UKC

Recent article in the Guardian seems to be part of their stated policy to back plant based diet. 

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/19/why-you-should-go-anima...

All seems quite sensible to me - but a friend named it as propaganda - concealed efforts of philanthropists who promote textured meat alternatives - with big financial motivations.

https://ghgguru.faculty.ucdavis.edu/2019/03/18/guardian-and-opp-ink-deal-to...

Does the Guardian coverage of these issues qualify as propaganda ? Do they make the sponsoring evident enough ? Can we say in this instance that philanthropy is acting honestly and genuinely ?

We need to reduce meat consumption (?) but do we need synthesised products in it's place ? Why not just eat 'beans & rice' ??! 

 

If you look long and hard enough for conspiracy, you'll find it.

I've only skimmed the article but it what it says about synthesised products seems pretty reasonable to me - 

"There is certainly a strong argument to be made that overall we eat far too much processed food, but that applies just as much to meat eaters as to vegetarians and vegans. And given that most people are unlikely to give up their burgers and sausages any time, the plant-based options are a useful alternative."

Rice is hardly a good guy as far as methane emissions atr concerned.

In comparison to what? You've got to eat something.

https://wriorg.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Shifting_Diets_for_a_Sustainabl...

Soylent Green?

Hah!

It's a great idea for end of life use but a terrible idea to increase people production, they must be by far the most high carbon meat there is!

It's not journalism that's for sure but it's not clear to me that the particular Guardian article you link to is funded by the burger makers? 

What's wrong with making a profit?

Seriously? They barely mention “meat alternatives” apart from saying something to the effect of ‘well they aren’t good for you but they come with fewer issues than meat’ - that’s hardly a glowing commendation!

And with regard to the idea that the article claims we need to replace meat with synthetic alternatives: earlier in the article it clearly states “All protein needs can easily be met from plant-based sources, such as beans, lentils, nuts and whole grains.” I can’t see that driving Quorn’s stock price through the roof.

Skimming through vegetarian and vegan section on the guardian website shows a mix of positive and negative articles since 2017. Including a fair number critical of unhealthy meat replacements. Pre 2017, when they apparently took money from OPP, things look... exactly the same. Plenty of articles in 2015 and 2016 arguing that we should eat less meat. Is it not entirely possible that OPP gave money to support the guardian because they already shared the same views and liked their content, and not to “buy editorial space”?  It doesn’t look like this article has anything to do with that deal anyway, so what do they need to be “more transparent” about?

Does your friend eat meat, by the way? I think it’s pretty well established that cutting down on meat would be a huge step in the fight against climate change. I don’t really think there is a coherent argument against that. So I do find that people will often attack articles like this as “propaganda” simply because they lack any evidence based counter arguments, and need a way of excusing their own inaction/apathy on the topic of climate change.

The gruniad is a left wing paper, and such will lead the way on certain topics. For example the left led the way with the green movement, going back decades.

Promoting veggie burgers, is no different from promoting wind or solar power. Someone will always say that a vested interest is going to profit from it.

If you're worried about it, buy shares in beyond meat, or others. Then you'll be the the one with financial motives, profiting from the clean eating/ veggie movement.

It’s a plot to kill the Prime Minister of Malaysia isn’t it?

Because most of us don't want to subsist on f*cking beans and rice??!

I like a nice steak occasionally and I'd love someone to come up with a tasty, environmentally friendly alternative that doesn't involve Daisy the cow getting intimate with a bolt gun. It's not yet another conspiracy, it's progress.

Well there's an irony. When I 1st posted the Guardian article on FB I was NOT thinking about conspiracy - it was a friend who brought out the OPP evidence. I am 100% pro plant based diet, and although I eat fish, have NEVER eaten meat.

But otherwise, if identification of financial motives for a mediatised trend or policy is called out as conspiracy - should this put an end to discussion ?

Yet another conspiracy theory?

The Guardian has a long record of supporting progressive causes. In this case it supports reducing the environmental impact of meat production, and reducing the cruelty of animal-based agriculture. What is actually wrong with that - both etically and (since they've been transparent about their business relationship) journalistically?

Have you ever noticed that when people suggest a different way of looking at the world, one tactic used by people who like the Status quo, is to mock the new way of looking at the world, because its easier than making changes.

I bet plenty of people thought the survivalists with bunkers stocked with food against the idea of things like nuclear war or world wide pandemic were mockable...………………...…………………...……...…...……..

Doesn't matter how many dots you put at the end of that sentence; there's been no nuclear war and nobody has needed a stockpile of food to survive a pandemic.

Yet....................................................................

and on a serious note, people in places in Yemen are starving because they could not stockpile food.

1) I'm not a huge fan of the status quo, particularly so since 2016;

2) I haven't mocked anything;

3) What is this new way of looking at the world of which you speak?;

4) Nobody has proposed any changes to be made;

5) Have you considered that it may be you who's doing the mocking, because it's easier than challenging your own assumptions or biases?

People are starving in Yemen because of war and blockade. Not nuclear war, not pandemic.

Edit: Having a month's worth of food in the house is sensible, so's having a means to cook that doesn't rely on the grid, likewise a couple of torches and a few candles. Even more sensible is having a least 3 months salary in the bank. Most people don't have a meaningful reserve of anything.

The point is making preparations for predictable blips in our daily lives is sensible, preparing for nuclear war is laughable on a number of grounds. You want to prepare for nuclear war and the total breakdown of civilisation? Six months worth of canned goods just isn't going to cut it.

Yes, its not Nuclear war and blockade, but they are still starving, because they have not got food, and I am led to believe the Pandemic is not helping matters.

In comparison to beef . Some estimates are that the methane  released by rice  production is roughly similar in amount to that resulting from beef production ( some say more, some say less).

Methane is more significant in its effect on global warming than carbon dioxide and the 100 million or so tonnes produced by paddy fields annually represent a very significant proportion of the gas being released into the atmosphere by man made processes.

Since most of those starving were living pretty much hand to mouth in the first place, where were they going to magic up a stockpile of food? Shifting goalposts doesn't make your point any more valid.

Have you got some references? It's hard to believe that at face value when you don't give details of what's been compared with what and how the accounting for different inputs has been done.

Figure ES-2 in the link I gave certainly says beef produces magnitudes higher CO2E than rice production.

Presumably you're not just talking about a direct comparison, the tons of rice produced per year must be many times the tons of beef produced?

Also are you just comparing methane? Why not CO2E? It seems like a more useful comparison.

Yes and no. Methane is a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2, but there's much less of it in the atmosphere. 

Fish isn't meat? I have never understood why fish is seen as something else. 

It's because baby fish aren't cute and fluffy.

100 million tons p.a. from beef production and between 50-100 million fom rice.

Yes I'm just comparing methane. That was my original comment because point two in the article was about methane.

Just eating 'beans and rice' rather than eating beef (or other meat) would likely mean a significant reduction in CO2E and other impacts so why mention methane in particular?

Overall impact is surely what's relevant no?

(edited to add - Sorry, I don't mean to pick at you, it's just it feels really important to clearly understand our impacts on the world and I just wanted to clarify the above)

The article addressed its topic in 18 subsections and methane was one of them. So that's the one I was adressing. It never occurred to me that any comment I posted was supposed to refer to the whole topic rather than a specific aspect of it.

US Environmental Agency says  methane represents 10% of greenhouse emissions as opposed to CO2 's   81%. But since by most estimates methane is between 20  and 25 times more powerful  it suggests that it is doing at least 3 times as much damage on a daily basis, even though its life is much shorter.

That's my interpretation , anyway.   

The new global methane budget puts rice at 30 Tg CH4 per year. For all livestock emissions it gives 115 Tg CH4 per year. But this includes cows (1.4 billion of them), sheep (1 billion), goats etc.
https://essd.copernicus.org/preprints/essd-2019-128/

You are right. The articles funded by OPP have the key-phrase (searchable) + logo at head

'Animals farmed is supported by' <logo OPP>

And there are a lot of them. Arguably a bit sneaky because if you search on OPP Guardian there are only a few results, whereas searching on the above phrase returns many articles

My FB friend is a keen meat eater - which tipped his reaction to the article '18 reasons'; in fact I have found strong reactions from others - who are supporters of meat based diets for elimination of carbs and thus weight control - these are the ppl who's toes are being stepped on .

I don't think that's quite right. What's important is the atmospheric concentration of the gases. CO2 has a current concentration of about 415ppm. CH4 has a concentration of a bit less than 1.9 ppm - about 200 times less than that of CO2. The CO2 equivalence, using a GWP of 30 (figures vary considerably depending on source), would be 60 ppm. Not insignificant, but not 3 times as much. 

You might find this interesting:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/030626199190021O

Yes! my FB friend is a carnivore - too keen

The synthezised meat connection falls out pretty quick from examination of the sponsor's other commercial backings.

It would be of further interest to know the following from both parties concerned:

As a meat eater - would be keen to eat more synthetic products ? - given that today's technology might well be capable of a blindfold taste-match 

As a vegetarian - would you eat synthetic meats if they were more available ? and would an identi-match in taste/texture add to the appeal or rather the inverse ?

Thanks, that's what I call a reference!

I'd be interested to see methane per calorie, the closest I've found is https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore which gives CO2 E per 1000 kilo calorie.

Beef comes in at 36kg, rice at 1.2kg, so a significant difference!

Now you are supporting conspiracy ! - which wants the public to imagine that the 'new normal' will be a random product of free-market. But since certain ultra-rich actors became monopolistic - they have the power to mould public opinion, and yes, there is a definite agenda waiting for approval.

Assuming your figures are correct and noting the margin of error on your rice figure. That beef production gets you 70 million tons of beef, whilst the rice production gets you 500 million tons of rice.

Where do you shop? I thought at least 5% of all supermarket vegetables was actually horse meat.

I don't know if my figures are right or not: upthread I quoted some data I gleaned from a US EPA pie chart and was told it wasn't right so it's hard to know what to think.

I f you are saying you get seven times as much rice as you do beef for the same output that makes perfect sense. 

Agreed - a straight comparison of methane emissions isn't useful if one of the foodstuffs gets you significantly more calories.

Somewhere between 7 and 15 times by mass according to your figures. Some referenced figures above suggest that by calorific value it is 1:30.

Yes and no.

Global food production is estimated to be down by something like 25% (IIRC) this year due to the pandemic. 

It won't be us that go short as a result. 

Those in the poorest countries will suffer as we hoover up the available food. If those of us who could afford to stockpile had, there would be more to go round those who can't afford it.

Rightttt... given that hundreds of millions in the third world were already struggling to feed themselves before covid, I'm not sure how everyone in the West stockpiling food would do anything other than drive up Global prices and further impoverish the World's least fortunate.

It's a meaningless comparison unless you are much more specific about exactly how the comparison is made ....upon which a whole prior discussion ensues, about which way of comparing is most relevant in the context of environmental concerns .... oh yes, and we'd better discuss first the relative importance of those concerns, put them in some kind of order ....

Steady stockpiling (keeping reserves on rotation) would do little to affect global prices, even if we were all doing it, as consumption remains fairly constant - just a slight increase during the loading phase. 

Certainly nothing compared to the effect of a pandemic reducing food production by 25% - the effects of which would be lessened by people having reserves.

I was only trying to point out that rice production isn't as squeaky clean as a packet of Uncle Ben's but I may have been a bit cynical. 

I notice that Chinese rice production is set the halve the  amount of methane in the process by moving away from organic fertilisers towards chemical products, so that's good news, I assume.

So, you reckon the two billion of us living in the first world, stockpiling food, wouldn't have much effect on Global prices??? 

Average weekly shop for a family of four in the UK is about £150. A meaningful food stockpile would be what? three months worth? That's £2000 for a family of four... for a start, the vast majority couldn't afford that. People aren't organised enough to rotate stockpiles so the wastage would be horrendous and the total cost of that stockpile for first world families would come in at ONE TRILLION QUID!

Sorry, can't see how that kind of stockpiling and inevitable wastage would achieve anything but end up royally screwing over billions subsisting on third world diets, bought with third world wages.

Consume or be consumed.

In very simple terms you are correct but it is not that simple.

You have to consider where your carbon is coming from. 

Comparing methane production from food production where the carbon was captured from the atmosphere by plants a few years ago to   CO2 emissions caused by burning fossil fuels that captured their carbon content from the atmosphere thousands of years ago makes little sense.

It is a hugely complex subject and we should be looking at the real warming effects of our actions rather than using CO2 equivalents as a proxy for the effects that we need to combat.

 

I'll have a pint of what you're smoking!

Total methane emissions are about 670 million tonnes, so rice production accounts for 15% of total methane emissions. Your figure of 100 million tonnes is a little bit more than the methane emissions arising from fossil fuel operations, while termites are responsible for about 20 million tonnes. 

I'm happy with very simple terms. That's why having a discussion on UKC can be so arduous.

If someone says "Is HVS harder than VS" I tend to favour the simple answer, rather than the "Ah, well, that all depends on the technical grade, the type of rock, the climber's experience  and preferred style  etc etc)

Obviously it doesn't work on any topic with a whiff of science about it   

Did you mean to use the word "Philanthropists"

Which led me to a termite fact type website where I learned that for every human on the planet there is 1000 lb of termites.

Which means that there is s termite crop of ten times every human's weight waiting to be harvested. May as well get some return for all the methane the little bastards are churning out. 

😀 ... but here some excerpts from a recent article by the Good Food Institute

Q: Covid-19 has led to a drastic increase in retail food sales and at-home consumption. SPINS data compiled by GFI shows that U.S. plant-based meat retail sales grew by 18 percent in 2019 to $939 million. This growth significantly accelerated when Covid-19-induced buying began. Since February, year-over-year growth of plant-based meat sales has greatly outstripped conventional meat.

Q: The trillion-dollar-plus meat market is poised to fundamentally transform. Consumer demand is proven and growing. In this “new normal,” we must shift to alternative proteins to improve public health and enhance food security. 

https://www.gfi.org/blog-state-of-the-industry-2020

Hmm. Maybe I need to explain.

As part of a multi-pronged rant, you stated: "because its (sic) easier than making changes"

I replied with:"Nobody has proposed any changes to be made", it being clear that your post contained no such suggestions for change.

In direct, quoted reply, you claimed: "Now you are supporting conspiracy !"

Is it any wonder I then was wondering what substances you may have been imbibing!

To be clear, I don't really care about other side-issues you may want to bring up tangentially to salvage some degree of credibility, I'm just aghast at this undeniably direct conversation and how it disappeared down a rabbithole so alarmingly quickly and with no provocation whatsoever!

Have a good evening!

? ? ?

! ! ! 

Out of interest where are these numbers coming from? In the new global methane budget I linked above total (top down) emissions are 591 Tg for 2017, rice is 30 Tg (so 5% of total), and fossil fuels are 107 Tg. If we consider only anthropogenic emissions then rice is 8% of these emissions.

That isn't provocation. That's a simple statement of fact

It's hardly surprising that the growth in plant-based meat alternatives is greater than the growth in meat; after all, we've been eating meat for millennia, but plant-based meat alternatives (as opposed to other vegetarian or vegan foods) are a very, very recent development.

This growth is driven by ethical concerns (but wanting to retain a 'meat-like' experience), or by concerns about the environmental impact of meat-rearing (on the assumption that the plant-based meat alternatives are actually less damaging to the environment...).

Not sure I see any luvvie/vegagribusiness conspiracy to take over the world...

ps. I'm not sure how a 'year over year' growth can be measured 'since February'...

That one is for JK to answer - I've got no interest in conspiracy - which is by definition unsupported whimsical notion

I don't see any 'takeover bid' to rule the markets with these developments. Change is coming but it will be slow and proportionate. But there is a definite commercial interest in a market share of whatever is available.

In reference to the Guardian article, I think a lot is overstated - to the detriment of the persuasion:

Q: Food writer Michael Pollan foreshadowed the planetary health diet in 2008 with a simple seven-word rule: “Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.” But if you want to have the maximum impact on fighting the climate and wildlife crisis, then it is going to be all plants.

There is a definite place for upland raised meat, grass fed. Also for smaller poly-culture farming in which animals share in the cycle of vegetable production. On our small property, muck from the 50 hens is an important element of the whole. 

I would also take issue with Guardian on synthesized meat - will it be less damaging ? and will it be a healthy alternative to meat ?

Q: The rapid rise of the plant-based burger has prompted some to criticise them as ultra-processed junk food. A plant-based burger could be unhealthier if the salt levels are very high, says Springmann, but it is most likely to still be healthier than a meat burger when all nutritional factors are considered, particularly fibre. Furthermore, replacing a beef burger with a plant-based alternative is certain to be less damaging to the environment

The ingredient list for a hi-tech burger easily runs passed the 'ultra-processed' - 5 ingredient level - achieving texture and flavour norms will only be possible with composite techniques - and this itself will demand a lot of energy !

Here's an ingredient list - don't know how typical it is. The hickory smoke sounds nice 😉 but not so sure about the dipotassium phosphate 😖 

Q: Ingredients: Water, soy protein isolate*, pea protein isolate, amaranth, chicken flavor [vegan] (maltodextrin, yeast extract, natural flavoring), expeller-pressed canola oil*, soy fiber*, carrot fiber, contains 0.5% or less of: white vinegar, salt, molasses, garlic, hickory smoke powder, onion, lemon juice concentrate, black pepper, sugar, mustard powder, paprika, sodium alginate, dipotassium phosphate, titanium dioxide (color), calcium sulfate, red and green bell pepper powder, parsley, cayenne pepper.

https://www.fooducate.com/community/post/The-Future-of-Meat-is-Vegan-Says-B...

and oh yes ... Bill Gates has a longstanding interest in both plant based synthetic meat and the lab grown variety ...

Why do you pick on rice anyway ? To compare rice (calories) with meat (protein) doesn't make sense ! Why not compare soya beans or yellow peas instead ? 

You make me sound like a schoolyard bully and I'm not like that at all..

I chose rice because  eating "just beans and rice" was proposed as a solution to  the climate change problems caused by meat consumption, as an alternative to synthetic meat products. You didn't suggest just eating beans, you said beans and rice. 

As you say, comparing the methane produced by another protein would have been more appropriate but since you had the idea of discussing eating more rice  as part of the solution to the planet's problems I made a response to that particular suggestion..

If you wanted  comments  only  limited to protein alternatives to meat production then you shouln't really have introduced starch/calorie products into the discussion

Ah, Bill Gates again...

https://www.iea.org/reports/methane-tracker-2020

I'm really not sure why people are getting so worked up about methane emissions from rice production. Even if they stopped completely tomorrow, there would be little or no effect on warming. 

Really? The consensus seems to be that reducing short lived climate pollutants (such as methane) now can have a real impact on limiting warming, eg:
https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/press-release/keeping-warmin...
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-018-0328-1

What proportion of those SLCPs is accounted for by CH4 arising from rice production? A tiny percentage. The committed temperature rise from GHGs in the atmosphere will almost certainly breach the 1.5C target regardless of any efforts to reduce CH4 emissions from rice paddies. 

Meaningful reductions in CH4 emissions may come from reductions in waste, and from fossil fuel processes. Rice is a staple food for a significant proportion of the world's population. It is not a sensible target for significant and meaningful emissions reductions. 

Ah fair enough - I sort of assumed you were talking about rice, and then the pointlessness of reducing CH4 more generally. I agree completely about rice not being a wise target for reductions.

Have you tried venison?

Guardian definitely has poor fact check and is generally biased when it comes to animal ag and climate change.  Loaded headlines, alarmist wording etc. etc.  - classic click-bait now.  Not alone, but a pity seeing it becoming an opinion outlet.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/the-guardian/

Farming and land stewardship is a major issue, but its a management problem.  Animals on land are critical for environment, diversity and food security.  Trying to achieve sustainability using lab grown food, hydroponic farms, out of season/imported local foods and synthetic inputs is accelerating environmental disaster.

Lots of emerging research and case points. 

https://www.csuchico.edu/regenerativeagriculture/demos/white-oak-pastures.s...

Nobody should be under the illusion that lab grown/plant based meat proponents are really prioritizing environment and health over profits.  A +- 90% population that consumes animal ag products is a huge opportunity if they switch diets.

I suppose Gates is just trying to promote more sustainable food production to assuage the guilt he feels for contributing to the overpopulation of the world by saving all those people from dying from malaria. The bastard...

So by the same logic, should we not stockpile PPE for emergencies to keep the global prices down? There are plenty of countries struggling to meet the cost of general medical supplies.

Keeping a three month supply of flour, pasta, pulses, and tinned goods should not be hard to organise, and shouldn't cost £2000 for a family of four.

When I were a lad my family (and most of those around me), had a pantry which was kept stocked with such items... Perhaps not three months worth, but certainly enough to survive for several weeks if the supply chain was broken for whatever reason. We bought fresh produce from the local village shop and/or grocery/meat/fish vans that came round once a week. In times of hardship this stock would be allowed to dwindle, so it acted as a buffer.

It's not hard to do, or disastrous for global food prices - we're just out of the habit.

I find venison to be a bit of an acquired taste. As a steak or joint it has a fairly pronounced livery taste which definitely won't suit everyone. This seems less noticeable in stews and casseroles and obviously in burgers and sausages it is diluted by mixing the meat with other stuff.

Venison liver, though, is delicious  and runs calves' liver a very close second , I think.

Q: A Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) study done by a Quantis, a third party sustainability science firm, found that White Oak Pastures offsets more than 100% of their cattle greenhouse gas emissions and 85% of the farm’s total carbon emissions.

Q: Some of the most exciting news is that in 2017 White Oak Pastures sequestered 919 tons of CO2 in the soil and their grassfed beef had a carbon footprint 111% lower than conventional beef.

So it can be done no-thanks franken-foods !

There is absolutely no logic to that comparison. Due to CV19, demand for respiratory PPE suddenly jumped by 12,000%. That's why we needed PPE stockpiles. 

 You've said Global food production is down 25% due to CV19. So roughly 3 months annual production. The vast majority of the World's population can't afford to stockpile food, most people haven't got space for it and even in a very rich country like the UK, a third of the population can't even save a week's wages for emergencies.

Emergency stockpiles of stuff like food, fuel, medical supplies, etc, are best organised at governmental levels. Insisting it should be done by individuals is just another way to promote waste over all the decades they won't be needed and huge inequality in the few times they will be needed.

planting trees isn't even the best approach for carbon capture, and doesn't produce any food.  Trees do provide a future fuel source for biomass reactors - great for logging and green energy producing companies! Trees that die release 100 % of their stored carbon. (Percentage not accurate but very high!)

https://climatechange.ucdavis.edu/news/grasslands-more-reliable-carbon-sink...

Interesting research out by Natural England 

https://www.google.com/url?q=http://publications.naturalengland.org.uk/file...

My goodness. When did I insist we should be doing anything?

I simply suggested that if people did prep, it would in fact reduce the burden on the world's resources during times of crisis. I didn't think that would be particularly controversial - having resources on standby, wherever they are in the system, provides a buffer.

but I have planted >30 walnut trees on my land - good for food and timber, if not the best for carbon; you have to also consider biodiversity - so agroforestry spaced trees contribute with pasture.

Are you saying we needn't fret about cutting down the amazon ?!

No, definitely not what I'm saying.  Deforestation of native and natural forest must be prevented, but monoculture forests, aka planting trees mantra, isn't as useful to the environment as the media and politians go on about.  If tree planting is going to happen then it must be diverse and with varieties that grow for centuries rather than cash crop trees.

Interesting talk on trees here. https://www.ted.com/talks/suzanne_simard_how_trees_talk_to_each_other?utm_c...

I believe we're in agreement its the office based planners who make these mistakes - monoculture is too easy to work with - but I think this was recognised long since - the forestry commission did make efforts to diversify it's spruce plantings.

Historically the government has made grants available (I believe) to landowners; to help them plant trees, so if such grants were given with appropriate conditions this would yield correct results

Indeed we are.  Personally I wasn't aware until 5'ish years ago how detrimental mono-culture was to biohabitat diversity and soil health.  You have to wonder why media and activists (Guardian and Monbiot, as examples) are so vocal in their support to replace existing pasture land with trees.  It doesn't make sense unless you look at the financial angle. 

If I hadn't discovered that none native wild muntjac deer in the UK are bad for woodland biodiversity due to eating the undergrowth and reducing the habitat for insects and small mammals, I'd possibly be a veggie by now, in being hunted after living wild and being unhelpful environmentally while alive, it ticks all the boxes for me as a meat to eat. I half plan on asking a vegan friend if she's stopped being bad for the environment yet, and started eating wild muntjac.

Edit: UK grass fed beef is arguably one of the greener sources of beef, due to not eating feed from hoppers in the way which other beef can. There's places like the semi improved wild flower meadow on Blacka Moor near Sheffield which has 'normal sized' cows grazed on it, and Burbage valley, too, where mini cattle have been introduced because of them having a different grazing pattern to sheep (towards bringing more of the place back to heather again),  which possibly wouldn't exist as land management options if people didn't eat them. It strikes me that some cows being eaten may be a good thing for the places where they're a handy land management option. Cow's browse (eat) more randomly than sheep in eating at varied heights, while sheep nibble along close to the ground and don't miss anything (more or less).

The most damaging factor for UK upland SSSI's is overgrazing, though (circa 2013 from my course notes)....

It seems that the Guardian overlay depends on lumping all production methods into one - with consequent GHGs judged blanket-style. Rank lies and deception ! Here are the summary paragraphs from another article which looks at the conflict - Q:

Along our journey, we need to be acutely aware of who might be manipulating or misrepresenting information intended to take us on a course that has little to do with a genuine desire to benefit either our planet or human health.

And if there’s one thing we can do today that gets the actors in the industrial-food complex to take note of our concerns, it’s thinking very carefully about what foods you decide to pick up the next time you’re in a supermarket. Industrially-produced meat should not be on your shopping list and can fairly be demonised, in my view.

However, assuming you indulge in meat eating from time to time, sourcing your meat from a farm dedicated to regenerative agriculture and the integration of crop, animal and even forest production systems, is quite another thing.

https://www.anhinternational.org/news/anh-intl-special-report-from-peak-oil...

Maybe druss will agree to name 'woodland' as a positive benefit and 'plantation' as harmful ?

With the basis at least - to steer away from monoculture. If a natural space encourages and enriches flora & fauna then it must be considered valuable from that perspective. 

As a meat eater who is trying to reduce the amount of meat I eat, one of the issues is cooking meals that aren't base around the meat. I've had a whole lifetime of cooking based around the meat so inspiration for veggie recipes is sparse. I have bought a few veggie cook books for inspiration but I think for those moving away from a "meat and two veg" diet, some great tasting faux meat products would help.

As always it’s more complicated than you might think - https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-bad-climate#

Ofcourse Ox support cattle! :P

Monbiot (the Guardian is to vague a term) is on the record as being dubious about tree planting as a solution and instead favours natural regeneration with a helping hand from time to time.

As far as UK agriculture goes, it still remains that beef still contributes hugely more to climate change than other forms of meat like chicken, circa 5 times more but I'll have to google it, it could be more. I'll read that link, it looks interesting.

Edit: You may be more critical of the Guardian than is fair BTW.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/03/uk-farmers-climate-cr...