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0 pointscodethief3y ago0 comments

> It's kind of really, really important how high that "steady level" is and how fast we'd reach it though, no?

(Update: In hindsight I'm not sure you were talking about methane emissions in general or about methane from meat production. Here, I'm focussing on the latter. Meanwhile, fossil methane is of course a huge problem.)

As for the second part of your question: When it comes to meat production, we have already reached the steady state.

As for the first part: Yes. But it is not that high. Let's say the total amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to cattle (and rice and other types of agriculture) account for a fraction X of the world's yearly emissions. (In Germany, for instance, X = 0.06, i.e. 6%.) Let's assume for simplicity the remaining emissions are exclusively due to fossil fuels and all emissions are the same every year. Let Y be the fraction of agricultural emissions relative to fossil emissions, i.e. Y = X/(1-X). (= 6.4% for Germany)

Then, after N years, the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to agriculture, relative to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to fossil fuels (burned during that timeframe) will be Y/N. This is because agricultural greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will stay constant – because we're in a steady state – but greenhouse gases due to fossil fuels will keep on accumulating.

Putting e.g. N=20 yields Y/N = 0.3% (for Germany). N=100 yields 0.06%.

In short, the amount is negligible. Fossil fuels are a real problem when it comes to climate change, agriculture is not.

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klipt3y ago

> When it comes to meat production, we have already reached the steady state.

Well yes but also no, we've reached a steady state. If we reduce meat production we would reach a new, lower steady state which would buy some more time.

codethiefOP3y ago

> we would reach a new, lower steady state

That's right but your claim that this

> would buy some more time

completely ignores my (admittedly back-of-the-envelope) calculation. Please do point out if there's an error somewhere but until then I will stand by my point: Emissions from meat production – even with meat consumption as high as it is these days – are negligible in the grand scheme of things. We better focus our efforts elsewhere.

Besides, what kind of food would we replace the meat with? That food would also need to be grown, harvested, transported, and so on. In the end, we might not gain much in terms of greenhouse gases.

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smolder3y ago

Fossil fuels are used to make fertilizer on a massive scale as well as power a lot of equipment used, so agriculture is currently a piece of the fossil fuel problem.

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