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Comment by Press2forEN | Hacker News Reader

Meat has been a global climate catastrophe wrapped in a corn tortilla. The production of meat is literally killing us, and I'm sorry but its worth taking away traditional cuisines so that humanity doesn't go extinct.

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This is absurd. Humanity isn't going to go extinct from climate change, and the causes of climate change are fossil fuels and how they allow us to support a large population. If everyone stopped eating meat you'd still have tons of unhealthy people and you'd still have climate change.

>Humanity isn't going to go extinct from climate change

Seems like the most likely way right now.

>Causes of climate change are fossil fuels

Yes, and fossil fuels are used in livestock production.

Through use of petrochemicals to produce feed and deforestation. 18% of GHG emissions are estimated to be from livestock and dairy production.

This article covers a lot of the usage: http://www.docbrownscience.com/uploads/4/8/7/2/4872895/food_....

I agree it contributes, but the problem is that fossil fuels are cheap and convenient. Getting rid of meat would delay the problem but not solve it.

I'm very skeptical that climate change can lead to extinction. Maybe civilizational collapse (I don't believe it will though), but there is no plausible path to extinction.

No, sorry. Cows and other ruminants have been part of the ecosystem for tens of millions of years. They're extremely good for the soil and for the environment and it turns out humans are highly evolved to eat meat. We invented fire and hunting tools for it hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's one of the most nutrient dense and healthy foods you can consume as long as you don't add a bunch of crap to it. Humanity wouldn't even exist without meat.

The difference is, now, thanks to humans, there are 1.4 billion cows. And a lot of the cows are fed things like corn, which makes them produce a lot more methane than a more natural diet would. A million years ago, you wouldn't have anywhere near this many ruminants.

I think the solution is somewhere in between. There is a lot more cows today than there was 200 years ago. The negatives get compounded with CO2 and methane being released, plus the water and energy used to make beef over other meats or sources of protein is much higher. Though yes we did evolve to eat some meat. But the average American eats a lot of red meat and the average American has a less than healthy cholesterol level. So let's just eat less red meat. If we all cut down our red meat consumption by 50%, the environment would be much better off, we would be healthier, and we would still be able to get the nutrients we need from meat.

Cholesterol levels are utterly irrelevant in predicting 10 year mortality rate. Oxidized LDL and CAC score are the metrics to optimize for and indicate whether your lifestyle is successful.

It's funny you mention cows specifically, because I tend to think of beef as one of the less healthy meats compared to others. And I know there is a lot of criticism of beef production from environmentalists, but I am not too steeped in that literature.

A lot of Mexican dishes I most readily think of are more about pork and chicken than beef.

The factory farming way of producing beef is certainly not good for the environment and soil.

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