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Green Building Bible, Fourth Edition
Green Building Bible, fourth edition (both books)
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General: Tofu easier than retrofitting

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      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2022 edited
     
    Seems we're barking up the wrong tree!
    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/jul/07/plant-based-meat-by-far-the-best-climate-investment-report-finds

    “Alternative proteins have received only a fraction of the investment deployed in other sectors,” the BCG report said. “Buildings have received 4.4 times more mitigation capital than food production, even though building emissions are 57% lower than those tied to food production.” Switching from conventional meat to alternatives is also much less disruptive to consumers than flying less or retrofitting their homes, the report said.

    Retrofitting as Offsetting for addicted meat-eaters?
  2.  
    It annoys me when all meat is lumped together and branded as a climate destruction product. Distinction should be made between factory farmed meat (especially American feed lot meat production) and naturally produced meat. A lot of meat (beef and lamb/mutton) is produced with grass only on land that is not suitable for other production without vast input of artificial fertilizer and / or environmental destruction.

    As quoted in the article
    “You are cutting out the ‘middleman’, whether it’s a cow, a pig or a chicken. It’s just mathematics: if instead of feeding all of these crops to animals, and then eating the animals, you just use the crops directly for human consumption, you need less crops overall and therefore alleviate the constraints on the system.”

    Stand up all those who want to eat grass instead of beef !!!
    • CommentAuthorjms452
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2022
     
    The thing with getting to net zero is it's not about A versus B - we need to do them all.

    In terms of the bigger picture 'Built environment' and 'food' are the top 2 CO2 impacts worldwide with 'built environment' slightly larger - but both in desperate need improvement.
    •  
      CommentAuthorfostertom
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2022 edited
     
    Posted By: Peter_in_HungaryA lot of meat (beef and lamb/mutton) is produced with grass only on land that is not suitable for other production without vast input of artificial fertilizer and / or environmental destruction

    a) the meat still farts a lot, whether 'on the hoof' or in a 'mature' person's gut! (don't know why digestion of x amount of hydrocarbon may produce more or less of CH4 or CO2, depending on either age, or composition of the feedstock)
    b) perhaps 'land not suitable for ...' should be taken out of 'production' as exactly the prime opportunity for biodiversity gain and carbon capture aka rewilding. The 'right' of the farming community to keep up their deep-rooted way of life and to tend/maintain/find use for their once hard-won 'newtake' land https://www.legendarydartmoor.co.uk/bish_john.htm is an uncomfortable issue that is well acknowleged and solutions proposed, in the rewilding literature, and even now in (watered down) legislation.
  5.  
    "the shift to alternative beef, pork, chicken, and egg alternatives ... is equal to decarbonizing .... about 22% of the building industry"

    Doesn't sound like an either/or to me - might be good if we can all switch to "alternative protein", but we also need to decarbonise the other 78% of the building industry *as well*, not instead.

    Agreed about those stats about "Meat uses 83% of farmland .. but provides only ...37% of protein" being pretty deceptive AFAICS - the large areas of moorland in UK and semi-desert in Texas and Australia, are used for grazing precisely because they are unusable for more intensive arable agriculture. Such as would be needed to make the input ingredients for the "fermentation-based protein industry".
  6.  
    Posted By: WillInAberdeenthe large areas of moorland in UK and semi-desert in Texas and Australia, are used for grazing precisely because they are unusable for more intensive arable agriculture.


    My understanding of this argument is that you would just turn the so-called 'unusable' areas into re-wilded forest instead, since the plant-based foodstuffs need less land overall. This is what George Monbiot suggests:

    Though roughly twice as much land is used for grazing worldwide than for crop production, it provides just 1.2% of the protein we eat. While much of this pastureland cannot be used to grow crops, it can be used for rewilding: allowing the many rich ecosystems destroyed by livestock farming to recover, absorbing carbon from the atmosphere, protecting watersheds and halting the sixth great extinction in its tracks.

    https://www.monbiot.com/2018/06/13/butchery-of-the-planet/
  7.  
    Yes, there is an interesting debate between

    Camp A: (voiced by eg Monbiot) : continue industrial arable agriculture in the most intensive areas eg S England, reduce meat/dairy consumption to release N and W grazing areas for ecological uses

    Camp B: (voiced by eg James Rebanks, Knepp Estate) : de-industrialise agriculture equally in all areas, for less-but-better food production and ecological benefits everywhere)

    Camp C: (voiced by some farming groups) : maintain/ increase food production in UK to reduce our dependence on food imports from more sensitive countries (tropical deforestation etc)

    It is a little disingenuous when they all suggest that unused agricultural land will mostly be "rewilded" - large areas of Scotland and Wales are actually being bought up for plantation forestry, which can have carbon-offsetting benefits, but is no "wilder" than present grazing pasture or shooting moorland are.

    It's also disingenuous when Camp A suggest that grazing is bad for wildlife (the grazing meadow in front of me is home to 1000s of wildflower, invertebrate and small mammal/bird species) while supporting vegetable/cereal crops (the rape oil field behind me has only one species in it, everything else has to be ploughed/sprayed off to allow the crop species to dominate).
    • CommentAuthorSimonD
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2022
     
    Sadly one of those reports that entirely misses the point. I'd prefer it if they looked at the wider problem of the agricultural industry. If you look at regenerative farming, for example, it's an agricultural practise that doesn't necessarily seek to exclude food types but instead actively seeks to integrate them, including livestock, into an ecological whole that benefits the health of the soil and thus output.

    A while ago there was a very interesting programme about it on Radio 4, but here's a DuckDuckGo search link for anyone not familiar with the term: https://foodprint.org/blog/regenerative-agriculture-definition/
  9.  
    It is never a simple answer
    From the article quoted by SimonD
    Integrate livestock

    Much of the middle of the country used to be covered with prairie grasslands, which co-evolved with bison. That animal grazing stimulated new plant growth while the bison hoofs broke up their manure and worked it into the soil. Grasslands are a fantastic carbon sink, but today those prairies have been turned into corn and soybean fields with degraded soil. With well-managed practices, cattle and other grazing animals turn grassland pastures into exceptionally beneficial ecosystems—even carbon neutral, in some cases.

    and

    Do grasslands hold more carbon than forests?
    The value of grassland

    The substantial stocks of carbon in temperate grassland ecosystems located below ground in roots and soil are 150% greater than those in temperate forest (Climate Policy Watchers, 2019).

    So from this it can easily be said that stopping grazing and converting all suitable land to human edible crops (as opposed to animal edible crops i.e. grass) would not be the big win that is often claimed.

    Also I know one organic farmer who as a vegetarian has no animals and therefore no animal manure and in order to keep his soil fertility up he has to plant 50% of his land annually with green manure and crops for composting just to maintain the nutrition of the other 50%. Whilst he does crop rotation at any one time 50% of his land is used for soil nutrition of the other 50% This reduces his production capacity with out the use of artificial fertilisers to 50% of the accepted norm.

    I would agree with WillInAberdeen above
    It's also disingenuous when Camp A suggest that grazing is bad for wildlife (the grazing meadow in front of me is home to 1000s of wildflower, invertebrate and small mammal/bird species) while supporting vegetable/cereal crops (the rape oil field behind me has only one species in it, everything else has to be ploughed/sprayed off to allow the crop species to dominate).
    My pasture also has a very high biodiversity including several protected and highly protected pant species all of which would be lost if the land was to be turned over to human edible crops. (Assuming that the land could support cereal - which it could not!)
    • CommentAuthorJonti
    • CommentTimeJul 8th 2022 edited
     
    There is always the tendency in recent times to look for that 'one thing' that is at fault or the solution and a lack of willingness to accept the problem or solution will be made up of a mixture things.

    I believe we consume far too much meat. Most people are eating some form of meat every day where as one or two times a week should be the norm. On the cereal crop side of things ploughing needs to be banned wherever possible and drill seeding used. Some rewilding is good but I suspect a hybrid system will end up being used.

    Of course no one seems to want to look at what is the biggest problem which is population. There are simply far too many people on the planet for it to be sustainable but I cannot see anyone seriously addressing this problem.

    As for the housing stock. We need to address the shockingly bad construction standards in the UK but a return to the acceptance of 18C being normal room temperature and using/heating less of the home. Modern lifestyle expectancies certainly carry some of the blame too.

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