This burp-catching mask for cows could slow down climate change
Turns methane intoCO2! Not sure thatis better
Turns methane intoCO2! Not sure thatis better
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We must face facts - meat is the problem
- Thread starter mspohr
- Start date
In theory it should be better.
Methane (CH4) is far more potent on a molecular basis than CO2 for GWP and the vast majority of CH4 is converted to CO2 1:1 via oxidation by the hydroxyl radical (•OH) in the troposphere>>stratosphere>soil.
As CH4 has a half life of nearly 10 years, the sooner CH4->CO2 is advantageous for reducing GWP.
ladysbff
Member
Zelp, a UK-based company, has developed a potential solution in the form of a burp-catching face mask for cows, designed to reduce methane emissions from cattle by 60 per cent.
When methane levels get too high, the mask channels the gas towards an oxidation mechanism inside, which contains a catalyst that converts methane into CO2 and water, and expels it from the device. “It reduces methane’s global warming potential to less than 1.5 per cent of its original value,” Norris explains.
Sounds interesting but seems like a lot of maintenance required. And of course there is a much easier way to reduce cow-based emissions...
Was interested in the catalyst mentioned so searched and found this:
Turn Methane into CO 2 to Reduce Warming, Experts Propose
There’s been much less focus on capturing methane, likely in part because the process is more technically difficult than capturing carbon dioxide. But scientists have some ideas about how it could be done.
The new comment proposes a promising method that involves the use of porous minerals called zeolites. Scientists already use zeolites to capture methane and convert it into methanol, an alcohol that can be used in chemical feedstocks or other industrial applications.
It’s not much more chemically complicated to convert the methane to carbon dioxide instead, Jackson pointed out. Once the conversion has taken place, the most cost-effective action would be to simply release the carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere. It does mean that more CO2 ends up in the air, but because it’s taking the place of a more potent greenhouse gas, the immediate effect is to lessen the progress of global warming.
SageBrush
REJECT Fascism
IIRC about 20x better, although it varies by whether a 20 or 100 year time scale is used. I suspect that the 20 year time scale is appropriate due to tipping points. This by the way is why it is a lot smarter to flare NG and not let it leak into the atmosphere.
True, but the reality is that this concept isn't too far removed from fitting ICE vehicles with layer after layer of pollution control devices--sort of crazy in the long run when the solution is so simple: Just stop eating animals and their parts.
Far, far, better for human animals, non-human animals, and the planet we all share . . . .
The end of cows
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...1363/RethinkX+Food+and+Agriculture+Report.pdf
Modern foods have already started disrupting the ground meat market, but once cost parity is reached, we believe in 2021-23, adoption will tip and accelerate exponentially. The disruption will play out in a number of ways and does not rely solely on the direct, one-for-one substitution of end products. In some markets, only a small percentage of the ingredients need to be replaced for an entire product to be disrupted. The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the proteins in a bottle of milk – just 3.3% of its content. The industry, which is already balancing on a knife edge, will thus be all but bankrupt by 2030.
The disruption of food and agriculture is inevitable – modern products will be cheaper and superior in every conceivable way – but policymakers, investors, businesses, and civil society as a whole have the power to slow down or speed up their adoption. The aim of this report is to start a conversation and focus decision- makers’ attention on the scale, speed, and impact of the modern food disruption. The choices they make in the near term will have a lasting impact – those regarding IP rights and approval processes for modern food products, for example, will be critical.
https://static1.squarespace.com/sta...1363/RethinkX+Food+and+Agriculture+Report.pdf
Modern foods have already started disrupting the ground meat market, but once cost parity is reached, we believe in 2021-23, adoption will tip and accelerate exponentially. The disruption will play out in a number of ways and does not rely solely on the direct, one-for-one substitution of end products. In some markets, only a small percentage of the ingredients need to be replaced for an entire product to be disrupted. The whole of the cow milk industry, for example, will start to collapse once modern food technologies have replaced the proteins in a bottle of milk – just 3.3% of its content. The industry, which is already balancing on a knife edge, will thus be all but bankrupt by 2030.
The disruption of food and agriculture is inevitable – modern products will be cheaper and superior in every conceivable way – but policymakers, investors, businesses, and civil society as a whole have the power to slow down or speed up their adoption. The aim of this report is to start a conversation and focus decision- makers’ attention on the scale, speed, and impact of the modern food disruption. The choices they make in the near term will have a lasting impact – those regarding IP rights and approval processes for modern food products, for example, will be critical.
ladysbff
Member
Skimmed through this and somehow these still feel like really bold predictions. I guess I thought this would never actually happen because most folks get so defensive and territorial about eating meat. Don't want to be too optimistic but if this report ends up being correct... wow!
On the other hand who could have believed in 2007 that by 2016 this would happen:
Mission Transition
Henry Schwartz, a lifelong dairyman from a family of dairymen, shut down New York City’s last dairy – Elmhurst – in 2016. It had been operating for over 90 years. The next year, he reopened Elmhurst in Buffalo as a plant milk company. Henry’s courageous switch is the inspiration and living symbol for Mission Transition.
I got to visit one of the largest organic dairy plants in the US a couple years ago and the discussion around the collapse of cow milk was illuminating. Cow milk producers are intentionally building factories that can be easily converted to making plant-based milk, or can run both cow milk and pb milk.
'Let's get rid of friggin' cows' says creator of plant-based 'bleeding burger'
Patrick Brown is on a mission: to eradicate the meat and fish industries by 2035. The CEO of Impossible Foods, a California-based company that makes genetically engineered plant-based meat, is deadly serious. No more commercial livestock farming or fishing. No more steak, fish and chips or roast dinners, at least not as you know them.
“To the outside world, Impossible Foods is a food company – but at its heart [it] is an audacious yet realistic strategy to turn back the clock on climate change and stop the global collapse of biodiversity,” Brown wrote in the company’s 2020 impact report. As part of his vision of the future, the 45% of the land surface of the Earth reserved for animal agriculture would be returned to nature. Deforestation, antibiotic resistance and overfishing could be overcome and reversed in some cases, Brown insists.
Patrick Brown is on a mission: to eradicate the meat and fish industries by 2035. The CEO of Impossible Foods, a California-based company that makes genetically engineered plant-based meat, is deadly serious. No more commercial livestock farming or fishing. No more steak, fish and chips or roast dinners, at least not as you know them.
“To the outside world, Impossible Foods is a food company – but at its heart [it] is an audacious yet realistic strategy to turn back the clock on climate change and stop the global collapse of biodiversity,” Brown wrote in the company’s 2020 impact report. As part of his vision of the future, the 45% of the land surface of the Earth reserved for animal agriculture would be returned to nature. Deforestation, antibiotic resistance and overfishing could be overcome and reversed in some cases, Brown insists.
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Excess protein enabled dog domestication during severe Ice Age winters | Scientific Reports
Humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet; human consumption of meat is limited by the liver’s capacity to metabolize protein. Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months. We present here data showing that all the Pleistocene archeological sites with dog or incipient dog remains are from areas that were analogous to subarctic and arctic environments. Our calculations show that during harsh winters, when game is lean and devoid of fat, Late Pleistocene hunters-gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal derived protein that could have been shared with incipient dogs. Our partitioning theory explains how competition may have been ameliorated during the initial phase of dog domestication. Following this initial period, incipient dogs would have become docile, being utilized in a multitude of ways such as hunting companions, beasts of burden and guards as well as going through many similar evolutionary changes as humans.
Humans are not fully adapted to a carnivorous diet; human consumption of meat is limited by the liver’s capacity to metabolize protein. Contrary to humans, wolves can thrive on lean meat for months. We present here data showing that all the Pleistocene archeological sites with dog or incipient dog remains are from areas that were analogous to subarctic and arctic environments. Our calculations show that during harsh winters, when game is lean and devoid of fat, Late Pleistocene hunters-gatherers in Eurasia would have a surplus of animal derived protein that could have been shared with incipient dogs. Our partitioning theory explains how competition may have been ameliorated during the initial phase of dog domestication. Following this initial period, incipient dogs would have become docile, being utilized in a multitude of ways such as hunting companions, beasts of burden and guards as well as going through many similar evolutionary changes as humans.
Another industrial animal disaster
'We need answers’: why are people living near Dutch goat farms getting sick?
'We need answers’: why are people living near Dutch goat farms getting sick?
Oxford animal-only antibiotic lab could prop up intensive farming, critics say
initiative to develop bespoke antibiotics for livestock has raised fears that it could be a “techno-fix” for more intensive farming.
The good thing is that [agriculture] feeds us. The bad thing is that resistance develops in both humans and animals – and yes, the evidence is that, globally, most antibiotics are used in agriculture – probably over 70% by mass, so we really need to address that.”
Thousands of tons [of ampicillin] are used in Asia and Africa, and yet it is an antibiotic advocated by the WHO to treat neonatal sepsis [an infection that can kill new-born babies],” he said. Recent research had found that in low- and middle-income countries, 90% of the gram-negative bacteria that cause sepsis are now resistant to ampicillin, he said. “That’s bonkers. It cannot go on.”
One of the risks, Nunan said, would be that it might “simply enable further intensification”. Scientific evidence, he added, already showed “that intensive farms can be breeding grounds for new bacterial superbugs and new types of viruses with pandemic potential in humans”.
Peter Stevenson, an animal welfare lawyer who works with the charity Compassion in World Farming, went further, calling the possibility of animal-only antibiotics a “techno-fix designed to tackle the symptoms of industrial animal agriculture rather than recognising the need for transformative change”.
initiative to develop bespoke antibiotics for livestock has raised fears that it could be a “techno-fix” for more intensive farming.
The good thing is that [agriculture] feeds us. The bad thing is that resistance develops in both humans and animals – and yes, the evidence is that, globally, most antibiotics are used in agriculture – probably over 70% by mass, so we really need to address that.”
Thousands of tons [of ampicillin] are used in Asia and Africa, and yet it is an antibiotic advocated by the WHO to treat neonatal sepsis [an infection that can kill new-born babies],” he said. Recent research had found that in low- and middle-income countries, 90% of the gram-negative bacteria that cause sepsis are now resistant to ampicillin, he said. “That’s bonkers. It cannot go on.”
One of the risks, Nunan said, would be that it might “simply enable further intensification”. Scientific evidence, he added, already showed “that intensive farms can be breeding grounds for new bacterial superbugs and new types of viruses with pandemic potential in humans”.
Peter Stevenson, an animal welfare lawyer who works with the charity Compassion in World Farming, went further, calling the possibility of animal-only antibiotics a “techno-fix designed to tackle the symptoms of industrial animal agriculture rather than recognising the need for transformative change”.
Economics of biodiversity review: what are the recommendations?
Dasgupta highlights that most governments pay people more to exploit nature than to protect it and that destructive farming subsidies cause damage costed at $4tn-$6tn (£2.9tn-£4.4tn) per year. What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us? However, human societies could live sustainably, the review says, by ensuring the demands they put on nature do not exceed its supply. Food production is the biggest destroyer of biodiversity, Dasgupta says, and technology such as precision agriculture and genetic breeding can help. But overconsumption of produce linked to damage, such as beef, must be cut.
Dasgupta highlights that most governments pay people more to exploit nature than to protect it and that destructive farming subsidies cause damage costed at $4tn-$6tn (£2.9tn-£4.4tn) per year. What is biodiversity and why does it matter to us? However, human societies could live sustainably, the review says, by ensuring the demands they put on nature do not exceed its supply. Food production is the biggest destroyer of biodiversity, Dasgupta says, and technology such as precision agriculture and genetic breeding can help. But overconsumption of produce linked to damage, such as beef, must be cut.
Plant-based diets crucial to saving global wildlife, says report
The global food system is the biggest driver of destruction of the natural world, and a shift to predominantly plant-based diets is crucial in halting the damage, according to a report. Agriculture is the main threat to 86% of the 28,000 species known to be at risk of extinction, the report by the Chatham House thinktank said. Without change, the loss of biodiversity will continue to accelerate and threaten the world’s ability to sustain humanity, it said.
The global food system is the biggest driver of destruction of the natural world, and a shift to predominantly plant-based diets is crucial in halting the damage, according to a report. Agriculture is the main threat to 86% of the 28,000 species known to be at risk of extinction, the report by the Chatham House thinktank said. Without change, the loss of biodiversity will continue to accelerate and threaten the world’s ability to sustain humanity, it said.
The Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken Opinion | The Ugly Secrets Behind the Costco Chicken
Yet we must guard our moral compasses. And some day, I think, future generations will look back at our mistreatment of livestock and poultry with pain and bafflement. They will wonder how we in the early 21st century could have been so oblivious to the cruelties that delivered $4.99 chickens to a Costco rotisserie.
Torture a single chicken in your backyard, and you risk arrest. Abuse tens of millions of them? Why, that’s agribusiness. It’s not that Costco chickens suffer more than Walmart or Safeway birds. All are part of an industrial agricultural system that, at the expense of animal well-being, has become extremely efficient at producing cheap protein.
Yet we must guard our moral compasses. And some day, I think, future generations will look back at our mistreatment of livestock and poultry with pain and bafflement. They will wonder how we in the early 21st century could have been so oblivious to the cruelties that delivered $4.99 chickens to a Costco rotisserie.
Torture a single chicken in your backyard, and you risk arrest. Abuse tens of millions of them? Why, that’s agribusiness. It’s not that Costco chickens suffer more than Walmart or Safeway birds. All are part of an industrial agricultural system that, at the expense of animal well-being, has become extremely efficient at producing cheap protein.
While I find the vast majority of the population seems to go through life questioning NOTHING, I am greatly pleased to see that the tide is shifting. So many restaurants are finally introducing a wide variety of plant-based menu choices, to even include Starbucks (locally).
From their website:
Plant-Based Breakfast Sandwich
A plant-based twist on our iconic breakfast sandwich—an Impossible™ Sausage Made from Plants with a plant-based egg patty, topped with a creamy melted plant-based Cheddar-style slice, served on a toasted whole-wheat English muffin—all layered to give you the fuel to conquer the day.
150 ☆ star item
(Sold out)
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UK-US Brexit trade deal ‘could fill supermarkets with cancer-risk bacon’
British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on a decade of investigation into the food industry. The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”. The powerful US meat industry is likely to insist that the export of nitrite-cured meat is a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver.
“The American processed-meat industry acts just like big tobacco,” Guillaume Coudray, author of Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?, told the Observer. “It obscures the truth about nitro-meats and clouds the facts for its own commercial benefit – and they have been at it for decades. They have done this despite clear and overwhelming evidence that nitro-meats cause bowel cancer.”
British stores could be flooded with “dangerous” bacon and ham from the US, marketed under misleading labels, as the result of a transatlantic trade deal, says the author of a new book based on a decade of investigation into the food industry. The meat has been cured with nitrites extracted from vegetables, a practice not permitted by the European Commission because of evidence that it increases the risk of bowel cancer. But it is allowed in the US, where the product is often labelled as “all natural”. The powerful US meat industry is likely to insist that the export of nitrite-cured meat is a condition of a post-Brexit UK-US trade deal, which the UK government is under intense pressure to deliver.
“The American processed-meat industry acts just like big tobacco,” Guillaume Coudray, author of Who Poisoned Your Bacon Sandwich?, told the Observer. “It obscures the truth about nitro-meats and clouds the facts for its own commercial benefit – and they have been at it for decades. They have done this despite clear and overwhelming evidence that nitro-meats cause bowel cancer.”
Walmart selling beef from firm linked to Amazon deforestation
Food giants Walmart, Costco and Kroger – which together totalled net sales worth more than half a trillion dollars last year – are selling Brazilian beef products imported from JBS, the world’s largest meat company, which has been linked to deforestation. Brazilian beef has been identified as a key driver of deforestation in the Amazon, where swathes of forest are cleared for pasture used for cattle farming. The Amazon is a crucial buffer in stabilising the regional and global climate. Experts say preserving the world’s rainforests is essential if further intensification of the climate emergency is to be averted.
Food giants Walmart, Costco and Kroger – which together totalled net sales worth more than half a trillion dollars last year – are selling Brazilian beef products imported from JBS, the world’s largest meat company, which has been linked to deforestation. Brazilian beef has been identified as a key driver of deforestation in the Amazon, where swathes of forest are cleared for pasture used for cattle farming. The Amazon is a crucial buffer in stabilising the regional and global climate. Experts say preserving the world’s rainforests is essential if further intensification of the climate emergency is to be averted.