| Devil's advocate. I'll probably be down-voted, but note that ignoring details gives fuel to skeptics (as in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGG-A80Tl5g). 1. How is this 14.5% number calculated? Does it include deforestation? Grass-fed is far different than deforesting for grazing land or crop land. For instance from the FAO PDF you quoted: "extensive livestock are often kept in remote environments where deforestation and land degradation reflect weaknesses in institutions and policies". The headline then should read "deforestation and bad land policy causes climate change" not "stop eating cows". 2. Again, how are these 10x numbers calculated? Comparing e.g. industrialized agriculture to inefficient agriculture in a third-world country is not going to convince skeptics. If beef production is extremely inefficient somewhere, we should fix that. 3. If country A emits 100x the CO2 production of country B for the same end result, that needs to be noted. If my neighbor has a giant gas-guzzling monster truck spewing emissions, my neighborhood is not at fault, it's just him. 4. Agree 100%. We should be addressing the deforestation. Saying "stop eating meat" is not the solution. "Don't buy food from Brazil grown on land that had rain forest last year" is more nuanced and probably easier to follow. Matter of fact, don't buy products made by totalitarian regimes, slaves, child labor, etc. We should know where and how our products are made. I'm not advocating "don't buy sneakers" because some sneakers are made in unethical ways. 5. Humans love meat, that fact is not changing anytime soon. We should advocate for more efficient (and yet more ethical). If we need to, governments should pass laws to make production sustainable similar to what is done to prevent overfishing. 6. We have a perfect machine, well studied and used for millennia, for converting corn husks and other inedible things that would otherwise be thrown away into fertilizer: cows. Bonus, in addition to fertilizer, you get milk, hides, bones, highly nutritious meat, etc. 7/8. Totally agree. More laws need to be passed to regulate this industry, it's truly sickening. All meat products should be twice as expensive or more as they currently are to account for this. |