Essay by Eric Worrall
“… Replacing beef with a different protein — even for just one meal — can cut the emissions footprint of a person’s diet that day by as much as half. …”
One Simple Change to Reduce Your Climate Impact? Swap Out Beef
Replacing beef with a different protein — even for just one meal — can cut the emissions footprint of a person’s diet that day by as much as half.
By Zahra Hirji
21 February 2024 at 20:00 GMT+10Next time you’re out for lunch, try playing a little game: Without looking it up, can you find the most and least climate-friendly options on the menu?
Unlike a meal’s price, the greenhouse-gas footprint of food isn’t typically spelled out. But you don’t need to ask a climate scientist to find out either. There’s one simple trick for identifying the highest impact item on almost any menu: If there’s beef, that’s probably it.
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“You don’t have to become a vegan to have a big impact on your carbon footprint,” says Diego Rose, a professor and director of the nutrition program at Tulane University. “You just have to swap out beef.”
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Beef’s footprint is especially outsized. For one, there are roughly 1.5 billion cows on the planet. About 13 million square kilometers (3.2 billion acres) of land is used to raise all that cattle, along with buffalo, and their food — one-quarter of all land used for agriculture, according to a 2017 paper in Global Food Security. Then there’s the methane. Cows and other ruminants have a unique digestive system that allows them to turn grass into fuel, but in the process their special gut bacteria releases methane, a greenhouse gas 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in the short term.
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“In the US, most of us eat more beef than what’s considered healthy for us,” says Stephanie Roe, a climate and energy lead scientist at the nonprofit World Wildlife Fund. “So that’s low-hanging fruit because then we can improve our health outcomes in addition to environmental ones.”
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Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2024-02-21/the-diet-shift-that-makes-the-biggest-impact-on-climate-change?embedded-checkout=true
I have a big problem with the anti-beef push.
There is a reason cowboys herded cows in the old West, and why the African Maasai and many other peoples still do, and why beef cattle are chosen when other crops would in theory produce a much higher yield per acre.
Cattle can be raised in harsh regions which are far too unforgiving for other farm produce.
The suggestion raising beef is taking far more land than other food production, with the implicit suggestion that land dedicated to beef production could be repurposed for other produce, in my opinion verges on a lie by omission. I’m sure some cattle land could be used for other purposes, but a lot of it couldn’t.
In places where beef production is the only option, abandoning beef would mean abandoning food – dramatically reducing the total food available for people to eat.
Even in places where other food choices are available, the anti-beef push could impact food supplies. Stopping beef production would not automatically equate to increased production of other food.
In a world where just under 800 million people go to bed hungry every night, attacking the supply of food in the name of the alleged climate emergency in my opinion should be viewed as a crime against humanity.
I know that all of us eating less beef will not change the climate. I triple-dog-dare know that doing so will NOT get them to stop making demands of me.
A less than rare case of them being wrong being the justification for being more wrong.
As the author noted, you can raise cattle in places you can’t grow much else. Ranches in the west and southwest US are big because the vegetation is sparse.
Those ranches could not be converted into growing crops without a lot of water, fertilizers, etc. I guess you could farm kangaroos there instead.
There doesn’t seem to have been much work done on the feed conversion efficiency or enteric emission rates of the large macropods.
The joeys in the little mob which comes to visit us certainly don’t have a particularly high growth rate.
It’s probably true from a health perspective that Americans eat too much red meat and that a plant-based diet* is healthier.
But doggone it, I’m not going to let some half-wit activists dictate what I can and cannot eat. I’m not giving up Ribeye or Brisket. And if the nitrates from smoking and grilling do kill me, at least I will die satisfied,
And I just don’t care about carbon footprint. It’s meaningless. The numbers probably aren’t accurate, like the EPA’s bogus ratings of EV efficiency.
*Plant-based does not necessarily mean vegetarian or vegan, it means we should eat more fruits and vegetables. The Mediterranean Diet is a good example.
Getting lectured by some Ivy League Bimbo from Washington DC about the so called impact
of my diet/occupation on the climate is laughable. Bloomberg needs to stop telling us
about the climate impacts of meat and just show us. Make DC/NYC a total vegetarian
example for starters. Then let us know how it goes, until then I’ll keep on enjoying the
blessings of my lifestyle.
Nik’s reply to “Climate Dieticians,” “You first.”
The half-truth continues to mislead either through ignorance or malice:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2023/03/06/the-misguided-crusade-to-reduce-anthropogenic-methane-emissions/
The results from removing added sugars and fats from foods is about the same…
Peter Ballerstedt has a couple of recent ytube talks on proteins from plant sources. The results of not enough quality protein is obvious in the stature of people raised on such diets.
Hmmm…..maybe forced feedlot situations have a relatively high carbon footprint because of the tractor fuel used to grow the cattle feed….but the purpose of herds originated to produce food for humans on land where humans aren’t really able to eat the growing vegetation….which would just die and rot if some animal did’t eat it first.
Next, farmers generally plan on growing grains that make something higher grade than “cattle food”, so saying 25% of ag is to grow cattle food is nonsense.
Since no one listens to these enviro-alarmists, no one should sell his shares in any ranches, packing plants, or food-processing companies. People will eat what they like and can afford and aren’t the least concerned about climate change when they sit down to their next meal. It’s amazing how difficult the greens find it to grasp this concept: but since they also fail to realize that Net Zero 2050 is unattainable, who know what the limits of their credulity are.
What about wind turbines and solar panels? You’re being so last century.
Stokesy says sheep can graze contentedly on the grass between the rows of solar panels.
Of course, that only applies until they can work out a way to electrocute themselves.
Climate dietitians can go to hell. I’m going to have a ribeye to celebrate their journey.
A) She immediately jumps to billions of cows (cattle?), states that their land could be used for agriculture and then states that cattle (ruminants, which is why, I guess, she includes bison) cause powerful heat causing methane emissions.
aa) I read an article a while back that measured and calculated how much methane a cow actually emits during one 24 hour period, (out of a week and averaged to a day).
aai) Turns out the green hypocrite estimates of cattle emissions are way over the top.
B) As Eric mentions, most land used for cattle is not good arable land. Instead, most of that land is used for cattle because it is not good for raising good cash crops.
Zahra appears to not have investigated any of the claims she makes. Instead, it sounds like she is promoting cult or cultural beliefs, not husbandry or agricultural science.
India has about a third of the slightly less than a billion cattle in the world according to nationalbeefwire.com.
The 1.5 billion figure probably came from Kozicka et al (2023).
There are rather large disparities between the sources.
Most countries seem to have many less cattle than people.
The countries with cattle populations on par with human populations have been major cattle producers for well over a century, largely on rangeland.
“Cattle can be raised in harsh regions which are far too unforgiving for other farm produce.”
That’s true. But there are still two issues.
First, cattle is sometimes raised in places where other farm produce could be raised and generate more nutritional value. That’s one big reason why cows became sacred in India. Somebody figured out that raising enough cattle for dairy was OK, but if raising cattle for meat was allowed, people would be tempted to raise too much cattle, in detriment of other farm produce that would be more nutritious. Beef sells well to those who can afford it, but to the detriment of people who can’t afford beef.
Second, climate change is making some of those harsh regions too hot in the summer for cattle. That’s one important reason cattle farming has gone down in the USA. Cattle has been dying of heat exhaustion.
Bos indicus are more heat tolerant than Bos taurus, and the hybrids are also very heat tolerant. That’s one of the reasons for Santa Gertrudis having been developed in Texas.
There are also a number of Bos indicus x Bos taurus breeds developed in Australia for tropical conditions, though that is more for tick resistance than heat.
I can’t say I’ve ever seen any major signs of heat stress in Bos taurus breeds in low to mid 40s C (104 F +) conditions, provided they have access to sufficient water and shade.
Sheep do handle arid conditions better, and can tolerate higher salinity water.
“Cattle has been dying of heat exhaustion.”
Arrant nonsense.
US temperatures haven’t changed more than a fraction of a degree this century !
And were warmer in the 1930s/40s