Climate Bolloxolgy.

I'd be far more in favour of insect protein than lab meat, I actually don't see anything repulsive about the idea. Lab meat on the other hand sounds completely repulsive and most likely bland as meat is flavoured by the diet of the animal it's taken from.

I'm fairly sceptical of all future super diets that claim to be superior in every way including nutritional value, cost and carbon footprint. These claims are usually preceded by they can be better and cheaper once scaled up, but there always seems to be a catch in that scaling up is not as easy or cheap currently, but definitely will eventually followed by a realization that scaling up has many of the same draw backs as current food production. But I guess we will see now pass the grasshoppers.

Everyone always blames the farmers, they are a scapegoat. I come from a dairy farm and I was watching a TV program the other day about the construction of a new airport in NY costing 8 billion! I told this to my dad and he gave a sarcastic laugh. He said I bet their emissions from the planes etc are given a blind eye!!! And its true. How can a few cows cause so much trouble yet you have jets, massive industries blowing smoke 24/7!! Its just crazy that farmers are the big bag guys that are destroying the environment.

Also you need to cut down trees and clear land for cattle. And they consume huge resources vs other options. See the Amazon right now.

Basically too many people consuming too much meat/dairy/... or switching to meat which consumes/destroys too much land and resources (land, air, soil, water). Farming is going mega farming/mega cheap round the world. It's not just a few cows in Ireland.

Didn't even mention climate change here.

And I'm a meat eater and think we should pay a lot more for the meat we eat, so long as it's produced with the environment and animal welfare in mind.

There are actually way less than there ever was it is a choice planes or Hunger in certain areas. Cows really aren't the problem if we cut the pet numbers on the planet by half even it. Would really help

Yes, we realize Ireland is vastly different, and cattle are not native but emissions are a global issue so it doesn't really matter where they are produced.

But globally how many should there be?

You'd be surprised if, is not really an answer though.

Given the relatively short history of America, we can see today's domestic cattle numbers are not vastly different to their previous wild populations. Europe would be harder to gauge but why would it be vastly different. Current cattle numbers in Europe are lower than US numbers and Europe and the US had similar wild species roaming around long before humans started hunting/farming them.

Also Ireland was not completely forest either our native grazing animals were deer some of which were very large and had antlers far too big to live in dense forests. These animals for all we know may have been preventing areas turning to forest as many grazing animals do until humans wiped them out.

Much of the Amazon is laid waste as it is over used for cropping firstly before beef cropping is what uses the most resources from soils it removes the most nutrients and releases the most carbon by a mile. Then you have all the other factors like the enormous amounts of water used to grow these crops irrigation the complete distruction of water aquifers.pesticides etc etc etc,but ya sure cows =bad ...... get a grip will ye

Lmfao!!

so your telling me we should all trust in these SMR’s even though there are no examples of this technology feeding commercial grids, yet you are giving out about renewables which is tried and tested as a grid connected power source and calling out anyone with the common sense to say renewables are a good idea!

You and others on here have some neck!

I’d imagine it’s much better to eat Irish meat that’s grown relatively locally, compared to mass produced Brazilian beef that has to be shipped and trucked here, with huge swathes of the Amazon cut down to make space for the cattle.

Not to mention the animal welfare issues.

Yeah agreed. If we are going to eat meat eat local meat and pay a decent price for it, but make sure a high percentage of it goes to the farmer as opposed to Larry and his offal plant and the Tesco’s of this world.

Im not a farmer by the way.

Similar to the Auroch project in Europe.

Some interesting stuff on a related issue

https://www.independent.co.uk/climate-change/news/wildfires-grasslands-mammoth-bison-horses-b1964404.html?fbclid=IwAR1cnox2QFVwQ0nsqrSzk9E5mCkKQBUYZ-xY7C0195dAQJ2oi31zpV4xtgQ

Hi. It's not a case of one over the other. Fracking absolutely needs to be reduced (and ideally eliminated altogether) as well.

The word whataboutery should be banned from this thread, as largely it makes no sense, the original topic raised is about how different sectors carbon emissions are accounted and an unfair loading placed on agriculture. Simply saying it is whataboutary seems like lazy counter argument that is thrown around all too often. Ironic that its constant over use has become a deflection from the debate.

Get rid of cows and farm kangaroos. Leaner meat and less methane.