You make some good points. That said, the impact of cattle on the environment at the levels we currently enjoy, cannot be denied. Somewhere there's a sweet spot between lower demand, reduced intensity, and balancing diet better than many of us do.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
We must face facts - meat is the problem
- Thread starter mspohr
- Start date
At least in the shorter term - more vegetarianism would lead to longer life expectancy and a greater population. People might also feel better and would go out and travel more. On the flip side, they could do with smaller cars but the planes would be the same.
CyberGus
Not Just a Member
There is a part of me that thinks that humanity deserves the extinction it seems to be attempting on itself.
Unfortunately, the people who are becoming extinct are not the same ones causing the extinction.
I think we'll all go down with the ship: captain, crew, and passengers.
CyberGus
Not Just a Member
Every time NASA announces some asteroid near-miss, I think "awwww, we were so close to solving all these problems"
Revealed: Tyson Foods dumps millions of pounds of toxic pollutants into US rivers and lakes
Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide among the 371m lb of pollutants released by just 41 plants in five years
www.theguardian.com
Tyson Foods dumped millions of pounds of toxic pollutants directly into American rivers and lakes over the last five years, threatening critical ecosystems, endangering wildlife and human health, a new investigation reveals. Nitrogen, phosphorus, chloride, oil and cyanide were among the 371m lb of pollutants released into waterways by just 41 Tyson slaughterhouses and mega processing plants between 2018 and 2022. According to research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), the contaminants were dispersed in 87bn gallons of wastewater – which also contains blood, bacteria and animal feces – and released directly into streams, rivers, lakes and wetlands relied on for drinking water, fishing and recreation. The UCS analysis, shared exclusively with the Guardian, is based on the most recent publicly available water pollution data Tyson is required to report under current regulations
The midwest is already saturated with nitrogen and phosphorus from industrial agriculture – factory farms and synthetics fertilizers – contributing to algal blooms that clog critical water infrastructure, exacerbate respiratory conditions like asthma, and deplete oxygen levels in the sea causing marine life to suffocate and die.
“There are over 5,000 meat and poultry processing plants in the United States, but only a fraction are required to report pollution and abide by limits. As one of the largest processors in the game, with a near-monopoly in some states, Tyson is in a unique position to treat even hefty fines and penalties for polluting as simply the cost of doing business. This has to change,” said the UCS co-author Omanjana Goswami.
Cows Are Just an Environmental Disaster https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/30/...annah-ritchie.html?smid=nytcore-android-share
And a new politics is starting to take hold: that maybe we can invest and invent and build our way out of this crisis. But some very hard problems remain. Chief among them? Cows.
CyberGus
Not Just a Member
The new company, which is also Mr. Araújo’s new employer, is a forest restoration business called Re.green. Its aim, along with a handful of other companies, is to create a whole new industry that can make standing trees, which store planet-warming carbon, more lucrative than the world’s biggest driver of deforestation: cattle ranching.
You know that people who handle cattle don’t care much about this reforestation stuff,” said Anderson Pina Farias, a rancher whose farm is almost completely deforested. But, he added, “if selling carbon is better than ranching, we can change businesses.”
Jose Villeigagnon Rabelo, the mayor of Mãe do Rio, a city in the northeastern part of the Amazon, is worried. A brutal drought fueled by climate change and deforestation has recently dried out much of the grass that ranchers there use as feed. And, after decades of pounding by hooves, millions of acres across the region have become so degraded they can’t nourish much of anything. “The cattle are starving,” Mr. Rabelo said sitting in his office, with wooden paneling and benches made of angelim-vermelho, a tree that’s become hard to find in the region. “We’ve never had a summer like this.”
Meat linked to terrifying new disease sweeping the world: 'Ticking time bomb'
Leading disease and farming experts are calling for changes to the way we farm animals. Find out more.
The world’s growing love of meat has been linked to the terrifying strain of avian influenza that’s killed millions of birds, thousands of wild animals, and has even spread to humans. Although wild birds have carried low pathogenic forms of the virus for centuries, the cramped, often dirty conditions common in modern farming have likely created the perfect conditions for it to mutate into dangerous variants.
Unlike in Australia, cows in the United States can be fed waste that’s scraped from the bottom of sheds used to house chickens, populations of which have been devastated by the virus in that country. “One of the things that worries me is in the US they are allowed to feed them litter, which is a mixture of waste from chicken. And in birds, the main way flu is spread is faecal-oral,” he said.
Large amount of bird flu virus in milk suggests asymptomatic cows are infected with H5N1
How is it that so much bird flu virus is getting off of affected dairy farms and into the national milk supply?
www.statnews.com
Since March, when the first reported cases of H5N1 bird flu began showing up in dairy cattle in Texas, the Food and Drug Administration has been asking farmers to discard any milk from infected animals. Initially, spotting tainted milk was believed to be fairly easy because cows that get sick with H5N1 begin producing milk that is thick and yellowish. But in recent weeks, studies have found genetic traces of H5N1 in a large percentage of commercial milk products. Significant amounts of viral material from the avian influenza have also turned up in wastewater in Texas, specifically in areas where dairy processing plants are located. The presence of these viral fragments doesn’t mean H5N1 is biologically active in these samples or capable of causing disease. All the evidence generated to date indicates that pasteurization is effective at inactivating H5N1 in milk, though the FDA continues to study the issue. That is a huge relief. But it raises a big and important question: How is it that so much virus is getting off of affected farms and into the national milk supply in the first place? The most plausible and also the most concerning scenario is that visibly sick cows, the ones with strange looking milk and flu-like malaise, are just the tip of the outbreak. Although there’s little hard data at this point, scientists say the available evidence suggests that many more animals are likely being infected and producing virus-laced milk without any noticeable symptoms or changes to their milk’s color and consistency.
Although public officials continue to stress that the bird flu virus currently poses a low risk to humans, they do worry about it spreading silently throughout the nation’s dairy cattle herds. If it were to become endemic in cows, the chances go up that it could mutate into a strain that could more easily infect people. And that’s the scenario that keeps the nation’s top flu scientist up at night.Large amount of bird flu virus in milk suggests asymptomatic cows are infected with H5N1
How is it that so much bird flu virus is getting off of affected dairy farms and into the national milk supply?
Since March, when the first reported cases of H5N1 bird flu began showing up in dairy cattle in Texas, the Food and Drug Administration has been asking farmers to discard any milk from infected animals. Initially, spotting tainted milk was believed to be fairly easy because cows that get sick with H5N1 begin producing milk that is thick and yellowish. But in recent weeks, studies have found genetic traces of H5N1 in a large percentage of commercial milk products. Significant amounts of viral material from the avian influenza have also turned up in wastewater in Texas, specifically in areas where dairy processing plants are located. The presence of these viral fragments doesn’t mean H5N1 is biologically active in these samples or capable of causing disease. All the evidence generated to date indicates that pasteurization is effective at inactivating H5N1 in milk, though the FDA continues to study the issue. That is a huge relief. But it raises a big and important question: How is it that so much virus is getting off of affected farms and into the national milk supply in the first place? The most plausible and also the most concerning scenario is that visibly sick cows, the ones with strange looking milk and flu-like malaise, are just the tip of the outbreak. Although there’s little hard data at this point, scientists say the available evidence suggests that many more animals are likely being infected and producing virus-laced milk without any noticeable symptoms or changes to their milk’s color and consistency.
Large amount of bird flu virus in milk suggests asymptomatic cows are infected with H5N1
How is it that so much bird flu virus is getting off of affected dairy farms and into the national milk supply?
Since March, when the first reported cases of H5N1 bird flu began showing up in dairy cattle in Texas, the Food and Drug Administration has been asking farmers to discard any milk from infected animals. Initially, spotting tainted milk was believed to be fairly easy because cows that get sick with H5N1 begin producing milk that is thick and yellowish. But in recent weeks, studies have found genetic traces of H5N1 in a large percentage of commercial milk products. Significant amounts of viral material from the avian influenza have also turned up in wastewater in Texas, specifically in areas where dairy processing plants are located. The presence of these viral fragments doesn’t mean H5N1 is biologically active in these samples or capable of causing disease. All the evidence generated to date indicates that pasteurization is effective at inactivating H5N1 in milk, though the FDA continues to study the issue. That is a huge relief. But it raises a big and important question: How is it that so much virus is getting off of affected farms and into the national milk supply in the first place? The most plausible and also the most concerning scenario is that visibly sick cows, the ones with strange looking milk and flu-like malaise, are just the tip of the outbreak. Although there’s little hard data at this point, scientists say the available evidence suggests that many more animals are likely being infected and producing virus-laced milk without any noticeable symptoms or changes to their milk’s color and consistency.
Biodiversity loss is biggest driver of infectious disease outbreaks, says study
Researchers say reducing emissions and biodiversity loss and preventing invasive species could control disease
www.theguardian.com
Biodiversity loss is the biggest environmental driver of infectious disease outbreaks, making them more dangerous and widespread, a study has found. New infectious diseases are on the rise and they often originate in wildlife. In meta-analysis published in the journal Nature, researchers found that of all the “global change drivers” that are destroying ecosystems, loss of species was the greatest in increasing the risk of outbreaks. Biodiversity loss was followed by climate change and introduction of non-native species
Researchers say that reducing emissions, reducing biodiversity loss and preventing invasive species could all help to reduce the burden of disease. “We hope that our analyses will facilitate disease control, mitigation and surveillance efforts globally,” researchers wrote in the paper.
Rise of drug-resistant superbugs could make Covid pandemic look ‘minor’, expert warns
Common infections will kill millions if drug resistance through misuse of antibiotics is not curbed, says England’s ex-chief medical officer
www.theguardian.com
More than two-thirds of antibiotics go into farm animals, Davies said, usually to promote growth or prevent infections in overcrowded, unsanitary conditions rather than treat specific infections.
Animals, including humans, excrete up to 80% of the antibiotics they take in, she points out, “contaminating the environment”. Factories producing antibiotics may not control their effluent, allowing “dramatic amounts” to enter water systems
Unlike cattle which destroy environments, rewilding bison improves environments
www.theguardian.com
Prof Oswald Schmitz of the Yale School of the Environment in Connecticut in the US, who was the lead author of the report, said: “Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released.
These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been ploughed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon. Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this.”
Herd of 170 bison could help store CO2 equivalent of 43,000 cars, researchers say
Free-roaming animals reintroduced in Romania’s Țarcu mountains are stimulating plant growth and securing carbon stored in the soil while grazing
www.theguardian.com
Prof Oswald Schmitz of the Yale School of the Environment in Connecticut in the US, who was the lead author of the report, said: “Bison influence grassland and forest ecosystems by grazing grasslands evenly, recycling nutrients to fertilise the soil and all of its life, dispersing seeds to enrich the ecosystem, and compacting the soil to prevent stored carbon from being released.
These creatures evolved for millions of years with grassland and forest ecosystems, and their removal, especially where grasslands have been ploughed up, has led to the release of vast amounts of carbon. Restoring these ecosystems can bring back balance, and ‘rewilded’ bison are some of the climate heroes that can help achieve this.”