UK The Plant Based Treaty

[danceswithcats]

Hello all,

I've searched the forums, but not found any mention of The Plant Based Treaty, so I thought I'd give it a plug.

I'm a frustrated climate activist: my sister is in prison at the moment for taking part in a Just Stop Oil action, but I am left mother-sitting and fuming at the rightward drift of my country, as our new "prime minister" whores us to the oil industry.

However, The Plant Based Treaty, which mirrors The Fossil Fuel Treaty, attempts to have a positive effect on the climate catastrophe through legal means. To be honest, at this point, there's a part of me that thinks nothing but world revolution will save us, but you have to act according to your principles and I believe in the value of the rule of law, so...

The Treaty proposes reducing methane emissions by drastically reducing animal agriculture through international treaty structures. It's aimed at COP 27, and it's a real opportunity to pressure politicians at city and state level, if less at national. Los Angeles has a motion before its council to support it and pressure is being put on London, which would be an excellent slap in the face of Dolores Umbridge, our new fake PM.

I'm attending a Zoom meeting tonight to get more information. If you sign the treaty, you will get invited to their comms channels. I've also volunteered to staff a stall at a vegan trade fair in London in November. If you haven't already done so, give it a look.

 

[danceswithcats]

Sorry for multiple threads. I am trying to do this on a touchscreen and I have middle-aged eyesight. This is the final version.

 

[Graeme M]

I'm not sure about this. Whether this is a good idea or not, it would be political suicide for any government to legislate against people eating meat. At least, not any time before the world fell apart and even then probably not. Governments will not do it.

Is methane really a problem? My understanding is that while ever cattle populations remain relatively constant, methane is not accumulating because of its relatively short residence time. In the US for example I don't think the herd has grown much in the last few decades so there isn't really any further contribution to radiative forcing. Even then, emissions from livestock farming are a relatively small player. We will get much better bang for buck tackling energy, transport and industry which are likely to have more traction with the population.

All of that said, I don't think GHG emissions from fossil fuels are as much of a worry as people make out. Already we are facing declining production from coal, gas and oil industries because the cost of extraction is rising. It seems very likely that the use of fossil fuels will dramatically fall in coming decades. Presently we are at maybe 1-1.2C above pre-industrial times and climate change has thus far been difficult to observe. It seems unlikely we will see more than 1.5-2.00C of warming. We should be able to mitigate the worst impacts of that. What may well be the greater problem for humanity could be the effect of losing access to cheap energy from fossil fuels which has enabled the current state of civilisation. The future looks rather bleak if we really expect to run economies on wind and solar.

 

[danceswithcats]

Is methane really a problem?

Yes.

Methane is the second most abundant anthropogenic GHG after carbon dioxide (CO2), accounting for about 20 percent of global emissions. Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. Over the last two centuries, methane concentrations in the atmosphere have more than doubled, largely due to human-related activities. Because methane is both a powerful greenhouse gas and short-lived compared to carbon dioxide, achieving significant reductions would have a rapid and significant effect on atmospheric warming potential.

 

[danceswithcats]

The fossil fuel industry has been putting out a lot of soothing lies about methane, because of this:

Atmospheric methane levels had previously risen during the last two decades of the 20th century but leveled in the first decade of 21st century. Then, atmospheric methane levels increased dramatically from 2008-14, from about 570 teragrams (570 billion tons) annually to about 595 teragrams, due to global human-caused methane emissions in the last 11 years.


“This recent increase in methane in massive,” Howarth said. “It’s globally significant. It’s contributed to some of the increase in global warming we’ve seen and shale gas is a major player.

 

[danceswithcats]

My understanding is that while ever cattle populations remain relatively constant, methane is not accumulating because of its relatively short residence time.

I don't know where you got that from. It is utterly contrary to the truth.

As for the U.S.:

The United States is the top producer of beef and veal of any country worldwide. In 2021, beef production in the United States reached 12.6 million metric tons. Beef production appears to be following a positive trend in the United States. More than 33.07 million cattle were slaughtered both commercially and in farms annually in the United States in 2019, up from 33 million in the previous year.

 

[danceswithcats]

It seems unlikely we will see more than 1.5-2.00C of warming.

No.

According to the 2017 U.S. Climate Science Special Report, if yearly emissions continue to increase rapidly, as they have since 2000, models project that by the end of this century, global temperature will be at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1901-1960 average, and possibly as much as 10.2 degrees warmer. If annual emissions increase more slowly and begin to decline significantly by 2050, models project temperatures would still be at least 2.4 degrees warmer than the first half of the 20th century, and possibly up to 5.9 degrees warmer.

 

[danceswithcats]

We should be able to mitigate the worst impacts of that.

This seems to be the new lie in the climate change denialists' rearguard. Tell it to Pakistan, or to the swathe of the world who are facing food crisis because of this year's climate disasters.

 

[danceswithcats]

The future looks rather bleak if we really expect to run economies on wind and solar.

Bleaker than this?

Your statement, by the way, flies in the face of current economic wisdom. It does, however, reflect the P.R. push representing embedded, anti-progressive corporate interests.

A modernised economy doesn't mean a bleak economy, unless you're a credulous citizen of a country whose corrupt government has sold itself to coal and other mining interests.

 

[Lou]

jumping in....

Cutting methane emissions is the fastest opportunity we have to immediately slow the rate of global warming, even as we decarbonize our energy systems.​

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It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.​

​

Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. Even though CO2 has a longer-lasting effect, methane sets the pace for warming in the near term.​

​

At least 25% of today’s global warming is driven by methane from human actions.​

​

Atmospheric concentration of methane is increasing faster now than at any time since the 1980s.​

​

Methane: A crucial opportunity in the climate fight - Environmental Defense Fund

 

[danceswithcats]

jumping in....

Cutting methane emissions is the fastest opportunity we have to immediately slow the rate of global warming, even as we decarbonize our energy systems.​

​

It’s an opportunity we can’t afford to miss.​

​

Methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere. Even though CO2 has a longer-lasting effect, methane sets the pace for warming in the near term.​

​

At least 25% of today’s global warming is driven by methane from human actions.​

​

Atmospheric concentration of methane is increasing faster now than at any time since the 1980s.​

​

Methane: A crucial opportunity in the climate fight - Environmental Defense Fund

Truth. Thank you, Lou. You've bucked me up.
I was feeling quite dispirited.

 

[Graeme M]

Just to clarify, I support the idea of attempting to develop legally enforcable strategies to greatly reduce animal agriculture, given its overall negative impacts on the biosphere and animal well-being. I remain uncertain whether we should want to rid the world of all livestock, for the simple reason I am somewhat persuaded by some pro-animal ag arguments. My comments above are meant to note that I am rather less worried about the future poential for global climate armageddon. I am more concerned by what we might experience due to a variety of other factors.

Cutting methane emissions is the fastest opportunity we have to immediately slow the rate of global warming, even as we decarbonize our energy systems.

At least 25% of today’s global warming is driven by methane from human actions.

I don't know this is accurate. Looking at current(ish) figures for radiative forcing, in 2019 total GHG forcing was 3.14Wm2. Of that, CH4 was 0.516Wm2. That is about 17%. Also, that is total forcing and not the component from human caused emissions. Perhaps they mean as a proportion of the human caused component.

Nonetheless, methane is a short-lived gas and as a result tends to turnover quickly in the atmosphere. The point with regard to cattle is that while the global herd remains relatively constant - which it has done since the 70s - enteric emissions are not causing a net increase in the current atmospheric load because the turnover is so fast. CO2 is much slower and tends to accumulate.

If we consider CH4's radiative forcing component as a proportion of total GHG forcing, CH4s contribution has actually fallen from about 24% in 1979 to 17% in 2019. This is because CH4's contribution has remained relatively constant since then while CO2 has dramatically increased.

It is true that CH4 emissions have increased since about 2008, but that may be more due to microbial changes, probably in the context of waste, wetlands and agricultural sources such as manure management and rice farming etc. In any case, on a CO2eq basis, the contribution from livestock and manure to annual GHG emissions is pretty small, maybe 6% or so. Like I said, transport and electricity are where the big differences can be made.

Given that the contribution to increasing CH4 emissions recently is probably due to microbial effects (waste and manure management) and to some extent fossil fuel use (mostly gas), we are able to change that by reducing the use of gas for electricity and perhaps finding better ways to deal with waste from CAFO systems. Unfortunately, the world's odd strategy of a rapid transition to wind and solar without storage has meant a growing dependency on gas for electricity and heating. Shuttering coal and nuclear has simply led to ongoing strong demand for gas, so there needs to be some sort of technological remedy for CH4 emissions from the energy industry, because gas isn't going away any time soon.

On that note, I would suggest that globally we face some significant problems in the near future as available energy decreases. Oil and coal are increasingly costly to extract and with pressure on resource companies, spending on extraction has fallen. So those companies haven't invested enough in securing available supply, hence Biden's annoyance with them not being able to ratchet up supply quickly enough when the US recently began to face rising energy costs. Wind and solar cannot replace coal and oil to power further economic growth, so we are likely facing significant economic contraction going forward. The UK may end up being the poster child for this given their dependence on gas and their current failing economy.

Anyways, what I am getting at is that this is not likely:
"if yearly emissions continue to increase rapidly, as they have since 2000, models project that by the end of this century, global temperature will be at least 5 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 1901-1960 average, and possibly as much as 10.2 degrees warmer."

Of course, this is all my opinion and I am not the one making decisions for governments. I just don't think governments will be very keen on legislating to ban/significantly reduce meat production.

 

[Lou]

First off, I got to admit that I didn't finish reading your post. Too dense and complicated for Monday morning.
However I felt like I could make some good comments nevertheless. also I'm not arguing with you here - maybe more just "clarifying "

...I remain uncertain whether we should want to rid the world of all livestock, for the simple reason I am somewhat persuaded by some pro-animal ag arguments....

I too can see the benefits of animal agriculture in some places and in some circumstances. that isn't really a concern or issue. Getting "rid" of all livestock may be a goal by some but it isn't a realistic objective. I'd say we start with some kind of plan that reduces it by a certain percentage.

Nonetheless, methane is a short-lived gas and as a result tends to turnover quickly in the atmosphere. The point with regard to cattle is that while the global herd remains relatively constant - which it has done since the 70s - enteric emissions are not causing a net increase in the current atmospheric load because the turnover is so fast. CO2 is much slower and tends to accumulate.

that is actually the basis of why we should reduce livestock, thus reducing methane emissions.

Methane emissions is sometimes called the low hanging fruit of GHG. Because it does not persist in the atmosphere it means that a reduction now will have more immediate noticeable effects. I like the analogy of stopping a train. The carbon train has 100 cars. the methane train has only 20 so it can be slowed faster.

and keep in mind that methane IS a powerful GHG.

The other aspect of the low hanging fruit analogy is that compared to Carbon it is relatively cheap and easy. You want to electrify the transportation sector? it will take lots of investment to develop the technology, years to build the products and the infrastructure. Lots of time and lots of money.

In contrast it takes very little money and very little time to stop eating meat.

There is a lot of things that individuals can do to reduce carbon and methane. But some things require society to help or promote.

We don't need to make beef illegal. Yeah that would be very unpopular. But there are lots of other things governments can do. Some have already starting to do them. there are other threads where I and others have listed them.

 

[Lou]

This just got posted on Reddit. Yeah, I know. but it's got references. Anyway I like the this guy's point of view.

Needs some context. He was responding to a guy who was talking about some study that he didn't reference but basically claimed that most GenXers believe in climate change but are not aware of the role of livestock.

And, even more importantly, people who talk about the animal industry and its climate impacts pretty much only talk about its emissions. Its emissions are absolutely enormous, but that is nothing compared to the harm caused by its massive use of land.​

​

If we implement veganism, we are able to reclaim about 75 % of the land that is currently used to grow animal feed etc. Globally, that corresponds to an area the size of North America and Brazil combined. That itself reduces emissions enormously, but we then can also rewild those vast areas of land. If we restore wild ecosystems on just 15 % of that land, we save about 60 % of the species expected to go extinct. We then also are able to sequester about 300 petagrams of carbon dioxide. That is nearly a third of the total atmospheric carbon increase since the industrial revolution. Now let's say we were not so conservative, and we brought that up to returning 30 % of the agricultural land to the wild. That would mean that more than 70 % of presently expected extinctions could be avoided, and half of the carbon released since the industrial revolution could be absorbed.​

​

So basically by implementing a switch to veganism, we would not just halt but reverse our contributions to global warming. That and it would also be a step towards ending our violence against non-human animals.​

​

References:​

​

Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration - Nature​

​

Rewilding farmland can protect biodiversity and sequester carbon, new study finds - Alliance for Science​

​

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares​

​

 

[danceswithcats]

This just got posted on Reddit. Yeah, I know. but it's got references. Anyway I like the this guy's point of view.

Needs some context. He was responding to a guy who was talking about some study that he didn't reference but basically claimed that most GenXers believe in climate change but are not aware of the role of livestock.

And, even more importantly, people who talk about the animal industry and its climate impacts pretty much only talk about its emissions. Its emissions are absolutely enormous, but that is nothing compared to the harm caused by its massive use of land.​

​

If we implement veganism, we are able to reclaim about 75 % of the land that is currently used to grow animal feed etc. Globally, that corresponds to an area the size of North America and Brazil combined. That itself reduces emissions enormously, but we then can also rewild those vast areas of land. If we restore wild ecosystems on just 15 % of that land, we save about 60 % of the species expected to go extinct. We then also are able to sequester about 300 petagrams of carbon dioxide. That is nearly a third of the total atmospheric carbon increase since the industrial revolution. Now let's say we were not so conservative, and we brought that up to returning 30 % of the agricultural land to the wild. That would mean that more than 70 % of presently expected extinctions could be avoided, and half of the carbon released since the industrial revolution could be absorbed.​

​

So basically by implementing a switch to veganism, we would not just halt but reverse our contributions to global warming. That and it would also be a step towards ending our violence against non-human animals.​

​

References:​

​

Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration - Nature​

​

Rewilding farmland can protect biodiversity and sequester carbon, new study finds - Alliance for Science​

​

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares​

​

Wonderful. Of the lovely, concise trio of goals of the Plant Based Treaty, the third is restoration.

I'm not on Reddit, but please give this lucid, well-informed poster a like, hurray, kiss or whatever happens there.

 

[danceswithcats]

This just got posted on Reddit. Yeah, I know. but it's got references. Anyway I like the this guy's point of view.

Needs some context. He was responding to a guy who was talking about some study that he didn't reference but basically claimed that most GenXers believe in climate change but are not aware of the role of livestock.

And, even more importantly, people who talk about the animal industry and its climate impacts pretty much only talk about its emissions. Its emissions are absolutely enormous, but that is nothing compared to the harm caused by its massive use of land.​

​

If we implement veganism, we are able to reclaim about 75 % of the land that is currently used to grow animal feed etc. Globally, that corresponds to an area the size of North America and Brazil combined. That itself reduces emissions enormously, but we then can also rewild those vast areas of land. If we restore wild ecosystems on just 15 % of that land, we save about 60 % of the species expected to go extinct. We then also are able to sequester about 300 petagrams of carbon dioxide. That is nearly a third of the total atmospheric carbon increase since the industrial revolution. Now let's say we were not so conservative, and we brought that up to returning 30 % of the agricultural land to the wild. That would mean that more than 70 % of presently expected extinctions could be avoided, and half of the carbon released since the industrial revolution could be absorbed.​

​

So basically by implementing a switch to veganism, we would not just halt but reverse our contributions to global warming. That and it would also be a step towards ending our violence against non-human animals.​

​

References:​

​

Global priority areas for ecosystem restoration - Nature​

​

Rewilding farmland can protect biodiversity and sequester carbon, new study finds - Alliance for Science​

​

If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares​

​

Wonderful. Of the lovely, concise trio of goals of the Plant Based Treaty, the third is restoration.

 

[danceswithcats]

Just to reinforce the message, I wrote in this thread that:

Food grown directly for human consumption, rather than being fed through a 'value added' animal torture process, is the least harmful agricultural sector there is.

I supplied the sources there as well.