About vegans

[FlatAssembler]

Anyway, I've posted a new video about vegetarianism, this time responding to the claims make by Peer Ederer. In my opinion, most videos and blog-posts against environmental vegetarianism are complete red-herring, for they don't even even mention the claim that meat industry is responsible for super-bacteria. Could it be because they have no response to that, that it's so right they need to suppress it?

[Nay_Sayer]

Coincidently I'm having a toasted Ruben sandwich when I noticed this thread.

[The Grand Nudger]

Anyway, I've posted a new video about vegetarianism, this time responding to the claims make by Peer Ederer. In my opinion, most videos and blog-posts against environmental vegetarianism are complete red-herring, for they don't even even mention the claim that meat industry is responsible for super-bacteria. Could it be because they have no response to that, that it's so right they need to suppress it?

-as are any number of other industries, but seeing as how ag is an essential industry - being responsible for some x is not and cannot be a lucid reason not to do it.  

I'd encourage you to spend some time reviewing extension publications.  There is literally nothing that the livestock industry needs to or even tries to hide.  Every item is a lever of profitability. Even kindness, vaguely defined, has a price and a studied method. Wanna know whether singing Barry Manilow tunes helps, and how much it costs per unit of value? Guarantee someones done it and wrote about it. Reducing the sq inches of roost per laying hen to the bare minimum at which supplements cost more than space? Ditto.

[FlatAssembler]

as are any number of other industries

Well, see, other industries aren’t remotely as responsible for it. It’s indeed hard to estimate what percentage of antibiotics goes to meat industry, but the conservative estimates are that it’s around 70%, and it could be around 90%. OK, you may argue that those statistics take things too simplistically (that most of those antibiotics probably actually goes to chickens and that very few bacteria that attack chickens also attack humans, that most of those antibiotics maybe aren’t actually antibiotics that are used to treat humans…). But unless you have more relevant statistics, we should go with those ones, don’t you think?

but seeing as how ag is an essential industry

Not all agriculture is essential. Growing tomatoes, for example, is far less efficient than growing grain, a lot more resources are spent to get the same amount of usable nutrition. But at least growing tomatoes doesn’t lead to super-bacteria, while producing milk (the way it’s done today) does.

I'd encourage you to spend some time reviewing extension publications.

Well, my perception is that there is relatively little written about fighting super-bacteria. In contrast to that, that there is a lot written about not contributing to this minor problem called global warming. And, to make things worse, the exact policies that make animal agriculture contribute less to global warming generally make us more susceptible to super-bacteria.

[The Grand Nudger]

There is an enormous body of literature devoted to addressing biological concerns such as bacterial infection in livestock. It's something that you have to tackle as a producer. If you don't, you lose money - it's that simple. Growing tomatoes, or grain, or anything else has an identical effect. Pests and diseases that cross cultivars and crop boundaries get stronger and stronger, necessitating stronger responses - pushing out weak cultivars. There is a wide array of strategies that producers employ to slow this, but they cannot stop it. It's how biology works.

It's unclear why or how carbon neutral or regenerative agriculture would make us more susceptible to super bacteria. Which exact policies did you have in mind?

[FlatAssembler]

There is an enormous body of literature devoted to addressing biological concerns such as bacterial infection in livestock.  It's something that you have to tackle as a producer.  If you don't, you lose money - it's that simple.  Growing tomatoes, or grain, or anything else has an identical effect.  Pests and diseases that cross cultivars and crop boundaries get stronger and stronger, necessitating stronger responses - pushing out weak cultivars.  There is a wide array of strategies that producers employ to slow this, but they cannot stop it.  It's how biology works.

It's unclear why or how carbon neutral or regenerative agriculture would make us more susceptible to super bacteria.  Which exact policies did you have in mind?

Well, grass-fed cows emit much more methane than do grain-fed cows. So, in order to prevent methane emissions, you need to feed the cows with grain. And, of course, if you feed cows with grain, you probably keep them in small and dirty places where they need antibiotics to stay healthy. I've explained this at the beginning of my video.

[The Grand Nudger]

Pastured cattle couldn't possibly emit more methane than battery lots..because we simply can't raise enough of them on pasture to do so. That's why we have battery farms in the first place - to produce more of the product than we would otherwise be capable while sinking corn. That's why we feed cattle grain, btw, corn is one of our hardest worked crops. It's cheap.

While pasturing cattle is not necessarily a regenerative practice, when it is done for that purpose it's not done solely for livestock management - but for the benefits that regenerative ag grants to other farm enterprises which also contribute to the carbon budget, if you will, of any farm. Livestock can till, livestock fertilizes, livestock manages your seed bank cutting out petrochemical herbicides... and a healthy relationship between ag and the farm environment cuts down on petrochemical pesticides. It's not an issue of just changing feeds - though there's no reason that pastured cattle couldn't be or wouldn't be fed supplemental grain.



etc etc etc.

[FlatAssembler]

Pastured cattle couldn't possibly emit more methane than battery lots..because we simply can't raise enough of them on pasture to do so.  That's why we have battery farms in the first place - to produce more of the product than we would otherwise be capable while sinking corn.  That's why we feed cattle grain, btw, corn is one of our hardest worked crops.  It's cheap.

While pasturing cattle is not necessarily a regenerative practice, when it is done for that purpose it's not done solely for livestock management - but for the benefits that regenerative ag grants to other farm enterprises which also contribute to the carbon budget, if you will, of any farm.  Livestock can till, livestock fertilizes, livestock manages your seed bank cutting out petrochemical herbicides... and a healthy relationship between ag and the farm environment cuts down on petrochemical pesticides.  It's not an issue of just changing feeds - though there's no reason that pastured cattle couldn't be or wouldn't be fed supplemental grain.  



etc etc etc.

And if grass-fed cows aren't responsible for methane emissions, how it is that, as we have less and less grass-fed cows around the world, there have been less and less methane emissions?

This is also the argument I used in the video.

[The Grand Nudger]

No one doubts that pastured cattle produce more methane per cow than feedlot cattle. It remains a fact that they couldn't produce as much methane as feedlot production on account of reduced capacity.

Beyond this, you're simply not doing a full accounting of regenerative practice. The lesser methane emissions from pastured cattle as a system, (not per individual cow) as well as the carbon budget gains from their on pasture activities present a much more environmentally conscious...and lets not forget humane... method of production. It's all about goals, right? If we want alot of cheap beef - there's a method with associated pros and cons. If we want eco-friendly humane beef, there's a method with associated pros and cons. There are no free lunches.

It remains thoroughly unclear why you believe that regenerative ag makes us more susceptible to super bacteria.

[FlatAssembler]

It remains a fact that they couldn't produce as much methane as feedlot production on account of reduced capacity.

The statistics I've linked to in my last post show otherwise: the TOTAL emissions of methane in the world have decreased as we switched from grass-fed cows to grain-fed cows. I'll link it again: