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I'm having a hard time following this line of thought. Cattle was around in some shape before what you could describe as modern humans existed. They need plants
by avar 11y ago
I'm having a hard time following this line of thought. Cattle was around in some shape before what you could describe as modern humans existed. They need plants that grow naturally and are sustained by the sun and some land. It's clearly a sustainable process.
To the extent that it's not it might be improved by genetic engineering, and I doubt that producing the same meat in vitro will be a net improvement in sustainability for a long time. Now you've replaced a natural organism that needs some fodder and produces CO^2 with an entire factory, employees to manage it etc.
Why do you think that's more sustainable? One of those processes relies on non-technology that existed before there were even humans around, and the other needs high-tech that we don't even have yet.
- siscia 11y agoThe point is that we, as human kind, are growing at an exponential rate and if every single human consume as much meat as people do in the west there is not enough land to grow all that meat. We can solve this in two way, or we stop eating meat or we start growing meat in a more sustainable way. The problem is not something to look in the future, but it is something really tangible, to have an idea of the order of magnitude I will post here a strip for xkcd[1] The "efficiency" of a cow is really low, it is estimate[2] that half of the energy you put into a cow is necessary just to keep it alive. [1] https://xkcd.com/1338/ https://xkcd.com/1338/ [2] http://www.angusjournal.com/ArticlePDF/1095_OptimumCow.pdf http://www.angusjournal.com/ArticlePDF/1095_OptimumCow.pdf