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kalium comments on Open thread for December 24-31, 2013 - Less Wrong Discussion

4 Post author: NancyLebovitz 24 December 2013 08:58AM

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Comment author: kalium 29 December 2013 04:31:58AM -1 points [-]

Depends on plant species (not all survive trimming well) and cattle density (trampling certainly kills plants). However, most meat and dairy are not sustained purely by grazing. That said, harvesting grain to feed to cattle doesn't have to kill plants either, unless we consider the embryo in a seed to have the same moral status as a mature plant.

In practice, growing grain to feed to cattle to feed to humans will involve killing a lot more weeds than growing grain to feed straight to humans.

Comment author: aelephant 29 December 2013 10:32:02AM 1 point [-]

Feeding grain to cattle is an awful practice that needs to stop; the sooner, the better.

Re: grazing cattle, have you seen Allan Savory's TED talk? http://www.ted.com/talks/allan_savory_how_to_green_the_world_s_deserts_and_reverse_climate_change.html