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Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It
(sentientmedia.org)
this post was submitted on 07 Jan 2024
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Discussion of climate, how it is changing, activism around that, the politics, and the energy systems change we need in order to stabilize things.
As a starting point, the burning of fossil fuels, and to a lesser extent deforestation and release of methane are responsible for the warming in recent decades:
How much each change to the atmosphere has warmed the world:
Recommended actions to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the near future:
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I'm afraid that's a bit too simplistic. I'll name a few reasons to give a hint why.
For example, both carbon dioxide and methane are "part of the earth's carbon cycle", but both have different climate impacts. Ruminants transform one into the other; from bad to worse.
Another person pointed out how meat production also involves burning fossil fuels, for example for transport. Or synthetic fertilizers.
Yet another reason is land use change. Meat production, being inherently less efficient due to more intermediate steps (see trophic levels), uses more land for the same amount of nutritions compared to plant based agriculture. This translates to more deforestation, more dried up wetlands, more desertification, and more stress on other species.
Finally, scale and speed make a difference. It's true that both carbon dioxide and methane are part of Earth's existing carbon cycle. Yet, the scale and speed at which we emit those is unprecedented.
But natural ruminants like deer would take up places cows were removed from. They will have the same emissions as cows per unit biomass
Says who, got any source on that? Do we have any evidence for both assumptions, specifically the second?
As far as I know, natural herds of ruminants can actually help keep carbon in the ground. The natural population density is also much lower compared to modern factory farms.