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Originally Posted by wolfgang  So clear cutting for cows (no re-forestation) is the same as having a growing population to feed? The comparision is between land use for not eating cows versus eating cows. You can't throw population in to that comparison because if eating cows uses more land than not eating cows, more people would still mean less land to not eat cows.
Free range cows? How to change that industry at this point - they are after yield. If free range cows would be more efficient, why hasn't the industry gone that way? LEAD digital library: Livestock’s long shadow - Environmental issues and options
Not eating cows will slow deforestation by a lot.
That is not the question. The question is: would not eating cows be far less impact than eating them? And maybe be managable.
This is even better: Spirulina's Environmental Advantages |
1. I acknowledge that plants are more efficient in producing food than animals. Becoming a vegetarian may slow deforestation, but it will not end it because you are still going to have to grow crops to feed yourself on the land. And you have to take into account that my original argument centered around the fact that fossil fuels are causing global warming and not omnivores. Deforestation accounts for 20% of our current C02 output, so stopping deforestation is not going to end the big problem.
2. You say that if grass raised cattle are so efficient than why hasn't the market gone that way? You answered you're own question earlier. They are after yield. They want to get the most pounds in the fastest way possible. Grass finishing takes a longer amount of time, but is more efficient if you look at the big picture. Cattle have a digestive system that is made to digest cellulosic plants. Humans can not. I could use the same question against the vegetarian movement. If it's so much more efficient than eating meat, then why hasn't the global market gone that way?
3&4. Actually, the question we were talking about first was whether or not fossil fuels or deforestation caused global warming. The facts are that deforestation accounts for 20% of greenhouse gas emission. (
Tropical Deforestation and Global Warming) I am not saying that deforestation is not a problem. My problem is that people seem to think that it is "the" problem and that if we eliminate meat from our diet we will somehow eliminate global warming. Becoming vegetarian will help ease the problem of deforestation to an extent, but it will not eliminate it and it will have a minimal impact in solving the overall problem of global warming. People seem more willing to blame global warming on a problem happening in countries half a world away and saying that they are easily solved if we simply change our diets. They don't want to put the blame where it belongs, on our extensive use of energy in the form of fossil fuels. If we don't reduce emissions but say that all our problems will be solved by stopping deforestation, global warming will continue to happen at a rate even faster than before. Developed countries are addicted to energy, and using less and less of it and eventually finding sources that don't increase the net carbon dioxide content of the air is the answer to the problem of global warming, not stopping deforestation.