Some Beef is Actually Good for Planet Earth (WSJ)

[dualstow]

Yes!

Actually, Raising Beef Is Good for the Planet
Despite environmentalists’ worries, cattle don’t guzzle water or cause hunger—and can help fight climate change

By NICOLETTE HAHN NIMAN
Dec. 19, 2014 6:12 p.m. ET

People who advocate eating less beef often argue that producing it hurts the environment. Cattle, we are told, have an outsize ecological footprint: They guzzle water, trample plants and soils, and consume precious grains that should be nourishing hungry humans. Lately, critics have blamed bovine burps, flatulence and even breath for climate change.

As a longtime vegetarian and environmental lawyer, I once bought into these claims. But now, after more than a decade of living and working in the business—my husband, Bill, founded Niman Ranch but left the company in 2007, and we now have a grass-fed beef company—I’ve come to the opposite view. It isn’t just that the alarm over the environmental effects of beef are overstated. It’s that raising beef cattle, especially on grass, is an environmental gain for the planet.

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http://goo.gl/GQ1HE5

[moda0306]

I have no doubts that raising animals in a way that looks somewhat like how they would exist if they weren't on a farm is decent for the planet.

It's the factory farming environment that is a complete bastardization of natural processes that is probably environmentally problematic. Though probably not too much worse than a lot of current gmo crop practices.