tip your waitress and *if you're able*, buy your meat directly from local farmers.
NB *if you're able* - not everyone is for a variety of reasons & the most important thing is that you get enough to eat.
NB *if you're able* - not everyone is for a variety of reasons & the most important thing is that you get enough to eat.
Apologies to folks trying to use thread reader, I have blocked its ability to snag things I write. This post by @redlightvoices gets at why I'm not comfortable with it. https://artificeofintelligence.org/non-consensual-bots-and-personal-space/
