Using a huge amount of energy to capture a little bit of CO2, then burning more energy to package and ship it so the customer can eat it and fart it out again as CO2.
At least with other capture methods the end result stays captured and isn't dragged around the world. I don't see the benefit here.
The proper comparison isn't with other CO2 capture programs, it's with the environmentla impact of butter, both dairy and non-dairy.
Dairy is a large contributor to greenhouse gasses, so if this can reduce the environmental impact of butter by convincing enough people to stop eating dairy butter, it can have a net positive outcome.
in that case why not just force more vegetable-oil based margarines?
grow veg, press, whip, ship, eat. no fancy tech needed, and no pretentions of capturing CO2 (but not really), and an overall lower use compared to cows or capture.
It's because many natural alternatives to meat or dairy don't taste the same or necessarily as good as what they are replacing.
We need something that is more equivalent to convince large numbers of people to switch.
Bovine agriculture on a commercial scale is unsustainable and cruel.
The only way totally natural old fashioned options that might be less cruel could work is if only a very small portion of the population has access to them. Some people seriously would like to see 90% of the human population killed off and to regress to a largely pre-industrial system. In my opinion, this is a very ignorant idea.
> We need something that is more equivalent to convince large numbers of people to switch.
Maybe?
I have a friend who went from being a heavy meat-eater to vegan, for health reasons rather than ethical/environmental ones.
He really struggled with making the change until he stopped using meat substitutes and making meat-free versions of meat-based dishes. Once he did that, he found that the food was actually delicious in its own right, and no longer felt that he was sacrificing anything.
The lesson I took from that is that whatever your diet consists of, it's a mistake to try to make it resemble a different sort of diet. Embrace it on its own terms.
Grass fed beef maybe, but the majority of cows are being fed grain, broken potato chips, and soy...all of which are suitable for human consumption.
Even taking into account what cows can consume, the organic matter would be better used growing mushroom or other fungi that can produce the same enzymes that break down the cell walls that the microbes in the guts of the cows are using.
> my impression is that cows as a species will go extinct if not domesticated.
Is that bad? Cows aren't necessary for the food chain and them not existing won't do anything to harm the environment, it will do the exact opposite.
The "cow species" isn't a sentient being who cares whether or not it exists, so if we can reduce the suffering of individual cows who are already here and the outcome is that domesticated cows go extinct, I don't see that as being bad.
It is bad for the dairy farmer, but it's worse for the individual cows and the environment if we keep things the way they are.
Even free-range cows are sent to get fattened up on corn that they can't properly digest before they're slaughtered. Despite what Temple Grandin tried to do, cows are still very stressed and scared before they're slaughtered, and the slaughter process is optimized for speed, so the bolt gun doesn't always stun the cow before they're bled out.
I think it would be hard to look at what we do to end a cow's life at just a fraction of it's natural length and think that it's better than allowing domestic cows to go extinct.
I don't think we're in any danger of reducing our livestock levels to the point where cows become an endangered species, nuclear Armageddon notwithstanding.
At least with other capture methods the end result stays captured and isn't dragged around the world. I don't see the benefit here.