🌳 Director of Environmental Science at Game Changers 2.
🌎 Research Fellow at Project Drawdown: climate solutions focused on food, agriculture & land.
🌱 Co-founder of iffs.earth
Thrilled to share 4 new analyses of mine for @projectdrawdown.bsky.social on grazing
Many studies that claim grazing benefits SOC are lacking: adequate baseline, controls, duration, 30cm soil-depth samples, & measuring over time
And beef remains a leader in CH4 & land-use driving biodiversity loss
Animal ag uses ~200× more freshwater than AI.
AI data centres are projected to use ~1 trillion litres/yr by 2028. Animal ag already consumes 228 trillion litres of blue water/yr.
Not defending AI, but this context isn't well known. I also wonder how much AI water goes to military vs. general use.
@nicholasdcarter.bsky.social has done research guiding @projectdrawdown.bsky.social's position on grazing: it doesn't recommend expanding grazing
drawdown.org/explorer/exp... nor deploying grass-finished beef drawdown.org/explorer/dep....
His LinkedIn post on this: www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...
New coverage:
insideclimatenews.org/news/2005202...
Our report from a few years ago, but still relevant, on methane, GWP*, and industry tactics:
changingmarkets.org/report/seein...
Concentrations of methane in the atmosphere are ~2.5x higher than before industrialization.
Deep cuts in methane now are key, and we'd see results quickly.
Yet efforts from high-emitters continue to attempt to push for sketchy accounting that allows the opposite, via GWP*
methanescience.org
A root of how we got here is a belief of superiority over others. Industries normalized ignoring product impacts, and some of the worst options are easier choices.
The leading driver of all 3 stressors is animal agriculture:
doi.org/10.1016/j.pe...
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
doi.org/10.1016/j.gl...
Thanks! On a related topic and just FYI, the forest carbon accounting issues I wrote about with the Greenhouse Gas Protocol would allow companies to spuriously claim "carbon negative beef" by attributing non-anthropogenic, non-additional forest growth to beef production — keep an eye on that.
