I generally see this argument pushed by vegans whose central issue is really animal rights, which is a valid concern, but the claim that a 100% vegan world, all other things being unchanged, would be one free from fossil-fueled global warming is simply not true.

Generally speaking the claim is that significant amounts of agricultural energy go into growing grain for animals, and that domestic animal populations result in methane emissions, so eliminating the animal populations means less methane and you'd also need less agricultural production as everyone would eat vegan diets, if I've spelled it out adequately.

However, this doesn't change the need for electricity generation and transportation fuel to move food and materials around the world, or from farms to cities, or for industrial production and heating and cooling, so that's where the electric vehicles, solar panels, wind turbines and storage systems are needed so we can phase out the fossil fuels from the energy mix. Yes, that's going to be cheaper and more sustainable than trying to expand uranium fission.

Furthermore, in the pre-industrial era in North America for millenia there were large populations of bison, estimated variously at perhaps 50% of the domestic cattle population (which is where the biogenic methane is coming from). For example:

(2012) "Historic, pre-European settlement, and present-day contribution of wild ruminants to enteric methane emissions in the United States"

Overall, enteric CH4 emissions from bison, elk, and deer in the presettlement period were about 86% (assuming bison population size of 50 million) of the current CH4 emissions from farmed ruminants in the United States.

There are plenty of decent arguments for eating less meat, but I don't think 'fixing the climate' is really a very strong one.

Assuming a "vegan" agenda is disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst.

Not breaking the climate so much is plenty of reason. That reason does not conflict with renewables displacing fossil fuel use. We need to do both.

Crappy science in the name of a decent moral agenda is still crappy science, I'm afraid to say.

You assume that the number of ruminants is invariate. You assume that only North American ruminants participate. You assume that excess from farming to feed livestock, foreign and domestic, does not count. That is crappy science.

> but I don't think 'fixing the climate' is really a very strong one.

and why is that?

They say why in the rest of the comment.

But they don't, really. They just try to distract us, instead. Works on some.

Because everyone on the planet going vegan tomorrow will not fix the root cause of climate change which is burning fossil fuels. Three quarters of Greenhouse Gas emissions are caused by burning fossil fuels in sectors other than agriculture (in general, not just farming):

https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector

Namely energy use in industry and buildings, and transportation.

Even taking into account the power used for transport, storage etc, of food, the food system as a whole accounts for one quarter of emissions:

https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions

So even if we stopped eating any food at all tomorrow, we'd still not be stopping climate change, which is caused ... say it with me ... by burning fossil fuels.

  Burning fossil fuels. <-. 
                      ,---'
                      |
                    This!

That thing right there is the cause of climate change and that's the thing what we have to address, and address immediately.

The problem with this kind of post is not, as you might surmise, that people disagree with the notion that reducing meat consumption is helpful from an emissions perspective.

It is that the binary presentation implies an either-or when in fact both are helpful.

Plus it just shits on people and nobody likes that.

Isn't the math clear that meat consumption requires more emissions than non-meat consumption, on average (as in per calorie)?

depends on the meat and the non-meat.

There is carbon-negative beef, and there are plants that require enormous amounts of artificial soil additives. Probably the biggest factor is whether the meat comes from a ranch in your general area and if the bell-pepper in your salad was flown in from holland.

meet the reality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Hq8eVOMHs&t=4s

Great video.

What seems obvious to those of us interested in the topic is clearly quite foreign to most people in this forum after reading the comments.

Did I say somewhere that meat consumption is not problematic?

I'm responding to "people disagree with the notion that reducing meat consumption is helpful from an emissions perspective". People may disagree but it's like disagreeing that 100 > 1 -- who cares what they think?

What it says is

> "not ... that people disagree"

Right you are...

Sorry, I managed to misread your comment a few times.

You should probably sit still and not move around too much in order to minimize the number of calories you need to stay alive. If that's the metric we're optimizing for, anyway.

This is the sort of childish reply I see when folks talk about emissions from meat consumption/production. What's next, are you going to tell me that every steak I don't eat you'll eat two more? That's a classic.

There is no more time left for this kind of pragmatism. It doesn’t matter it people disagree, the truth is supporting meat consumption is supporting industries that are actively killing us and the planet.

I assume you are being serious, but the truth is that supporting ICE vehicle sales and the fossil fuel industry as a result is supporting industries that are actively killing us and the planet also.

I sure hope you bike (or drive a conflict-free electric car, I guess?) and are powered by your own solar panels if you feel this way.

why do you have to have your own solar panels? doesn't make any sense to me

I agree however on biking (or public transport). I will always try to live max 15-20km away from work, such that I always can use a bike or a velomobile.

Please don't try to make ad hominem arguments, thanks.

“Own” as in “not from a grid” not self-manufactured.

I understood. However this is rather counter productive as it requires more environmentally costly storage as well as solar capacity. Additionally, it totally neglects all other sources of renewable energy.

It is next to impossible to use only renewable electricity from the grid. I agree with you, the statement was meant to illustrate the original poster’s rather unhelpful maximalist stance.

> It is next to impossible to use only renewable electricity from the grid.

And how do you come to this conclusion?

I guess I should have said "currently" -- very few grids are 100% renewable; some offer the option to individual customers (hi EBCE!) but usually what this means is that the operators purchase enough power from renewable sources to cover that customer's daily use, but crucially it's not always at the time of use. For example, the user might be supplied with power from a fossil fuel power plant at night, but then extra solar power is purchased during sunnier periods to compensate.

AHH a classic right wing gotcha

https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/we-should-improve-society-som...

Huh?

We need to both (a) reduce emissions from transport, and (b) reduce emissions from agriculture.

The parent poster was implying (presumably, because my original post was saying “we should do both” in response to a post that said “(a) is irrelevant, only (b) matters”) that anyone not doing (b) was killing the planet, and I’m pointing out here that if that’s true, anyone not doing (a) is also killing the planet.

We need both! It’s not optional! Half these conversations are “ok sure but X is really all that matters!” — and that is completely false.

We need to reduce or eliminate emissions from all sources, full stop.

It would also help the planet greatly if we stopped sending aid to Africa and other poor nations. Without our help, their populations would decline quite a bit, reducing their meat consumption and emissions by a huge amount. I know this is an unpopular sentiment but we have to be pragmatic.

That’s not being pragmatic. You’re saying “cut aid to countries whose per capita resource usage is 14x lower than that of the US.”

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_...

It's not about per capita, it's about total. We can not only reduce their resource usage, but also produce less food ourselves, all for free. It's win-win.

Western states consume vastly more meat and animal products that poor nations that receive our aid. This is a trash take that will only hurt people.

People with lots of resources do the EV and solar panel thing and get sasiated. Right - box ticked, move on.

Making a difference requires reducing travel, reducing the use of all heavy transport, reducing meat consumption.

Solar panels are great, but you don't get let off the hook because you've gone and spent the cash to do it and be guilt free from there on

Again…both are helpful.

Well, providing supporting evidence would be helpful.

After a quick look, the data doesn’t seem to support your claim?

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

I still get the feeling that 40% of the electricity globally being generated from coal is a far bigger problem.

Because of the war, coal usage is actually increasing.

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/06/24/all-the-european-c...

Those fancy Tesla’s are helping move the world to EVs, which will help the world reduce the 100 million barrels of oil we use every single day.

Asking genuinely: what point are you making with that EPA data? That switching our method of transportation is more impactful than switching our diet because transportation is a bigger chunk of the emissions pie?

Transportation and electricity add up to 52% of emissions. All of agriculture is 11%. What part of that is meat? A little more than half?

I see, thanks for the elaboration. You may be correct, but there is more nuance based on my reading of the report: in particular, the "agriculture" category is somewhat misleading. I read a bit of the report, so I might as well post my findings here :)

"Agriculture" appears to measure the emissions generated directly from agricultural processes themselves, as well as "secondary" combustion inputs. This includes "enteric fermentation in domestic livestock, livestock manure management, rice cultivation, agricultural soil management, liming, urea fertilization, and field burning of agricultural residues". However, based on my reading -- please correct me if I'm wrong -- large parts of the agricultural process are included in each of the transportation, electricity, and industry categories. Thus the effects of agriculture would be seen downstream and upstream in these other categories. For example, any agricultural use of electricity is included in "electricity", not "agriculture".

An aside on meat specifically: since meat production involves more inputs, such as feed, livestock, and additional processing, you would have to account for these when comparing to a non-meat diet. For example, every cow involves the transportation of the cow, the (industrial) production of fertilizers needed to grow its feed, the production of the materials to package the feed, the transportation of the feed to a facility for packaging, the transportation of the packaged feed to a farm, the transportation of the cow to a slaughtering facility, the refrigeration of the cuts of meat, etc. The emissions generated during these steps would belong to the transportation, industry, and electricity categories, not even counting the extra emissions included in the agriculture category. While all food production would have steps such as these, clearly there are more steps in meat production because there are more inputs.

Now, back to the original point of transportation versus agriculture: the report says that 25% of the transportation category is "freight" -- I believe the shipping I described above would be included in this. However, to your point, around 60% of transportation is due to passenger vehicles and light-duty trucks, which is quite significant and likely mostly personal use (rather than agricultural), and that's where changing transportation methods can make a difference. I'm too tired to find what percent of industry and electricity are related to the agricultural process, but you would need to calculate this and compare it to personal transportation use in order to get a fair comparison.

In my personal opinion, I think we should both reduce meat consumption and personal vehicle use. No need to pick favorites.

Yes, but be careful what you mean by "we". The truth is that most meat is consumed in certain parts of the world, particularly Western, industrialised countries. The USA, Australia and Argentina consume the most meat:

https://www.mekkographics.com/meat-consumption-by-country-an...

The United States, China and Brazil produce the most beef:

https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production

In my reading, there is a great inequality in distribution of both consumption and production and if both could be equalized downwards, that would mean a significant reduction overall.

> All of agriculture is 11%

I looked at the document, and it doesn’t seem to include the embedded CO2 from Urea production (fertiliser) which would be a large emission omission. Perhaps it shows up in the detailed breakdown somewhere.

Th graph in this article is useful to answer your question:

https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions

According to the article, 26% of all GHG emissions are from food production.

Of that:

31% of all food production comes from livestock and fisheries.

27% comes from crop production, with 6% for animal feed and 21% for human food.

24% comes from land use, 8% for human food and 16% for livestock.

18% comes from ransport and other emissions from the supply chain.

Not the OP, but I’d guess: yes.

I downvoted you because doing one thing does not preclude doing the other. Using an electric car and solar panels is very good for the environment. You can also eat less/no meat in addition.

To become fully carbon neutral everyone has to go vegan eventually, no?

No. Who said that, other than vegans? It's a lie. Everybody else, the IPCC, the FAO, environmental organisations, they all say we need to shift diets, in particular western diets, towards a plant-based diet:

> Such recommendations include for example: having a mostly plant-based diet, focus on seasonal and local foods, reduction of food waste, consumption of fish from sustainable stocks only and reduction of red and processed meat, highly-processed foods and sugar-sweetened beverages.

https://www.fao.org/nutrition/education/food-dietary-guideli...

But a plant-based diet is not vegan (although a vegan diet is plant-based), it's a diet where the majority of calories come from plants:

> A plant-based diet is a diet consisting mostly or entirely of plant-based foods.[1][2][3] Plant-based diets encompass a wide range of dietary patterns that contain low amounts of animal products and high amounts of plant products such as vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes, nuts and seeds.[4][5] They do not need to be vegan or vegetarian[6][7] but are defined in terms of low frequency of animal food consumption.[8][9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant-based_diet

For example, the Mediterranean diet is a plant-based diet:

> The principal aspects of this diet include proportionally high consumption of olive oil, legumes, unrefined cereals, fruits,[3] and vegetables, moderate to high consumption of fish, moderate consumption of dairy products (mostly as cheese and yogurt), moderate wine consumption, and low consumption of non-fish meat products.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_diet

A plant-based diet includes fish, dairy, eggs and meat, although meat in moderate to small quantities.

Vegans certainly like to pretend that "plant-based" means "vegan", but that's just their propaganda. Please don't help spread such lies.

Or eat grassfed beef, which is grown consuming human-inedible grass that grows for free, instead of being fed human foods that have to be farmed.

White Oak Pastures even claims to have a negative carbon footprint[0], according to a report by a third party which, if I remember correctly, also authored the report behind one of the vegan burger's sustainability claims.

0: https://blog.whiteoakpastures.com/blog/carbon-negative-grass...

Grass-fed beef is no real solution to the grain shortage. For one the meat is more expensive, for another there is a limit to the land that can be used as meadows but not for other crops.

Can you use the meadows above the tree line for agriculture? That’s what they eat during the summer.

As I said, there's a limit to such land, and a limit to how much cattle that can be raised on that land.

There's a reason why cattle farming went from extensive to intensive methods.

Limit? The US federal government has over 100 million acres of public land for animal grazing.

If that were such a great and practical ressource, they'd be overflowing with cattle or sheep herds like in New Zealand. But it's not. Also the density of grazing isn't that great.

That is another problem.

And it anyway affects only the US, a very small fraction of world population or land area. That the US is a very large part of the problem, e.g. importing beef, does not help.

What? There’s a limit to highlands? That entirely depends on where you live. ;)

There’re many ways people can reduce their impact on environment. Buying $60k+ luxury cars isn’t one.

Reducing amount of meat can be, but you can give a shit and reduce your impact much more while still eating a lot of meat.

People screaming that unless you reduce meat intake you’re killing earth are as narrowly minded focused on single issue as people screaming that unless you buy an EV, you’re killing earth.

not true not true

Ok, so compare two:

1. Vegetarian, living in a McMansion in an USA suburb in a desert, driving big SUV everywhere and flying for work every month to the other coast.

2. Meat eater, living car free in a small flat in London, taking subway everywhere and train to travel for work to Manchester.

Is meat eating part most impactful life choice they’re making?

I think there are more people eating meat than people who

# Own and drive an SUV everywhere

# Flying for work every month

Think how much factory farmed meat is consumed. We kill and process ~80B animals per year.

For most folks meat is more affordable than buying an SUV or flying every month.

Getting people to heavily reduce or cut out meat & dairy and move to a more plant based diet will have a greater impact in reducing environmental impact.

This is based on an Oxford Uni study and also recommended by the IPCC. I’ll add sources later.

But it’s not an either or.

We need to do both and more.

It’s a tough challenge and we should have started yesterday.

Interesting times ahead… I wonder what the world will be like in 30 years.

——-

Edit: adding some sources

1) https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

2) “In addition to climate mitigation gains, a transition towards more plant-based consumption and reduced consumption of animal-based foods, particularly from ruminant animals, could reduce pressure on forests and land used for feed, support the preservation of biodiversity and planetary health, and contribute to preventing forms of malnutrition (i.e. undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity) in developing countries. Other co-benefits include lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and reducing mortality from diet-related non-communicable diseases.”

From: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/

3) “Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions. At the same time the food system is also responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”

From: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201603-plant-based-di...

The solar panels don't do any harm. The issue is the people who think driving a fancy car make much of a difference in terms of their carbon footprint. Stop flying first class. Stop eating beef. And stop throwing water on dirt to support your golf addiction.

Take my upvote, cause you're right!

Also: don't drive a car to begin with. Use muscle power wherever possible. All weight that's not you and not your stuff and that's transported is a waste of energy.

Moving a 2500kg+ car to transport a 100kg human to buy less than 20kg of groceries? Only humans could come up with that.

Or do both!

Sure, reducing animal product consumption is the most effective action one can take.

It's also true that EVs are not a sustainable solution.

But solar panels are not to be sneered at.

There's a lot of evidence backing these 3 points up.

Yet, individual lifestyle changes can only achieve so much. The world needs society-wide political change.