I can just tell you: they did some looking at each production process and the inputs and outputs, then extrapolated it out to global scale.
The problem is that inputs and outputs vary wildly from place to place, that’s why some places are all corn and beans and others are cattle and yet others are something else. Given those differences are because of the economic inputs varying as opposed to the environmental inputs and outputs varying.
You can’t just go around to all the beef producers in the county and figure out how their operation works then multiply it by however much to fit the world scale because the rest of the world might be doing it wildly differently.
Although while I see the criticism of their methodology I think it means things are actually way worse, not better in terms of the environmental impact of beef.
they take a myopic view of the inputs and outputs for food sources, not considering, for instance, that much of what is fed to animals would otherwise be wasted. the beef doesn’t produce all that CO2, poore & nemecek were calculating all the co2 that goes into the inputs. i mentioned elsewhere cottonseed, but frankly i know that only takes up a minute portion of what they’re calculating. instead, they are also counting soy, and that’s almost as dishonest as you can get. nearly all soy is pressed for oil, and after that, the waste product is what is fed to cattle and other livestock. technically, you could eat it, but most people don’t and don’t want to. feeding it to livestock actually reclaims waste products. and even the calculation for the soy itself is skewed since it often also counts the deforestation that has already taken place as an emission source, regardless of whether that particular plot of land has been deforested for decades.
Yeah that seems like it’s pretty flawed. Even just going down the soybean oil byproduct rabbit hole the Internet says most of it is “acidulated” to prepare it as an ingredient in lubricants and plastic. So beef production isn’t even the main use of the byproduct.
Do we have any better studies? Or is this like the infamous self defense with a handgun study, bad science and all we have at the same time?
this is based on the poore-nemecek study and should not be regarded as “true”. it’s “true if they methodology reflects reality” but it does not.
Can you expand on that or at least link me to the people smarter than me?
I can just tell you: they did some looking at each production process and the inputs and outputs, then extrapolated it out to global scale.
The problem is that inputs and outputs vary wildly from place to place, that’s why some places are all corn and beans and others are cattle and yet others are something else. Given those differences are because of the economic inputs varying as opposed to the environmental inputs and outputs varying.
You can’t just go around to all the beef producers in the county and figure out how their operation works then multiply it by however much to fit the world scale because the rest of the world might be doing it wildly differently.
Although while I see the criticism of their methodology I think it means things are actually way worse, not better in terms of the environmental impact of beef.
they take a myopic view of the inputs and outputs for food sources, not considering, for instance, that much of what is fed to animals would otherwise be wasted. the beef doesn’t produce all that CO2, poore & nemecek were calculating all the co2 that goes into the inputs. i mentioned elsewhere cottonseed, but frankly i know that only takes up a minute portion of what they’re calculating. instead, they are also counting soy, and that’s almost as dishonest as you can get. nearly all soy is pressed for oil, and after that, the waste product is what is fed to cattle and other livestock. technically, you could eat it, but most people don’t and don’t want to. feeding it to livestock actually reclaims waste products. and even the calculation for the soy itself is skewed since it often also counts the deforestation that has already taken place as an emission source, regardless of whether that particular plot of land has been deforested for decades.
Yeah that seems like it’s pretty flawed. Even just going down the soybean oil byproduct rabbit hole the Internet says most of it is “acidulated” to prepare it as an ingredient in lubricants and plastic. So beef production isn’t even the main use of the byproduct.
Do we have any better studies? Or is this like the infamous self defense with a handgun study, bad science and all we have at the same time?
I was surprised to see 0.34 Kg or CO2 per Kg of Potatoes, but now that I read this, it makes sense.
They are taking many other things into account.
I didn’t lie at all: the other user doesn’t seem to know how poore and nemeceks lcas are calculated in the first place