Big Meat Don't Like It: EAT-Lancet Diet For Climate Crisis

266 - Copy-800x600 essay EAT.jpg

Most of us are aware of the recent reports that have been piling up, and agree that we have reached the boundaries of life on earth.

There is a climate crisis, and change must happen or we reap the consequences which already will be daunting based on what we have done to date.

How to EAT our way to healthy bodies and healthy planet

A much anticipated scientific report from EAT-Lancet was released yesterday:

The first of 30+ a number of regional EAT-Lance Launches was streamed from Oslo today after three years of anticipation, a work involving some of the best medical and sustainability thinkers on the planet. Their conclusion: we can eat our way to a healthier live for the coming population of 10 billion, and contribute to solving the climate crisis to boot.

EAT_lancet_locations_launch_all_cities-02-1360x845.png Launch Sites (Credit: https://eatforum.org/event/eat-lancet-launch-events/)

jb and I just happened to be sitting down to lunch, and still I am amazed at the timing that we were able to catch the livestream of this event.

The EAT-Lancet Commission on Food, Planet, Health brings together more than 30 world-leading scientists from across the globe to reach a scientific consensus that defines a healthy and sustainable diet.
The Commission is delivering the first full scientific review of what constitutes a healthy diet from a sustainable food system, and which actions can support and speed up food system transformation.

Big Meat Don't Like It

This is not a vegan diet, nor is it vegetarian. But asking for a restructuring of big ag and reduction of meat intake got Big Meat all in an uproar.

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divineorder's picture

Heh.

The report is upbeat, and worth having a look at imo.

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Anja Geitz's picture

Lots to "digest" here (forgive the pun). On my way to work . Will read more in detail later. This place is always a great resource for info.

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

divineorder's picture

@Anja Geitz The report itself is science, published in a medical journal. Not sure I will ever get through it.

However, the EAT-Lancet website info is state of the art communication and very easy to digest.

Hopefully the EAT-Lancet Launch livestream will be published as a video on youtube. Worth watching for the overview of the report by the scientists, segment where the journal editor has them answer questions that have been raised in criticism, good intro by the Oslo Mayor, but also it provides an @ssripping speech by the 14 year old girl providing motivation for us to get busy and make it happen.

#

#

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Raggedy Ann's picture

That was six years ago. I found it difficult. I think it's easier now. More restaurants and food choices in grocery stores. Instead, I became vegetarian. I do stay as far away from dairy as possible, though. Dairy is just bad for us, much less the environment.

My husband was having difficulty keeping on weight, so we went back to meat. He eats meat almost every meal. I eat meat about three times a week - mostly chicken. It's very hard to change when we live in a meat-centric society. Look at the commercials - their all about meat. You can't get away from it.

I do, however, think it is getting easier and I'm happy about it. I may go back to being a non-meat eater someday - who knows!

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

divineorder's picture

@Raggedy Ann a couple of years ago but it was not for us. We do make vegan meals occasionally.

We have never been 100 vegetarian, but did go through a period of about 20 years where we did not buy meat, fish, or poultry for the home. Save a lot of money that way. When we were teaching we ate meat or whatever they were dishing up at the school cafeteria, and on rare occasion when we went out to eat we would eat whatever suited our fancy. These days we are flexitarian, and think we could easily adapt to the diet advocated by EAT-Lancet.

From what I have gleaned so far they make a strong, science based case that is something we can do to help solve the climate crisis. We will see what humanity can create. The stakes are high....

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@divineorder
has been intermittent fasting. I'm a new woman because of it. I'm encouraging my co-workers who want to lose weight. I tell them I can guarantee they will lose weight if they follow intermittent fasting and cutting carbs. It's worked for me!

PS - thanks OPOL!

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

@Raggedy Ann I made a comment in response to your post and did not link it to your comment. Not real good at this game.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

Raggedy Ann's picture

@jakkalbessie
It’s now a way of life for me.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Deja's picture

@Raggedy Ann
How long is a fast? I eat a bit whenever I get hungry, and get irritable when I go too long without at least some nuts or cheese (the thought of never eating cheese again, actually makes me sad). If it's "lunchtime", I'll eat a bit to be social, and save the rest for later. The thought of doing without food or flavor or my black coffee for days on end is, frankly terrifying. Hard to imagine myself doing it.

So, how long do you fast, and what do you allow yourself?

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@Deja
I do all my eating in an eight hour period, which I adjust according to my schedule. What I have found is that if I eat between 10AM-6PM, I'm pretty good. However, if spouse and I are going out to dinner (a rare occasion), I will switch to 11-7 or some variation. I have also cut back on the amount of carbs I eat. I was eating way too much bread, pasta, rice, so I've cut that way back.

As long as you consume under 50 calories during the fast, you are fasting. So, I drink tea that I put a bit of stevia and plant milk in to stave off the hunger pangs. It works for me. I have been doing this since 10/10, and have lost 20 pounds. My weight is settling into a nice comfortable area where my clothes all fit and I don't have to replace them - bigger or smaller.

I had gained 30 pounds in 4.5 years sitting at my desk. It had to go. I was put on high blood pressure medication, which I'd like to get off. I feel so much better - more energy, sleeping better, etc. - I have decided it is a way of life for me now.

It works with my spouse, too. He is actually a natural intermittent faster, as he thinks taking time to eat is a waste except he needs food to live. I wish I was that way, but I'm a foodie, so this works better for me.
Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

Deja's picture

@Raggedy Ann
That's sounds a lot more doable than days and days without anything but water. Congrats on the weight drop too. Not too drastic in a short amount of time, but a little at a time, over several months. Very good!

I am now sitting at a desk for work, and have noticed the mid-section bulge that was not there, ever, except for pregnancy/post pregnancy, except breastfeeding is not an option now lol. I'm not like your husband. Some people "forget" to eat. That is soooo not me. As a matter of fact, I will not be able to focus on anything BUT eating if my stomach starts growling, and if left too long, my attitude becomes quite bitchy.

Sounds like this is something I could do. Nothing terribly drastic, like some crazy liquid diet or keto. I swear, the combination of shocking my body by trying the keto diet for about a month, then some super stressful days at work brought on shingles last year. Can't prove it, but they say stress causes it to pay a visit. And it visited twice with only a few weeks in between -- the only kind of lottery I ever win -- chicken pox 2x & shingles 2x.

Cutting back on carbs (loves me some potatoes and mac & cheese), and timing my eating, sounds perfectly doable and not a shock to my system.

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Raggedy Ann's picture

@Deja
five years ago. Definitely stress related.

Sitting at a desk is a killer!

Good luck with this. Let me know if I can help as you journey down this road.

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

EdMass's picture

Totally going for the Lobster, Shrimp, Clam, Squid, Mussel, homemade bread and salad diet!

I can live on Cioppino. With a fresh Oyster or Escargot appetizer.

Cioppino

At last I have permission!

Yes

Wink

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Prof: Nancy! I’m going to Greece!
Nancy: And swim the English Channel?
Prof: No. No. To ancient Greece where burning Sapho stood beside the wine dark sea. Wa de do da! Nancy, I’ve invented a time machine!

Firesign Theater

Stop the War!

divineorder's picture

@EdMass @EdMass I have a love of seafood but feel guilty every time I buy it knowing it is disappearing so very damn quickly. We have so many options here in North American but in some places we have traveled to we have seen how some people depend mainly on the sea. We should leave those folks a little it seems to me.

Have to click on the tweet below to see the whole page of science based guidelines . Cuts off the nuts, but can follow the link to see it on the website.

Have to click on it to see the whole page of science based guidelines .

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Deja's picture

@divineorder
No thanks, but thanks for the suggestion.

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magiamma's picture

what is the picture of at the top of your essay - a canoe with fish?

I feel so sorry for the big meat industry. money money money

looks somewhat like the diet from the book a diet for a small planet. Beckwith says food production will depend on how hot it gets in the middle of the country and how the weather patterns/the jet stream change(s). Hansen and Lovelock look to seaweed as a staple for the future. I did not read the whole thing so maybe that is mentioned.

I thought this chart of their Predicted change in food production from 2010 to 2050 was interesting.

Food chart.jpg

the pdf of the report is here

number 5 on their strategy list - how do they plan to implement? I notice that there will be a launch event at the Napa Valley Culinary Institute of America, where many of the great chefs are trained.

The scientific targets set out by this Commission provide guidance for the necessary shift, recommending increased consumption of plant-based foods – including fruits, vegeta- bles, nuts, seeds and whole grains – while in many settings substantially limiting ani- mal source foods. This concerted commitment can be achieved by making healthy foods more available, accessible and affordable in place of unhealthier alternatives, improving information and food marketing, investing in public health information and sustainability education, implementing food-based dietary guidelines, and using health care services to deliver dietary advice and interventions.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

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divineorder's picture

@Raggedy Ann @magiamma winners and losers economically, as the scientists discuss. Wish you would take this on in one of your morning OT's and give it the treatment it deserves.

jb just walked over to the bookshelf and pulled off our old copy of Diet For A Small Planet , and sure enough it does include meat and fish. It too was wrongly slammed by industry for emphasized veggies but I think it really helped us to the health jb and I have enjoyed most of our lives.

Important thing to remember is that this work takes into account the reality what people are eating on the planet today. For example I noticed that palm oil is shown in one of the graphics by AFP media present, and after seeing palm oil plantations supplanting critical habitat in Costa Rica I surely will take a pass on that. Still, I will consider these guidelines in making food choices going forward.

Its all about choices.

##
RE:

what is the picture of at the top of your essay - a canoe with fish?

Yes it is. My thought when I grabbed that from my Slovenia file is as a pattern interrupt on how we are going to need to be creative with agriculture methods in the future. And no, I don't eat goldfish. Smile

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magiamma's picture

@divineorder
belly laugh. lots of stuff out there now. big article in the nyt which will get lots of eyeballs. I want to find out more about seaweed as it absorbs mucho co2 and it can supposedly provide food for more people than agribusiness. don' quote me as I am not sure. and it won't be affected by the weather changing which is inevitable.

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I’m with you on that. When we are in Santa Fe and have a 9am exercise class, it is easy to fast because it is hard to exercise after a meal for me. Do the same on the 9:45 yoga class as well and it seems to help the weight gain.

Back here in Texas and have not done so well. ): Hopefully once in Costa Rica will be doing early morning birding and hiking and should be able to fast then. Fortunately for me, salad and veggies are my favorites and so filling my plate with fruits and veggies is no problem.

Would love to see more positive acceptance of the fact we must change our way of life. The young girl that spoke at the end was incredible in her presentation.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

dance you monster's picture

The pushback from corporate boardrooms will be outrageous (you're threatening their incomes).

Check out the graphs in the Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jan/16/new-plant-focused-di...

That's some serious dietary change. But it looks worse than it really is. Much of it (most of it, practically speaking) will be a matter of education, and the millennials and post-millennials on the whole are primed to accept this. So that's some good news. The gov't will be bypassed as it balks.

More personally, it seems my son was on the right track when we decided our farm should specialize in fruits and nuts (and we're not alone in this focus) and forest foods. People are so used to what the supermarket offers, stuff waxed and shipped from thousands of miles away, that they don't know yet how delicious a fresh fruit, and one they've never encountered before in a fresh state, can be. Once they begin to experience that local produce, the right fruit in the right place, their diets will be easier to change.

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divineorder's picture

@dance you monster to prepare. Running down through a search on Twitter or Google News can see that they are more than ready to oppose this, and probably have already spent millions prepping their Congressslaves on what to say in the coming days.

With you on the millennials as being much more likely to grab this and run with it than others.

FWIW our dietary desires are in the main like your son's, except the month we spend in our tent in Zambia, where a variety of fruits and nuts is not as easy as it is elsewhere. The 6-7 weeks we spend in Costa Rica each year the EAT-Lancet diet is very easy indeed.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

but the Earth cannot support 10 billion people, and claiming that it can is the most ultimately evil thing I've ever heard.
Sure, this diet would make 2 billion people much healthier and Earth much more livable, but turning the whole planet into nothing but houses and farms so that we can have as many children as we want (as if we would stop at 10 billion) is selfishness taken to an extreme imagined only by the most insane.

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On to Biden since 1973

divineorder's picture

@doh1304 that is the number we are on track to reach. So their charge was to put the pencil to it and come up with a plan.

Surely these scientists realize the horrors ahead, but are using this as a 'teachable' moment to arouse debate and take steps to deal with the future, promote resilience and action. Sounds good to me. Look at the population density in China, Japan and India. Not places I would want to live.

Back in the 80's people at Cornell were righting about the need for the colonization of space. Who knows what will happen. I sure as hell don't.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.

@divineorder
It is not the scientists who are evil, it is the assumption that unlimited reproduction is tolerable that is evil. The possibility of feeding 10 billion people should be as unthinkable as considering the possibility of surviving a nuclear war. Just because something is theoretically possible... consider the consequences of allowing people to believe that they can get away with something like that.

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On to Biden since 1973

@divineorder
we are never going to pick up 10 billion people and put them in space, anymore than we were ever going to "repatriate" african americans to Liberia, and therefore space colonization does not solve the actual problem, which is not, "How and where will the human genome be able to continue replicating itself," but, "What can we do to prevent a holocaust of unimaginable scope and scale, involving the reduction to utter misery (in the best case) or corpse (in the worst case) 10 billion human lives?"

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

mhagle's picture

I am about to watch some youtube videos on the subject.

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Marilyn

"Make dirt, not war." eyo

the less wasteful of limited resources it is likely to be. An animals body is not a very efficient reservoir of food energy, having taken many times more pounds of food and water for each pound of meat that reaches the table. Locally grown foods will also conserve significant transportation energy resources. Smart eating is not just about making healthy choices it is also about making the best use of dwindling resources.

Food is such an emotion laden subject for most people that it is very difficult for people to take direction when it comes to a prescribed diet. Better I think that we make an effort to eat with more consciousness of larger consequences of our dietary choices and let that increased awareness move us in the right direction.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

divineorder's picture

@ovals49 We don't have much time.

The EAT argues for cutting back on meat. It's a start in a planet fast aporoaching boundaries of life support imo.

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@divineorder

but I don’t have anything like a “plan” to avert the catastrophe part of our collective future. That’s already baked in to the equation.

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Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all."
- John Maynard Keynes

@divineorder

It is a stupid theory because it fails to recognize the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals. They need each other to survive and thrive.

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@ovals49 This diet is based on animal/plant nonsense.

What is not taken into account with these ideas is the symbiotic relationship between plants and animals. Our problem now is there are not enough animals since we have reduced the population of animals by about 50% in the last 50 or 60 years. And has been shown by Savory and others, taking animals off the land is very bad for grasslands which are the worlds croplands. Grass lands need the manure and urine of migrating animals and since all the great migrating herds of animals are nearly gone, the best approach is to simulate these migrating herds with high density short duration grazing of livestock because trials have repeatedly shown that this technique works to regenerate soil and grasslands.

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Plants can't live without animals.

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Hawkfish's picture

@davidgmillsatty

His findings have been debunked so many times I’ve lost count. The fact that he gave a TED talk is a fine example of how TED has become a money making operation untethered from physical reality.

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We can’t save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed.
- Greta Thunberg

The dubunkers, like 911 Truth debunkers, are full of shit. Here are three cowboys who utilize the technique and have proven clearly on their farms, it works. It actually works so well we are undergoing a quiet revolution in how we graze animals.

https://soilcarboncowboys.com/

And let Allen Williams, PhD educate you on the revolution taking place and how we are about to reach critical mass in terms of flipping to it from conventional grazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDuwmnME0T0

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@davidgmillsatty
"9/11 Truth debunkers", you're going to have problems making your case, since the vast majority of 9/11 truth debunking is spot on and unassailable. that's a straightforward reality, notwithstanding the views of a substantial fraction of this site's readers and contributors.

however, since i'm completely unfamiliar with anything this guy has to say, i'll limit my question to one simple bit of mathematics: show me the equation that demonstrates that our "grasslands" can, under any conditions outside of massive petrochemical inputs and unsustainable irrigation, sustainably produce enough plant calories to produce enough meat calories to feed a population of 10 billion.

i'm not saying it can't be done. i have no idea what the numbers look like. i doubt it can be done, but i'm happy to be persuaded otherwise.

however, lacking such an equation, nothing else matters in the debate over whether this guy is a kook. if the physics and the chemistry cannot accommodate the ultimate objective, it hardly matters which is the best way of failing to accomplish the goal.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd

Nobody has ever debunked the work of Jones and Harrit proving nanothermite in the in the WTC dust. Those who claim to have done it, intentionally avoided perfectly replicating Jones and Harrtit's scientific experiments, aka, they violated the scientific method.

It would be a very simple experiment to perfectly replicate what Jones and Harrit did, since there will be tons of available dust in the soil strata to examine for years and years.

When scientific studies are not scrupulously replicated by those who are challenging the work, they engage in scientific fraud.

But it is not even necessary to use Jones and Harrit's work to debunk the government's version of 911.

The USGS found iron microspheres in the dust right after 911, long before Jones and Harrit did their work. Jones referred to these microspheres the USGS found (the USGS had published their iron microsphere findings without explanation) in Jones' first paper on thermite. Iron microspheres occur only when iron gets hot enough to melt, which disproves the government's theory that there were never temperatures hot enough to melt iron or steel.

Anyone who does not give credibility to the work of Jones and Harrit might as well quit going to a doctor. Jones and Harrit used essentially the same methods of proving what was in the dust as medical laboratories do in finding out what is in your blood, urine and feces. It is basic chemistry.

And by the way, "Sigh" is a very derogatory comment from someone who obviously bought the governement's version of 911 and who has never looked into the matter on his own. Sigh is not an argument.

As a progressive, I get so disgusted with my fellow progressives, who either have no natural skepticism or who are just sheeple and believe every PC version of whatever they have been told. Cognitive dissonance is a real problem in the US for both left and right.

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@davidgmillsatty
First, "Sigh" is my account signature. It appears at the end of every comment I write. It doesn't refer to any specific thing I might be responding to, it refers to my general sense of despair.

Second, as I made clear, I'm not the least bit interested in your bizarre attempt to make some epistemological connection between 9/11 Truth Debunking, and whatever debunking has been aimed at the work of this guy you've brought to our attention. The only thing I'm immediately interested in is the one thing I said I was interested in, which has to do with what you're actually talking about: Do the numbers add up, as far as trying to extract enough meat calories from our grasslands? I made clear why that's my first question because if they don't, it doesn't matter whether the high-intensity short-term grazing technique is better than the current most-common practice, because there still won't be enough food for 10,000,000,000 people. Astonishingly, even though this -- not 9/11 -- is the actual subject of your original comment, you couldn't even bother to address my question, which, BTW, is sincere.

Everything else you wrote regarding 9/11, thermite and me is trite nonsense. I don't give a fuck about what the "official" government explanation is, I've read extensively on the subject, I'm probably smarter than you, I probably have a more extensive education background across the physical and biological sciences than you, and most finally, I quite carefully wrote that "the vast majority" of 9/11 Truth debunking is spot-on and unassailable -- which it is. Actually, most 9/11 Truth debunking isn't even hard to do, because most 9/11 Truth claims are a trivially dismissable blend of poorly-informed speculation, arguments from bogus authority, and incredulous "what else can explain blah blah?" challenges, as if the writer's lack of imagination constitutes some sort of proof of non-existence.

But that has nothing to do with grazing techniques, which is why you'd have done better not to mention it at all.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd

Sorry, I meant to reply to your comment but got derailed with your claims of debunking. I don't know how we would know the answer to your question ahead of time. As the Soil Carbon Cowboy video clearly demonstrates, these ranchers had results that would never have been predicted because it had been assumed for years that replacing lost soil would take decades not ten years or less. In the video featuring Allen Williams he is asked that question about the US grasslands feeding our residents and his answer was that we had ample land to do it using high density - short duration grazing. I don't recall the numbers but he clearly knew the answer when asked. But that doesn't answer the question regarding the entire world and 1o billion people.

But you also bring up another pet peeve of mine and that is the science of "prediction." We have not been particularly stellar at it. And for me the reason is obvious and smacks of hubris. There are just too many variables and we have no way of predicting what kinds of new discoveries or inventions will occur. It's a fools errand most of the time. It is alarming for example how poorly pharmaceuticals have anywhere near the efficacy they were predicted to have before being brought to market. And predicting whether a drug is going to be efficacious has far fewer variables than things like the ability to feed all of humanity thirty years from now or what the temperature of the planet will be in 2100.

Nothing makes my point better than the article by John Ioannidis titled "Why Most Published Research Findings Are False." https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/

For the most part, statistics have failed us when it comes to accuracy in prediction.

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@davidgmillsatty
Several months before his famous "Most Published Research Findings ..." paper, he published a fairly important paper addressing the problem of replicability of microarray rna expression experiments. He followed it up in 2009 with a paper discussing the difficulty of replicating several such experiments that had been published in 2005 and 2006. As it happens, analysis of RNA expression data is a big part of my job for the last 10 years ...

Anyway, his work is important -- I'm always freaking people out by sending them links to his results -- but it doesn't invalidate any and all science. I would have thought that soil scientists have some sort of reasonable estimate of the maximum possible vegetative production of an acre of high-quality soil under various conditions of sunshine and rain, and that livestock scientists have a pretty clear idea of how much meat various "mixes" of graze can produce. We certainly have a pretty solid idea of what these numbers are for soil under traditional "intensive" agricultural practices, pumping out soybeans and field corn to feed to hogs and steers.

The basic question is simply, "How many cattle/bison/whatever will a thousand acres of grassland under high-intensity short-term unirrigated grazing support from birth to maturity?" I did a bit of googling and it looks like grass-fed steers are typically slaughtered much later than feed-lot steers -- 3 years old versus 12-18 months -- so that's something to consider. The "unirrigated" part is pretty important, because we simply aren't going to be able to irrigate large swaths of the great plains, once the oglala aquifer runs dry.

BTW, we seem to be in a disturbing sweet spot right now, where climate change (rising temps, higher atmospheric CO2) is producing record corn crops. Short-sighted people are already pointing to this as evidence that "we don't have to care, everything's going to be better under our new CO2 overlord". SIGH.

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The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.

@UntimelyRippd

I went back and looked at the video of Dr. Allen Williams. About the 30 minute mark he answers a question about do we have enough grassland to feed the county. His comment was that there is enough grassland in the US to raise about 35 million cattle to maturity age for slaughter. Right now conventional feed lots are only producing about 26 million head. At the 34 minute mark he answers the question of whether this method can feed the world and his answer is yes. He didn't get to elaborate much other than to say this method is sustainable and actually improves the soil. The video is four years old and I would be curious to see what is going on now with respect to how many ranchers are moving to grass fed rather than feed lots and what new data they have.

Watch the whole video. It will give you a really good overview of past feed lot practices and what impact grass fed is having on the beef industry and the economics of both.

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@davidgmillsatty

My point about Ioannidis is not that I think science is an invalid enterprise. Anything but. I think the scientific method is the only method we have to come to truthful conclusions.

But I think what his papers suggest is how poor we are when it comes to prediction. At its core, the science of climate change is the science of prediction. And when there are probably trillions and trillions of variables when it comes to the climate, then it seems to me that we really should not be selling the idea that doomsday is certain if we don't change.

Some would argue that we should change even if it turns out doomsday doesn't happen. But changing is not without costs and the costs could be huge. Secondly, who are we to tell the rest of the world what it should do. Are we going to be the world's policeman on that too? Are we going to put military bases in all of the countries, not just two thirds of them. In the US we could make changes that probably would not hurt us significantly, but there are large parts of this world where the refusal to allow these countries to come to a decent level of energy production could be catastrophic.

Predicting the amount of food production needed would not be as hard because I think predicting population is reasonably reliable since the variables are significantly limited.

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@davidgmillsatty The sweet spot you mention courtesy of NASA and CO2.

https://www.nasa.gov/sites/default/files/styles/full_width/public/thumbn...

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Systems.

“Trout biomass was more than twice
as high in streams under high-density,
short-duration grazing compared
to those under season-long grazing.
Fish densities were similar, but fish
on prescribed grazing sites averaged
1.3 inches longer and about twice the
weight,” Saunders explains.

https://www.nrcs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/nrcs143_010079.pdf

Savory pointed out in his video how his riparian systems were drastically improved and the Soil Carbon Cowboys said the same thing. High density Short Duration grazing greatly increases water penetration in the soil making streams spring fed from the bottom up, which means a far purer water system due to the filtration by the soil. All forms of microbial life benefit and as a result everything higher up the food chain does as well.

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and is cheered on by wealthy liberals, and it all amounts to nothing. Here in the US people eat at McDonalds. Beef, chicken, soy, and corn. Invent a more healthy and cheaper way to deliver that food into the mouths of the ever expanding population of poor and overworked people and it's a significant factor. Telling the wealthy to eat ever more expensive foods that aren't available to people with poverty incomes does nothing.

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divineorder's picture

@ban nock an Obesity epidemic, huge food waste, ag based on petrochem climare destroyers, all on the diet you describe.

Good luck with that.

This is a multipronged science based attempt to mitigate climate crisis, reduce food waste, feed more of the worlds hungry, lobby for regulation change on Big Ag on state and local level.

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A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.