What makes the meat industry so particularly bad in regards to climate change?

19 comments

1. The greenhouse effect of methane is 28x stronger than that of Co2. Cows produce so much methane and have been bred over generations for size and population, so we have too many of them. The methane produced in the process of making one burger patty is equivalent to the greenhouse gas effect of driving 40 km in an average sized sedan.

   On top of the fact that cows produce so much methane, the amount of crops required to feed those cows takes up so much farmland that we would actually be able to feed humans an equivalently nutritious diet by growing crops on only a portion of the land required to feed cows.

   So while yes, cow farts are the main contributor, it’s used as a misnomer to invalidate the arguments that its the infrastructure of the meat farming industry as a whole that is so bad.

2. The amount of synthetic fertilizers used to feed a human with grains, is similar to the amount of synthetic fertilizers used to feed a cow with grains.

   Now if the human eats nothing but cows, that becomes a crazy amount of synthetic fertilizers to feed that human.

   Synthetic fertilizers are made with fossil methane. The less we consume, the less new carbon gases are added to the atmosphere, the slower it warms up.

   So it’s not the farts, it’s the fact the farts are from synthetic fertilizers from fossil carbon.

3. Land use.

   It takes more food to sustain animals due to the energy transfer between [trophic levels](https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/trophic-level)

   We are clearing huge swathes of land to feed animals; land that could otherwise be used for crops to feed people(for a fraction of the land area being used), or remain naturally vegetated. As a result, animal agriculture is responsible for [~15% of annual GHG emissions](https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/)

   Side note, the absurdity of ‘cow farts’ is an example of the [reducto ad absurdum](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_absurdum) logical fallacy.

4. This is one of the factors yes, but there is also land use. It takes significantly more land to feed people with meat than without. This results in less land being available for nature, meaning less carbon sequestration. It also means more fertilizer use.

5. Besides the methane emissions, land use required to produce 1 calorie or 1g of protein from beef is much much higher than producing it from a plant based source. Which makes sense if you think about it. A cow, just like us uses lots of energy just being alive and does not gain one gram of mass for each gram of feed it consumes. Why don’t we just eat the soy beans instead of inefficiently running them through a cow first? This would require much less land.

   By using land area to grow feed for livestock, we prevent those same areas from being forests which would store large amounts of CO2. See how the Amazon rain forest is being burned down to export feed to livestock across the globe.

   Here is good overview from Oxford University that describes the CO2 emissions of many common food types:
   [https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local](https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local)

6. Methane emissions were discussed on the latest episode of cleaning up. [The first 10 minutes had me audibly gasping](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LVCgC8fPjpM)

7. – poor ppl ration meat or even dont eat meat. and it`s mostly chicken and pork.
   – richest 10% contribute of ~50% of carbon emissions.
   – it`s 11-17 % of carbon related emissions.
   – ppl still will need to eat.

   So, even if we do make ppl drop meat, it will be tenths of a percent reduction. Rich ppl will absolutely not give up on something they want without their life is at stake. This topic is brought up specifically to distract from fossil resources. And create discord among the people.
   You are right that meat industry must change drastically or even evolve to artificial meat, but carbon emissions is not the reason because it wont change a thing.

8. This does a way better job than I could

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

9. They argue that methane is a bigger problem, but ignore the fact that our atmosphere can compensate some methane in the air quite fine and did so for millions of years (even with millions of bison roaming North America). The issue is that the fossil fuel industry puts EXTRA methane in the air well beyond what the atmosphere CAN compensate, and now we need to reduce the methane exhaust of our civilization.

   Now, the sane thing to do would be to stop using fossil fuels, and to stop emitting methane from such sources. Then we go back to baseline, the world climate at least stabilizes, and all is fine.

   But see, the cute animals have friends who see this as the perfect opportunity to go against the meat industry. They did that before climate protection was en vogue, and once we have solved the climate change problem, they’ll find other reasons, while their true reason is they just like the animals (nothing wrong with that, they should just be honest about it).

   And of course, the fossil fuel industry is somewhat happy about you talking about meat instead of the real culprit.

10. The land clearing mostly, grazing takes up huge amounts of land.

    Most methane still comes from Oil and Gas production

11. Cows actually burp more methane than they fart, but it’s still a problem.

12. Cutting down the forest so cows would have more grass fields…. Using a bigger part of grain we grow to feed cows….

13. We use 18 times the amount of land to feed cows to feed us then we would need to grow plants that would feed us
    Monoculture is a big thing in combo with deforestation for like soy that is used to feed cows
    The methane yes too

14. Land

15. Ruminants are walking tropical wetlands, so they release lots of methane. There’s also carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (from their excrements).

    Another layer is that they use up a lot of land in terms of feed, which is associated with its own GHGs.

    Another layer is land use change (turning lands into pastures or wild grasslands into pastures) and deforestation (obvious, but it’s also the destruction of carbon sink).

    If you have a few years you can understand it.

    If not, here’s some reading:

    https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impact-of-eating-meat-and-dairy/

    https://www.carbonbrief.org/explainer-can-climate-change-and-biodiversity-loss-be-tackled-together/

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-meatless-diet-is-better-for-you-and-the-planet/

    https://theconversation.com/global-food-system-emissions-alone-threaten-warming-beyond-1-5-c-but-we-can-act-now-to-stop-it-149312

    https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01605-8

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19474-6

    https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-018-0757-z

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-014-1104-5

    https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ac02ef

    The topic is plagued by industry disinformation campaigns at all levels of understanding, as is the tradition and in the same fashion as the fossil fuel industry.

    https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2022/10/31/frank-mitloehner-uc-davis-climate-funding/

    https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22379909/big-meat-companies-spend-millions-lobbying-climate

    https://theconversation.com/the-meat-and-dairy-industry-is-not-climate-neutral-despite-some-eye-catching-claims-219369

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/31/climate/frank-mitloehner-uc-davis.html

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-meat-industry-is-doing-exactly-what-big-oil-does-to-fight-climate-action/2021/05/14/831e14be-b3fe-11eb-ab43-bebddc5a0f65_story.html

    https://www.desmog.com/2023/12/14/the-livestock-industrys-climate-neutral-claims-are-too-good-to-be-true/

    https://influencemap.org/report/The-European-Meat-and-Dairy-Sector-s-Climate-Policy-Engagement-28096

    https://heated.world/p/big-meat-is-lying-about-sustainability

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/02042021/meat-dairy-lobby-climate-action/

    https://insideclimatenews.org/news/08052024/usda-tyson-climate-friendly-beef-claim/

    https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-024-03690-w

    https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ad0f75

    And, no, there’s no climate mitigation without dealing with the animal industry, especially the beef and dairy sectors. All of these industries need to be tackled (to the ground, and then burried) simultaneously.

16. Didn’t know you could use cows for a cigarette lighter

17. It’s just stupidity. Nothing more than that.

18. So I assume everyone here is vegan, right?

19. The problem is that the uncertainty levels with “animal agriculture” are absolutely MASSIVE.

    When people talk about methane from grass consumption they ignore the fact the methane would be released from that same grass decomposing anyways.

    When they talk about animal contributions to methane they ignore the fact that if you “re-wilded” all those areas, other herbivores would still eat the same grasses and plants and release the same emissions anyways.

    When they talk about “trophic levels”, they ignore the fact that most of what gets fed to animals isn’t actually human-consumable food anyways, and is overwhelmingly silage and waste products from other agricultural processes.

    Even the alleged “land use” claims are incredibly uncertain, and it’s extremely unclear how much of a CO2 sink those amount to.

    Almost all of the processes involved have nothing to do with fossil fuel extraction, which is the #1 driver of climate change and the only thing that we can be certain ultimately has a net impact on the climate.

    The presumed “benefits” of eliminating animal products are almost certainly much, much, MUCH lower than proponents of veganism claim, and their reasoning is motivated far more by vegan advocacy than environmental advocacy.