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> Meat processing is one of the single worst industries for climate change Wild claim! Despite all the media coverage on farming/meat industry, coal-powered p

> Meat processing is one of the single worst industries for climate change Wild claim! Despite all the media coverage on farming/meat industry, coal-powered power plants remain the single most polluting industry in terms of GHG. Followed by all the hydrocarbon fuel based Transportation and (by a large step margin) the steel industry. [0] https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sector-%E2%80%93-pie-charts.png https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2020/09/Emissions-by-sect...

DoctorOW 4y ago
I'd likely to have to do more research before I'm confident to address everything you've said. However, I have issues with the way things are categorized because meat production is more than just livestock. It uses a lot of energy and transportation both of which are huge categories on your source. I spoke to a climate scientist I'm friends with a while back and it's my memory of the conversation that gave me the anecdote above. I'll have to do more research before weighing in any further than that.
- DoingIsLearning 4y ago
  To be clear I am 100% in agreement that the meat industry is both unsustainable and unethical. However, specifically on GHG it really is not the worst offender. Effectively if you would stop commuting with a car, reduced AC/Heating to bare minimum and simply bought less 'stuff' (non-essential goods), you would be doing more for the environment than not eating meat. The unconfortable truth is that once we start discussing these things very few people are willing to curb their 'standard of living', in reality it is a first world luxury not a given right. Nevertheless if you tell me that we need to curb meat consumption to avoid animal suffering than I am equally on board with you. But the environmental angle in my view is a distraction from the other elephants in the room.
- philwelch 4y ago
  The better question is whether or not meat can be produced sustainably. Humans have been raising livestock for millennia, and climate change only seemed to start after the Industrial Revolution, so meat isn’t obviously necessarily causative of climate change. To my understanding, the climate problem is basically one of not having closed loops. For instance, burning fossil fuels is a problem because you’re taking carbon that’s buried underground and pumping it into the atmosphere. So to the degree that meat is a problem, there’s probably a loop we need to close. Energy and transportation are instances of the same burning-fossil-fuels problem that we need to solve anyway. As for the livestock themselves, I know they produce methane as a byproduct of digestion, but that seems like a potentially closed loop to me. Wasn’t it a closed loop during all the centuries that humans raised livestock before the Industrial Revolution? If so, what changed? The way we produce fertilizer, for one. But we also need fertilizer to grow vegetables, so we need to solve the fertilizer problem anyway. Plus, livestock are also the primary source of organic fertilizer, so maybe they’re part of the closed loop. They sure used to be.
- joenot443 4y ago
  Did you finish your research? Everything I've ever read confirms what u/DoingIsLearning said, which is that coal is a far, far bigger concern for GHG than the meat industry, despite the propaganda here in the west to make one think otherwise.

DoctorOW 4y ago

I'd likely to have to do more research before I'm confident to address everything you've said. However, I have issues with the way things are categorized because meat production is more than just livestock. It uses a lot of energy and transportation both of which are huge categories on your source. I spoke to a climate scientist I'm friends with a while back and it's my memory of the conversation that gave me the anecdote above. I'll have to do more research before weighing in any further than that.

DoingIsLearning 4y ago
To be clear I am 100% in agreement that the meat industry is both unsustainable and unethical. However, specifically on GHG it really is not the worst offender. Effectively if you would stop commuting with a car, reduced AC/Heating to bare minimum and simply bought less 'stuff' (non-essential goods), you would be doing more for the environment than not eating meat. The unconfortable truth is that once we start discussing these things very few people are willing to curb their 'standard of living', in reality it is a first world luxury not a given right. Nevertheless if you tell me that we need to curb meat consumption to avoid animal suffering than I am equally on board with you. But the environmental angle in my view is a distraction from the other elephants in the room.
philwelch 4y ago
The better question is whether or not meat can be produced sustainably. Humans have been raising livestock for millennia, and climate change only seemed to start after the Industrial Revolution, so meat isn’t obviously necessarily causative of climate change. To my understanding, the climate problem is basically one of not having closed loops. For instance, burning fossil fuels is a problem because you’re taking carbon that’s buried underground and pumping it into the atmosphere. So to the degree that meat is a problem, there’s probably a loop we need to close. Energy and transportation are instances of the same burning-fossil-fuels problem that we need to solve anyway. As for the livestock themselves, I know they produce methane as a byproduct of digestion, but that seems like a potentially closed loop to me. Wasn’t it a closed loop during all the centuries that humans raised livestock before the Industrial Revolution? If so, what changed? The way we produce fertilizer, for one. But we also need fertilizer to grow vegetables, so we need to solve the fertilizer problem anyway. Plus, livestock are also the primary source of organic fertilizer, so maybe they’re part of the closed loop. They sure used to be.
joenot443 4y ago
Did you finish your research? Everything I've ever read confirms what u/DoingIsLearning said, which is that coal is a far, far bigger concern for GHG than the meat industry, despite the propaganda here in the west to make one think otherwise.