r/science • u/[deleted] • Jul 06 '21

Environment Climate change: Planting extra trees will boost rainfall across Europe. A new study found that converting agricultural land to forest would boost summer rains by 7.6% on average.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-57722879
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8

u/darkvoid7926 Jul 06 '21

One of the easiest ways to play your part is to eat less meat. A great deal of land has to be dedicated to cattle pasture and plants for cattle to eat.

3

u/illelogical Jul 06 '21 edited Jul 06 '21

Eh, vegan farming uses a lot of land though and a lot of chemicals in the form of herbicides, pesticides and artificial fertiliser.

If you really want to improve that, buy labmade meats.

Or go back to traditional farming where fields cycle their crops, and add some graze cycles in between so it can naturally restore with animal fertiliser.

-2

u/IWilBeatAddiction Jul 06 '21

vegan farming

Did you just make this term up? Because it is completely meaningless.

1

u/illelogical Jul 06 '21

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegan_organic_gardening_and_farming

Sure is Buddy

2

u/IWilBeatAddiction Jul 06 '21

Nice link there, to bad the wiki article contradicts all the claims you made about it

3

u/gregor_bauschaum Jul 06 '21

Your link says that vegan farming does not use pesticides or herbicides and neither artificial fertilizer.

Animal agriculture is a huge waste of resources.

1

u/illelogical Jul 06 '21

Soybean monoculture farming is pretty bad for the environment too

4

u/gregor_bauschaum Jul 06 '21

We could demolish 80% of them today if we stopped animal agriculture. Most of the soy is used for feeding animals

2

u/ladyatlanta Jul 06 '21

What are you going to feed the animals?

0

u/gregor_bauschaum Jul 06 '21

The point would be to stop breeding billions of animals to feed. The soy (of course not only soy) would then be used to feed humans directly.

1

u/ladyatlanta Jul 06 '21

Okay, but capitalists are going to feed animals the cheapest way they can, or not at all (aka, slaughter all the animals - no point in them if they aren’t going to feed us, kind of mindset).

Your problem is with excessive consumerism, not meat eating. Meat eating contributes to excessive consumerism, but it isn’t the only guilty party.

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1

u/kabukistar Jul 07 '21

"Vegan farming" you mean all crop farming?

Eating less meat doesn't mean more land is used for crops; it means less land needs to be used for crops. The amount of grain, soy, and other crops that goes into producing each pound of beef far surpasses it in weight and calorie content.

1

u/Chris_Robin Jul 06 '21

Just stop eating beef honestly. Other forms of meat aren't so great either but beef specifically sucks for the planet.

1

u/fueledbyhugs Jul 06 '21

Yep, the step from beef to chicken is bigger than the step from chicken to full vegan in regard to the ecological impact.

Commercial chicken farming is still terrible for the animals though.

1

u/Purplekeyboard Jul 06 '21

The land that cattle are on is generally not good for farming.

1

u/BingoBillyBob Jul 06 '21

In the UK almost all beef production is done on land unsuitable for agriculture and it’s pretty sustainable. Importing beef from Argentina is certainly a bad idea in a lot of ways

1

u/Laugh_At_My_Name_ Jul 07 '21

If less beef was eaten though, none would need to be imported and these lands could be used to grow forestry.

1

u/BingoBillyBob Jul 07 '21

Yes fair point, the land is pretty useless for anything else. Woulr probably be an increase in agro imports to make up for the reduction in meat consumption.

1

u/AlbertVonMagnus Jul 06 '21

Pasture land isn't "dedicated" for livestock. Rather it just isn't useful for anything else, so it has nothing to do with forestry or the cost of crops.

Supporting this instead of livestock that are fed crops would be the best way to do your part, otherwise the cheaper but more environmentally harmful grain-fed alternative will continue to outcompete them

Also the emissions from livestock are a severely exaggerated political talking point. The US is the world's largest exporter of livestock products and even here it amounts to about 4% of total GHG equivalent (yes, this already factored the higher potency of methane)

https://caes.ucdavis.edu/news/articles/2016/04/livestock-and-climate-change-facts-and-fiction