[pawsforthought]

Besides fossil fuel derived fertilizers used for feed, as sibling commenters have mentioned, you’re neglecting the impact animal agriculture has on forests.

2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of tropical forest is destroyed every year to make way for beef herds [1]. That’s 41% of all tropical deforestation (which is where 95% of the deforestation occurs).

This is a disaster both in terms of the vast stores of carbon being released, and the destruction of habitat in the world’s most precious and biodiverse ecosystems.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/what-are-drivers-deforestation

[ravenstine]

As if said impacts are not shared by plant agriculture? Where do you think your vegetables come from? They need vast amount of space to grow, they need to kill animals that would otherwise inhabit the space, they need to spray large quantities of pesticide from above, fertilizer is necessary and fossil fuels are burned in that process, and fossil fuels need to transport the crops.

> 2.1 million hectares (5.2 million acres) of tropical forest is destroyed every year to make way for beef herds [1]. That’s 41% of all tropical deforestation (which is where 95% of the deforestation occurs).

What are the economic incentives to destroy tropical forest? Meat is by no means the only thing that land can be used for, first of all, but there is no requirement that cows be raised on land that was previously tropical forest. Go check out the Great Plains where most of the United States' cows are raised, because you won't find a tropical forest, deforested or not, for thousands of miles. And yet, somehow, meat continues to be produced.

No, I don't want forests to be destroyed, but it's a separate issue. Forests have been destroyed for countless reasons that have nothing to do with meat. Deforestation sucks, but that really isn't a the best reason to conclude that there's a problem with eating meat when deforestation isn't an issue. That is unless you have a problem with the non-forested land that cattle farms occupy, and most people don't because tropical forests are more interesting.

As I have mentioned elsewhere in this thread, if we clean up where we get our energy, these arguments mostly disappear because, regardless of the end product, fossil fuels are currently still being burned. Doesn't matter if you're eating beef or soy.

[pawsforthought]

> As if said impacts are not shared by plant agriculture

Absolutely, and use of pesticides and fossil-fuel-derived fertilizers in crop production and horticulture is also a huge problem.

Fact is though, the same quantities of calories or protein as beef or lamb require vastly more land and energy to produce than plant-based alternatives: roughly 100 times as much [1]. That’s owing both to pastureland and to the fact that half of all the world’s cereal crops are fed to animals.

Granted, livestock raised purely on marginal (i.e. non-arable) pastureland is relatively low impact in terms of carbon emissions. There’s still the factor that carbon dioxide is converted to methane, which in the short-term (that we actually care about) is much more potent in its warming effect.

That model does not represent most animal agriculture, however.

As for tropical deforestation, the United States is one of the chief importers of Brazilian beef [2], so as a country is absolutely implicated in the practice.

You’re right that clearing land for grazing is not the only economic incentive to destroy forest, but equally it cannot be discounted in its contribution to the trend.

[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

[2]: https://eu.wisfarmer.com/story/news/2022/01/05/brazil-ranks-...