Yes, that's why I mention dishonesty in my original post. Most people who argue hard for not eating meat because of climate change actually have deeper motives

Yes, that's why I mention dishonesty in my original post. Most people who argue hard for not eating meat because of climate change actually have deeper motives (animal welfare/not causing animals suffering), and will use whichever argument, no matter how flawed, to push their agenda. I know this because I used to belong to these circles. By methane production (a comon bogeyman for animal rights activists to push for banning meat use), all of agriculture together makes for only 1/4 of total methane production, the rest is transportation, manufacture and such. Of that 1/4, cows are responsible for cca 1/3-1/2 of it. As an interesting side note, rice production also generates large amounts of methane (because of anaerobic conditions in rice paddies): cows generated 189 tons of it from 1996 to 2001, while rice production has generated 112 tons in the same period. So rice productions generates 2/3 as much methane as cows: http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/sites/sias/files/documents/GHG%20emissions%20from%20rice%20-%20%20working%20paper.pdf http://www.southasia.ox.ac.uk/sites/sias/files/documents/GHG... I agree with you about the Malthusian argument, it's similar to how gloomy people were about our ability to feed ourselves before we invented artificial fertilizer - I believe that the best improvement for future of our planet will be some clean energy revolution - most likely working fusion. Once we'll have that, most of problematic emissions will be taken care of. Also, considering the rapid progress in genetic science, I wouldn't be surprised if we will be able to create biological machines such as a standalone chicken's digestive and reproductive tract - you would have it in your kitchen, and feed it scraps; from them it would produce eggs. And you could optimize your nutrition by adding specific nutrients to scraps, such as omega3 fat acids.