This is a really helpful overview, John. It’s striking that no one is talking about reducing the industrial animal operations. I have a question: do you think it would make a difference if the animals were raised in more animal-friendly conditions, like smaller operations, more free range, less crowding? Does that pattern result in less pollution? Obviously some government oversight shifts need to happen too. I bet you have lots of other ideas too about what needs to happen. I’d love to hear them!
Really enjoyed this piece. We have stopped purchasing beef for these reasons, and others. I highly recommend folks read This Land by Chris Ketchum if they’d like a fairly shocking but deeply researched overview of cattle impacts to American public lands in the west, not to mention state politics. It impacted me the way Cadillac Desert did the first time I read it.
Nov 21, 2023·edited Nov 21, 2023Liked by John Lovie
Thank you for covering this. It feels like an intractable problem, and that's speaking as someone who still eats meat. "We're feeding the world" is a phrase I hear a LOT from cattle ranchers. It's a hard claim to refute without enough information on hand--the more work like this out there, the better. And even many doing more regenerative agriculture and focusing on soil health send their animals to feedlots as part of the process--not all, but it still happens.
FYI
https://www.westernwatersheds.org/
This is a really helpful overview, John. It’s striking that no one is talking about reducing the industrial animal operations. I have a question: do you think it would make a difference if the animals were raised in more animal-friendly conditions, like smaller operations, more free range, less crowding? Does that pattern result in less pollution? Obviously some government oversight shifts need to happen too. I bet you have lots of other ideas too about what needs to happen. I’d love to hear them!
Really enjoyed this piece. We have stopped purchasing beef for these reasons, and others. I highly recommend folks read This Land by Chris Ketchum if they’d like a fairly shocking but deeply researched overview of cattle impacts to American public lands in the west, not to mention state politics. It impacted me the way Cadillac Desert did the first time I read it.
Thank you for covering this. It feels like an intractable problem, and that's speaking as someone who still eats meat. "We're feeding the world" is a phrase I hear a LOT from cattle ranchers. It's a hard claim to refute without enough information on hand--the more work like this out there, the better. And even many doing more regenerative agriculture and focusing on soil health send their animals to feedlots as part of the process--not all, but it still happens.