• usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml
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    5 months ago

    This is not some trivial difference. I talk about efficiency because we’re talking about substantial portions of entire global resources. The difference is many order of magnitudes between any animal products and plants. It’s enough to change the entire environment of our planet

    I think that deserves far more weight than “culture”. Because something is tradition is no good reason to keep doing something

    Research suggests that if everyone shifted to a plant-based diet, we would reduce global land use for agriculture by 75%. This large reduction of agricultural land use would be possible thanks to a reduction in land used for grazing and a smaller need for land to grow crops.

    https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

    And that land for instance can come from places like the Amazon rainforest

    Extensive cattle ranching is the number one culprit of deforestation in virtually every Amazon country, and it accounts for 80% of current deforestation

    https://wwf.panda.org/discover/knowledge_hub/where_we_work/amazon/amazon_threats/unsustainable_cattle_ranching/

    • PowerCrazy@lemmy.ml
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      5 months ago

      Forbid food exports, problem solved. Americans can grow their own food and enjoy their own burgers on their own land just fine.

      • usernamesAreTricky@lemmy.ml
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        5 months ago

        This is not a problem of exports. The US eats way animal products more per capita. If everyone ate like Americans, we would need 137% of the world’s habitable land which includes forests, urban areas, arable and non-arable land, etc. Cutting down every forest wouldn’t even be enough

        https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/share-of-global-habitable-land-needed-for-agriculture-if-everyone-had-the-diet-of

        The land usage itself isn’t free either. It comes with costs

        Livestock farmers often claim that their grazing systems “mimic nature”. If so, the mimicry is a crude caricature. A review of evidence from over 100 studies found that when livestock are removed from the land, the abundance and diversity of almost all groups of wild animals increases

        https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/aug/16/most-damaging-farm-products-organic-pasture-fed-beef-lamb

        And that’s not to mention the emissions which are enough to make us miss climate targets on their own if we ignore them. We must address fossil fuels and animal agriculture

        To have any hope of meeting the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to limit global warming to 2°C or less, our carbon emissions must be reduced considerably, including those coming from agriculture. Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. Thus, major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.

        (emphasis mine)

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