swarm:
The specific overpopulation of cattle, and in particular using certain feeding techniques, can produce methane. However this is not unique to cattle, all ungulates have this issue including the ones the cattle have supplanted. Are millions of cattle more or less flatulent than millions of bison? Is this a real issue because traditionally grasslands have been covered in grazing ungulates, so is there actually a net gain in methane release?
It would seem so. Compare the number of cattle alive today to the number of bison that were ever alive at one time and I suspect that the numbers are far greater. I will attempt to confirm this if you wish to make an issue of it.
Some facts:
In the United States methane from enteric fermentation (methane production in digestive systems of ruminate animals) totalled 5.5 million tonnes in 2002, again overwhelmingly originating from beef and dairy cattle. This was 71 percent of all agricultural emissions and 19 percent of the country's total (Greenhouse Gas ) emissions (US-EPA, 2004).
Livestock's contribution to climate change: 18 percent in CO2 equivalent of global emissions Incl. pasture degradation and land use change
Livestock's share in carbon dioxide emissions: 9 percent, not considering respiration
Livestock's share in methane emissions: 37 percent
Livestock's share in nitrous oxide emissions: 65 percent (Including feed crops)
Food security
Human edible protein supplied to livestock: 77 million tonnes
Human edible protein supplied by livestock: 58 million tonnes
Environment-Land:
Total land for grazing: 3 433 million ha or 26 percent of global terrestrial surface
Grazing land considered degraded: 20 to 70 percent
Total land for feed crop cultivation: 471 million ha or 33 percent of global arable land
Source for the above:
http://vegan.meetup.com/27/messages/boards/thread/4030823 and the links referenced therein.
swarm said:
Sheep, goats and pigs however definitely are less flatulent. Switching from cows to pigs would eliminate the problem because meat eating doesn't product greenhouse gasses, cows do.
This is disingenuous. When we add up the greenhouse effects of eating meat, we need to take into account not just the final act of consumption, but the entire process of production. Refer to the above statistics to get some idea of the total impact.
You humanocentric people amaze me. Did you really think all that nice grazing land was totally unused until we invented cattle?
Modern farming practices have dramatically increased the productivity of the land used for grazing and for crops. The number of cattle supported on a given land area today is far greater than the number of wild cattle or bison or whatever lived there before modern humans came along.
There are actually far more trees in the great plains than when the bison were in charge of it. Grass and grazing animals have been fighting the trees since grasses came into being. Life is way more complex than you seem to realize.
You badly underestimate the impact humans have had and are still having on the land.
From
here:
# Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years.
# Nearly half of the world's species of plants, animals and microorganisms will be destroyed or severely threatened over the next quarter century due to rainforest deforestation.
# Experts estimates that we are losing 137 plant, animal and insect species every single day due to rainforest deforestation. That equates to 50,000 species a year.
# Most rainforests are cleared by chainsaws, bulldozers and fires for its timber value and then are followed by farming and ranching operations, even by world giants like Mitsubishi Corporation, Georgia Pacific, Texaco and Unocal.
And also:
Ranching also causes destruction of the rainforests. Ranchers clear large areas of rainforest to become pastures for their cattle. This land does not cost them very much, so they can sell cattle at low prices. Because it is very profitable, ranchers continue to clear rainforest land so they can raise and sell more cattle. "During the 1980s, about 16.9 million hectares of tropical rainforest was cut down and replaced with farms and grazing land for cattle." (Forest Alliance of British Columbia, 1996)
Not at all. We could all choose to stop eating meat tomorrow, and that would be that.
No it wouldn't. All those cows would still need predators. I suppose we could just kill them and let them rot. Is that your suggestion?
No. My suggestion is that we let most of the cattle currently alive live out the rest of their natural lives, without being allowed to breed. And, of course, we do not deliberately keep breeding more cattle.
This will reduce overall numbers without causing great pain and suffering.
Also we are neither separate nor exempt from the ecosystem, nor is it just about us. Meat eating is an innate part of the ecosystem. Repeat it until it finally sinks in. Predation occurs from the smallest microbes to the biggest whales. Prey and predator are interdependent. Suddenly remove 6 billion top predators and you will wreck havoc.
Not true. Our farming and animal husbandry is totally controlled by us, in a way that no other animal controls its food. We are aware of ecological impacts of our actions.
Moreover, since we have created the current situation deliberately, we know exactly what is necessary to put things right.
It is strange that you alternately credit humans with superior intelligence some of the time, then at other times assume that humans are too stupid to appreciate the effects of their actions or to be able to change their behaviour. You need to decide whether these human top-level, smart predators of yours are actually intelligent or just another "dumb animal".
Longing has nothing to do with it, cows being eaten by predators is how the system works. Break the system and you have real problems instead of just moral ones.
If this is your argument, then we already broke the system by systematically breeding more cows than is "natural", purely because some of us like a nice juicy steak.
