Study: Organic eggs worse for climate than caged chickens
It's a point I've been trying to make for a long time: there is no good way to meet even 10% of current demand for animal products. They trash the living world, whichever way you do it. If you want to reduce your impact, switch to a plant-based diet. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
George Monbiot302There's an organic exceptionalism at work: I'm a good consumer because I eat only organic eggs / pasture-fed meat etc. In many cases these have a higher, sometimes MUCH higher, environmental impact. The worst of all farm products are organic beef and lamb. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
John Pedersen50Free range chickens love a bit of biodiversity. They'll eat everything! Slow-worms, lizards, mice, grasshoppers - pretty much every kind of insect. I used to keep hens - but no more. Too locally destructive, amongst other reasons.
Max Cairnduff39Isn’t organic for most people about health (dubious admittedly) and animal welfare? I’m sure some fondly imagine sprawling farms from an imagined 1950s but isn’t the welfare issue the bigger driver to organic?
Meh Pluribus Unum (Alli) 🏳️⚧️🏳️🌈28"This is because organic free-range models need more chickens for the same number of eggs produced, as birds living in cages tend to be more efficient." "Living" and "efficient" are doing a lot of work here.
European Heart27This product is amazing. www.onego.bio/product
Dave Kershaw21Very shallow, as the article admits, to just look at CO2 without also considering welfare, toxicity of synthetic inputs, pollution from runoff, and biodiversity. Not to mention that sustainable farming is a thing. It's not just a binary choice between caged hens and zero hens.
George Monbiot562When I discuss huge systemic issues, people say "but what I can I do?" When I mention something meaningful you can do immediately, people say (as the replies here show) "but what's the point, in the face of the huge systemic issues?" There are, it seems, plenty of people who want to be helpless.
Cai70It's also more climate-intensive for me to have a pet than to have no pets, but people are going to make decisions even about animals that are not necessarily optimized to climate, including decisions rooted in empathy. And as always,
Erahsto Felício47As pessoas que querem muito uma dieta com ovos, com bicho, precisam caminhar para a terra ou lutar por reforma agraria. Não dá para confiar seu desejo alimentar à indústria. Está certo. Mas se tornar vegano também não é a politização melhor. Vc deixa de pautar o problema fundiário.
Domo19Good news Tiere muss man nicht mögen, um pflanzenbasiert zu leben. Reicht eigentlich schon aus, ganz egoistisch sein Leben o/u das der Kinder schützen zu wollen. Vielleicht liest man es noch zu selten, aber der Klimakollaps ist jetzt, nimmt uns alles und ist für jede*n hier lebensverkürzend. 👀 👇
@amybisinthewoods.bsky.social 🍄🍄🟫14This is not an argument for buying factory farmed eggs taken from caged chickens with their beaks cut off, etc. This thread is about the entitlement of your diet, its destruction of Earth, and why you keep justifying eating what you want when it’s clear that going vegan is the moral thing to do.
Tristan Grayford14This is useful information for people, yes, but I simply do not know a single person who avoids caged chicken eggs because of concerns about the environment specifically. The entire appeal of free range is the reduced cruelty, right?
@amybisinthewoods.bsky.social 🍄🍄🟫7Meat/dairy diets cause 66% of the destruction of wildlife, 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions, uses 70% of the world’s freshwater & causes 80% of river and lake pollution. Clearing land for animals/growing their feed is the main reason for destruction of forests causing huge losses in biodiversity.
Sherry w/ a whY7#organic #FreeRange #Eggs #CageFree #Dairy #meat ‘[ANIMAL PRODUCTS] trash the living world 🌍➡️ 🗑️, whichever way you do it. If you want to reduce your impact, switch to a plant-based diet’ Thank you @georgemonbiot.bsky.social for saying what needs to be said in no uncertain terms 🌱 Challenge22.com
Michael Derby7The environmental case against killing animals and eating them.
PJ Coffey - They/Them @[email protected]7It's true. And I've known it for years. All I can do is try and change what I eat and reduce my consumption of animal products and work to demo good plant based food. It's definitely made my life better compared to many people of the same age as me, and learning to cook made a mad difference.
If that's really true, the conclusion shouldn't be to keep more chickens in cages, but to consume fewer eggs.
Bean & Sprout's Mom28"The research also did not take into account other environmental impacts such as pesticides or biodiversity." Not exactly rock star LCA work there. Sigh.
Steve Baty (He/him)7They used to make similar arguments about workhouses for poor children.
Maria Elena5What does "organic" even mean for livestock? We had chickens for awhile when I was a kid. They got grain and table scraps and things they scratched up in the yard and then went into the coop to roost at night, safe from predators. That's what I envision a chicken's life should be.
robod99.bsky.social4Organic does not mean better welfare, healthier of even tastier. It can do, but that is not what is being certified.
Ran Boydell4Similar comparison recently made for grass-fed v feedlot cattle but I am sceptical. Farming practices vary widely between sustainable/regenerative/smallholder farms and industrial megafarms. Plus this puts zero value on animal welfare. This needs more nuanced analysis.
Sylvia the strange4Or keep your own chickens if you can. You can use the litter for compost and be sure the ladies are being well treated.
aahhhhhhhhhhh can't we have anything, can't we do anything right www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Fine Art by Jules20What a load of utter b*ll*cks!. Should people work in cages too so they don't travel and are then more efficient?. You can't make this utter shite up!. Sorry but I was an organic gardener and the difference between an organic fed free chicken and a caged one are 10 fold, healthier and happier.
RickChasey13Yeah food and climate is very counter intuitive. New Zealand Lamb consumed in the UK is *significantly* better for the environment than British lamb for similar reasons, including the refrigerated journey across the world
Katerona8Everyone has to go vegan. Sorry but thats the choice to save the planet. Either go vegan or bust.
Jonathan Keenan8Just consider which chicken you’d rather be.
Emily B7It’s one study that studied one year (2009-2010), that didn’t take into account all impacts. It may be the truth but it may also just be part of the truth, it’s really not possible to say based on one study. It would have been nice if the article analyzed other studies instead of just this one.
Negatywiec6I want cage free chickens because I don't like torturing animals and the CO2 can be reduced elsewhere. The article suspiciously plays into the agenda of industrial egg producers.
Ulrike Franke61This is the kind of research that just leaves me completely frustrated because like Marie writes, it really does feel like we can’t do anything right, you always do something wrong.
Kévиɴ5tout comme éliminer certains polluants a contribué à accélérer le réchauffement climatique, et étaler les villes au lieu de construire verticalement a détruit des habitats naturels... il y a des choix à faire. Et humains comme animaux dans des cages à lapin, malheureusement, c'est écolo
Cross-laminated Tinder5In trying to do the right thing lies madness, example infinity
kentdestressor.bsky.social4Chickens as pets not egg layers can live up to 10 years. 'Free Range' up to 8 years whilst battery caged hens only up to 2 years. The 'cruelty is better for the economy' argument only leads society one way. IMHO it's better to avoid the dairy industry as much as you can.
tinymattresses2If the people included in this were individuals instead of large groups, this would count as being emotionally abused through constant criticism (from the big companies who get these studies funded/heard/promoted)
I'm getting dietary fatigue at this point. This is an OLD reality, but the solutions aren't as straightforward as some of the coverage would have you believe. www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Aliette de Bodard66The main issue is every human activity generates greenhouse effect, the question is which ones we want to prioritize and whether we have mitigation strategies (Also I just hate that they cite numbers but don't give you a way to measure how big they actually are--comparing to, say, cars or heating)
Nick Harkaway30Chickpeas: 100g -> 23g of protein. Easy peasy! Well, yeah, that's 100g dry weight. That is a lot of chickpeas. Much easier if you throw in an egg for a bonus 6g of protein. What if you have a bad reaction to chickpeas? Um. Well.
Robbie Rowe18Trying to balance the dietary requirements imposed by my health with a sustainable low carbon lifestyle while juggling work etc is basically impossible. There is no perfect solution
Suw14We're well into The Good Place territory now. An organic egg might be worse for the climate but better for the chicken and maybe more nutritious, though how we unpick how much of that is science and how much is propaganda is anyone's guess. Equally, a lot of organic practices simply aren't...
Anne Behemothhh5„However, the study used data from 2009-2010, which the researchers acknowledged as a limitation as it did not capture more recent developments in egg production. The research also did not take into account other environmental impacts such as pesticides or biodiversity.“
The Great Beast2That article is absolute bollocks. Judging the value of a free range egg based on GHG emissions is disingenuous to the point of villainy. That's not why we want less industrialised farming: we want less cruelty and better outcomes for the land and the animals we use in our diets. 1/
Courtney Milan853This is not about the OP, but honestly, I think the constant harping on "no do THIS not THAT as a consumer" is designed to make you give up on climate. This is a job for good old fashioned government, one that regulates pollution, including greenhouse gases.
Library Yeti, Ice Cream Connoisseur16Old reality is right. "the study used data from 2009-2010, which the researchers acknowledged as a limitation as it did not capture more recent developments in egg production. The research also did not take into account other environmental impacts such as pesticides or biodiversity." Etc.
Chloē10Personally, I don't think chickens (or any animal) should spend their lives in cages because humans don't want to stop driving or flying distances that could be traveled in 6 hours by train or blowing each other up.
Pedestrianize MPLS5You can toss out all of this stuff and just focus on car dependency.
Christopher Deutsch5Two things, don't listen to the headline since the report is very limited and misses a lot of factors that would mitigate that conclusion. The other thing is the idea of organized consumer politics (which collapsed in the 1970s) was to empower people to not have to feel dietary fatigue.
jay pico2every one of my chickens has a Claude Pro subscription, should I not have done that?
Jesse Pohlman (He/Him)2No dhade on OP. Just...I feel like I'd rather our farm industries give chickens the chance to roam around some during their lives? Like from a humane perspective. We can find the CO2 budget savings in other places to make up for the environmental inefficiency of free-range farming.
