The environment- preserving the worlds wonders.

[Houdini Logic]

34 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Would be happy to!

 

From what I can tell from these two sources which are from the same website but use different primary sources:

 

https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions

 

https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector

 

Agriculture of all types seems to account for somewhere between one-quarter and one-fifth of all carbon emissions by source. This is dated for the last couple of years.

 

As you can see, animal and other agriculture has its place as a carbon emitter, but by far the bigger player is industry and in particular energy generation (which actually takes up over two-thirds of total emissions). That is the biggest elephant in the room, at industrial, residential and transportational levels, that needs to be addressed first. Of course, it's perfectly possible to have a try as addressing both at the same time.

 

I certainly agree that knowing the cause is most important before taking action, but I think the data is reasonably conclusive there from what I have seen and as such what is left is just the action required.

 

If you've got any further questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

 

 

These reports only consider carbon emmisions and I understand (again, I'm confused various information and I could be wrong) that methane is 100 times more destructive for the environment and global warning. So while things like animal agriculture make up 20% of global carbon emissions, their effect is really destructive.

 

I'm not trying to be a pedant - my point was a genuine one earlier, I don't feel confident in any of the data or organisations providing information. 

 

I'm not sure whether to walk to work, give up meat, plant some trees or just make sure I recycle my plastic. Or whether all of the above is completely missing the point anyway

[leicsmac]

4 minutes ago, Houdini Logic said:

These reports only consider carbon emmisions and I understand (again, I'm confused various information and I could be wrong) that methane is 100 times more destructive for the environment and global warning. So while things like animal agriculture make up 20% of global carbon emissions, their effect is really destructive.

 

I'm not trying to be a pedant - my point was a genuine one earlier, I don't feel confident in any of the data or organisations providing information. 

 

I'm not sure whether to walk to work, give up meat, plant some trees or just make sure I recycle my plastic. Or whether all of the above is completely missing the point anyway

Don't worry, even if you were being a pedant it wouldn't matter - the detail of such matters is very important.

 

Over a 20-year period, methane is indeed as potent - or close, a brief literature check says 84 times as potent as CO2 - as you believe. However, it has a shorter "life" than carbon dioxide and thus may not be as responsible for as many long term effects. I would therefore conclude that animal agriculture still isn't as big a total contributor to climate change as energy generation can be - certainly wouldn't be sure enough to craft policy based on it.

 

May I ask why you don't feel confident in the data itself? It has been peer-reviewed and if you look at that only as opposed to various news sources who might put their own spin on it, you can still draw conclusions without thinking that there are vested interests involved. I don't quite understand the mistrust of scientific as opposed to political organisations.

 

At a personal level, doing any one of the above things might help in a small way, but to be honest the best way any and all of us can help is by lobbying for and electing governments that will change our energy dependencies away from fossil fuels, and moving towards technological advancements that produce food with less emissions per meal. Yes, all of us doing a little bit can help a lot, but at the end of the day this issue is so vast any really meaningful change has to come from the very top.