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Comment by BigJono | Hacker News Reader

Can you elaborate on the environmental impact? I've heard so many vegans say this but I've never seen a proper explanation of it. How can eating meat have a negative environmental impact when humans are natural omnivores?

It seems to me like people are confusing eating meat with our modern agricultural processes. And if that's the case then the solution should be to improve said processes, not to stop eating meat.

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Cows produce a huge amount of methane, from their digestive system. That alone is enough to cause significant environmental impact, and if we stopped eating beef we would see a decrease in the amount of methane released.

Don't forget the large amount of water it takes to raise cattle.

Things like vats of liquified cow feces stored underground, which are later sprayed on (organic!) crops - these have a much larger impact than a few cows producing their feces, which is later composted. Cows produce methane, as do chickens.

The thing is - how is the average person going to improve the processes? People can eat less meat and urge the governments in different areas to force better farming practices through regulation, financial support for upgrades, investment in technology (for example, something that composts manure and spreads it better than the liquid manure we keep in vats or somehow breeding cows that produce less methane), and other such things.

Some countries will be able to pull this off. Others... well, will fail. And some of those are either major contributors or consumers.

Some farmers set parts of the rain forest on fire to then grow plants exclusively intended to be used as animal food, until there are no more remaining nutrients usually causing permanent damage to the soil.

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/AmazonFire/

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