Labeling Beef ‘Low Carbon’ Could Open Premium Market for Wyoming Ranchers

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2023/09/07/labeling-beef-low-carbon-could-open-premium-market-for-wyoming-ranchers/

by LinuxBender • 3 years ago

18 39 3 years ago

olix0r• 3 years ago

While the EPA reports the cattle industry in the United States accounts for 2.4% of total greenhouse gas emissions, some consumers are convinced that beef production is a major cause of climate change.

This seems to imply that cutting 2.4% of total greenhouse emissions wouldn’t have an impact on climate change. Motivated reasoning.

prasadjoglekar• 3 years ago

It wouldn't. Just like manufacturing moving out of the US didn't reduce smoke - it just moved it to China, these cattle will just be raised elsewhere. Except, now a few hundred thousand folks in the US are out of a job.

taway1237• 3 years ago

Yeah, it reads backwards. 2.4% of total greenhouse emissions just for one kind of food item sounds huge.

delecti• 3 years ago

And just one kind of food from a single country which is only 4.2% of the world's population. That makes beef more than 50% of our "fair share" of emissions.

uoaei• 3 years ago

Yeah this is a tricky ploy to use language in bad faith.

Literally nothing is a "major" cause of climate change. There's so many things contributing to climate change that any one contributor can be made to look small.

The fact that the cattle industry in one country alone contributes to more than 1% of all greenhouse gas emissions is pretty insane in the context of the entire world.

vlovich1232• 3 years ago

2% of emissions within the US, not globally.

goethes_kind• 3 years ago

Every industry is trying to claim that every other industry is THE worrying source of GHG emissions. And every individual points out at the activities of others as being more polluting.

It is all a bit self-serving.

hn83058232• 3 years ago

2.4% by weight or 2.4% of total global warming potential? Methane has a GWP of 30 (CO2=1).

and if the rancher uses any anti-methane feed additives

If this effort reduces methane emissions in any meaningful way then it's useful.

polski-g3• 3 years ago

Are there computations for calories-produced per GWP?

How does beef fare compared to something like turkey?

appleiigs• 3 years ago

If you switch to veggies, the 2.4% doesn't go to zero. Veggies have impact too. I think it was 30% reduction (overall, not just certain emissions)? Someone more informed can us know.

tengbretson• 3 years ago

Isn't it wild that the only meat-producing industry that hasn't been completely vertically monopolized by the likes of Tyson or Smithfield gets 100% of the online wrath for its greenhouse gas emissions?

houseinthesky• 3 years ago

1) The beef industry has monopolistic, anti-competitive cartel behavior similar to the chicken industry. https://www.reuters.com/business/how-four-big-companies-cont...

2) Raising cattle has drastically higher emissions of greenhouse gasses than other animals. For instance, looking at the chart here: https://ourworldindata.org/carbon-footprint-food-methane beef is 5x to 10x the emissions of chicken.

By my estimate, the online commentary about beef's contributions to the climate crisis feels pretty correctly proportional to their level of emissions.

jonny_eh• 3 years ago

I wonder what bias the "Cowboy State Daily" has.

gustavus• 3 years ago

The "meat" of the article

A USDA certification program for producers who demonstrate a 10% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions from their cattle below an industry baseline will earn them a certification that allows them to market their beef as low-carbon.

polski-g3• 3 years ago

I feel like the beef industry should have started selectively breeding based on gas emissions like 20 years ago. The people want less farty cows, so go engineer them!

jononomo7• 3 years ago

What about human farts? Don't humans out number cows? And don't humans fart daily?

Shouldn't we instead focus on a diet that prevents humans from farting?

(Incidentally, I ate no calories from any plant-based source during all of 2021, and an interesting side effect that I noticed (other than spectacular overall health) was that I completely stopped farting. Others who have tried the all-meat diet have also commented on the fact that humans don't fart on an all-meat diet.)

triceratops• 3 years ago

Is this like "clean coal"?

fuzzbazz• 3 years ago

Better, clean natural gas. If they were to capture the methane emitted AND use it to generate renewable electricity it should count twice towards reducing emissions.

coffeeshopgoth• 3 years ago

Interesting idea to jack up beef prices even more... So, having worked with a few ranchers out in Wyoming on the oil and gas side, I can tell you that in some cases the cattle have access to free water, but it ain't that good water you and I can drink. Produced water from oil and gas wells, depending on cleanliness at the well head, can be "land applied" and that is what some ranchers use. This water is a health hazard for us, but is supposedly fit for cattle. That water still evolves entrained gas and has some sort of rough minerals/chemicals for the body in it. I wonder if this is all getting captured by their calculations.

jononomo7• 3 years ago

I agree with you that it would be better for cattle to simply never be born and to never live on Earth, than for them to have access to water of questionable quality.

This is in alignment with the perspective of the plant-based diet community, which holds that animals should not be born because then they might die.

jandrewrogers• 3 years ago

This is just inventing a differentiated market labeling for ranched beef from the western US based on existing practice. It is a market positioning ploy for widely sold products that will have negligible impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

jononomo7• 3 years ago

Honestly, if everyone just ate only red meat then the greenhouse gas emissions from the healthcare industry (which dwarf those of the beef industry) would fall by 80%.

This idea that RED MEAT IS BAD is one of the worst ideas to have ever taken hold in the mind of a society. This anti-meat perspective/attitude is just poisonous.

spdif899• 3 years ago

Quite the claim without a source - you're implying that almost the entirety of American healthcare costs are due to people eating vegetables, chicken, pork, fish?

jononomo7• 3 years ago

No, I'm okay with people eating eggs, chicken, fish, and any other animal-based food.

Almost the entirety of the American healthcare costs are due to people eating ultra-processed food, which are rooted in grains and seed oils and sugar.

Just cut out every plant-based calorie from your diet and THRIVE.

Vegetables are not as bad as sugar, grain, and seed oils, but they're just full of fiber and anti-nutrients, so they're not beneficial to human health. Red meat also has more vitamins and micro-nutrients that vegetables, whose vitamins are in any case often not bioavailable.

It is honestly almost impossible to put the beneficial effects of the carnivore diet into words -- it would sound miraculous.

Just try it and see for yourself. (And note that it is the diet we evolved on).

28304283409234• 3 years ago

Yes. Let’s trick Mother Nature. I’m sure we’ll be fine.

ForgottenPwd• 3 years ago

That's some mighty fine green-washing going on there, as well as creating the illusion of a "premium" product for which they can justify a higher price.

The self-reported "low carbon" certification doesn't seem to include the GHG produced by growing and transporting the feed to the cattle, the cattle to the abattoir, running the factory, distributing the beef, though, does it? I could not find those numbers anywhere.

It also elides the other issues with beef, such as water and land-use. A kcal of beef is going to cost hundreds more gallons of water to produce than a kcal of vegetables. What about nitrogen run-off into ground water from feed lots?

civilitty• 3 years ago

I don't know why the article doesn't mention it but most of the product is already premium: it's grass fed (and often grass finished) beef. It's low carbon because the ranchers don't need to buy them much food, but it's not a sustainable alternative for most of the country.

The ranch I buy my annual half-cow from runs a sister ranch in Wyoming and they claim a 2:1 ratio of energy input to output in kcal simply because the cows roam. It's almost $5,000 for an XL whole cow though (compared to $2,000-3,000 elsewhere), so it's definitely an upmarket product.

The GHG cost post slaughter depends too much on customer specifics though. Shipping half a cow to a single customer California is a lot worse than shipping 10 tons of beef to a supermarket or a large group of buyers.

stuaxo• 3 years ago

I have heard some bollocks but this...

Labeling Beef ‘Low Carbon’ Could Open Premium Market for Wyoming Ranchers

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