Rethinking how the US grows beef
As of now, cattle eat not only local pasture, but also grains, hay, and grass that is grown elsewhere and stored. A recent analysis by an international team of researchers looked into what would change if the US switched to sustainable ranching, in which cattle eat only from local grasslands and agricultural byproducts.
It turns out that the current amount of pastureland in the US could only support 45 percent of our current beef production and consumption. This admittedly narrow definition of sustainability relies on feeding cows more agricultural byproducts, which, as of now, account for only about 10 percent of their diet; the scientists note that, "despite the recent doubling of distillers' grain utilization," these byproducts are still plentiful.
If we were to cut the pastureland that ranchers currently use in half, that would diminish beef availability to... 43 percent of current values, rather than 45. So freeing up about 135 hectares—almost a quarter of our national surface area, and twice the size of France—would decrease beef availability by only two percentage points.
Most of this is not especially productive grassland, and it could be rewilded or conserved. But some of it is high-quality cropland that could be used to grow other food sources, like pork, poultry, grains, legumes, vegetables, and even dairy. All of these utilize less water and fertilizer than beef while emitting fewer greenhouse gases. In addition, they provide us with more calories, fiber, micronutrients, and even protein than the beef they'd supplant. The only thing we'd be missing is vitamin B12, for which the authors of this analysis offer a quick fix: take a pill.
A model for 'sustainable' US beef production (open, DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0390-5) (DX)
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:34AM (7 children)
There are more than enough marijuana potheads in our prisons to supply our needed meat. And have you seen the size of the exercise yard in a prison. Tiny compared to cattle pasture.
Slaughter the cannabis users and feed America.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by takyon on Friday December 29 2017, @03:52AM (6 children)
There's on the order of ~100 million beef cattle [wikipedia.org] in the U.S., probably less, but they are regularly replenished.
You have 2.2, perhaps 2.5 million incarcerated [wikipedia.org] (in-carne-cerated?) in the U.S. You would need to turn them all into meat, not just non-violent drug offenders or whatever. Plus they would have a lot less meat. A cow has about 500 pounds of trimmed meat [igrow.org]. Much less of comparable meat [straightdope.com] on the average human prisoner... 50 pounds maybe?
So your plan is not going to work.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:06AM (4 children)
Still, considered the proposition seriously you did. <sarcasm>Deep Sigh</sarcasm> Much autism I sense in you. Burn a tree with force-lightning I will, yes!
(Score: 2) by takyon on Friday December 29 2017, @04:19AM (1 child)
Not before I sell those old books to pay for weed.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:15PM
The old books are on the Falcon... see them again, we will, even if page turners they are not.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday December 29 2017, @06:57AM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @06:57PM
I was looking forward to getting a secondary high while enjoying the forbidden fruit of cannibalism! Damn internet trolls ruiin eeeveryyything.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @04:03PM
So, cannibalism is a bad idea to start with, but, think about the flesh found in the prison system, and what kind of residuals would be in the muscle and fat, even after cooking...
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:39AM
There's a reason scientists are also known as pukes.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by pdfernhout on Friday December 29 2017, @03:41AM (13 children)
From: https://www.westernwatersheds.org/watmess/watmess_2002/2002html_summer/article6.htm [westernwatersheds.org]
Cropland- About 349 million acres in the U.S. are planted for crops. This is the equivalent of about four states the size of Montana. Four crops -- feeder corn (80 million acres), soybeans (75 million acres), alfalfa hay (61 million acres) and wheat (62 million acres) -- make up 80 percent of total crop acreage. All but wheat are primarily used to feed livestock.
The amount of land used to produce all vegetables in the U.S. is less than 3 million acres.
Range and Pasture Land- Some 788 million acres, or 41.4 percent of the U. S. excluding Alaska, are grazed by livestock. This is an area the size of 8.3 states the size of Montana. Grazed lands include rangeland, pasture and cropland pasture. More than 309 million acres of federal, state and other public lands are grazed by domestic livestock. Another 140 million acres are forested lands that are grazed.
...
The real message here is that we can afford to restore hundreds of millions of acres in the U.S. if we simply shift our diets away from meat. Many organizations spend their time fighting sprawl and championing agriculture as a benign use of the land. If a similar amount of effort were directed toward reducing agricultural production, we would produce far greater protection and restoration for declining species, endangered ecosystems and ecological processes.
When critics suggest that we don't have the money to buy land for wildlands restoration, they are forgetting agricultural subsidies, which amount to hundreds of billions of dollars. For what we spend to prop up marginal agricultural producers, we could easily buy most of the private farm and ranch land in the country This would be a far more effective way to contain sprawl, restore wildlands, bring back endangered species, clean up water, slow the spread of exotic species and reduce soil erosion.
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:45AM (4 children)
It all sounds SO reasonable and smart! Let's simply murder all vegetarians and we'll never hear their ridiculous arguments again! That's what we call a win-win.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Friday December 29 2017, @05:13AM
We could eat vat grown vegetarians.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Bobs on Friday December 29 2017, @03:32PM
That is what this research is about: we can eat almost as many vegetarians as we currently do, just feed them more efficiently.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @07:07PM (1 child)
It is an odd dichotomy with you libertarians (sorry, I just assumed your political identity) where they desire total freedom because they view themselves as so smart that everything would auto-magically work out. Market evolution and all that.
But, we come across ideas like reducing the amount of meat in our diet and intelligence goes out the window. Turns out people just don't want their personal comforts infringed upon, even if long term their choices will cause their own downfall. Forget that the article even mentions other forms of meat which are more efficient, nope gotta hate on people who make you uncomfortable cause that is what you alt-right fuckwads DO.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 29 2017, @08:25PM
Modded up because, damn it, the truth about what "libertarian" means needs to be put out there.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Whoever on Friday December 29 2017, @04:47AM
We don't even need to shift away from meat. Just shift from beef to chicken.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday December 29 2017, @04:49AM (5 children)
It's wool from a particular kind of goat.
The subsidy was established to ensure that there would be enough wool for uniforms in times of war
A good use of taxpayer dollars? Uniforms have been synthetic since 1960
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by tibman on Friday December 29 2017, @06:20AM (3 children)
Most synthetic fibers melt. Having your sleeve melt to your skin because you brushed up against a hot barrel would really suck. Most uniforms these days seem to have around 50% cotton or wool. 100% cotton is best, imo. There are some synthetic materials that work better than cotton (for fire resistance), like nomex ($$$). Fire departments might do nomex but a military won't. Specific roles might get secondary uniforms made of nomex though (flight suit, tanker suit).
SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @09:47AM (2 children)
Yeah but cotton is crap in cold wet. Dying of hypothermia sucks.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @08:15PM (1 child)
Alright - so, can you name those synthetics which are good in cold and wet conditions?
Let me talk about wool for a moment. When wool is saturated with water - that is, it is dripping wet, it still retains about 30% of it's insulation value. As you have already observed, cotton retains just about zero insulation value under those conditions. Goose down ranks right up there with wool - dripping wet, it still has insulation value.
Back to synthetics - DuPont holofil is equal to wool. That is because the holofil fibers are hollow, and it is difficult to fill those fibers with water. Holofil is an excellent insulator for cold weather, but it is bulky. A jacket with holofil is about four times thicker than a wool jacket, for the same insulation value. Which is about the same as goose down.
Now, I'll be honest - I haven't searched for any newer synthetic fibers that equal or exceed holofil, wool, or down. Maybe there are some good synthetics out there that can be soaked with water, and still keep you warm. Do you know of any? I guess if you like foamed neoprene, you could use that. Scuba divers like it when the water gets cold.
Of course, I'm not being entirely fair in this post, so far. People who live in cold wet conditions usually learn about layering.
Next to body, a layer of cotton.
Then a layer of wool
Then a layer of wool, down, holofil
And, finally, a good water repellant such as ripstop nylon.
There is gortex, which in effect combines an insulating layer with a water repellant layer. I've been impressed with gortex - both good and bad. I don't like it in boots - felt packs do the job equally well, without any risk of tearing the boots up when your feet/legs are cold and wet.
https://www.rei.com/learn/expert-advice/layering-basics.html [rei.com]
https://www.lhsfna.org/index.cfm/lifelines/january-2005/the-right-stuff-for-cold-weather/ [lhsfna.org]
I disagree with both of those links. I beieve that T-shirts and boxers provide good wicking, to move moisture away from the body. I really don't want polypro fabric against my skin . . .
(Score: 3, Informative) by hendrikboom on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:47AM
Unrefined wool, which still contains all its lanolin, is quite water-repellant. It's the basis of authentic Aran knitting, traditionally done by fishermen to keep themselves warm at sea.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @07:24AM
No, they have not. Every sailor to have gone to boot camp up through the eighties at least, has been issued cotton and wool uniforms, with some leather for the boots.
Sailors are at risk of unexpected fires breaking out, anytime, any place aboard ship. As Tibman has already pointed out, almost all synthetic fibers melt. You do NOT want your clothing to melt into your skin. Natural fibers get warm, then hot, then smolder, and finally burst into flame. Even after a cotton or wool garment has burst into flame, it can be pulled off and discarded. Your plastics grow warm, then without warning, melt into your skin. You can't remove them after that, without removing swathes of your flesh. Nasty.
My son joined the Army instead of the Navy. There are synthetics in his duffel bag, but MOST of the stuff is natural fiber. Maybe the Army isn't as fearful of fire as the Navy is - but they still have reason to use natural fiber uniforms.
This page says that a lot of the Army's uniform items are wool/poly blend, or wool/cotton blend, or cotton/poly blend - http://www.fibre2fashion.com/industry-article/3046/military-uniform?page=3 [fibre2fashion.com]
I don't know how those blends compare to the fire resistance of pure wool or pure cotton. Probably better than synthetics alone, and probably not as good as natural fibre alone.
(Score: 3, Informative) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:18PM
I thought the real message was that we don't actually need to reduce meat consumption at all, just shift the mode of production to be more feedstock based and we can free up the rangeland for other uses.
Doesn't do much for my wife, who strongly prefers "grass fed" beef, but for the majority of the world who just care about the cost per pound and maybe the fat content of their burger, the proposal could work well - without any dietary changes.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @03:55AM (9 children)
So they propose to cut pastureland and increase agriculture to feed animals more and keep people drunk. They must live in a place where fertilizers are free. And make the animals move less, by keeping them local, or so I understand. Oh, yeah, and also depend on pills (bacteria produced... it would had been the final nail if the source was pasture animals).
I tought sustainable proposals were about less crap, not more. About more resistant methods with less dependencies, not less by stressing other systems more.
USA has a problem with eating a lot, and a lot of that being crap... but please...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @04:29AM (5 children)
You misunderstood that. Animals that eat only local forage have to move around to get to that forage. Animals that eat imported forage actually move a lot less. An 18-wheeler comes in the pasture gate in Mississippi, loaded with hay from Texas. All that hay is unloaded, either onto the ground, or into those big round feeders. The cattle no longer need to wander the length and width of the pasture for forage. They can stand right there, in front of that feeder, until the hay runs out. So, we've traded away healthy movement (for the cattle) in exchange for burning hundreds of gallons of diesel fuel to move the hay to the cattle.
In practice, the cattle do still move around, but there is less purpose to that movement.
Another germane issue, is the importation of parasites, diseases, and invasive crops with that imported hay. Odd that none of that was addressed in the article.
All of that said - I like my beef. Yeah, I could do with less beef in my diet. I'd probably be healthier if I ate more veggies. But, don't screw with the availability of beef!! I may be willing to cut down to 4 or 5 beef based meals per week, instead of 7 or 8. I am NOT willing to cut beef from my diet!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:44AM (3 children)
It says eat more from local grasslands. Doesn't that mean they eat from far away grassland now? IE, they move a lot, migrating western movie style, at least that is how I see pastureland. Maybe I mixed it, and they don't walk much, and as you say, they cut and move the grass. But for me that is farmed cows, with very small pastureland already, if at all.
Family were farmers generations ago, and from what I remember, part of the trick with animals was to spread the things they needed (water, grass, salt), so they had to move. But that was from a time trucks were yet to be invented or very new (XIX and early XX). And the country as a whole moved lots of animals in a winter-summer cycle too, sometimes hundreds of km.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Friday December 29 2017, @05:14AM (2 children)
Negative. The sort of migratory patterns you talk of still exist in a few states, but it's not used much at all. Even in Texas, cattle typically are fenced in, and they live within that same fenced area almost all of their lives. In west Texas, that pasture may be thousands or even tens of thousands of acres. Elsewhere, most pastures are a thousand acres or less - usually much less. The cattle are only moved to feed lots for fattening shortly before they are to be slaughtered.
Places like Wyoming, that still have open range pretty much follow the same pattern. The calf is turned out to pasture with it's mother, and they wander wherever the hell they want in search of forage. Hay may or may not be brought to the cattle to supplement the scarce forage. But, some weeks prior to slaughter, they are moved to a feed lot, and fattened up.
Today, the feed comes to the cattle, rather than the cattle going to the feed.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @03:23PM
What little I know of cattle comes from central Florida where they run a lot of cow-calf operations.
The calves are raised in Florida until they're ready to handle a winter "up north" then sold and shipped up there to be grown large and slaughtered. Apparently this is somehow more efficient than worrying about summer-winter cycles and just birthing the calves where they are going to grow up.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @07:31PM
Did I read this right, you're claiming the feed is brought to the cattle in all cases even after specifying that it was only for the final fattening?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @07:28PM
As demonstrated, no single raindrop thinks it's responsible for the flood.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:21PM
Fertilizers are free, they come from a hole in Florida:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Lakeland,+FL/@27.7131291,-82.0575304,35307m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!3m4!1s0x88dd38b2df0f0007:0x29d1320fb8a2d508!8m2!3d28.0394654!4d-81.9498042 [google.com]
And, as for the B12 bacteria - how do you think the cows make it in the first place?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ElizabethGreene on Friday December 29 2017, @05:11PM (1 child)
This proposal's sustainability is based on the idea of using distiller's grains, the waste from alcohol production, to feed cattle instead of throwing it away. This is a good, tested, and proven idea. Distillers Grains are a good food for cattle. They are far better for feeding cattle than straight grain.
Building a business off of DG is problematic though. Breweries are primarily located in industrial areas. Cattle are raised in rural areas. The grain comes out of the still hot and wet* with a neutral pH, ideal conditions for bacteria and mold growth. This makes them spoil very quickly. Transporting them is a problem, and they don't store. The farmer has to pick them up every day and if the brewery shuts down for a day it's a huge problem for the farm. Cattle do not appreciate rapid changes to their diets.
* insert inappropriate joke here.
If a clever boffin were to invent a small, fast, and cheap device for drying these that allows DGs to be stored for a week or so that would be a game changer.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:24AM
Distillers DRIED grains are a common feed ingredient. Even found in some dry pet food. And Coors has a big malting operation here in the middle of nowhere, Montana, but handy to the adjacent railroad.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday December 29 2017, @04:07AM
You left out that they do not taste nearly as delicious. The only reason to even suggest this kind of nonsense is they hate cows [youtube.com].
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday December 29 2017, @04:14AM
I bet they'd be able to significantly rework land usage if they virtualized it [youtube.com].
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @04:19AM
Fuck off chic-fil-a, beef is what's for dinner.
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday December 29 2017, @04:42AM (2 children)
B12 is also found in shrooms
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Friday December 29 2017, @04:54AM
How many mushrooms do you need to eat every day to get that B12? [southmill.com] 200? [google.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @08:33AM
As takyon has noted, that is simply trace amounts.
You'd be full of fungus long before you had eaten enough to get the RDA.
...and, as TFS notes: PILLS.
Some dudes figured out how to make the stuff about half a century ago. [google.com]
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Entropy on Friday December 29 2017, @04:49AM (8 children)
I'm pretty sure this was written by a vegan that doesn't like tasty tasty beef.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @05:21AM (7 children)
Wait for research demonstrating genetic adaptation to certain diets to mature.
It ought to turn this whole vegan/vegetarian thing on its head if there's proof that it's something some people are able to do and others aren't.
I'm likely in the can't group, even if I wish I were in the can group. Every time I go without beef or chicken for about two weeks, my body begins having odd problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @06:02AM (4 children)
I tried giving up meat on a few occasions but it didn't go very well. Some of the "fake" versions of food (eg. chicken nuggets) were absolutely disgusting and left a putrid stench in the air (at least to my nostrils). Fake burgers I tried taste ok on the first bite but after that it's gross.
On the other hand, I did find a good home-made vegetarian burger recipe online which I have made twice so far. It's really spicy - if you like hot food you'll love this:
https://minimalistbaker.com/easy-grillable-veggie-burgers/ [minimalistbaker.com]
The trick really is finding the right recipes. The vegetarian shit they sell in the store has been a total miss for me. If anyone has suggestions, though, I'd be willing to try. (or any other good recipes)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @06:28AM
http://tastyislandhawaii.com/2013/03/15/costco-eats-morningstar-farms-chipotle-black-bean-veggie-burger/ [tastyislandhawaii.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @06:36AM
I will admit your linked recipe looks very cheap to make. White or brown rice is cheap, dried black beans are cheap, onions can be as low as $0.30/lb, and bread crumbs can substitute for the walnuts. Ketchup and spices can be added instead of BBQ sauce if none is available. Even the cheapest bulk ground beef probably can't beat this.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @02:39PM
Never tried grilling, but pan fried lentil burgers (with egg and bread crumbs for structure) hold up pretty well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday December 30 2017, @08:57AM
I just made some patties out of 2:2:1 red lentils, white rice, and bread crumbs. With BBQ and spices added. Cooked on stove. It was OK but I had no buns.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday December 29 2017, @08:29PM
Same thing happens to me. Despite the username (that's there as a callsign for my friends) I'm of entirely European stock, and going more than a few days with no meat does bad things to me. This may be because I don't eat eggs and only a little cheese for dairy, but it seems like my body just can't handle a vegan diet. Which is a shame because I'd really like to do it.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:26AM
Never mind what it does to MY body; if I can't get beef, I start eating leg of passerby...
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by arcz on Friday December 29 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)
Don't regulate and allow the market to take care of it. If food is really needed, people will buy the cheaper food. We have enough food, hence there is no market drive to reduce land usage.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:30PM
Allowing the market to "take care of it" will ensure that every possible externalization of costs will be exploited to the fullest. This includes things like toxic waste dumping on pasturelands (mostly due to use of toxic chemicals for pest removal from cattle), destruction and degradation of wildlands in the public trust, buildup of antibiotic resistance in the microbial pest population to make the meat grow faster and cheaper, feeding the human obesity epidemic with growth hormones passed through the meat, and on and on.
Regulation is. There is no truly free market, if there were people would be grazing cattle on your front lawn because: no rules, free grass, cheaper meat. Cow poop on your front porch? Too bad, unavoidable byproduct.
So, the question is: what regulations do we want - and how do we adjust the ones we have?
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday December 29 2017, @02:32PM
Or, to put another spin on it, we don't really have enough land - or so says the 6th mass extinction event. If that's a thing that you care about, then habitat restoration is one important piece to slow the extinctions.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday December 29 2017, @03:59PM (6 children)
I don't understand why we need to save pasturage. What is the purpose?
Honestly, so many of these proposals read like they were composed by people who have never, ever been to the places they're talking about and who are pushing some grand vision based on a theoretical fantasy that has no basis in reality.
First, the pasturage we're talking about is vast, open grassland. It's not the awesome beauty of the Sierra Nevadas or the Black Hills. It's the endless emptiness that you press down the accelerator to get through between the Black Hills of the world and the rolling green beauty and pocket lakes of Minnesota. You find yourself incredibly grateful to see a herd of cattle and their mobile feeder because it gives you something, dear God, anything to look at other than the soul-sucking nothing.
Second, pasturage is no barrier to wildlife. In fact, it's a boon. If these ivory tower vegan human-haters had ever even so much as driven through the country they're insisting must be voided of human activity, they'd a) be talking about getting rid of maybe 10 people per 100 miles driven, so it's pretty voided of human activity already, and b) the deer, antelope, and other animals thrive in the pasturage the cows are in. They're thick as fleas. And the bobcats and other predators that trail them have no problem following them there.
Third, there are no environmental impacts to herds of cattle vs herds of anything else. Any pudding-head Eastern Academic penning these kinds of proposals who believes that herds of millions of cattle walk any lighter on the land than the herds of millions of buffalo that preceded them have obviously never passed through the wake of the modest herds of the latter in the Badlands or Yellowstone.
So what is the upshot of reducing pasturage? Because we hate cattle? Because we hate humans? We hate meat consumption? Is it that we want to further economically oppress the ranchers in those areas because the fifteen year-old pickups they drive totally prove they're to blame for all that ails the country? Or is this as stupid and partisan as blue-country versus red country?
I am an environmentalist. I have been a member of the Sierra Club for 20 years. But this kind of thing, which keeps bobbing around the bowl of the public discourse like an unflushable turd, needs to go away.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by leftover on Friday December 29 2017, @05:44PM (1 child)
and me fresh out of mod points +++++ Insightful
Bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:28AM
No worries; I had spares.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday December 29 2017, @07:36PM (2 children)
You honestly think that a native species with an ecology adapated to it and vice versa has the same impact as a non-native species? And you are totally unaware of what the midwest and Montana was like before it was turned into endless farmland, that it was a huge grassland with complex ecosystems and we managed to turn it into a dust bowl so severe that Steinbeck wrote an amazing book about it?
And you're arguing that artificial pastureland doesn't have an impact. What's next, that salmon farming isn't ecologically devastating? That dolphins benefit to using nets to catch tuna?
Do you think the Anthropocene era is a valid thing?
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:46AM
Cattle and bison seem to be merely "breeds" (as we'd call such cosmetic differences in dogs) of the same species, rather than truly separate species; they freely interbreed, and most of today's wild bison carry some genes from domestic cattle. They're not really that different. Bison tend to "clearcut" a bit more, probably because they need to eat twice as much per head as a cow, and are therefore less picky.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Phoenix666 on Sunday December 31 2017, @04:35AM
Here again we have somebody arguing from theory rather than empirical fact, with a gloss of never-been-there-ism under an overlay of imperfectly remembered junior high history.
I am exactly aware of what Montana and the Midwest are like. It is not endless farmland. Iowa or Ohio or Illinois could maybe be described that way, but not the plains states of Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota, or North Dakota. Those states are more aptly called endless grassland, because that's what they were and what they still are. Montana has a western third that is made up of the Rocky Mountains, a middle third that is high tablelands and isolated mountain groups like the Judiths, and an eastern third that shades from the tablelands into the prairies of its eastern neighbors.
I can further tell you that the difference between the grassland where bison graze and where cattle graze is nothing. How can you tell? Walk from the National Bison Range near St. Ignatius in Montana across the fenceline outside the reserve and tell me those grasslands are totally different. Do the same from the grassland in Yellowstone where those bison range and outside the park in Garner. Do the same in the Badlands national park where there are bison, and then walk outside the park where they don't. You will see zero difference in the flora. Why? Because they're grasslands, and the seed from those species spread by substantial wind and the same birds that have always been there.
So, there's no "artificial pasturage" that you suppose, as though there are hordes of evil ranchers and their minions carefully eradicating all native grasses and species and curating Monsanto-designed franken fodder to feed their awful cattle. It's grassland. The same grassland it's always been. Only now, there are more cattle than bison grazing it. That, though, is beginning to roll back the other direction judging by the relative abundance of bison as a menu option across the western half of the country.
FYI, the dustbowl never hit Montana. That was centered around the panhandle of Oklahoma and the adjacent states. It was caused by drought and compounded by plowing techniques at the time. They plow differently now. In other words it had nothing to do with cattle or pasturage.
As for salmon farming or tuna fishing, I make no representation either way on those issues by here asserting that "reducing pasturage" is hogwash.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Reziac on Saturday December 30 2017, @02:40AM
"there are no environmental impacts to herds of cattle vs herds of anything else."
If anything, to simulate the most natural condition of these grasslands, the number of cattle needs to be roughly doubled, or maybe tripled: There are somewhere around 80 million head of range cattle in the U.S. today. They replaced, on the same grasslands, an estimated 120 million head of bison. One bison eats about as much as two domestic bovines (and domestic cattle are about 5% more efficient). Do the math.
Grasslands evolved to be grazed; if they aren't, they soon deteriorate into weeds and eventually erode down to badlands or desert. This happens far faster than today's cattle could be replaced with tomorrow's grazers. This is not croppable land regardless, primarily due to insufficient water. (Crops are much more profitable than livestock, so everyone already crops as much land as possible.)
Doubling our production of beef cattle would also double the availability of natural fertilizer; right now, tho nearly all stockyard manure is processed into commercial fertilizer, it only covers about half what we actually need for crops. The rest comes from an ugly process involving natural gas. Without this fertilizer, our crop production would drop to about 1/5th of current levels.
I've never heard the pro-vegewhack contingent explain how, absent meat, they plan to fertilize (let alone water) food crops, which would need to be considerably increased to feed the same number of people. Perhaps they plan instead to get rid of the people? If so, they should lead by example!
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday December 29 2017, @04:42PM
135 hectares ~= 334 acres [google.com], or about 1/2 square mile [google.com]. I had no idea France was so small!
Of course, in TFA the figure was 135 million hectares. But hey, what's a few orders of magnitude between friends?
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?