The federal government is proposing financial incentives for farmers in lieu of cutting enteric methane emissions that are released in the air when cows burp.

  • AlwaysNowNeverNotMe@kbin.social
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    7 months ago

    What do we do outlaw beef? Until we can create a true facsimile through plants or lab grown meat it will just be an albatross around our necks in the culture war.

    Cows are the largest source of methane on earth, and if you can add 1% algae to their feed or something to make them produce less we would be stupid to miss it.

    • apprehensively_human@lemmy.ca
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      7 months ago

      By “do better” I think they mean “allow me to continue living exactly as I have been with no noticeable changes, hardships or tax increases”

      • Nouveau_Burnswick@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Nah, tax the shit out of me. I live in Québec, I can take it. I spent 6 months this year working directly, or indirectly, in response to climate disasters.

        Removing beef would be better than marginal increases in burps.

        Removing cars would be better than burps.

        Removing oil and gas extraction would do better than burps.

        Make hard choices, incremental increases shouldn’t be news.

        NATO is making Canada the home of the headquarters for fighting climate change, think they’re doing that because we’re good at it?

    • DarthFrodo@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      We could tax greenhouse gas emissions to internalize the environmental cost.

      If the beef burger would cost 2x more than the plant-based burger (which basically tastes the same but has 90% fewer emissions), most people would choose the plant-based one. That would massively reduce food related ghg emissions, and also create a huge incentive to develop better alternatives/lab meat.

      • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        This. The simplest path toward a sustainable economy is doing away with the externalisation of costs on products that’re killing us.

        I can’t agree with you on those plant-based burgers though. In no way do they taste the same. If you tax the shit out of cow meat though, it’s likely that someone will be able to develop a better alternative.

        • jcg@halubilo.social
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          7 months ago

          Not American but doesn’t the US government subsidize the meat and dairy industries? Could definitely start with lessening or doing away with that.

          • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            It’s not just the US. Canada does it too, and i expect many other countries do as well. But yes, this is a great place to start, along with rolling back the trillions of dollars in fossil fuel subsidies.

        • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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          7 months ago

          Have you tried the Beyond burgers, granted I haven’t eaten meat in 30 years, but to me they are so meat like that it makes me gag

          • Daniel Quinn@lemmy.ca
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            7 months ago

            Yup. I’ve had a few versions of both Beyond Meat and Impossible burgers. They’re both better than what came before, but critically, I didn’t like them. They certainly weren’t comparable to actual cow.

            …and I’m cool with that. Mass farming cows is killing us, so we need to drastically reduce that industry down to boutique level so that a “real” burger costs 5-10× what it does now. I just hope that we can do better than the current candidates. My personal hope is that the lab grown meat will be a fitting replacement.

            • BCsven@lemmy.ca
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              7 months ago

              Lab Grown meat makes sense to me. find the tastiest cell lines and replicate. So much waste in cattle farming, and nasty shit going into the cows to keep them viable.

      • baconisaveg@lemmy.ca
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        7 months ago

        Burgers have already gone up 250% in the past couple of years. Slow your roll there guy.