Some bedtime reading for you

[@unktheunk1428]

Some of the biggest environmental (and ethical) problems of beef production come from the massive hyper-centralized feed lots from the US, Brazil and others. When you make your argument about methane production I think you should talk about how production practices differ in the UK from the likely import sources and how that factors into emissions calcs.

[@jakobirake4859]

In this video and also in the water usage one, i think a comment should be made to make clear that he's not talking about the global issue, and only about a few specific cases. Most of the water usage problem in agriculture wont be refering to UK, and again, most of the methane problem wont be refering to pasture raised beef. I agree with the specific msg of this video, but i know climate change deniers and anti science ppl will use it in nefarious ways. PS: The argument about improving the climate by doing less "harm" than a decade ago is so flawed...

[@matthewallen3811]

I think Northern Texas is a good example of those feed lots. Then they get shipped to Fort Dodge to get processed.

[@michaelgreen74]

This channel deserves a much bigger audience. Cheers from Canada.

[@randomfarmer]

Even though methane causes 28 times the warming that CO2 does, its concentration in the atmosphere is far lower. On Earth, the concentration of atmospheric methane is 0.00017%. CO2 accounts for roughly 0.04% of the atmosphere. Hence, accounting for the fact that methane causes 28x more warming, the amount of warming caused by CO2 is still 8.4x higher than that of methane. I've read Joseph Poore's paper also, he fails to account for the fact that while dairy and beef cattle produce a lot of methane, a lot of CO2 is also sequestered in their food. You're also quite right to point out that manures are spread on wheat fields, etc, he failed to take account of that also, and the wider vegan movement also fails to account for the various feedback loops that exist within agricultural economies, and the interdependence between systems of crop and livestock farming. Methane concentrations have been rising during the past 200 years, although these increases are probably due to gas leaks caused during the mining of natural gas. I suspect very few of the novel methane emissions come from agriculture.

[@LudvigIndestrucable]

I saw a BBC clip recently about a 'Stage 0' river project that was exactly what you described here and I had similar thoughts. People kept commenting about it being natural and mother nature... it was some JCBs dumping hardcore, which didn't seem very natural to me. Creating an artificial wetland is a vanity project and doesn't actually help the environment much. Flooding 40 acres of fields will give you some hydrological capacitance, but it's actually quite limited and localised. For the same £2.5m the wetlands cost, you could add rainwater harvesting to over 100,000 households, saving billions of litres being drained from aquifers and waterways, saving billions of litres of highly processed water being flushed away and sprayed on gardens, reduce the strain on the sewage system so less (hopefully none) of it gets 'discharged' and adds 1/2 billion litres of water storage which would have a much greater impact on flooding. All of this would save the existing waterways, it's just less of a glitzy exciting project. Whenever you see environmental projects, you should always ask yourself, is this actually helping or is this just feeding people's egos and making people feel better about the environment. I wonder how much of the UK's environmental impact could be removed with more methane harvesting from both farm based digester, but also municipal sewage systems. It won't be making middle class white women moist in their wellies, but one estimate of the methane production potential of the UK put it at fully 50% of current national gas consumption, with no Ukrainians harmed in the production.

[@tisFrancesfault]

Okay, so, as we've noted before, I do favour a degree of re-wilding, but maybe in areas that makes sense? Issue is it it falls into the problem of middleclass townies and their aesthetic of what natural England is/should be. We dont see strong calls to reforest moorlands (quite the opposite their barren nature is protected); why, because the aesthetic is more important. Instead, its a pursuit to turn very productive agri-land into swamps, marsh and woodland more than the idea of the countryside being an important, productive system. This coupled with new-wave left wing townies, who make the error of ascribing farmers as being aristocrats and thus an enemy to be conquered (which is ignorance on the part (Ironic as they tend to be the bourgeois under marxist ideas), and ignore the whole needing to eat part. Its genuinely pseudo environmentalism. At best, its heart in the right place, but PPP and execution, at worst insidious, elitist nonsense.

[@aaronswanson6719]

The narrative behind the science. Much appreciated.

[@cedarchoppincartographer]

Methane is a greenhouse gas that has a more powerful radiative force than Co2. While it dissipates in the atmosphere quicker than co2, while it is in the atmosphere it is like 75x more powerful of a greenhouse gas.

[@paulthompson8467]

The farmer is an easy target always was because he has very poor representation

[@gorgonalias-i8b]

Your comments on the measurement of methane's effect on the climate are both welcome and well-taken, but there are a couple of points you could consider further: a) The "success story" of effectively net-zero agriculture in the UK is, as you discuss, due to the large reductions in cow populations and associated methane emissions. This would seem to still be an argument in favour of continued reductions in beef and dairy production, which would be needed to maintain that effect into the future. b) Similarly, whether you look at it as reducing the world's temperature or preventing further temperature rises, either way reducing methane production is good for the climate, and again that suggests that we should keep less cows around. Overall, we can quibble about what carbon metrics to use but if at the end of the day they all suggest that reducing the number of cows is a good idea, then is it really all that critical?

[@johnfowler4820]

What are your thoughts on regen ag. and it's ability to sequester carbon. ? Groundswell is growing in size every year which must mean that farmers can see potential increases in their bottom lines.

[@Rickwardful]

Regen farming just exports the environmental problem to somewhere else in the world that has to produce the food the U.K. no longer does. I.e. the Amazon rain forest. It is all political terrorism that is costing us all a lot of money. Plus the fact that due to this all, our diets have shifted away from meat towards carbohydrates, causing a massive increase in diabetes and heart disease. The Groundswell event has become popular, mostly due to huge grants available to farmers to purchase Direct Drills and farmers wanting to learn how to adopt a Direct Drilling system. - which works well during dry weather years, but can be an absolute disaster during wet ones such as ‘23 and ‘24. he se the lowest yielding cereals harvest in memory for most farmers.

[@farmingexplained]

I'll talk about this pretty soon - I think some of the ideas are really clever but I don't see them as ideologically distinct from normal farming (we farm more 'regeneratively' than we did when we had cattle but it's simply because we're not producing muck and slurry anymore so we have to manage our soil organic content differently)

[@موسى_7]

I like regen ag because I don't have to worry about the prices and supply chains of agricultural inputs (which have to be imported in the third world). Then again, I'm not a farmer.

[@Rickwardful]

@@موسى_7 Yes, it is very obvious that you are indeed ‘not a farmer!’

[@snokehusk223]

​@@Rickwardful how does it export? I think it's point is that what you can't grow in your country you just don't eat it

[@tristangibbs2351]

Was thinking the other day that rising carbon levels in the atmosphere are there to help grow more food as carbon in the atmosphere is used by the plants. So as population rises higher carbon levels are there to feed the population

[@marktaylor2645]

The most important thing to remember is that there are a lot of people that hate you and want you dead, and making you feel guilty for eating healthy food is just a ploy to make their task of getting rid of you easier.

[@HootMaRoot]

When talking about methane next time could you add a comparison between cattle in the UK and human organic waste and byproducts. As a few years ago I found a paper online that showed that human organic waste and byproducts produced more methane compared to every cow in the UK. I think it was a report from 2019, but can't seem to find it now and wished I had bookmarked it

[@alexcane4498]

Keep 'em coming - History is too important to be left to the Historians! Muck spreading - there's a metaphor in there somewhere...

[@konradvonschnitzeldorf6506]

He is a historian

[@Andyjones__]

I agree with your opinion on the way methane is shown as a far more potent greenhouse gas than it actually is. When I was in my school geography lessons (few years back) I argued this point with a geography teacher a number of times. This was a loosing battle due to the fact she was a vegan and it was more of an emotional issue. I was a child and therefore automatically wrong as it challenged her teaching. All this did was give me detentions for arguing the point. the media doesn’t portray British agriculture doing well is because there are only half a million people employed in the agricultural economy in a population of 68 million people all of which live in towns and the closest they get to food production is the supermarket. These people do want to do the correct thing but the only knowledge they have is from the vocal political left vegans who are also completely removed from their food source. As we know the media does not want to back the loosing side (going into Germany after the Second World War you would not find any nazi supporters even though 43 percent voted for them.) I’m sorry that this is not in a logical order but I’m an engineer writing is not my expertise

[@موسى_7]

I understood your writing pretty well.

[@satishcolbridgevaze3394]

Interesting video, but I feel like we are interpreting the difference in GWP* in opposite ways. You see methane's short half life as a reason to show that beef/dairy consumption is a 'carbon neutral' industry (for want of a better term), I would suggest that if reduction if cattle rearing actually leads to direct, semi- immediate reductions in the GH effect it should be prioritised. Ie. the reduction of an industry's size and associated problems is not an argument that there is no problem in the first place. Also I feel like there is important context missing when you say the beef consumption is falling, like how much is being imported/are these impacts just being offshored? Surely none of this can avoid the basic fact that it is always less energy-efficient to eat via an animal than it is to eat plant-based from the get go!

[@ricomeitzner7584]

I am sorry, when I have to break it, but I think there is a flaw in that GWP* metric. Methane in the atmosphere, when it gets consumed it turns finally into CO2 and H2O, both also green house gases. H2O can be discounted, as it will quickly partake in the water cycle anyway. But the CO2 that was formed from the methane needs to be carried over into the amount of CO2. Though the reaction of CH4 to CO2 reduces the GHG potential, one cannot act, as if it is gone 100% from the pool of GHGs.

[@tisFrancesfault]

As is noted, this is accounted for, but is offset by other carbon reducing activities. As it stands they are presented as separate, not related GHGs. When they are not, functionally speaking.

[@rpark8265]

The CO2 and the water would be used by the plants the cows are eating , it’s a closed cycle so the GWP* calculation is correct

[@ricomeitzner7584]

@@rpark8265 if that would be the case than you would not need to do any CO2 bilancing. The CH4, which gets oxidized in the atmosphere, has to be added after 20 years to the CO2 emissions.

[@rpark8265]

@@ricomeitzner7584 Thanks you’ve made my point,why do I have to do any CO2 balancing ,the cycle works perfectly whether that’s wild or domestic herbivores.

[@snokehusk223]

well that CO2 and H20 from methane would go back into producing plants for the livestock so it's cyclical and thus not the problem. Actually it builds soil because roots stay in ground so it's even carbon negative. What is the problem is emissions from burning of oil and coal that don't convert back to their original forms.

[@Niemand1947]

How does a constant emission of carbon dioxide lead to it building up in the atmosphere when it is absorbed by plants, oceans and even rain? 8:25 onwards

[@vleesvlieg]

GWP100 is not inaccurate, it's just limited as a tool, as is GWP*. GWP100 does account for the atmospheric lifetime of CH4 as it measures the total amount of heating contributed over a 100 year period, so if you took a longer period like 500 years it would look considerably better for methane and if you took a shorter one like 10 it would look much worse. 100 years is a period arbitrarily chosen to be the most useful for guiding decisions on emission reductions. The omission of carbon sequestration through agriculture in common narratives around climate change is an issue, but the framing through GWP* that agriculture is at a total net zero because methane emissions are falling rapidly enough to offset other emissions is ridiculous: the sector is still pumping far more gases into the atmosphere than it is taking out and this needs to be addressed, not imagined away by shifting some numbers around. Most farmers I've talked to about this point fingers at other sectors at this point and I agree, many industries that are contributing more to the problem do not face the same regulations as agriculture and need to be urgently addressed, but in this regard angry vegan protestors are not your enemy: they want to take down unsustainable practices in e-commerce, aviation, tech, industrial production etc just as bad. Your mutual enemy is the organisation of capital in these other industries and the legislative/lobbying power it affords them.

[@peterfoster8004]

The very fact that AI and computer modeling is being relied upon to assess the effect of agriculture on the climate and the dismissal of acquired knowledge and common sense is cause for concern in itself. Remember the computer predictions during the BSE scare? My chief concern is the effect that re-wilding and the subsequent reduction in food production will have on food security given that we are an island nation.

[@CorrectHorse126]

Commenting because I mostly agree with your overall argument, so I think it's worth "snagging" things that you have wrong! and sadly you've a few here I think. - It doesn't make sense to attribute current degradation of methane in the atmosphere to a reduction in current methane emissions. That atmospheric methane would have degraded either way. Of course we should count the eventual degradation of today's methane against the production of today's methane, but the behaviour of yesterday's methane should be attributed to yesterday's agriculture. - If you're going to argue that a reduction in UK farm emissions is progress towards net zero, then you surely need to demonstrate that the food production hasn't just moved abroad to produce carbon emissions in some other country. If you're going to make arguments about "emission offshoring" when it supports your thesis, then you should also acknowledge it when it doesn't! - if you wanted to offset degradation of yesterday's methane against today's production of methane and call that "net zero", then you would need to continue that form of accounting indefinitely, so either you'd have to keep reducing worldwide methane emissions indefinitely so that your logic keeps working, or else you'd quickly reach a situation where today's methane production is greater than the degradation of yesterday's methane again. - You mentioned briefly that methane degrades to CO2 but you don't seem to acknowledge that this (permanent) CO2 needs to be accounted for in the maths. Anyway, I'm all for accurate carbon accounting so I hope more people start investigating how it works and whether it adds up!

[@farmingexplained]

Thankyou - you do raise valid nuances that I didnt cover here for sake of brevity. When we talk about this in more detail I'll be sure to look at the natural carbon cycle in relation to decayed methane, domestic production / consumption (I know in dairy we meet consumption pretty exactly and export some solids to China so that is a win), and there are lots of really cool technologies that can reduce emissions without even reducing cattle numbers (although that will likely continue) - feed additives, methane extraction from muck in order to run electric generators or even breeding cattle who are genetically predisposed to emitting less methane! Thanks for the comment - I probably should have included a graph about domestic production / consumption

[@CorrectHorse126]

@@farmingexplained Yes please, more graphs! 😃 I haven't seen anyone else analysing agriculture and its impact on the climate for the lay person without an enormous amount of handwaving, I think there's huge value in a more thoughtful approach that tackles the biases (on all sides) head on. Thanks for all your hard work!

[@farmingexplained]

You're quite welcome - we will spend many weeks discussing what these graphs do and don't tell us when we come to them!

[@cdr29qm]

The decay of methane is already factored into the GWP100 measure of 28, contrary to what is claimed in the video: the "instantaneous" greenhouse effect of methane is over 100 times that of CO2. On the other hand, assuming sustainable grazing/feeding practices, cattle emitting methane is part of a process that is carbon-neutral in the long term (the carbon comes from plants that took it out of the atmosphere earlier), so the CO2 resulting from oxidization of methane is already accounted for. The broader point about methane decaying is right though: *if* we can sharply reduce methane emissions now, it will put a big dent in the current trajectory of global warming, unlike our historical CO2 emissions which are a long-term burden. But that doesn't mean we can just put off reducing methane emissions until later, because the warming itself is already doing long-term damage (including releasing CO2 in ways we don't control, such as being released from melting permafrost or ice caps).

[@EugneneVinogradoff]

😮

[@tombrown407]

Globally, the manure point is nonsense. Manuring is very important, but globally the vast majority of shit is not used to manure fields. The problem is that of waste, inefficiency, and outright stupidity within our systems *globally*.

[@gatergates8813]

It's really the only way to properly replenish the soil. Adding nitrogen and potash can only do so much until you eventually get a dustbowl

[@willdatsun]

driving those oversize trailers full of maize 30 miles on the road to make into cattle feed is just bonkers.

[@rpark8265]

😂surly more efficient than using undersized trailers and doing more trips

[@willdatsun]

@@rpark8265 the whole thing is madness. cows kept in barns and food brought to them

[@aaronswanson6719]

My maize only travels two miles to become cattle feed and the manure comes back through a large hose. Is that okay?

[@rpark8265]

@@willdatsun My cows graze from March to October ,then they are housed and fed silage.I can see where your coming from but farmers production systems vary for multiple reasons.Fully housed cattle using cows grazing in thier marketing is dishonest & shouldn't be allowed.

[@snokehusk223]

well somewhat livestock should mainly depend on grazing and farming done for people but you can't graze the whole year so you need to feed them during that time or you could say to not keep livestock at all, but than you would have vast acres of unused land that can't be used for farming just sitting there when it could be feeding us

[@snokehusk223]

4:07 So let's keep farming as much as possible everywhere in world thus leading to more food abundance and increasing world population thus worsening the problem and destroying the whole nature in the world. Solution is simple. If a country can't feed itself than it can't keep operating like that.

[@thorpreston2594]

It looks like net emissions are falling primarily because of falling demand for dairy. I don't think your example of GWP* is an arguement aginst the environmental benefit of non-dairy milk. It seems like the addoption of non-dairy milk has lead to less cattle and therefore less emmissions. I'm sure there has been development in cattle feed that reduces methane emmissions per kg of production but your data on herd numbers didn't factor this in. And I think this is probably a smaller effect but maybe more where the focus should be when it comes to dairy vs dairy alternatives. And I say this as someone who doesn't have a low dietary carbon footprint as I go through a lot of beef and yogurt so it's not something I say to make me feel better about my choices

[@موسى_7]

In my opinion, dairy milk is better because it wastes less water (if the cow is grazing rather than being fed crops its whole life like a Saudi cow for Almarai milk company) and contains more saturated fat.

[@thorpreston2594]

@@موسى_7 Sure, but just talking methane non-dairy comes out ahead. Preferences are more complex than that and I'll keep enjoying my dairy

[@BEASTIES50]

Although you get some of the detail on the GWP* stuff a little out of context, it’s a decent video. Joseph Poore will come to be recognised eventually as the man who distorted the science to the same degree as Ancel Keys with similar catastrophic consequences. His influence over the planet is crushingly depressing as his whole study is based on the flawed idea that GWP100 can be used in any way to assess the warming effect of methane in particular. It can’t, it’s that simple. The corporate and govt world’s focus on food and livestock is distracting the entire planet from the real issue, fossil fuels. This is all about money. And the money to be made from greenwashing by demonising agriculture which is the only industry that is anywhere carbon neutral (along with forestry). To quote Prof Myles Allen quoting Einstein: "Einstein told us to make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler."

[@ilmuoui]

Cow muck does NOT compendate cow methane

[@aaronswanson6719]

Methane isn’t a problem anyway. It decays after a decade. If the cows weren’t there to eat the grass on the hillsides, the grass would decay off as CO2 which doesn’t decay. The cows can stand alone

[@theohercules1943]

OLLY, SCHEDULING IS PRONOUNCED LIKE SHOE, NOT SCHOOL!!

[@gatergates8813]

Then why ain't it spelled sheduling?

[@johnnysolow]

Curious that you are anonymous and practically non existent. The idea that farmers were organic before WW2 is laughable, your much-maligned Lady Eve Balfour was ridiculed in the 1930s as a mad lesbian absurdity.

[@JimmyShields-z2h]

Interesting, we can't LUMP all farmers into single environmental management plan, there too many factors at play other then carbon, methane emissions. What is needed is long term environmental impact study on every farm. The information might be interesting read by public but for farmers its way of measuring environmental growth. If we look at crops since 90's with drought years i can show with less moisture because better farm machinery, same farming practices i have increased yields, i can show you reduce carbon emissions using less fuel. Running stock is different especially drought vs wetter years, are they stress emitting more carbon?, handling of weeds determines carbon footprint am i spraying more using more carbon? With carbon use is how do so call make it neutral, given you have best year of crops in drought but emitted more carbon having keep up with livstock ethical standards? I dont think there's simple answer but if surrounding environment is healthy so rare plants are still thriving, native animals by numbers are there that should be the key. One thing is knowing native animals, plant behaviour as you only see big goanna every 4 years just like red belly black snake, so can't take into yearly effects it might be 5, 10 years studies.

[@johnnysolow]

If the manure were the main source of fertiliser rather than chemicals, then you would have a point. However, if you are suggesting a farming style where crops and live stock are kept using non-industrial methods, so no livestock kept indoors all year, chickens kept in over-crowded sheds... The methane argument is not a local one, it is a world-wide farming catastrophe in which rainforests are being destroyed to create cattle farms and soya farms. I am not a vegetarian or vegan, and eat steak regularly, but I would like to eat organic meat which ensures the animals have decent if short lives. In Italy, cows are kept in sheds and never see daylight on the majority of farms, there is no organic culture for livestock here. English farms may be changing towards more ethical practises due to scientific developments and the organic movement. You cherry pick ideas, force them into perspectives that falsify the data, and try to smear the current organic movement with fascism's exploitation of its ideas. Rolf Gardiner was a gullible man who never learnt or saw the stupidity of his ways, but he never truly believed in Eve Balfour's concept of living soil and her warning that chemical fertilisers were killing thesoil and causing ill health. There is no doubt now that she was right, and those who mocked her ideas including the farming community, the Ministry of Agriculture and all were wrong. Now that doesn't mean that her ideas of organic farming at that time were necessarily correct, but the methods now practised on a very few UK farms where livestock and crops are produced in a sustainable manner could be an answer. The produce from these farms are expensive and have a niche market, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be expanding the use of such ideas.

[@justinallen2408]

Farming doesn't affect global warming not enough for it to be important I mean it does feed ya

[@johnnysolow]

@@justinallen2408 Is your real name Trump?

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

I am not sure the 'v' word - veganism - has helped. However, the fact is that a plant exclusive diet is better for you, so don't knock it until you try it and gain the 'v' perspective. What clouds the debate are vegans that have taken up the cause due to personal eating disorder and weight gain issues, so it is very emotional to them and very much about the wrong things. We did get here by eating animal products, without milk and beef/lamb/pig to eat, our ancestors would not have made it through winter on just their grain stores alone. But this does not mean that meat is best. Far from it, the problem with meat is that we have no means of getting rid of animal fats from our arteries, so anyone that eats meat will spend their old age medically dependent, with stents, statins, heart operations and all of those good things. Our ancestors were lucky to make it out of childhood with very few making it to 'three score and ten', therefore, blocked arteries, strokes, cancer and all of the fun chronic diseases of the modern age were not a problem to them because they simply did not live long enough. The science on what is wrong with animal fats has actually been widely known since the 1970s, mostly due to an American president having a heart attack not due to smoking. Saturated fats became the enemy and we had a proliferation of fake butter spreads - Flora and the like. Most of us like to be interested in bigger things than what we shove in our mouths, which means that intelligent people are in the dark when it comes to why food health matters. Stupid people are just stupid so they just make a b-line for whatever food will kill them quickest. Capitalism comes into play too. There is a limit to how much you can charge someone for 'beans and rice' and everyone wants to eat from the king's table for status reasons, which means meat rather than turnips. Some vegetables such as swede really do have connotations in some parts of Europe with famine, so it becomes the last thing people want to be seen eating. There is also a problem with processed foods. Get some corn from America, some palm oil from Indonesia, some cocoa beans picked by a child in Africa, some refined sugar from East Anglia, mix it all together, shove it through a factory that only employs one person, have the product packaged in plastic with a shelf life of ten years, advertise the hell out of it and get the nation hooked to it. Our fat American cousins see this processed food as 'carbs' to then reject the whole plant exclusive idea to insist that 'grass fed beef' is the only true food. There are a lot of these stupid people making good money from promoting this. What this means is that wholesome foods that happen to contain carbohydrate energy from plants are condemned and not seen as the perfect brain food they are. Because manufacturers cannot sell fat as good or 'carbz', they resort to 'good source of protein' as their marketing thing. So there is this false obsession with protein, even though nobody has died from a lack of protein since forever. People think they need protein, which is about as silly as it gets because there is an abundance of protein in plants, after all, this is where farm animals get it from. Worrying about not breathing enough nitrogen makes as much sense as the protein obsession. So people that lift kettlebells in front of mirrors in the gym have this false need to eat protein, which means animal products. Because all animal protein comes with fat, which is satiating, people think they need protein but they are just addicted to fat. It is not the protein that satiates, it is the fat that comes with it, more than double the calories per gram than even raw sugar. This fat just blocks the arteries on a slow process. One burger won't kill you much like how one cigarette won't. But, if you are on the animal fats every day then you will become medically dependent. It is easy to rubbish the 'v' word, and the typical yoyo dieter that has given veganism a spin instead of keto does not help. But this is not pre-Roman Britain and we can provide for ourselves in the winter months without having to butcher a cow or suck from its teat. We have expectations to live far beyond three score and ten. Promoting meat makes as much sense as promoting cigarettes, it is morally wrong and relies on the ignorance of the population on an emotionally charged topic. What we really need is a population that does not have toxic poo and toxic piss, with 'night soil' returned to the land. The problem with meat 'night soil' is that it has pathogens in it, the ecoli, salmonella and other fun things of meat eater poo. This cannot go back on the land as it would kill us all, it needs processing in a big way first. If everyone was eating boring vegetables then it would be entirely possible to return 'night soil' to the land. But instead of this we have this distraction of bullshit science, which is an industry to itself, and much like a medieval guild, in that it is gatekept and only serves the interests of those in the club. Despite my bitching about the classic vegan, really the only people qualified to discuss the topics are them. Imagine if the country was given over to growing hops for making beer, and then asking alcoholics whether land usage could be better. We have got this situation with animal products that people are lazily addicted to, with none of them having ever tried going plant based for just a year. None of them know how good it feels to be healthy in that way, without constant sniffles from dairy and with a digestive tract that works perfectly.

[@موسى_7]

Dude, where have you been the past 20 years? Everyone now knows that saturated fat is good and seed oils are bad, especially the refined ones, and that people are consuming too much polyunsaturated fat.

[@RoloTomasi654]

OMG🤦‍♂️ as a qualified agricultural and environmental scientist, physiotherapist & regenerative organic silvoarable silvopasture horticulture farmer I don’t even no where to begin mopping up the rant vomit you vented? Other than I couldn’t salvage a single grain of truth anywhere? Which is a statistical miracle! The healthcare, food and pharmaceutical industries are just that, a for profit only industry with absolutely no interest in your wellbeing, just solely profit and they will tear you and the planet apart in the pursuit of that profit goal. Cardiovascular disease is caused by chronic inflammation, not dietary intake, and induced by modern lifestyle, and endocrine disrupting forever chemicals like PFAS & Glyphosate (found in your water and all non-organic plant based foods) among many other causes. The bad fat bad meat myth is pure marketing propaganda used to sell more profitable manufactured processed food, healthcare & pharmaceutical products like the trans-fatty acids of the 80’s & 90’s and the Holland & Barrett supplements of the Noughties & Tweenies. Because shareholders can’t make money from raw organic meat or fresh organic vegetables. Plants are not our saviours. They do not want us eating them or their babies and have been poisoning us since the dawn of time. Even common edible plants produce cocktails of inflammatory lectins & oxalates to punish you for daring to eat them. Conventional industrial crops, vegetables and fruit (the basis of the vegan/vegetarian diet) don’t even compare to the basic nutritional or microbiological profile of the plant foods our ancestors ate.Conventional industrial produced meat barely resembles the nutritional profile of real meat. The musculature of modern farmed chickens is disintegrating through myopathies induced by overbreeding and nutritional imbalances in their feed (hence why your chicken breast comes diced now, to cover up the myopathies).The same unnatural grain based feed that forms the basis of the modern manufactured profit based vegan diet, so good luck maintaining your health on that swill! Our ancestors were a lot healthier, happier and more reproductively fertile than anyone living today so there’s your start point for de programming yourself. Best of luck with climbing out of your brainwashed rabbit hole.

[@tisFrancesfault]

​@@موسى_7 seed oils are not bad either. Whilst I disagree with ops premise this take is not correct either. Tbf I jumped on that bandwagon briefly but I read the research and did away with that view.

[@tisFrancesfault]

I will disagree with the inherent health benefits for all, by having vegetarian and vegan diets. There are some who do very well on such diets, others more poorly. Individuals are different after all. The biggest health issues with food is that we over indulge, the primary advantage of the two Vs is that it tends to be harder to over indulge. The said, the fattest people I know, are Vegetarians. Personally, grains do me bad. I thus have a more meat rich diet with potatoes and rice as a primary carbs. I also I'm not an overly indulgent eater, If I replaced the meat with just veg, I'd be in trouble. And since reducing grains, for meats and butter my health has improved. However thats just me, some people are the inverse and it would do wonders to be veg based, and I know people where thats been the case. But to reiterate, the biggest issue most people have, is simply they eat too much, regardless of what they are eating. A great example are live in the artic circle and have a diet nearly exclusively animal fat and meat are perfectly healthy. But again, some people predisposed to that diet others not so much.

[@pdsnpsnldlqnop3330]

@@tisFrancesfault How old do these Inuit get before they keel over due to blocked arteries? To me the use of the word 'carbs' is a red flag. Clearly an 'internet doctor' has persuaded you that beef is the way to go and all 'carbz' are baaad. Vegetarians are not on a whole food, plant based diet. Chugging down the cow puss in cheese form and cholesterol nuggets from the backend of chickens is not anything to do with a plant exclusive diet. On a plant exclusive diet with no animal corpses or processed food it is quite hard to get fat by eating too much. An evening meal has to be twice the volume as what corpse eaters have on their plate, and that is just to maintain optimal BMI. Cooked food is the ecological niche of the human being, and this is with cooked food, plant exclusive. There are those vegans with eating disorders that go for a raw food vegan diet and they struggle to get enough calories in without going for heaps of sugar. Refined sugar is that evil 'carbs' that your 'internet doctor' warned you about, again nothing to do with a whole food, plant based diet. Your digestive tract needs time to swap from eating junk to being able to process a plant exclusive diet. The bacteria are there for rotten meat and 'carbs', not plants. They don't regenerate overnight, you have to put in the work and not dismiss whole food groups just because you have bad bacteria. Give the good bacteria the right food and they will come back, with you never having tummy trouble or weight issues ever again. Put aside dogma and stereotypes, stay off the 'internet doctors' and give plant based a fair crack of the whip. We are not all that different, however, in old age we are less able to absorb some nutrients and in early childhood we have different requirements, to grow. Unless you are half chihuahua and half hyena, your genes don't come into it. Genetics is always a lazy cop out.

[@srantoniomatos]

"Clima// chan//e" - in the popular/media dialogue is as scientific as "marxism" was until 50 years ago. Its the use of bits of partial science to label as scientific a complety ideology. Marxism was the big ideology of modernity. "Clima/e chan/e" is the same thing, for post modernity.

[@tisFrancesfault]

Well climate change is an actual, tangibly observable thing. Marxism is a socioeconomic philosophy. So the notion of direct comparability is silly.

[@srantoniomatos]

@@tisFrancesfault c c is also a socialeconomic (political, philosofical, etc) reality. And marxism was also "measurable", because it was science (economics, sociology, history...)... Just to different aestetics languages for the same thing, in different times, modernity and post modernity.

[@srantoniomatos]

​@@tisFrancesfault its still the same ideology...jewish , cristian, (even muslim) , marxism, and now...cc.

[@tisFrancesfault]

@@srantoniomatos Well I suppose insofar as to say that environmental effects do impact socioeconomics. But its not a socioeconomic modal imposing environmentalism. Its environmental issues imposing socioeconomic conditions. Thats an important distinction.

[@tombrown407]

Imagine writing what you wrote, and not being overcome with embarrassment and deleting the entire thing.

[@thatpenguinkid]

Global cattle populations have multiplied x2.8 in 100 years, whereas global methane emissions has multiplied x4.3 [ourworldindata] But if we switch to just European data, cattle population growth is negligible x1.04 [ourworldindata] Ollie I know the channel is UK centred but environmentalism is a global movement and climate change is inherently global. The UK isn't the big culprit. UK environmentalism would be better served finding which methods and technologies are lacking globally and encouraging their export. I don't know if this kind of project already exists, I hope so. Is there anything that you can say on how global agriculture interacts with each other?

[@farmingexplained]

I think this means we can maximise cereal production on arable land and produce beef, mutton and milk on our pasture (all of which we are very efficient at in the UK), and this will reduce our need to import (and maybe allow some exports) which should reduce the impact of the food system globally. If we can export dairy to countries where cattle would suffer from heat stress, less cattle/feed/land would be required to produce the milk they consume. I'll argue in future the UK'S role globally should be to try to feed ourselves and if possible export things we can produce efficiently in our climate

[@snokehusk223]

we just need to reduce populations of SA, Africa and Asia and you will solve "global warming"

[@jingomeme]

Whilst I applaud your presentation style, and the content of your pieces is generally excellent, it seems to me that what you are claiming here has a modest flaw - the reason that UK agriculture has performed as you describe in relation to warming contribution over the past fifty years is driven almost entirely by the decline in the UK cattle herd by 5m animals. If we do not keep up this rate of decline then we will not continue to be as close to carbon neutral as you claim, and it seems very unrealistic to expect it to continue on its trajectory, not least because after the current 10m animals have been removed, no further reduction would be possible.