Economic costs of eating meat

RichInSpirit said:
I thought the deforestation was done hundreds of years ago for ship building by our next door neighbours.
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It was also done to make charcoal for smelting and for farming but we've had plenty of time since then to allow the ecosystem to recover. Instead we've kept it denuded by allowing grazing animals to eat all the plants that want to grow there.
 
On top of that we now have farmers signing over thousands of acres of land for solar panel farms so not only will we have grazing animals underneath, they'll also have a canopy over their heads. What chance do plants have with such decisions being made!
 
Ceist Beag said:
What chance do plants have with such decisions being made!
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It's not like new pasture land is being created to host solar panels!! Indeed installing these on existing pastureland will encourage more native plants.
 
Looks like that land on the left could do with a right dose of CO2 to encourage growth and green it up !!!
 
If we are not eating meat in the future we will have to eat plants instead.
We might be worse than sheep.
 
Leo said:
It's not like new pasture land is being created to host solar panels!! Indeed installing these on existing pastureland will encourage more native plants.
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Ok I'm intrigued Leo. How will installing these huge panels (i.e. roofs or canopies in other words) encourage more native plants? The land will still be grazed by sheep and it will get a significant reduction in exposure to the elements so how does that result in a better environment for native plants?
 
Look at the areas around fence posts in any fields around you. The sheep don't get everywhere.

To put it the other way, how would the typical panels used on pasture land that is already being grazed result in a reduction of biodiversity? Remember, these panels still allow plenty of light to hit the surface, they're not effectively a roof on a field.
 
RichInSpirit said:
If we are not eating meat in the future we will have to eat plants instead.
We might be worse than sheep.
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What?
Have you though about that at all?
Animals consume more calories in the form of plants than they give us in the form of meat. Cows consume 25 calories for every 1 calorie they provide in the form of meat. It is far more efficient to farm vegetables and consume them directly rather than getting a 4% net output by processing them through a cow or sheep and then eating them.
 
It would be far better for the environment and for the economy to build nuclear power stations but many in the Green Lobby are driven by ideology rather than data. The argument for reducing meat consumption is made; the facts are irrefutable. The argument for things like wind and solar and for Electric Vehicles is less strong.
If you are thinking about buying an EV but still eat lots of meat then don't bother. You could make a far better positive impact on the environment by halving your meat consumption.
 
Fair enough Leo that's your opinion and only time will tell. This is a very new concept and personally I have big concerns about what this land will look like in 30 to 40 years with these huge aging structures skulking over them. I fear there is a lot of short term thinking here.
 
I'd be thinking the reverse of the OP's thread title The Economic Cost of NOT Eating Meat.

Here's a quote from the Leap Project's website -

"However, livestock provides largescale employment and the trade in livestock and related food products is a core component of the economy of many countries."

It's good to have debates about measures to reduce CO2 emissions but it's also good to examine the negatives of any measures.
 
One of my favourite responses I've seen so far has been that when Catholics in the UK were encouraged to return to fish on Friday, it's been estimated that that alone saved 55000 tons of Carbon emmissions annually and it has been suggested the Pope reintroduces the rule globally. However then I'd assume a study would be done saying how much it is depleting fish stocks and that we should move to veggies only on Friday until someone does a study on the carbon footprint of transporting vegtables, use of pesticides or some other impact all of that has.

Perhaps the solution is different therefore then just reducing meat and instead change how we farm, Teagasc recently launced a new report covering some options on that

New Teagasc MACC aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - Agriland.ie

A new Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC) aiming to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions has been launched by Teagasc.
www.agriland.ie
 
The problem is that in order to grow the meat we have to feed it lots of vegetables. In the case of beef they consume 25 times as many calories as the give us so if we just ate the veg instead we'd need to grow a lot less of it. We could then plant trees on the land we free up which would act as a carbon sink.
 
They're only very new if you consider 40+ years very new. Unless you don't think that's long enough to assess the impact on grass or other plants growing...
 
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Of course it's very new Leo. Can you quote a number of solar panel farms that are in existence for 40+ years? If you're talking about the few built in the 80s, they were decommissioned a long time ago so are hardly a good case study!
Anyway, it's off track from the OP topic and probably neither of us will be around to discuss the review of these in years to come to see if they were a good approach or not!
 
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Ceist Beag said:
Of course it's very new Leo. Can you quote a number of solar panel farms that are in existence for 40+ years? If you're talking about the few built in the 80s, they were decommissioned a long time ago so are hardly a good case study!
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No, it really isn't! LandGate have been operating solar farms of various scales across the US since 1983. Take a look at this 2019 study on the impact of many of these solar farms. Grid scale farms may be a new thing here but they are in use in many other locations worldwide. The 11MW PS10 project was the first major concentrator in Europe, that has been in operation since 2007.
 
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I remain skeptical Leo as even your links confirm that what was built in 1983 only lasted 11 years before being dismantled! So really we're talking about a concept that is around 15 years old, not 40+. But I'm saying no more on the matter as it's taking away from the topic of the OP.
 
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