ELI5. If livestock contributes to greenhouse gas emission, shouldn’t we eat more meat to get rid of them? Wouldn’t eating plants reduce the overall photosynthesis which contributes to less CO2?
In: Chemistry
The problem is not directly the consumption of meat. By eating meat, we are effectively asking for more livestock to be produced. While this livestock will eventually itself become meat, it produces a great many greenhouse gases during this time. Eating more meat would not rectify this – every burger consumed can be directly correlated to a volume of methane in the atmosphere.
To clarify, you’re thinking we should eat more meat to reduce livestock population? If demand for meat increases significantly then farms will increase supply in order to meet that demand. Meat also takes more energy and work to process for mass consumption, which means more fuel burned in power plants to supply factories with processing power. There are enough plants supplying oxygen that eating more plants would not significantly reduce photosynthesis, and growing those plants would actually increase photosynthesis. Many people’s reasons for being vegetarian/vegan include that eating less meat will have a positive impact on greenhouse gases.
When you eat more meat, ranchers will produce even more of it just like they are doing it right now. When you stop eating meat every day and reduce it, ranchers sell less meat and will reduce the amount of livestock they have.
This will also reduce the amount of corn that is planted for livestock and more grassland can be planted or even trees.
No, purely because of supply and demand. If there are more people eating meat then the supply goes up and more people get into animal farming rather than getting out of it any into crops of whatever sort.
Huh? No. The point is to eat *less* meat so there’s less demand, and thus fewer animals raised as livestock and all the benefits that come with that (less greenhouse house emissions, less pollution, less water use, less land used, fewer forests destroyed…etc). I’m not sure how you arrived at the conclusion that the amount of plant matter we eat has any measurable effect on the total mass of plant matter on the planet, and thus how much CO2 said plants sequester, but I assure you that you are incorrect.
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