Beef and dairy drive 41% of biodiversity damage linked to global farmland

Not to mention that beef/dairy production is a primary source of methane which is 80x more potent than Co2, but constantly under reported due to its shorter half life. Yes in the long run that matters, but its all the more reason that we should reduce animal agriculture right away as the payback is much faster than limiting Co2.

Plenty of people (including me) are vegan, healthy, and happy. As omnivores above the poverty line, we can all make conscious and conscientious choices about what we eat. Going vegan is one of the most effective ways to combat global warming (if you're not in a position to donate large sums of money toward climate change research or mitigation).

Unfortunately, the priority is increasing efficiency and ROI, rather than sustainability. This leads to centralization and operations at a scale which are not sustainable, without external input or causing damage to existing nature. De-centralization and sustainable practices are the only way forward, as it has been for centuries before us on this earth. Maybe space is the place for these kinds of centralised and intensive practices, like being planned for data centers.

Beef & dairy the industrial way drive this. Several studies and decade long experiments show the positive impact of the non-industrial alternatives.

There's more nuance here than reducing consumption of beef and dairy. Moving over to regenerative farming practices instead of factory farming will also improve the situation.

But it's also not like we can just stop eating steak and milk.

We need a new caveat cliche for these headlines like how people love to reply “in mice” to health research. For environmental research it’s almost always “in the 3rd world”

Does this mean we should be advocating for more intensive cattle rearing? Stockyards and special breeds may not be the worst way to meet demand and reduce environmental impact (measured by CO2/methane emissions as well as biodiversity loss, for instance).

Thing is, will be anything left after we destroy the planet with war, data centers, rare earth minerals mines, nuclear and battery waste?

Sadly, this being Hacker News, it won't catch much attention and will be quickly flagged by people who have too much karma.

But I think we are making progress, slowly, sadly too slowly, with the current summer we are having in Europe, of the impact of our past actions in the weather. And make no mistake, eating so much meat and drinking so much milk, is a huge impact we are inflicting on our planet.

Please do not comment with "I do X" or "In our house, we avoid doing Y" - it is not about you and me, it is about society. I am convinced, you are convinced, we need everyone to be convinced.

Seems causally false.

cow farts lol

Another way of saying the same would be: Agriculture causes almost 60% of the biodiversity damage linked to global farmland.

Yep, is the miracle of literature. An hectare of cattle allows more biodiversity than the same hectare of lettuce.