As negotiations get underway at COP28, we compiled a list of the leading research documenting the connection between meat and greenhouse gas emissions.
Coffee and chocolate are not substitutes for animal meat though. If you look at the chart and compare animal proteins to substitutes like tofu, beans, peas, and nuts the plant based options win every time.
You came so close to the answer, and then fell away. Factory farming as a process is what jacks up those numbers dramatically, not the thing that’s being farmed. A few large corporations have seized the cattle and chicken industries, so their numbers would be far lower if regulations reversed that horrific trend (with a few caveats regarding methane in cattle, but I’m trying to stick to the topic). Remember how I mentioned “leaves out a lot of important variables”? That’s another of them. Nobody cares that Tyson collects a feed subsidy that’s paid for by small-scale farmers, or that small-scale farmers’ animal products are 100% environmentally sustainable in most countries. There’s nothing inherent about animal agriculture that means it NEEDS to be factory-farmed, or that we need to penalize small farmers so we can kick money over to Purdue.
But even in the current graph, poultry, pork, and seafood are in the same realm as most crops and are dramatically more usable calories. Several things that are not on the chart (wild-caught seafood, animals raised with certain processes, the influence of the symbiotic relationship between animals and crops) put most animals comfortably in with plants.
As for beef, that would deserve it’s own entire conversation because those numbers misrepresent a lot of the reality. But that’s another topic and I’m starting to tire of having 10+ people reply to me every hour on this topic, most of whom are angry at or belittling me (not you, just in general)
You came so close to the answer, and then fell away. Factory farming as a process is what jacks up those numbers dramatically, not the thing that’s being farmed. A few large corporations have seized the cattle and chicken industries, so their numbers would be far lower if regulations reversed that horrific trend (with a few caveats regarding methane in cattle, but I’m trying to stick to the topic). Remember how I mentioned “leaves out a lot of important variables”? That’s another of them. Nobody cares that Tyson collects a feed subsidy that’s paid for by small-scale farmers, or that small-scale farmers’ animal products are 100% environmentally sustainable in most countries. There’s nothing inherent about animal agriculture that means it NEEDS to be factory-farmed, or that we need to penalize small farmers so we can kick money over to Purdue.
But even in the current graph, poultry, pork, and seafood are in the same realm as most crops and are dramatically more usable calories. Several things that are not on the chart (wild-caught seafood, animals raised with certain processes, the influence of the symbiotic relationship between animals and crops) put most animals comfortably in with plants.
As for beef, that would deserve it’s own entire conversation because those numbers misrepresent a lot of the reality. But that’s another topic and I’m starting to tire of having 10+ people reply to me every hour on this topic, most of whom are angry at or belittling me (not you, just in general)