Yeah, plus the ethical angle. It's a bit ridiculous that we have people researching the 'theoretical ethical treatment of LLMs' when we are doing such awful things to animals on a massive scale.

We have dogs and cats as pets and we eat cows and pigs (in Western countries). As if cows and pigs didn't also have personalities, memories, parental bonds, the ability to feel pain. It's a mass wilful ignorance.

What's the difference between us and animals? I would argue that it's our ability to take ethical decisions and not inflict suffering even if it goes against our base instincts.

There was a German article comparing different traveled distances between German cities with CO2 impact of meat production.

https://www.merkur.de/reise/reduzieren-sollte-besser-reisen-...

Getting people to agree to the same cultural diet is about as easy as getting people to agree to the same religion.

If we could change culture and the global diet, there are many exciting low carbon foods being promoted, especially in aquaculture. Shellfish and seaweed do not rely on artificial fertilizer, fresh water, or people burning down the rain forest.

Beef is already too expensive for most people. Americans are probably the exception but I can assure you that most Europeans do not have beef heavy diets. Even culturally, pork (and now chicken) were the proteins of choice.

Going vegetarian would only cut it if you stayed clear of dairy. Gram for gram it's better to eat chicken than cheese for the climate.

Wait, how does beef emit carbon? I thought the main problem with beef was methane, not carbon emissions.

Ah, I see, your graph says CO2-equivalent, not CO2. It's the methane.

The next frontier should be preventing forest fires. This is just Canada, imagine if we could prevent them around the world.

https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-nasa-study-tallies-carbon-...

>Stoked by Canada’s warmest and driest conditions in decades, extreme forest fires in 2023 released about 640 million metric tons of carbon

Indeed. And also it's not healthy, compared to veggies, or even leaner meats like poultry

There's tens of millions of well-armed Americans who'd rather die fighting then let anyone take away their right to eat red meat, so good luck trying.

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I question the methodology of that 100kg (per kg) figure for beef, for several reasons:

1. It's not the true Carbon or CO2 figure. It's weighted for other greenhouse gases. That's kind of an issue because methane naturally breaks down (into CO2 and water) over time. The methane issue comes up all the time in such estimates (eg leaks in natural gas pipelines) where methane is a worse greenhouse gas but temporary (7-12 years) and CO2 is essentially forever (until sequestration or photosynthesis);

2. Production method really matters here. American beef, for example, is primarily grain fed. That grain requires fertilizer (more natural gas) and distribution. Australian beef, for example, is largely fed on natural grasses and vegetation, typically until the last 60-120 days where it's transitioned to grain for marbling. American cattle is also heavily fed on corn, which really shouldn't exist in the quantities it does;

3. Ecosystems are complex. One of the big causes of the dust bowl, for example, was the destruction of the great bison herds. Replacing the natural grasses with crops like wheat was just the last straw. The point of the bison is that they're heavy, like up to 2000+ lb heavy, and they leave deep hoof prints on the plains. Water collects there when it rains and feeds cgrasses and the aquifers.

This has been backed up elsewhere too. China has had long projects to stop the desertification of the Gobi and spent a ton on planting trees with varied successes. You know what did work? Horses. They released horses and the same thing happened. Horse hoof prints allowed water to collect and grasses to grow and spread. Grasses, as it turned out, were key to stopping desertification, not trees.

So the point is that certain ecosystems need large herd herbivores to survive. So if you got rid of cattle entirely, what other second order effects would there be?

More practically, people just arne't going to give up meat. Sorry. Unless it become sprice prohibitve (as beef arguably is rapidly becoming now).

This is the most Euro commie thing I've heard in a long while.

Sure, get rid of factory farms and CAFO's, but I see nothing wrong with raising animals on family farms where they eat a nutritious diet in line with what they evolved to eat.

Grass for cows, pasture and bugs for poultry, silvopasture for pigs. Anyone who wants to go vegan for ethical or environmental reasons is fine, but I hate this idea that all of us have to fall in line with your crazy ideas.

Meat, and red meat, is truly a miracle food. Dense in nutrients, satiating and of course tasty.

Nature needs animals as well. In fact it is essential.

Agricultural reform or innovation is certainly an avenue to explore; but this strange obsession with "stop eating red meat" is a bit too much.

How many miles does the burger drive my car? Not to question your numbers but they lack context. Also, it would be good for nature if there were fewer or no humans on this planet. But then there would be no human here to enjoy nature.

In the spring I will get 3 cows with calf-a-foot who will graze the immense amount of herbal leys we have, as well as maintain our SSSI fields, and then in a few years some of them, the meanest, will go off to the abatoir to become the very finest and well fed beef that money can buy.

We'll expand the herd, and do mob grazing to maintain our species rich grasslands and our SSSI fields, while also providing the best beef to those that appreciate it, family first of course.

Grass fed and pasture fed, are not good enough. The cattle need a wide variety of food, which starts with more than grass or a monoculture pasture.