> people that argue that we should stop eating meat simply reveal themselves as regressives (hating advanced human civilisation, wanting a decrease in energy usage of humanity, which necessarily implies regression and mass death).
How does saying the meat industry is a problem "hating human civilization"? It certainly does not mean regression and mass death as it would decrease the amount of land, cropland, and resources to grow food since we wouldn't need to grow so much feed nor clear so much land for pastures
"If we would shift towards a more plant-based diet we don’t only need less agricultural land overall, we also need less cropland"
Also your argument against methane emissions is not very well thought through. You could argue the same against any CO2 emissions, by arguing that at some point they will be stored by CCS again.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/feed-required-to-produce-...
I am no partisan for the cause (and will order anything from a menu that strikes my fancy), but there is a certain mark of savagery in what and who we eat that (I feel) it is our destiny to overcome.
For us to solve as many problems as we can now will give our progeny more focus on what they are tasked to do, and they will thank us for it.
Vegans are implicitly promoting genocide of cows, chicken and pigs. There's no chance these animals can survive in nature, they're so numerous exclusively because they're bred by humans for food. Is one-time genocide better or worse than continuous perpetual murder? This essay argues that it's worse.
https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/12/11/acc-is-eating-meat-a-n...
Nonsense.
> Is one-time genocide better or worse than continuous perpetual murder?
1) False dichotomy, nobody is asking for "genocide".
2) Even if, the answer is absolutely yes.
What a disingenuous and ridiculous stance.
Do you genuinely not understand that these animals are bred for humans consumption? They wouldn't exist otherwise.
If you can nurture a human with X amount of plant food, but instead use X+Y amount of plant food (and extra water, fertilizer, fossils fuels etc.) to raise cattle to nurture the same amount of humans, you've absolutely increased carbon emissions as compared to the first option.
I sincerely do not get how one can miss this point??
The key points you're missing are that the plants that cows eat aren't suitable for human consumption, and the land that said plants grow on isn't suitable for growing any plants that are suitable for human consumption.
Not to mention that existing biotopes are being destroyed in order to create more pasture; it's very much a self-made problem.
If we make plant agriculture "sustainable" (i.e. independent of fossil fuels) then we will also make meat agriculture sustainable.
Land use is a huge concern, given we already use half of the world’s habitable land for our agriculture [1], putting immense pressure on ecosystems and biodiversity due to this habitat loss.
Organic agriculture is less intensive, meaning for the same total food production, it must be more extensive — it requires more land [2].
That’s not to say there aren’t very good reasons to shift to organic agriculture. Fertilizer runoff leads to vast ocean dead zones, such as that in the Gulf of Mexico [3]. Further, we have an estimated 60 years of farming left if soil depletion continues at its current pace [4].
If we are to both curtail our land use and switch to regenerative farming methods, we must curtail meat production.
It takes around 100 times as much land to produce 1 calorie of beef or lamb versus plant-based alternatives (similar for the same quantity of protein) [5], such that we could reduce our land use for farming from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and still feed the whole world on plant-based diets.
I’m not sure if I’ve connected the dots here especially well, but I hope I’ve at least conveyed that sustainability is multi-dimensional, and goes far beyond just getting off fossil fuels — even though that is a vital step.
[1]: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
[2]: https://ourworldindata.org/is-organic-agriculture-better-for...
[3]: https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/deadzonegulf-2021/welcome.html
[4]: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/only-60-years-of-...
In the United States we actually destroyed an equivalent biomass of Bison and replaced them with cattle. Though perhaps you celebrate the Bison eradication, too.
And methane stays in the atmosphere only a decade or so, so the day we stop release huge amount of it the effect will disappear much faster. But as long as we continue to let methane out in the atmosphere, it will have disproportionate effect on the climate disaster. Which happens right now! Not in some unspecified remote future.
Presumably it would also be a reason to stop eating meat grown using those farming methods. Which would be the majority of meat consumed as it stands.
If people can find a good way to create fossil fuels from atmospheric CO2 then they shouldn't have any fossil fuel punishments in their way.
Maybe meat faming methods contribute CO2 emissions, but that's a reason to stop those farming methods, not stop eating meat.
Similar to people who hate aircon, people who argue that we should stop eating meat simply reveal themselves as regressives (hating advanced human civilisation, wanting a decrease in energy usage of humanity, which necessarily implies regression and mass death).
(Some people argue that beef contribute methane emissions, which is true however methane is a cycle and contributes nothing to the long-term anthropogenic carbon emissions, the entirety of which is coming from fossil fuels; yet still, the correct response is improving agricultural practices, not banning meat.)
Btw I fully support a carbon tax, as long as it's non-discriminatory (i.e. taxes all fossil fuel usage equally, not meat and/or other "sinful" activities more).