The Colorado River is running low. The picture looks even worse underground

Which are eaten by people.

Also, urban populations and rural populations have a symbiotic relationship. Someone has to process and transport all of that harvested crop/livestock. Is Fresno the thriving metropolis (snert) it is today without the farming of the Central Valley? Are the ports of Oakland and LA nearly as busy if they aren't shipping out all of that agricultural product?

I grew up ranching, hunting, farming, etc in the US west so I've seen this first hand. I went to an ag college as well. So, very familiar with this.

Cows are really, really bad for the environment. It's an incredibly inefficient way of producing calories.

We use massive amounts of land to grow relatively little food, in regards to beef. We deforest massive amounts of land to grow little food.

Cows do not belong in the American continents. They're not native. They make habitat/ecological issues way worse.

The record breaking fire year Oregon had in 2024? Cows contributed by eating native grasses which encourages invasive grass growth. Invasive grasses spread into monocultures and burn very hot. Cows also destroy riperian habitat which acts as a natural fire break.

US taxpayers also subsidize ranching on public lands in the form of suuuuper cheap grazing rights. Think hundreds of millions of dollars every year. Then we have more wildfires, more animal extinctions, etc so ranchers can let their cows loose.

We decimate local animals/predators because they are inconvenient for cows(think wolves and bears) which decimates the ecosystem. Look at Yellowstone and the mountain of evidence which shows predators are crucial for a functioning American ecosystem.

Then we have the issue of water rights which is "use it or lose it" so we have farmers growing grass in the arid US West. Where does a lot of that grass go? Overseas and into cows.

Then there's the methane problem.

Then there's the ethics problem.

Then there's the unhealthy diet problem which costs taxpayers billions in preventable illness.