Plans to present meat as ‘sustainable nutrition’ at Cop28 revealed : worldnews

[–] [email protected] 48 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No shit, the COP28 is going badly.

Its organised in Saudi Arabia, and the president is a head of a national oil company.

Talk about having a recipe for the disaster.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago

Sounds like a good thing. With a recipe like that, you can be confident that everything said there is completely untrue and you should do the opposite of whatever they suggest.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Why are businesses and lobbyists allowed at this sort of conference to begin with? It should be policymakers and scientists.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 9 months ago

It must be so frustrating for the scientists who are there.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 months ago

because policymakers and some scientists are for sale?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

To network and make side deals.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 months ago

I truly wish the meat, dairy, and egg industries would just die already. Consuming animal products in *current year* is silly and completely unsustainable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This is like, the third evil plan involving Cop28 I've read about this week.

Are we going to hit a critical mass where Cop28 actually ends up really accelerating harming the environment instead of helping?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Yes

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It is sustainable if we start eating our dead. But I distinctly remember there being a movie about that and people were unhappy with it.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Only one person. Well, one living person.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

We need lab-grown meat ASAP

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No it's not. You have no idea how important consuming meat is for some demographics. For some it's a lifestyle for others it's without alternative.

Of course LGM has to become cheaper than regular meat before it's an alternative.

How do you know it tastes like rubbish? Have you tried it?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Beyond meat and impossible burger is not lab grown meat. Lab grown meat is using stem cells to grow real meat, just not using an animal but in some other way. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultured_meat

[–] [email protected] 0 points 9 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

[I got a bot to automatically delete all my comments over 1 month old so you can’t see this comment anymore]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I get your point and I'm all for vegan diets. but it just won't happen unless meat gets taxed like crazy worldwide. And even before that there will be armed riots if you take away meat from certain demographics. Just look at people going completely nuts once you mention we could introduce one veggie day per week. I just don't see it. That's just how we humans behave...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

“Any credible action to reduce emissions in the food sector will inevitably lead to a reduction in the total volume of meat and dairy products produced,” says Nusa Urbancic, CEO of campaign group the Changing Markets Foundation.

Companies and trade groups are told in the documents that one of the ways to “have the most influence” is to “equip delegates with your key messages and solutions”, a list of which are provided in the pack.

Australia and the US are the second and third largest beef exporters globally after Brazil, and their governments have a strong economic interest in supporting the growth of these industries, as well as close political ties with them.

It is a favoured line with many food companies, despite the fact that scientists have said that soils are not a reliable way to store carbon in the long term, and that removals can be easily undone.

GMA works to simplify and distil public information around these events, which is largely complex, to ensure industry understand how and where to engage, having equal opportunity to be heard.”

Ian Scoones, a researcher at the Institute for Sustainable Development, said: “My big fear in all of this debate is that the likes of pastoralists who we work with around the world will get stuffed because they don’t have a voice.”

The original article contains 1,370 words, the summary contains 221 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 9 months ago

This just in, environmentalists discover human-activity is the cause of human greenhouse gas emissions. Only solution they can come up with? Ban humans.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Purged by creator

[–] [email protected] 11 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

Sure but that's not what's happening here, they are lobbying to keep doing what they are doing now:

Big meat companies and lobby groups are planning a large presence at the Cop28 climate conference, equipped with a communications plan to get a pro-meat message heard by policymakers throughout the summit...

The files show how the world’s largest meat company, JBS, is planning to come out in “full force” at the summit, along with other big industry hitters such as the Global Dairy Platform and the North American Meat Institute...

Members of the alliance have been asked to stick to key comms messages, which include the idea that meat is beneficial to the environment.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Purged by creator

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

We may be a similar age. I think you make a very good point, and it's possible.

[+] [email protected] -6 points 9 months ago

I think focusing on the entire meat industry is counterproductive. Meat forms the foundation of a lot of cultures (in terms of cuisine, if nothing else). However, not all meat is created equal. Beef, for example, is notoriously bad for the environment and uses an astonishing amount of land. Replacing beef with chicken, fish, or even pork or lamb would do wonders for the emissions footprint of the agriculture industry.

[+] [email protected] -9 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Just equip the livestock with ostomy pouches and collect their waste in vats, then use chemistry to break down the methane into more friendly and usable compounds for agriculture etc. There you go. I’ve solved climate change in one paragraph.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

That'd still be quite high in emissions. Land deforestation and the massive amounts of feed are large portions of emissions for meat and dairy products. It takes far more feed than it does to eat crops directly due to the energy loss from creatures using that energy to move around, on their body functions, etc.

The practices somewhat similar to what's suggested there work out too well in practice. Manure lagoons, where waste is stored in huge pools to break down, have several environmental problems

Rates of asthma in children living near a CAFO are consistently elevated.[4] The process of anaerobic digestion has been shown to release over 400 volatile compounds from lagoons.[13] The most prevalent of these are: ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, methane, and carbon dioxide

[...]

Contaminants that are water-soluble can escape from anaerobic lagoons and enter the environment through leakage from badly constructed or poorly maintained manure lagoons as well as during excess rain or high winds, resulting in an overflow of lagoons.[2] These leaks and overflows can contaminate surrounding surface and ground water with some hazardous materials which are contained in the lagoon.[2] The most serious of these contaminants are pathogens, antibiotics, heavy metals and hormones. For example, runoff from farms in Maryland and North Carolina are a leading candidate for Pfiesteria piscicida. This contaminant has the ability to kill fish, and it can also cause skin irritation and short term memory loss in humans[20]

[...]

Antibiotics are fed to livestock to prevent disease and to increase weight and development, so that there is a shortened time from birth to slaughter. However, because these antibiotics are administered at sub-therapeutic levels, bacterial colonies can build up resistance to the drugs through the natural selection of bacteria resistant to these antibiotics. These antibiotic-resistant bacteria are then excreted and transferred to the lagoons, where they can infect humans and other animals.[13]

Each year, 24.6 million pounds of antimicrobials are administered to livestock for non-therapeutic purposes.[23] Seventy percent of all antibiotics and related drugs are given to animals as feed additives.[4] Nearly half of the antibiotics used are nearly identical to ones given to humans. There is strong evidence that the use of antibiotics in animal feed is contributing to an increase in antibiotic-resistant microbes and causing antibiotics to be less effective for humans.[4] Due to concerns over antibiotic-resistant bacteria, the American Medical Association passed a resolution stating its opposition to the use of sub-therapeutic levels of antimicrobials in livestock.[13]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anaerobic_lagoon#Environmental_and_health_impacts

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I hate to provide such a short answer to such a well written response, but perhaps shit lagoons aren’t the only way to process manure cleanly. Also, I’m not convinced that we can’t use high rise facilities for these animals and give them a matrix type experience. Each animal gets a cell, treadmill, VR screen/googles, and feed. Something along those lines.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If that plan worked perfectly, you'd solve the land use and, giving you an extremely generous benefit of the doubt, the emissions from manure problems.

All you have to now is figure out how to build and maintain these high-rises cost effectively, and how to generate enough power for a matrix-like experience and all the VR headsets and treadmills for the cows. And even then you'd still be wasting a lot of food by feeding it to animals rather than just eating it directly.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

Use the methane and solar to fuel the facility. Capture the emission and reuse them in fertilizer as well. Have the facility be a one-stop-shop, which produces the feed from hydroponics. The VR for a cow is not going to be that difficult. Just project fields in front of them. The treadmill can just have bearings and not require power. If anything they can be used to generate it.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Or you can just feed them seaweed...🤷‍♂️🤔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

The stats touted around seaweed and other feed adatives are highly misleading. Even looking at the highest touted claims you only get an 8% reduction of overall emissions. The high numbers you see are only reporting the feedlot reductions which aren't where the majority of the missions come from

What’s more, feeding cattle algae is really only practical where it’s least needed: on feedlots. This is where most cattle are crowded in the final months of their 1.5- to 2-year lives to rapidly put on weight before slaughter. There, algae feed additives can be churned into the cows’ grain and soy feed. But on feedlots, cattle already belch less methane—only 11 percent of their lifetime output

[...]

Unfortunately, adding the algae to diets on the pasture, where it’s most needed, isn’t a feasible option either. Out on grazing lands, it’s difficult to get cows to eat additives because they don’t like the taste of red algae unless it’s diluted into feed. And even if we did find ways to sneak algae in somehow, there’s a good chance their gut microbes would adapt and adjust, bringing their belches’ methane right back to high levels.

[...] All told, if we accept the most promising claims of the algae boosters, we’re talking about an 80 percent reduction of methane among only 11 percent of all burps—roughly an 8.8 percent reduction total

https://www.wired.com/story/carbon-neutral-cows-algae/

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Upon further research, it seems we should simply stop most cow production and move to ostriches for red meat.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 9 months ago

OR, genetically modify them to have human stomaches instead of being ruminants.

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