Can someone please explain this to me? Have Global Warming 'experts' reached new levels of dim-wittedness?

Question

I don't see how not having as much meat and therefore not killing as much livestock reduces the livestock population ... can someone explain this to me please?

Answer 1

You seem to be assuming that the ranching industry, in their benevolence, will allow unsold cattle to live out their natural lives in some pasture. If demand for meat goes down, the number of cattle will be decreased.

Answer 2

Ruminants (animals that chew cud) have an multiple stage digestive system, this causes the production of substantial quantities of methane which are released when the animal burps or farts.

Silage, excreta, fertilisers used on straw and hay meadows , deforestation for pasture land etc all contribute to global warming through the release of methane and nitorus oxide (two of the greenhouse gases) and the removal of CO2 sequestering biomass.

If people reduce or cease meat consumption there will be a corresponding reduction in the commercial breeding of animals for food. Farmers won't continue to breed animals if there isn't a market for them.

Why do you claim that global warming 'experts' have reached new levels of dim-wittedness? Once again they're correct and it doesn't take an expert or even a person with any knowledge of global warming to comprehend the link.

Answer 3

I think you have reached a new level of dim-witedness if you honestly can't put two and two together and realize that livestock do not reproduce of their own accord. They are like any other product - less demand = less supply. It's the same as if everyone suddenly stopped buying wheat - the next season there would be less wheat grown and if no one bought any again, the next season there would be even less or none. Companies don't produce things that people don't buy because then they take a loss. Livestock are artificially inseminated; they do not live in a natural environment.

Answer 4

The global warming issues are pretty complex in some ways and simple in others.

If global warming is true, the problem humans face is not just that we will have hotter weather, but that life forms will not have time to adapt to the higher temperatures.

Imagine massive die offs in the ocean. No seafood.

Imagine that animals we rely on for food can't thrive in the heat and yields decline and species die out. Kiss your butt roast goodbye.

Imagine that the plants we regularly plant for food (corn and wheat) also do not thrive in a hotter climate. Crop yields drop. Cheerio to Cheerios.

Imagine that ocean plankton, perhaps the largest source of oxygen, also fail to thrive in a hotter ocean. No last gasp of oxygen.

These are lots of interrelationships that will surely be affected by global warming and no one can predict exactly how things will work out.

Maybe global warming is a real phenomenon, maybe it is hype. But can we afford to be wrong?

As a former naysayer to global warming who then became undecided, I think we are rolling the dice. They better not come up snake eyes.

Answer 5

Cattle production requires vast areas of land. Cattle ranchers are clear-cutting the forests to create grasslands for cattle production. This is depleting the green belt of tropical and temperate forests which convert CO2 from the air to carbohydrates releasing O2. Check out the Carbon cycle, green house gases, CO2, and methane. Cattle themselves also produce a large amount of methane. Air born methane is ten times more potent than CO2 in the atmosphere as a greenhouse gas. Think also about the land cleared for farming to produce cattle feed.

Answer 6

This makes sense when you realize what the real agenda of the chicken little global warming zealots is. Anyone with half a brain knows man cannot control the climate(the sun does that) The environmentalists are the latest incarnation of the socialist movement. This is all about control over our lives, an enforced equity for all mankind, and an anti-science, anti-human agenda reminiscent of the ancient druids

Answer 7

In this new culture of pseudo science, anything that causes more greenhouse gases can be linked to worsening global warming. Anything that causes less greenhouse gases can be linked to reducing global warming.

One day maybe they will be clever enough to figure out why the South Pole keeps growing colder, as it has done for the last thirty years. Maybe the penguins are generating less CO2.

But, to address the topic, cattle are generally grown on land that is not suitable for agriculture. They eat grass, grass takes carbon from the atmosphere. Growing cattle is another way of sequestering carbon from the atmosphere. I think the story about eating less meat reduces global warming, truly belongs in the archives of the greatest of Junk Science. But if you really believe that CO2 in the atmosphere is causing global warming, the whole story is not told about the role that herbivores play in the carbon cycle. And as far as N2O goes, their is vastly more N2O used in commercial agriculture than cattle production.

Answer 8

First...i know not what you speak of for your question is vague and poorly stated.

But i will ask, oh one of dim wit, do you think that livestock would be farmed at the same levels if everyone stop buying or bought less meat? Let me help you. No. Factory farms would no longer exist.

And it is not the methane...it the energy of production that matters.....Eating lower on the food chain requires less energy inputs.

Answer 9

Livestock herds are raised and maintained in response to market factors based on DEMAND. Since livestock raised for market are short-lived, a drop in demand will lead to decreased production within months to years. Decreased production equals lower livestock population.
Done!

Answer 10

Jerry P..... Conversely, if breeders of livestock are forced to breed less wouldn't that solve the problem better? I think an analogy would be drugs. If you stop the users, the dealers/manufacturers will find someone else. But if you stop the dealers/manufacturers then we might be able to eradicate it. Same with beef. IMHO.