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Ok, why do you think this? Transport needs to be decarbonized, but it's a very tiny portion of our food system's climate impact. Land use is a major portion, bu

Ok, why do you think this? Transport needs to be decarbonized, but it's a very tiny portion of our food system's climate impact. Land use is a major portion, but it's still not as significant as cows themselves. Maybe you're underestimating the scale? There are a billion cows on earth that simply wouldn't exist if we stopped eating them and drinking their milk. It's not like a normal natural resource that we're just tapping into. They do not exist in the wild, and basically any other food (even other animals) could give us the calories and nutrients we need with far fewer emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-emissions-supply-chain https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/food-emissions-supply-cha... https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/ https://www.fao.org/news/story/en/item/197623/icode/

nashashmi 4y ago
The problem is not cows take up a lot of resources. The problem is their upkeep is too intensive that the economies of scale contribute to large scale destruction of resource. I don't buy the future decarbonization transport argument. It is a mirage. But put that aside. Cows are incredibly powerful creatures. Their uses were in not just taking up a lot of land but also moving lots of farm equipment and cultivating land. With machinery, they are displaced and no parallel uses are found. The huge consumption of meat has incentivized capitalist industries to destruct land for profit. Blaming this on cows is like blaming a worker instead of the boss. Blame the overly large consumers who cannot forgo meat, and blame the capitalists for feeding that frenzy. How despicable have we become if our arguments are now based on “lab grown meat" being a solution. Like we refuse to see our own feces as a stinker.
- burkaman 4y ago
  Ok I see, I guess it's just a semantic argument? I do not think cows are personally responsible for climate change, I just understand that factually they emit a lot of methane and that's very bad for us. I personally don't have a problem just not eating beef or drinking cow milk anymore, but if lab grown meat get some people to stop eating beef who wouldn't otherwise, that seems like it will likely be a net positive development. I do agree that there are many problems with our food system beyond climate change, and replacing Big Ag with Big Lab-grown Ag would leave almost all of those problems in place. It's not my preferred solution.

nashashmi 4y ago

The problem is not cows take up a lot of resources. The problem is their upkeep is too intensive that the economies of scale contribute to large scale destruction of resource. I don't buy the future decarbonization transport argument. It is a mirage. But put that aside. Cows are incredibly powerful creatures. Their uses were in not just taking up a lot of land but also moving lots of farm equipment and cultivating land. With machinery, they are displaced and no parallel uses are found. The huge consumption of meat has incentivized capitalist industries to destruct land for profit. Blaming this on cows is like blaming a worker instead of the boss. Blame the overly large consumers who cannot forgo meat, and blame the capitalists for feeding that frenzy. How despicable have we become if our arguments are now based on “lab grown meat" being a solution. Like we refuse to see our own feces as a stinker.

burkaman 4y ago
Ok I see, I guess it's just a semantic argument? I do not think cows are personally responsible for climate change, I just understand that factually they emit a lot of methane and that's very bad for us. I personally don't have a problem just not eating beef or drinking cow milk anymore, but if lab grown meat get some people to stop eating beef who wouldn't otherwise, that seems like it will likely be a net positive development. I do agree that there are many problems with our food system beyond climate change, and replacing Big Ag with Big Lab-grown Ag would leave almost all of those problems in place. It's not my preferred solution.