There is a good answer: when measured in greenhouse gas emissions per mass of protein produced, backyard chickens raised for meat produce greenhouse gases at only a slightly lower rate than commercially raised chickens. Backyard chickens raised for eggs produce greenhouse gases at a higher rate than commercially raised chickens. Depending on whether you raise chickens for meat or eggs, raising your own chickens instead of buying them at the store ranges from a negligible decrease in greenhouse gas emissions to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions.Atlanticmike wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:57 pmBullxxxt! You don't need government to restrict your actions to make fundamental changes in your life that would lesson the effects of climate change. You're just unwilling to accept the fact that we each have a responsibility if there's going to be an actual change. Real climate change starts at home.Xenophon wrote: ↑Thu Oct 21, 2021 5:08 pmMaybe I'm crazy but didn't that drop in 2020 come with some government restrictions/assistance along with huge changes to the work environment to facilitate that drop? Or did we all just collectively decide to not travel that week?
Your attempt to show our hypocrisy is actually an amazing example of how it will require governments and society to make drastic shifts as a whole in order to achieve real change.
One easy example. I like breast, a lot. So let's follow the life of a chicken. A commercially raised chicken is hatched in a hatchery which takes a tremendous amount of electricity to operate. Then it's put on a gas guzzling truck an transported to a grow out. While at the grow out, it's there for around 45 days, it will take a tremendous amount of electricity to raise the chicken to a commercial weight. Then it's put on a gas-guzzling truck and transported to a slaughter house. The slaughter house also takes a tremendous amount of electricity to operate and after slaughter, the chicken it's put on a gas-guzzling truck and sent to the supermarket where a tremendous amount of electricity is used to keep it refrigerated until you jump in your gas guzzling vehicle, drive to the supermarket where the supermarket is still using a tremendous amount of electricity so you can walk in under the bright lights, walk to a refrigerated cabinet and pick up the chicken, then jump back in your gas guzzling vehicle and drive home. All that energy/CO2 so you can eat a delicious chicken! Why? Why not raise your own flock of chickens and eliminate all the energy needed to raise/transport chicken? Are you telling me you need government to hold your silky soft little hand to effect change? Do you have a good answer?
The problem is, all you did was list all the ways you thought use of energy could be saved. But you didn't take into account that, if I'm going to the store anyway, the marginal cost of store bought chicken is zero in terms of my fuel consumption, zero in terms of lighting, etc. You also failed to take into account efficiencies in the way commercial chickens are raised that result in more protein being produced per volume of greenhouse gas emissions.
There's certainly nothing wrong with self-sufficiency. But raising chickens in your backyard is not going to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, the world is producing close to 50 billion tons of CO2-eq in greenhouse gases per year. Raising chickens produces a total of about .6 billion tons. So, even if we stopped growing chickens completely, we'd have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by about 1%. But, assuming people replaced eating chickens and eggs with a different source of calories and protein, the savings would be even less. And if they, say, replaced chicken with beef, the result would be an increased rate of CO2 emissions.
If you want to get the right answers, you can't just fake your way through an analysis. You have to put in the time and effort. The source for the figures I quoted is here: https://www.fao.org/3/i3460e/i3460e.pdf For the comparison of greenhouse gas emissions for commercially raised chickens and backyard chickens, see table 32.