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> I know the video is a joke, but the whole thing about meat having an unacceptable carbon footprint pisses me off to no end. But... It does. 220lbs of methane

> I know the video is a joke, but the whole thing about meat having an unacceptable carbon footprint pisses me off to no end. But... It does. 220lbs of methane per cow on average. Annually. > Guess what, those who believe that bugs are the answer. Bugs eat plants. Bugs don't burp, but to grow insects at scale, the plants need to be processed and brought to them. Guess what that means? Burning fossil fuels in transportation. This is a bit absurd. Now I'm not saying I'm not in said "bug camp" - but you're arguing that transport of plants, using fossil fuels, even remotely touches the amount of fossil fuels, not to mention water, that is required for transport of livestock / processed meat? > Cows, on the other hand, can feed on grassland. True. Cows feed on grassland that could be significantly more productive acre for acre. Not only the space they need to live but the space required to grow the feed corn, the water that is consumed and the fossil fuels that get burned. The argument is fantasy at best. The final thing being - cows don't exist without humans in their current capacity. Insects, on the other hand do. We don't need meat. We have access to plenty of what we need to thrive via plants without bugs. It's unfortunate that meat is looked at as a staple with overconsumption of specific meats even being touted as healthy (e.g. chicken).

chitowneats 4y ago
I was totally with you until: "We have access to plenty of what we need to thrive via plants without bugs". Has there ever been research done on this? Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities. Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets.
- rootw0rm 4y ago
  Hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids and are famously easy to produce.
  - sph 4y ago
    How many grams of hemp seeds would you have to ingest to receive the same amount of amino acids in weight compared to a beef steak? And how much phytate does hemp seed contain? 4g/100g. Good luck with mineral absorption. Proportion of amino acids isn't the only important metric.
- Schroedingersat 4y ago
  For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants. There are tens of millions of healthy vegans. Not everyone can be healthy on a pure vegan or even vegetarian diet, but very nearly everyone can do just fine on a couple of meals a month that involve cows, chicken/duck once a week, and an egg every day or two. If you need large amounts of non bean/grain/hemp protein for some reason then chicken is still vastly better than beef, and insects are totally an option.
  - palmetieri2000 4y ago
    >For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants. If you are going to make a claim about the overwhelming majority of anything it should come with a source.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      Statements like "Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets." as a justification for eating >100kg of meat a year require sourcing when india and china exist. Even extant hunter gatherer societies from warm areas rarely derive more than half of their calories from meat.
      - palmetieri2000 4y ago
        Well, sure, the other commenter should reference as well, but this is whataboutism. Another commenter not using a source does not exclude you from providing evidence for your claims. Please provide evidence that less than half of caloric intake for hunter gatherers came from meat instead of making additional claims without reference.
- Aunche 4y ago
  India has 1.4 billion people, and on average, they only consume 3.6 kg of meat per year. That said, they do consume a lot of dairy, so I'm not sure they're that much better from a greenhouse gas perspective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_co...
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    I was actually thinking of places like India in my original comment. Dairy is how those billion nourish themselves. Not just amino acids but important vitamins and minerals as well. A world where "we have plenty for what we need with just plants" may be a possible world, but it's not the one we live in now. It seems like it would require immense effort to get there.
- windexh8er 4y ago
  To be clear I'm not saying: don't eat meat. What I'm saying is you don't need to eat it 2-3 times per day. I don't eat meat by choice. > Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities. I'm curious how you think we're feeding those 7+ billion today? If you're saying that animal production globally is efficient with respect to natural resources and waste, well that's even crazier than growing plants via alternative farming methods. > Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This is where the argument is lost on me. I'm not sure what point is being made here but it reads as if you're saying prehistoric humans got their protein through animals and animals only. This just isn't true and some research has stated only 40-50% of protein was acquired via animals. But the real problem here is that sales and marketing has led us to believe that we need more protein. Way more than we actually need. So much so that we're polluting via urine because of overconsumption of protein [0]. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-protein-makes-pee-a-problem-pollutant-in-the-u-s https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-p...
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    There are certain amino acids that are almost exclusively found in animal protein. That's why I made the comment about quinoa. Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing. I eat meat only a few days a week, and typically only for dinner. So we are in agreement there. I don't even have the same concerns about a vegetarian diet. Dairy and eggs have everything you need and in large quantities. Veganism is a luxury lifestyle in 2022. If you aren't meticulous about your shopping, cooking, and consumption, it will make you profoundly ill given enough time.
    - windexh8er 4y ago
      > Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing. Agreed. I haven't eaten red or white meat for over 5 years now. I'm not strict about animal oils / fats tainting my food intake. I also still consume eggs/dairy/fish. The difference being I consume very little of those things. I may eat fish 2 times per week at the most. I eat maybe 2-4 eggs per week (both cooked and used as an ingredient). Dairy I don't consume other than as an ingredient or the very occasional dessert (ice cream). I've only improved my health during that time. And as you get older it's interesting to see peers continue to overconsume and pay the price accordingly. We don't need to be vegans to make a significant improvement on our planet. But what's considered "normal" from a dietary standpoint today is nowhere near a truly healthful diet nor is it treading lightly on our ecosystem.
- pgcj_poster 4y ago
  Yeah, some people can't afford rice, beans, and peanut butter, so they have to eat steak instead :( https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/174914-174294-169704-173740/wt2-wt1-wt1-100g/4-4-1-1/1 https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/174914-17429...
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    Straw man argument. I'm talking about mixing in dairy and eggs, not exclusively eating steak, the most extreme example of carbon intensive food production. There is quite a happy medium out there between veganism and a Jordan Peterson-style carnivore diet.
  - chitowneats 4y ago
    Wait, hold on. Do you actually believe that humans can function optimally on only rice, beans, and peanut butter?
ericd 4y ago
We should focus all of this energy that goes into shaming people for eating meat into passing a revenue-neutral carbon tax with border adjustment, and explaining why it's a good idea, despite the large amount of inflation that would result. The price increases that flow through the supply chain would push people into more carbon neutral ways of raising beef (and decreasing beef consumption significantly, as the price goes up significantly). Shaming people for eating what they like just causes them to get defensive and dig their heels in, it's counterproductive.
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  Carbon tax is a political tool and doesn't achieve anything in reality other than penalizing the first world while the rest get a pass, including China. Really, look into who proposes a carbon tax. It isn't scientists
  - ericd 4y ago
    It doesn’t penalize first world nations, the carbon tax includes a carbon tax on all imports, called a “border carbon adjustment”. This includes things like long distance transport, so it’s actually fairly protectionist for the US vs Chinese manufacturing. It’s proposed by a huge assortment of economists, including a lot of heavyweights: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
    - upsidesinclude 4y ago
      How many credits does a corporation receive? By what measure do newly founded companies assess their carbon expense? Economists!? Honestly not the group I would defer to at this particular moment in time. We are on the precipice of a possible global finance collapse thanks to their pseudoscience
      - ericd 4y ago
        It’s not measured with credits afaik, taxation happens at the time of carbon extraction from the ground or at the border if extracted elsewhere, or at the border for imported goods that haven’t had a carbon tax applied, to avoid disadvantageous local manufacturing. Inside the country it’s totally transparent, the price is just baked into fuel/goods made with fuel, from that initial tax. Things that use a lot of fuel get a lot more expensive, things that already used clean energy likely stay about the same, citizens get the receipts back, split evenly, so if you consume less carbon than average, you come out ahead. Corps don’t get rebates/credits. Make sense? Obviously a ridiculously tall order politically, maybe impossible, the rich would take the brunt, but it’ll also be harder for the middle/upper middle class to jet across the country. I’m also pessimistic about MMT and it’s effects, but I’d view that as more of a political necessity to keep the music going for debtor nations than something most economists thought was actually ideal. No one has the stomach for austerity, and it frankly would probably be catastrophic anyway, we just have to try to inflate our debt away without hitting hyperinflation.
sph 4y ago
The methane argument is idiotic. The methane a cow farts is not ex novo, but was part (albeit transformed) of the ecosystem already. It's like complaining about cows wasting water. And if we were not eating meat, these cows would still eat grass and fart methane. Methane is bad when it's added to the natural ecosystem, like extracting petroleum from a hole underground and burning it.
- birksherty 4y ago
  No, all these cows are created only for human use eat. They are not here by natural process, not part of natural ecosystem.
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- tpush 4y ago
  What? Do you know that those cow's are literally bred for our consumption? They wouldn't exist otherwise.
upsidesinclude 4y ago
>But... It does. 220lbs of methane per cow on average. Already being captured for energy. VC funds are all over this > I'm not saying I'm not in said "bug camp" So you are saying you are in the bug camp, got it. >but you're arguing that transport of plants, using fossil fuels, even remotely touches the amount of fossil fuels...[meat] Hyperbole and no accounting. You have no idea. Scale production and see what happens. Have you any data to validate your assessment? > grassland that could be significantly more productive How so? Do you believe all grassland on earth should be appropriated for "best use" to increase productivity? Why would you believe that? Are you aware that allowing cattle to forage in forests helps prevent wildfires and enriches the soil increasing undergrowth and biodiversity. The practice is largely banned in state and national parks thanks to zealots of ecowarriors and bug campers. >We don't need meat What we need is trivial. We don't need cars or shoes or knowledge. Meat can be considered a byproduct of an immensely useful material that lasts indefinitely, has been harnessed by possibly every culture to exist and has uses that every person requires. Leather. You need to read Oryx and Crake before you destroy the world.
- windexh8er 4y ago
  Looks like you're newer, but your snarky / assumptive comments can be placed on other social networks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    Feel free to answer any of my questions, none of them were rhetorical. Many people are eager to make their opinions the de facto law of the land. In reality they have rarely done any searching outside of their emotions. They same people then cling to statutory protection when their ignorance is displayed
    - windexh8er 4y ago
      OK, let's debunk your BS point by point... > Already being captured for energy. VC funds are all over this There are roughly a billion cows on the planet. I live in the midwest. If VC funds (not sure what this means exactly) are all over this - then why have I not seen thousands of cows wearing ridiculous contraptions to sequester said methane? Show me the data. > So you are saying you are in the bug camp, got it. This is ignorance at it's finest - I'm not promoting bugs as food, nor am I discouraging it. Your comment is ignorant and assumptive at best and provides no value to your response other than to show little thought around the topic. > Hyperbole and no accounting. You have no idea. Scale production and see what happens. Have you any data to validate your assessment? https://livestockdata.org/data-object/livestock-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://livestockdata.org/data-object/livestock-and-greenhou... https://grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-how-big-meat-and-dairy-are-heating-up-the-planet https://grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/animal-based-food-vs-plant-food-emmissions/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/animal-based-food-vs-... https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-or-cars-1919932136.html https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-... Again, your arguments have no context and no basis. This information is widely available and is suppressed by dairy and meat industries - no different than tobacco or big oil has done. > How so? Do you believe all grassland on earth should be appropriated for "best use" to increase productivity? Why would you believe that? Are you aware that allowing cattle to forage in forests helps prevent wildfires and enriches the soil increasing undergrowth and biodiversity. The practice is largely banned in state and national parks thanks to zealots of ecowarriors and bug campers. It seems you haven't looked at the environmental impact that is caused by the supporting agriculture, which is required, to support livestock at our current consumption levels. There's over 90 million of acres per year plated for "feed" corn. 90 million acres that are used for singular feed crops. 90 million acres that have fertilizer and pest control applications annually to keep the machine in motion. And you're proposing just letting the cows "forage in forests". Laughable at best, considering there are over 94 million cows in the US alone. Your idea is probably banned because cows are also, not natural wildlife in state and natural parks. There's something called the food chain and cows would be prime, and easy, targets for many predators. So your idea would disrupt the food chain and provide, basically, no value. And yet you claim that "it's because these practices are banned". Again, a biased and unfounded point of view that you've provided zero data to support. https://petkeen.com/how-many-cows-in-us/ https://petkeen.com/how-many-cows-in-us/ > What we need is trivial. We don't need cars or shoes or knowledge. > Meat can be considered a byproduct of an immensely useful material that lasts indefinitely, has been harnessed by possibly every culture to exist and has uses that every person requires. > Leather. I don't know where to start with this because you're all over the place. First you start with a strawman that, seemingly, implies you live a minimal lifestyle of which you don't have a car, shoe, or cognizance? The idea that we don't need "knowledge" basically proves the point: your commentary is drivel. > You need to read Oryx and Crake before you destroy the world. Please provide sources.

chitowneats 4y ago

I was totally with you until: "We have access to plenty of what we need to thrive via plants without bugs". Has there ever been research done on this? Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities. Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets.

rootw0rm 4y ago
Hemp seeds contain all essential amino acids and are famously easy to produce.
- sph 4y ago
  How many grams of hemp seeds would you have to ingest to receive the same amount of amino acids in weight compared to a beef steak? And how much phytate does hemp seed contain? 4g/100g. Good luck with mineral absorption. Proportion of amino acids isn't the only important metric.
Schroedingersat 4y ago
For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants. There are tens of millions of healthy vegans. Not everyone can be healthy on a pure vegan or even vegetarian diet, but very nearly everyone can do just fine on a couple of meals a month that involve cows, chicken/duck once a week, and an egg every day or two. If you need large amounts of non bean/grain/hemp protein for some reason then chicken is still vastly better than beef, and insects are totally an option.
- palmetieri2000 4y ago
  >For the overwhelming majority of history, the overwhelming majority of humans have gotten most of their nutrients from plants. If you are going to make a claim about the overwhelming majority of anything it should come with a source.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    Statements like "Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This has only changed for people who have the necessary resources to follow incredibly regimented and expensive vegan diets." as a justification for eating >100kg of meat a year require sourcing when india and china exist. Even extant hunter gatherer societies from warm areas rarely derive more than half of their calories from meat.
    - palmetieri2000 4y ago
      Well, sure, the other commenter should reference as well, but this is whataboutism. Another commenter not using a source does not exclude you from providing evidence for your claims. Please provide evidence that less than half of caloric intake for hunter gatherers came from meat instead of making additional claims without reference.
Aunche 4y ago
India has 1.4 billion people, and on average, they only consume 3.6 kg of meat per year. That said, they do consume a lot of dairy, so I'm not sure they're that much better from a greenhouse gas perspective. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption# https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_co...
- chitowneats 4y ago
  I was actually thinking of places like India in my original comment. Dairy is how those billion nourish themselves. Not just amino acids but important vitamins and minerals as well. A world where "we have plenty for what we need with just plants" may be a possible world, but it's not the one we live in now. It seems like it would require immense effort to get there.
windexh8er 4y ago
To be clear I'm not saying: don't eat meat. What I'm saying is you don't need to eat it 2-3 times per day. I don't eat meat by choice. > Historically humans depended on animal protein for essential amino acids. It seems far-fetched to suggest we could scale up quinoa to 7+ billion humans given current global realities. I'm curious how you think we're feeding those 7+ billion today? If you're saying that animal production globally is efficient with respect to natural resources and waste, well that's even crazier than growing plants via alternative farming methods. > Humans naturally consume animal protein out of biological necessity. This is where the argument is lost on me. I'm not sure what point is being made here but it reads as if you're saying prehistoric humans got their protein through animals and animals only. This just isn't true and some research has stated only 40-50% of protein was acquired via animals. But the real problem here is that sales and marketing has led us to believe that we need more protein. Way more than we actually need. So much so that we're polluting via urine because of overconsumption of protein [0]. [0] https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-protein-makes-pee-a-problem-pollutant-in-the-u-s https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-too-much-p...
- chitowneats 4y ago
  There are certain amino acids that are almost exclusively found in animal protein. That's why I made the comment about quinoa. Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing. I eat meat only a few days a week, and typically only for dinner. So we are in agreement there. I don't even have the same concerns about a vegetarian diet. Dairy and eggs have everything you need and in large quantities. Veganism is a luxury lifestyle in 2022. If you aren't meticulous about your shopping, cooking, and consumption, it will make you profoundly ill given enough time.
  - windexh8er 4y ago
    > Getting complete nutrition exclusively from plants just isn't something that humans evolved doing. Agreed. I haven't eaten red or white meat for over 5 years now. I'm not strict about animal oils / fats tainting my food intake. I also still consume eggs/dairy/fish. The difference being I consume very little of those things. I may eat fish 2 times per week at the most. I eat maybe 2-4 eggs per week (both cooked and used as an ingredient). Dairy I don't consume other than as an ingredient or the very occasional dessert (ice cream). I've only improved my health during that time. And as you get older it's interesting to see peers continue to overconsume and pay the price accordingly. We don't need to be vegans to make a significant improvement on our planet. But what's considered "normal" from a dietary standpoint today is nowhere near a truly healthful diet nor is it treading lightly on our ecosystem.
pgcj_poster 4y ago
Yeah, some people can't afford rice, beans, and peanut butter, so they have to eat steak instead :( https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/174914-174294-169704-173740/wt2-wt1-wt1-100g/4-4-1-1/1 https://tools.myfooddata.com/protein-calculator/174914-17429...
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Straw man argument. I'm talking about mixing in dairy and eggs, not exclusively eating steak, the most extreme example of carbon intensive food production. There is quite a happy medium out there between veganism and a Jordan Peterson-style carnivore diet.
- chitowneats 4y ago
  Wait, hold on. Do you actually believe that humans can function optimally on only rice, beans, and peanut butter?

ericd 4y ago

We should focus all of this energy that goes into shaming people for eating meat into passing a revenue-neutral carbon tax with border adjustment, and explaining why it's a good idea, despite the large amount of inflation that would result. The price increases that flow through the supply chain would push people into more carbon neutral ways of raising beef (and decreasing beef consumption significantly, as the price goes up significantly). Shaming people for eating what they like just causes them to get defensive and dig their heels in, it's counterproductive.

upsidesinclude 4y ago
Carbon tax is a political tool and doesn't achieve anything in reality other than penalizing the first world while the rest get a pass, including China. Really, look into who proposes a carbon tax. It isn't scientists
- ericd 4y ago
  It doesn’t penalize first world nations, the carbon tax includes a carbon tax on all imports, called a “border carbon adjustment”. This includes things like long distance transport, so it’s actually fairly protectionist for the US vs Chinese manufacturing. It’s proposed by a huge assortment of economists, including a lot of heavyweights: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
  - upsidesinclude 4y ago
    How many credits does a corporation receive? By what measure do newly founded companies assess their carbon expense? Economists!? Honestly not the group I would defer to at this particular moment in time. We are on the precipice of a possible global finance collapse thanks to their pseudoscience
    - ericd 4y ago
      It’s not measured with credits afaik, taxation happens at the time of carbon extraction from the ground or at the border if extracted elsewhere, or at the border for imported goods that haven’t had a carbon tax applied, to avoid disadvantageous local manufacturing. Inside the country it’s totally transparent, the price is just baked into fuel/goods made with fuel, from that initial tax. Things that use a lot of fuel get a lot more expensive, things that already used clean energy likely stay about the same, citizens get the receipts back, split evenly, so if you consume less carbon than average, you come out ahead. Corps don’t get rebates/credits. Make sense? Obviously a ridiculously tall order politically, maybe impossible, the rich would take the brunt, but it’ll also be harder for the middle/upper middle class to jet across the country. I’m also pessimistic about MMT and it’s effects, but I’d view that as more of a political necessity to keep the music going for debtor nations than something most economists thought was actually ideal. No one has the stomach for austerity, and it frankly would probably be catastrophic anyway, we just have to try to inflate our debt away without hitting hyperinflation.

sph 4y ago

The methane argument is idiotic. The methane a cow farts is not ex novo, but was part (albeit transformed) of the ecosystem already. It's like complaining about cows wasting water. And if we were not eating meat, these cows would still eat grass and fart methane. Methane is bad when it's added to the natural ecosystem, like extracting petroleum from a hole underground and burning it.

birksherty 4y ago
No, all these cows are created only for human use eat. They are not here by natural process, not part of natural ecosystem.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
tpush 4y ago
What? Do you know that those cow's are literally bred for our consumption? They wouldn't exist otherwise.

upsidesinclude 4y ago

>But... It does. 220lbs of methane per cow on average. Already being captured for energy. VC funds are all over this > I'm not saying I'm not in said "bug camp" So you are saying you are in the bug camp, got it. >but you're arguing that transport of plants, using fossil fuels, even remotely touches the amount of fossil fuels...[meat] Hyperbole and no accounting. You have no idea. Scale production and see what happens. Have you any data to validate your assessment? > grassland that could be significantly more productive How so? Do you believe all grassland on earth should be appropriated for "best use" to increase productivity? Why would you believe that? Are you aware that allowing cattle to forage in forests helps prevent wildfires and enriches the soil increasing undergrowth and biodiversity. The practice is largely banned in state and national parks thanks to zealots of ecowarriors and bug campers. >We don't need meat What we need is trivial. We don't need cars or shoes or knowledge. Meat can be considered a byproduct of an immensely useful material that lasts indefinitely, has been harnessed by possibly every culture to exist and has uses that every person requires. Leather. You need to read Oryx and Crake before you destroy the world.

windexh8er 4y ago
Looks like you're newer, but your snarky / assumptive comments can be placed on other social networks. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- upsidesinclude 4y ago
  Feel free to answer any of my questions, none of them were rhetorical. Many people are eager to make their opinions the de facto law of the land. In reality they have rarely done any searching outside of their emotions. They same people then cling to statutory protection when their ignorance is displayed
  - windexh8er 4y ago
    OK, let's debunk your BS point by point... > Already being captured for energy. VC funds are all over this There are roughly a billion cows on the planet. I live in the midwest. If VC funds (not sure what this means exactly) are all over this - then why have I not seen thousands of cows wearing ridiculous contraptions to sequester said methane? Show me the data. > So you are saying you are in the bug camp, got it. This is ignorance at it's finest - I'm not promoting bugs as food, nor am I discouraging it. Your comment is ignorant and assumptive at best and provides no value to your response other than to show little thought around the topic. > Hyperbole and no accounting. You have no idea. Scale production and see what happens. Have you any data to validate your assessment? https://livestockdata.org/data-object/livestock-and-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://livestockdata.org/data-object/livestock-and-greenhou... https://grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-how-big-meat-and-dairy-are-heating-up-the-planet https://grain.org/article/entries/5976-emissions-impossible-... https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/animal-based-food-vs-plant-food-emmissions/ https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/09/animal-based-food-vs-... https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-or-cars-1919932136.html https://www.ecowatch.com/which-is-worse-for-the-planet-beef-... Again, your arguments have no context and no basis. This information is widely available and is suppressed by dairy and meat industries - no different than tobacco or big oil has done. > How so? Do you believe all grassland on earth should be appropriated for "best use" to increase productivity? Why would you believe that? Are you aware that allowing cattle to forage in forests helps prevent wildfires and enriches the soil increasing undergrowth and biodiversity. The practice is largely banned in state and national parks thanks to zealots of ecowarriors and bug campers. It seems you haven't looked at the environmental impact that is caused by the supporting agriculture, which is required, to support livestock at our current consumption levels. There's over 90 million of acres per year plated for "feed" corn. 90 million acres that are used for singular feed crops. 90 million acres that have fertilizer and pest control applications annually to keep the machine in motion. And you're proposing just letting the cows "forage in forests". Laughable at best, considering there are over 94 million cows in the US alone. Your idea is probably banned because cows are also, not natural wildlife in state and natural parks. There's something called the food chain and cows would be prime, and easy, targets for many predators. So your idea would disrupt the food chain and provide, basically, no value. And yet you claim that "it's because these practices are banned". Again, a biased and unfounded point of view that you've provided zero data to support. https://petkeen.com/how-many-cows-in-us/ https://petkeen.com/how-many-cows-in-us/ > What we need is trivial. We don't need cars or shoes or knowledge. > Meat can be considered a byproduct of an immensely useful material that lasts indefinitely, has been harnessed by possibly every culture to exist and has uses that every person requires. > Leather. I don't know where to start with this because you're all over the place. First you start with a strawman that, seemingly, implies you live a minimal lifestyle of which you don't have a car, shoe, or cognizance? The idea that we don't need "knowledge" basically proves the point: your commentary is drivel. > You need to read Oryx and Crake before you destroy the world. Please provide sources.