As negotiations get underway at COP28, we compiled a list of the leading research documenting the connection between meat and greenhouse gas emissions.
I would hazard saying “environmentally effective” here unless we are willing to ignore some of the other large environmental issues with meat production outside of just green house gases emission. Plant-based foods are lower not just on GHG emissions, but water usage, land usage, eutrophication, fertilizer usage1, etc.
There’s all kinds of other pollutants such as Nitrogen runoff. The rise of the pig farming is has helped fueled a crisis in Nitrogen runoff in the Netherlands for instance
There’s the high level of antibiotic usage to maintaining the high levels of production fueling antibiotic resistance.
And so on.
If we do want to look at the suffering, we should also note that chicken farming does not just keep things the same, but actually makes it worse with more chickens required than other creatures due to their smaller size.
EDIT: I should also mention that land use change (deforestation) factor can change as you rapidly increase these industries size. Deforestation makes up a large portion of beef’s current emissions. Plant-based foods require overall less cropland due to not needing to grow any feed and removing that energy loss. This is not the case for chicken production. Currently beef does make up the majority of Amazonian deforestation, however, the second largest portion is growing animal feed primary for chickens. Switch from beef to chickens and you might risk just moving around where the deforestation comes from
Yes. Sloppy choice of words on my part but this is a climate change topic, here.
Chicken meat uses 4x less water than beef. I’m not disputing your point, just firming up the perspective for anyone lurking.
Clearly, vegetables are way way better. But in terms of what kind of behavior change people are willing to consider, cutting out beef is a way way easier sell than cutting out all meat.
Yes. Sloppy choice of words on my part but this is a climate change topic, here.
Chicken meat uses 4x less water than beef. I’m not disputing your point, just firming up the perspective for anyone lurking.
Clearly, vegetables are way way better. But in terms of what kind of behavior change people are willing to consider, cutting out beef is a way way easier sell than cutting out all meat.
I would hazard saying “environmentally effective” here unless we are willing to ignore some of the other large environmental issues with meat production outside of just green house gases emission. Plant-based foods are lower not just on GHG emissions, but water usage, land usage, eutrophication, fertilizer usage1, etc.
There’s all kinds of other pollutants such as Nitrogen runoff. The rise of the pig farming is has helped fueled a crisis in Nitrogen runoff in the Netherlands for instance
There’s the high level of antibiotic usage to maintaining the high levels of production fueling antibiotic resistance.
And so on.
If we do want to look at the suffering, we should also note that chicken farming does not just keep things the same, but actually makes it worse with more chickens required than other creatures due to their smaller size.
1 Even less synthetic fertilizer even compared to the maximal usage of manure per https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
EDIT: I should also mention that land use change (deforestation) factor can change as you rapidly increase these industries size. Deforestation makes up a large portion of beef’s current emissions. Plant-based foods require overall less cropland due to not needing to grow any feed and removing that energy loss. This is not the case for chicken production. Currently beef does make up the majority of Amazonian deforestation, however, the second largest portion is growing animal feed primary for chickens. Switch from beef to chickens and you might risk just moving around where the deforestation comes from
Yes. Sloppy choice of words on my part but this is a climate change topic, here.
Chicken meat uses 4x less water than beef. I’m not disputing your point, just firming up the perspective for anyone lurking.
Clearly, vegetables are way way better. But in terms of what kind of behavior change people are willing to consider, cutting out beef is a way way easier sell than cutting out all meat.
Yes. Sloppy choice of words on my part but this is a climate change topic, here.
Chicken meat uses 4x less water than beef. I’m not disputing your point, just firming up the perspective for anyone lurking.
Clearly, vegetables are way way better. But in terms of what kind of behavior change people are willing to consider, cutting out beef is a way way easier sell than cutting out all meat.