I agree with you completely about overpopulation. However, I would add that it’s meat consumption that really needs to decrease and be replaced with more sustainable plant consumption.
what are y'all saving from the wild to deal with coming crisis?
- Thread starter ladyearth
- Start date
I agree with you completely about overpopulation. However, I would add that it’s meat consumption that really needs to decrease and be replaced with more sustainable plant consumption.
- May 20, 2015
- 2,719
- 5,798
- 392
I'm not a big meat eater, and I don't like industrial meat factories, but I don't understand how grass-fed beef (or free range chickens) is not "sustainable" (whatever that means).
- Nov 10, 2014
- 74
- 206
- 111
The Environmental Protection Agency:
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.
Learn more about sustainability and how EPA incorporates it into its work in the National Reseach Council's report, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA.
- May 20, 2015
- 2,719
- 5,798
- 392
I'm not interested in how the EPA defines sustainability. They probably think wind turbines and solar panels are sustainable (they're not; they're as destructive to the environment as other energy sources are). I think I have a pretty good idea what it means, and referring back to my original point, I think grass-fed cattle raised on land that isn't useful for much else is a sustainable practice.
- Nov 10, 2014
- 74
- 206
- 111
What is Sustainability?
Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.
Learn more about sustainability and how EPA incorporates it into its work in the National Reseach Council's report, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA. for sustainability within the EPA. By its very nature, NEPA emphasizes the importance of sustainability. This provision is particularly true because Congress then stated that “the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government” is to, among other things, “fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations” (42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(1)).
https://www.nap.edu/read/13152/chapter/4#17
pages 17-18
Summary
Sustainability is based on a simple and long-recognized factual premise: Everything that humans require for their survival and well-being depends, directly or indirectly, on the natural environment.1 The environment provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. It defines in fundamental ways the communities in which we live and is the source for renewable and nonrenewable resources on which civilization depends. Our health and well-being, our economy, and our security all require a high quality environment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to create programs and examining applications in a variety of areas to better incorporate sustainability into decision making at the agency. To further strengthen the analytic and scientific basis for sustainability as it applies to human health and environmental protection, EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to convene a committee under the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program to provide an operational framework for integrating sustainability as one of the key drivers within the regulatory responsibilities of EPA. Specifically, the committee was tasked to answer four key questions:
Sustainability is based on a simple principle: Everything that we need for our survival and well-being depends, either directly or indirectly, on our natural environment. To pursue sustainability is to create and maintain the conditions under which humans and nature can exist in productive harmony to support present and future generations.
Learn more about sustainability and how EPA incorporates it into its work in the National Reseach Council's report, Sustainability and the U.S. EPA. for sustainability within the EPA. By its very nature, NEPA emphasizes the importance of sustainability. This provision is particularly true because Congress then stated that “the continuing responsibility of the Federal Government” is to, among other things, “fulfill the responsibilities of each generation as trustee of the environment for succeeding generations” (42 U.S.C. § 4331(b)(1)).
https://www.nap.edu/read/13152/chapter/4#17
pages 17-18
Summary
Sustainability is based on a simple and long-recognized factual premise: Everything that humans require for their survival and well-being depends, directly or indirectly, on the natural environment.1 The environment provides the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. It defines in fundamental ways the communities in which we live and is the source for renewable and nonrenewable resources on which civilization depends. Our health and well-being, our economy, and our security all require a high quality environment.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been working to create programs and examining applications in a variety of areas to better incorporate sustainability into decision making at the agency. To further strengthen the analytic and scientific basis for sustainability as it applies to human health and environmental protection, EPA asked the National Research Council (NRC) to convene a committee under the Science and Technology for Sustainability Program to provide an operational framework for integrating sustainability as one of the key drivers within the regulatory responsibilities of EPA. Specifically, the committee was tasked to answer four key questions:
- What should be the operational framework for sustainability for EPA?
- How can the EPA decision-making process rooted in the risk assessment/ risk management (RA/RM) paradigm be integrated into this new sustainability framework?
- What scientific and analytical tools are needed to support the framework?
- What expertise is needed to support the framework?
The growing identification of sustainability as both a process and a goal to ensure long-term human well-being is based on four converging drivers. The first is the recognition that current approaches aimed at decreasing existing risks, however successful, are not capable of avoiding the complex problems in the United States and globally that threaten the planet’s critical natural resources and put current and future human generations at risk, including population growth, the widening gaps between the rich and the poor, depletion of finite natural resources, biodiversity loss, climate change, and disruption of nutrient cycles. Second, sophisticated tools are increasingly available to address cross-cutting, complex, and challenging issues that go beyond the current approach, which is, risk management of major threats. Third, sustainability is being used by international organizations as a common approach to address the three sustainability pillars (social, environmental, and economic issues) in agreements in which the United States is an active participant. Finally, the potential economic value of sustainability to the United States is recognized to not merely decrease environmental risks but also to optimize the social and economic benefits of environmental protection.
summary pages 1-2
https://www.nap.edu/read/13152/chapter/2
- Nov 10, 2014
- 74
- 206
- 111
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/is-g...KzSuCJzTFfgbPA_AuleLP2FzoYJkwo7vz-RLXPsx333Lr
There’s Only One Way For Grass-Fed Cattle To Be A Sustainable Farming Practice
With a growing public demand, two Harvard researchers attempt to answer that question.
<<< >>>
While open grazing is arguably a more natural process to produce beef, debates have sparked about the sustainability of the technique. Some advocates say that with proper management, the process can regenerate land and provide the ground with natural fertilizer. Others say there simply isn’t enough terrain to sustain a growing grass-fed animal industry.
To investigate these questions, Matthew Hayek, a farmed animal law and policy fellow at Harvard University and Boston University associate professor, Rachael D Garrett applied a grass-fed model to the current cattle industry in the United States. Their goal was to discover what is the environmental and land resource cost if all the nation’s cattle were pasture-raised. Previous studies on the matter have been done, but Hayek and Garrett point out considerations that haven’t been sufficiently taken into account, such as the fact that grass-fed cows grow slower and grow to be smaller than their grain-finished kindred.
They determined that for a grass-fed system to work, we would need much more cattle. Cows that are grass-fed as opposed to those being fed grain during the finishing process take much longer to fatten for market, this new system would require 30% more cattle – around 23 million more cows annually – to produce the amount of beef currently in production. Due to the smaller slaughter weight, over 5 million additional animals would need to be slaughtered at a total of around 27 million cows per year. Due to the fact that the majority of the increase comes from the animals not being finished on the feedlots for slaughter implies another interesting truth: at any given time, there are five times more cows grazing on pastureland before being moved to the concentrated feedlots. This also creates the popular impression that most of the cows live in the open pastureland; alas, this is a temporary state of existence.
This volume to satisfy demand creates another conundrum: with additional cattle come increased methane emissions. For cattle to digest natural grasses, they first must ferment them in their stomachs. The result of this process according to the study is an increase in methane emissions by 43 percent compared to conventional methods of producing beef. This would contribute to an 8 percent jump in the whole country’s overall methane output.
The research also considered the other common concern about the grass-fed model: availability of land. If turned to grass-fed, the current pasture land in the U.S. could support only 27 percent of the cattle raised today. ...
There’s Only One Way For Grass-Fed Cattle To Be A Sustainable Farming Practice
With a growing public demand, two Harvard researchers attempt to answer that question.
<<< >>>
While open grazing is arguably a more natural process to produce beef, debates have sparked about the sustainability of the technique. Some advocates say that with proper management, the process can regenerate land and provide the ground with natural fertilizer. Others say there simply isn’t enough terrain to sustain a growing grass-fed animal industry.
To investigate these questions, Matthew Hayek, a farmed animal law and policy fellow at Harvard University and Boston University associate professor, Rachael D Garrett applied a grass-fed model to the current cattle industry in the United States. Their goal was to discover what is the environmental and land resource cost if all the nation’s cattle were pasture-raised. Previous studies on the matter have been done, but Hayek and Garrett point out considerations that haven’t been sufficiently taken into account, such as the fact that grass-fed cows grow slower and grow to be smaller than their grain-finished kindred.
They determined that for a grass-fed system to work, we would need much more cattle. Cows that are grass-fed as opposed to those being fed grain during the finishing process take much longer to fatten for market, this new system would require 30% more cattle – around 23 million more cows annually – to produce the amount of beef currently in production. Due to the smaller slaughter weight, over 5 million additional animals would need to be slaughtered at a total of around 27 million cows per year. Due to the fact that the majority of the increase comes from the animals not being finished on the feedlots for slaughter implies another interesting truth: at any given time, there are five times more cows grazing on pastureland before being moved to the concentrated feedlots. This also creates the popular impression that most of the cows live in the open pastureland; alas, this is a temporary state of existence.
This volume to satisfy demand creates another conundrum: with additional cattle come increased methane emissions. For cattle to digest natural grasses, they first must ferment them in their stomachs. The result of this process according to the study is an increase in methane emissions by 43 percent compared to conventional methods of producing beef. This would contribute to an 8 percent jump in the whole country’s overall methane output.
The research also considered the other common concern about the grass-fed model: availability of land. If turned to grass-fed, the current pasture land in the U.S. could support only 27 percent of the cattle raised today. ...
if I eat more beans, I pass more gas
therefore:
"More Meat Mondays"
therefore:
"More Meat Mondays"
::Snort::....
Feed to meat ratio.... should be considered as well.
Time to raise the animal up to a consumable size. is part of that...
I also believe we in the US should take a clue from other societies and use meat protien as a small portion of our meals. And I am a Big lover of STEAk and pot roast.... I will be sad to go to two ounce portions... but if that is what it takes so be it.
deb
Time to raise the animal up to a consumable size. is part of that...
I also believe we in the US should take a clue from other societies and use meat protien as a small portion of our meals. And I am a Big lover of STEAk and pot roast.... I will be sad to go to two ounce portions... but if that is what it takes so be it.
deb
I will be sad when we pass laws prohibiting insecticides on plants. Then plants won't be able to feed the world either. renewable fertilizers are animal based for the most part, raise more beef and chicken
Similar threads
New posts New threads Active threads
-
Latest threads
-
-
What kind of Tums are safe for hens?- Started by Ccort
- Replies: 0
-
Chicken Found Dead with Blood in Beak/Throat
- Started by remily
- Replies: 0
-
-
-
Threads with more replies in the last 15 days
-
-
Over researched and made myself anxious about coccidiosis- Started by Echelontheory101
- Replies: 67
-
-
-
-
