[mytailorisrich]

In itself it's neither good nor bad for the environment. In fact some ecosystems depend on the vegetation being kept in check by herbivores so arguably keeping at least some cattle in those ecosystems is 'good' for the environment.

The problem is the scale, which is also a problem with the industrial growing of crops and industrial fishing.

In rich countries we probably eat too much meat both for our health and for the impact on the environment, but the bottom line is that feeding 8 billion people and counting, who are getting richer globally, is going to hit the environment hard.

IMHO, the best way to reduce meat consumption is to ban subsidies and to increase regulatory quality standards, which would make prices go up significantly. But that's politically unpalatable.