Treating beef like coal would make a big dent in greenhouse-gas emissions
129 comments
·July 17, 2025danielbln
dinfinity
Something oft forgotten: cheese made from cow milk is actually really inefficient too. Chicken and pork meat rank lower than cheese from cow milk in environmental impact.
BobaFloutist
Chicken is one thing, since chicken meat is actually quite eco-friendly.
Not sure about pork, to be honest.
prox
I know someone who works in agriculture reform and the lobby against any change is tough
Like they get outspend to an incredible degree. You are not choosing, they are telling you what to choose. It doesn’t mean change isn’t possible but you are swimming against a powerful current called Lobbying and Marketing/Influencing.
mindok
Cow poo and periodic trampling are an incredibly important part of topsoil development in a number of ecosystems - eg prairies.
danielbln
Sure, but most beef farming is mass scale factory farming. Framing it as "it's good for prairies" is a little disingenuous.
burnt-resistor
A lot disingenuous. A CAFO lot.[0] That's how most cows are raised.
0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_animal_feeding_op...
close04
The problem is that we don't factor in the externalities adequately in the price of most products.
Building and operating an amusement park is also incredibly inefficient just to get a giggle. If every product would be priced in a way that includes all externalities you'd see a shrink in the industries with the highest (negative) impact.
I'm setting aside the Pandora's box discussion about allowing only the rich the luxury of destroying the environment.
closewith
By this approach, life is inherently wasteful. Resource use is not only necessary, but a human right. Deciding for others what is and isn't worth the use is immoral.
danielbln
What kind of statement is that? Is it my human right to blow CFCs into the air? Maybe, yet we generally disallow that because it would ruin the fun for everyone else. Your right to use resources ends where my impact begins.
Additionally, pointing out inefficiencies is a good thing and something we should do more of, because that's how we optimize.
closewith
CFCs are prohibited, like other toxic substances, because they are unequivocally detrimental to everyone. Energy use, agriculture, and husbandry are not.
> Your right to use resources ends where my impact begins.
No, it doesn't. If it did, no-one would be able to zero any resources as the planet is a zero-sum resource pool.
I have the right to use resources even where it impacts other. The limits we place on resource use are and should be only in extremis where that impact reaches a level that is particularly harmful.
Many agricultural practices meet this condition and have been banned. Many more should be. However, that does not extend to dictating that resources cannot be used for husbandry.
Following your logic, I should be able to prohibit you using computers recreationally, prevent you from travelling in powered vehicles, prevent you from having children. Each of those has a far higher contribution to resource use than husbandry.
> Additionally, pointing out inefficiencies is a good thing and something we should do more of, because that's how we optimize.
Life is not an optimisation problem. Don't waste yours approaching it this way.
albertgoeswoof
On an individual level you have two choices:
- eat meat, and accept the impact to the environment, health risks, and mass unethical treatment of livestock
- stop eating meat, and accept that some of the foods you grew up eating, you can't eat any more
federiconafria
I think there is a third option, factor in the externalities and treat it as a luxury. The cost we are paying for it is not currently reflected on the final price.
sotix
My grandparents and great grandparents in Greece used meat as a garnish a few times per week for dinner. The most meat they would have was at the end of the Lenten fast on Easter where they would have a big piece of lamb. Otherwise, it was the occasional smaller pieces of ground meat on top of vegetable-heavy dishes.
brador
Fourth: Find or create alternatives that taste just as good without the high environmental impact.
franga2000
Putting such absolute choices in front of people basically never works. Those conductive to such and argument have already become vegetarian.
But there's a much bigger percentage of people that would be willing to eat meat less, without fully stopping. Turn meat into a delicacy you indulge in, not the default base to prepare every meal on. Try some indian food, or stuff from other cuisines that rely less on meat. Make that twice a week, you'll probably enjoy it, maybe even save some money.
aziaziazi
Sure it's absurd to imagine that people make 0/1 choices, however it's also absurd to reject a 3-line shortened proposition because it seems absolute.
> Those conductive to such and argument have already become vegetarian
Choices are more complicated than "being conductive", for exemple
- opinion change: you're not totally against the idea but not convinced neither. If you're open minded, learning something new or being witness of a context change can make you reevaluate.
- Motivation: there's thinks in your life that occupy your brain and you don't feel free to start another change now, but you might being more disponible to self-actualisation later.
- Event-Trigger: An inspiring talk, movie, or discussion with a friend sometimes trigger you to reconsider your position. I know cold showers aren't that hard and they're great for the body and the mind. I never had to courage to start that new habits but a convincing and motivating HN post might be the trigger to a routine.
znpy
> Putting such absolute choices in front of people basically never works.
Indeed. Faced with that absolute choice, I'd pick eating meat and dismiss the entire line of reasoning about meat.
And quite frankly I wouldn't even feel guilty about it: I'm pretty sure I'm already doing more than the average to lower my emissions. As a trivial example: I pretty much use public transport all the time and don't have a car. This alone probably puts me above the average american vegan driving an SUV to go from their suburbs to anywhere, in terms of carbon footprint reduction.
peterashford
or three, just eat less meat
prox
A UN study showed that if everyone on earth would be going from 7 days a week meat to 6 would do wonders for the climate.
Just one day less.
BobaFloutist
Try "Meatless Monday" is a much more effective message than animal welfare, since it offers a reasonable path that doesn't require changing everything all at once, and doesn't tie your past actions to guilt.
People are highly motivated to push back against animal welfare arguments because it makes them feel like bad people. "You can easily make things better by just abstaining once a week" doesn't challenge their identities nearly as much.
peterashford
I'm also holding out hope for vat meat. I like meat but I'd really be happier eating it without an animal having to die
quonn
Wrong.
- mass unethical treatment (assuming you do not mean the fact that animals are killed) is related to the conditions which are related to price
- health risks can be minimal depending on the amount and type of meat you eat
- the CO2 impact again depends on the meat and conditions. Surely chicken in your backyard can be kept without CO2 impacts with some effort.
- your very existence has a CO2 impact. By your own logic you have two choices …
rimunroe
> Surely chicken in your backyard can be kept without CO2 impacts with some effort.
I’m not sure this is possible, at least not in a typical yard or urban garden. According to one study[1] community gardens in and around cities emit six times the CO2 per serving compared to industrial agriculture. I assume this is roughly applicable to backyard gardens too. I wouldn’t be surprised if this isn’t applicable to livestock—which the study appears to have excluded—but also wouldn’t be surprised if the story is similar with chickens/livestock.
I imagine that even if it is less efficient to grow your chickens in the back yard, it might be possible to approach or exceed current industrial poultry farms in CO2 efficiency. My hunch is that if those farms get incentivized by penalties on CO2 production it would be impossible though.
[1] https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/handle/2027.42/1968...
quonn
I said backyard, not some urban garden.
burnt-resistor
Grossly incomplete.
The larger risks to us include:
- Pandemic virus evolution of viruses from complex people<->livestock<->wildlife interactions.
- Evolving antibiotic resistant bacteria since livestock are given most of the same compounds given to humans simply for economic advantage, and in some cases, to force-feed animals with unsuitable feed like too much corn in too short of a timeframe. Some CAFO farms, their cows would die if not given antibiotics. [0]
- Water, air, and soil pollution on a large scale. Liquid shit lakes that spread manure into the air with sprayers. Runoff from pesticides and fertilizer used to grow the corn, soybeans, etc. The list goes on.
And, yes, climate change, animal cruelty, and other concerns.. but like condoning genocides, nothing will be done about it because people want their fucking Costco-sized 40 pack of cheap hamburgers, BMW SUVs, and overwatered perfectly green grass and air conditioning set to 68 F / 20 C in Phoenix AZ.
0. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/antimicrobial-stewardship/report-...
dude250711
Nuances destroy agendas.
GeoAtreides
And bikeshedding (or nitpicking while ignoring the main thrust of the argument) destroys interesting discussions.
znpy
Nuances destroy absolutisms, yes, and it's a good thing because real life has a lot of nuances.
znpy
> - health risks can be minimal depending on the amount and type of meat you eat
Health risks from meat is an US-only issue. Here in Europe we have much stricter regulations on meat, so much so that American meat cannot be imported and cannot be sold here. IIRC (might be wrong on this) Canada doesn't allow importing US meat as well?
Meat is safe for consumption in Europe.
hn_throw2025
A while back, the EU relaxed restrictions on feeding animals to other animals in order to boost trade. Restrictions that were in place for good reason after the BSE crisis.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/eu-to-lift-its...
burnt-resistor
No. It generally doesn't matter where in the world cows are raised, the important point is the conditions. The health risks cannot be minimized because of antibiotic abuse (antibiotic "superbug" evolution) and pandemic virus evolution of cramming too many animals near people who care for them and wildlife.
thrance
> mass unethical treatment (assuming you do not mean the fact that animals are killed) is related to the conditions which are related to price
Source? I really don't buy that more expensive meat producers kill their animals that much more "humanely". And even if the killing was painless, you're still killing tens of animals per year for the sole sake of a tastier meal.
> health risks can be minimal depending on the amount and type of meat you eat
True.
> the CO2 impact again depends on the meat and conditions. Surely chicken in your backyard can be kept without CO2 impacts with some effort.
I trust you raise all the animals you eat, and don't feed them with imported grains? Don't be ridiculous.
> your very existence has a CO2 impact. By your own logic you have two choices …
You're basically telling anyone who's self-conscious about their environmental impact to kill themselves. Great.
closewith
> And even if the killing was painless, you're still killing tens of animals per year for the sole sake of a tastier meal.
Do you believe that's inherently immoral?
Ancapistani
We mostly raise our own.
thrance
Or, if you're utilitarian, you can start by cutting back your meat consumption to reduce your contribution to the aforementioned issues by that much.
nandomrumber
And yet, if you want to produce more food: build a green house and increase it's CO2 content.
defrost
There's a third way, at least. eg:
But even when the authors excluded embedded emissions from sources like transport and packaging, they still found that agriculture generated 24% of GHGs. According to the World Resources Institute, a research group, cars, trains, ships and planes produce a total of 16%.
It finds that animal-based foods account for 57% of agricultural GHGs, versus 29% for food from plants. Beef and cow’s milk alone made up 34%. Combined with the earlier study’s results, this implies that cattle produce 12% of GHG emissions.
They aren't fed farmed food, they forage and run wild in the Kimberley and Kakadu, and the environment is well served by routinely rounding them up for dinner and taking pressure from the grasslands.
More or less the same story for camels and wild donkeys.
Raed667
Honestly, I don't even miss it anymore.
dijit
except for the fact that cows exist within the carbon cycle.
And the biggest contributor to greenhouse gases is that we feed them oil that we dig from the ground.
Cows are extremely convenient scapegoat but truthfully they exist in a closed system that we keep feeding carbon into. Methane itself is very very harmful but lives almost no time and atmosphere experts all agree on this.
adrianN
It is my understanding that land use (eg cutting down rain forest, draining wetlands) for pasture and soy are a big contributor to the carbon footprint of meat.
federiconafria
What's "funny" is that rain forest land being destroyed for pastures has terrible yield. We would be better off paying the people using them to keep the forest intact.
dijit
Could be true, in the countries I am most faniliar with (UK, Sweden) there’s no rainforest and a good chunk of the land used for rearing cattle couldn’t be used for farming Soy.
cnity
The cattle doesn't have to _be_ on the same wasted land that is used to feed it. Soy is imported from other countries to feed cattle in the UK (around 2M tons of soy per year[0]).
It is a common and convenient misconception that raising cattle is not bad for the environment because it is raised on non-arable land -- the cattle still gets fed imported soy.
0: https://www.efeca.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/UK-RT-on-Su...
swores
There is rainforest in the UK... it's just temperate rainforest, not tropical.
(And it is as under threat as tropical - https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/trees-woods-and-wildlife/ha... )
adrianN
Where does the feed come from? What other uses could the land have? Here in Germany drained wetlands are a huge contributor to GHG emissions.
postingawayonhn
Where land is converted there can be an increase. But for an existing farm with stable herd numbers the emission produced around (Methane > Carbon Dioxide > Grass > Methane > etc.).
adrianN
When you drain wetlands they emit GHGs essentially forever.
postepowanieadm
There's industrial beef and there's grass fed beef. Grass feed one preserves pastures which are amazing and rich ecosystems, much more valuable than soya monocultures.
soco
Now what is the proportion of grass fed beef from the total beef? Does it move the needle? Here, for the USA it's just about 1% (one percent, yes) according to https://extension.sdstate.edu/grass-fed-beef-market-share-gr...
peterashford
Methane also traps at least 100 times as much heat as CO2. It causes significant near-term warming, and cutting methane gives fast climate benefits. Cutting down on methane emmisions can have considerable more effect on global warming over the next 20 years, compared to CO2 (which we also have to reduce), Atmosphere experts all agree on this.
And "[cows] exist in a closed system" assumes we’re not expanding herds, clearing forests, or using fossil inputs.
dijit
> Methane itself is very very harmful but lives almost no time and atmosphere
https://theconversation.com/climate-explained-methane-is-sho...
Long term damage is reasoned by looking at consequences of the short term effects (such as the death of plants and livestock due to extremes).
thrance
The beef with beef is that meat production, and espcially from cows, is extremely energy inefficient. You need 15-20kgs of plants for 1kg of beef, when we could just eat the plants directly and avoid everything needed to seed, grow, reap and haul all that feeding mass, which massively contributes to global warming and consumes ludicrous amounts of water.
adrianN
To be fair, ruminants can digest the parts of the plant that we can’t digest. A small number of ruminants are part of good agriculture. Of course we’re ridiculously beyond „a small number“
dijit
Everything you mentioned exists in a cycle, its not “lost” energy, its just converted and returned.
Just like water, the consumption of water doesn’t mean it is eliminated from the water cycle.
fredrikholm
This is overly simplified to the point of being wrong.
Water usage spent on watering crops used to then raise livestock (eg. alfalfa, soy) account for some 70% or more of total water usage in regions where this type of farming is done.
In arid regions (MENA, Saudi Arabia, Iran, California etc), a lot of that water is aquifer water. Aquifers take centuries, sometimes millennia to fill up.
The consequences of emptying these are rivers drying up, native flora dying off, topsoil being eroded and so on. In some cases, Tehran and Mexico City being prime examples, the depletion is sufficient to cause structural changes in the ground leading to literal collapses of land.
Growing food with an order of magnitude less inefficiencies means an order of magnitude less of these consequences.
thrance
By that logic, no human activities are problematic since everything needed to sustain them comes from nature and eventually goes back to it. That's ignoring the tons of wastes generated by the beef industry, the ravaged ecosystems to make room for pastures and farms, the fuel needed to build and power the machinery to manage it all: from tractors to cargo boats to factories to trucks...
The issue is that all that carbon and other mineral resources we dug up to power all of this ends up rapidly upsetting the balance the Earth settled in over the last million years. My point is that we could eat the same amount of calories by generating much less waste and needing much less space and energy.
peterashford
Saying "its all part of a cycle" misses the point. Yes, energy and water aren’t destroyed but using 15-20x more plant matter, energy, and water for 1kg of beef compared to plant based food is still incredibly wasteful. Nature’s cycles have limits, and industrial meat production pushes them far beyond whats sustainable.
igleria
Pricing people out of things means only rich people can afford those things. The same rich people that on an individual level generate a lot more emissions than the average person.
Tough sell.
zeristor
What I don't understand is why pork isn't more popular?
aziaziazi
Pigs sentience is considered very close to dogs and as dogs have a very intimate place in some culture some people make a connection and don't feel eating them.
peterashford
Yeah from a protein prduction efficiency point of view, Pork, sheep and goats are way better than Cows. Chicken and fish are even more efficient. And plants win, hands down. We can all make choices that improve our impact on the planet.
ihaveajob
Agreed. As a Spaniard, I'm surely biased, but I prefer pork to beef any day of the week.
4gotunameagain
Legacy reasons (i.e. religion), health reasons (beef is supposed to be quite healthier), maybe personal preference as well ?
GeoAtreides
Haha, flagged, of course it's flagged
Hey HN moderators and users, why shouldn't this discussion be allowed? what possible reason there is to ban it from the site?
i promise, we're all adults here, we can handle a controversial topic, no need to coddle us
peter_vukovic
From a systems perspective, civilization is the greatest pollutant. Whether it's Mesopotamia, Rome, industrial Britain, or the modern global economy, each civilization is a complex machine that extracts resources, generates waste and disrupts ecosystems. There’s no version of it that’s truly sustainable long-term, just degrees of delay or harm reduction.
There is absolutely nothing special about beef. We could replace beef with palm oil, lithium, air travel, or even data centers. The same system logic applies: convert energy and resources into power, growth, and order, while displacing entropy elsewhere.
A clean planet is a planet without civilization. This is a factual observation, not nihilism.
otikik
> A clean planet is a planet without civilization
That's not at all true, from either side.
To begin with, a planet can be "dirty" without any civilization. Most planets are. Look at Venus. Our own planet had already gone through 5 mass extinction events before we came up. The Great Oxigenation Event in particular does look like "pollution until planet death" without any civilization involved.
On the other side, it possible to have clean civilization - even one that cleans up more as it advances. You make it sound like it's an inherent problem - like civilization is "by definition" unclean. That is not at all the case. We have seen it is possible. What it isn't, is (as) profitable as simply not dealing with the externalities.
Civilization,Clean Planet,Maximal Profit: pick two.
peter_vukovic
> To begin with, a planet can be "dirty" without any civilization. Most planets are.
They can also be clean. Look at Earth. Don't see an argument here. We are discussing whether civilization pollutes or not, not whether planets are inherently habitable or inhibitable.
> We have seen it is possible.
Where have we seen it possible?
otikik
I don't think you are in a position to have reasonable discussion so I choose to stop here. Have a good day sir.
Tade0
I don't think it's really factual.
Ultimately it's about the energy invested to on one hand keep civilization running and on the other dispose of its products in a non-disruptive manner. There's an overabundance of it from the sun, we just haven't scaled up our means of extracting it.
A solar panel throughout its lifetime gathers way more energy than is required to produce it and later turn into materials for new solar panels. There exists a process for that and I'm sure eventually legislation will follow as the number of end-of-life panels grows.
londons_explore
I think OP is saying it's impossible to have no impact - both theoretically and practically.
From a theoretical perspective, that sunlight on your solar panel isn't free - there was some tree or plant who would have used it if you had not.
Even if you build over the ocean, there would be some algae grown with that light and fish who ate the algae.
From a practical perspective, good luck making and deploying huge amounts of solar panels without huge mines for materials, a big road network cutting through the forest to deliver the parts, huge cities for people to live in who operate the factories etc.
Tade0
> From a theoretical perspective, that sunlight on your solar panel isn't free - there was some tree or plant who would have used it if you had not.
Actually, no. Plants typically use just the two chlorophyll bands and the carotenoids band and they really don't need all of the 1000W/m2 of solar radiation - you see this in how plants in direct sunlight turn red to absorb less. For the same reason they're typically green, not black.
On top of that the Earth's albedo is 0.367 - much of the energy which reaches our planet is reflected back to space.
I was addressing this comment:
> There’s no version of it that’s truly sustainable long-term, just degrees of delay or harm reduction.
Yes, we have an impact on the ecosystem, no matter what we do. But the ecosystem is also able to regenerate and sustainability is just a matter of not straining it beyond that ability. It's entirely feasible, we just need to scale up certain technologies available today.
franga2000
Ecosystems can repair themselves from moderate amounts of damage and adapt to coexist with the thing that causes it. The problem is that we're causing too much damage too quickly.
It's also entirely possible to sustain a civilization without causing continuous damage to the planet, it just isn't allowed to be constantly growing in population and resource consumption. That's not a necessary part of civilization, it's just the way we're doing it currently.
peter_vukovic
> That's not a necessary part of civilization, it's just the way we're doing it currently.
All civilizations including ours have been doing it this way, so you can argue it is a part of the civilization. It’s a comforting fiction that humanity can fundamentally change its character, but the history proves otherwise.
franga2000
The knowledge that our growth harms the environment and will end up destroying the planet and us along with it has not been front and center in those civilisations, so it's not a fair comparison.
4gotunameagain
So you are saying that we should adhere to a binary logic, where we either accept the destruction of the Earth as a fact, or we form a doomsday cult ?
I don't understand. It is quite clear that we are what is polluting the planet, sure.
There are multiple ways to reduce our impact and try to reach some sort of balance. Of course everything is imbalanced right now, we are only a couple of generations after the industrial revolution after all.
peter_vukovic
Accept the destruction of civilization as a fact. The Earth will be just fine.
saagarjha
Let's not.
null
4gotunameagain
This is a factual observation, not nihilism.
_Algernon_
Any living creature would fit that definition of "civilization". A sponge takes up resources from its environment, and releases its waste products into the environment. Non-native species often disrupt ecosystems when introduced somewhere new. So unless you moderate your argument by including some required scale it doesn't make any sense. But it would follow that we could reduce resource inputs and outputs to such an extent that civilization is no longer harmful, which puts a damper on your statement that this is "factual observation, not nihilism".
peter_vukovic
> Any living creature would fit that definition of "civilization"
It would not. I said civilization "extracts resources, generates waste and disrupts ecosystems". A sponge does not disrupt its ecosystem. In fact, it keeps it alive.
> Non-native species often disrupt ecosystems when introduced somewhere new.
And how does this happen exactly? Non-native species do not just walk around - you need humans and civilization to move them around, and create exactly these kinds of issues.
dennis_jeeves2
>There is absolutely nothing special about beef.
True, most of the demonization of beef is moral posturing, for anyone who has looked beyond the headlines, and the counterpoints.
null
adrianN
Unfortunately solar panels and batteries don’t taste the same.
wcoenen
Solar Foods is already producing protein from solar energy.
adrianN
Plants have been producing protein from solar power since forever, but I bet it’s easier to tell the difference between steak and bacteria powder than to tell the difference between coal power and solar power.
globular-toast
No, they taste 100x better and they're called plants.
Eating animals that graze all day on the scant plant life was a necessity in many parts of the world. But in places where plants grow in abundance like India and Central America they eat them either exclusively or predominantly and their food is delicious as a result. These days the rest of the world has much better access to fresh vegetables too. I can even grow many desi vegetables in a greenhouse at home. So ditch the tasteless chunks of animal protein and eat more plants.
ChrisNorstrom
Right...
1) Bomb the Nord Stream pipeline unleashing massive amounts of methane.
2) Greenhouse gas conscious politicians use private jets and buy ocean front mansions and homes despite warning us not to do so.
3) Refuse to create consumer friendly digital currency or tackle constant 2-5% yearly inflation so everyone flocks to bitcoin and burn coal for electricity to mine useless coins.
4) We need to turn off lights to save electricity while A.I. uses massive amount of electricity to generate people with extra fingers.
No offense but have you seen the men in countries with little meat protein intake?
franga2000
I'm not sure what you mean by 3). We have a perfectly good "digital currency" and have had it for decades, it's called a bank account. I can click four buttons on my phone and a friend gets some money within 30 seconds. As for inflation, economists think a 2-ish-percent inflation rate is a good thing and work to keep it around there. To them it's not something to "tackle". Not saying I agree with it...
adrianN
Eat chicken instead of beef if you like meat.
Cthulhu_
Or just start with eating less meat, learn to cook and identify which vegetables you need for a balanced diet.
The recommendations / sciences - which predate concerns about greenhouse emissions etc - for how much meat you need per day is about 65 grams, or about 1/2 quarter pounder in American measurements. In macronutrient language, you only need about 46-56 grams of protein a day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietary_Reference_Intake#Macro...).
I won't deny that good beef contains heaps of both essential macro- and micronutrients in a convenient and tasty package, but people really don't need as much per day as they are eating.
zeristor
or pork
danielbln
And the notion that you need animal protein from muscle tissue or face stunted growth is also laughable.
phtrivier
1) Do you have numbers to help use compare ? I have no idea how much methane was unleashed during this single event. So it's pretty hard to compare with to the impact of cattles. (I have a suspicion it's a drop in an ocean.)
2) You are right, they are hypocrites. At least you can vote some of the politicians out - unfortunately, their electorate The bad news is that physics does not care about their hypocrisy. The good news is that neither do we have to - we can make a lot of choices ourselves. Including what we eat, how we heat, and who we vote for.
3) Why do you think "everyone" is flocking to bitcoin ? [1] the usage is still confidential enough. The GHG impact is therefore hard to evaluate ; sure it might use a lot of electricity (about as much as a small country [2]), but it depends on how valuable you value the thing.
I don't think bitcoin is more usefull than a big "gambling ponzi scheme", but I understand people have other opinions. Do you use bitcoin daily ? More than you national currency ? More than other digital services.
4) Do you believe those things to be exclusive ? In turns of carbon, we need to "turn off lights" (I suppose you mean "reduce our own consumptions") _and_ demand that AI be at least powered by carbon heavy sources (or - unpopular opinion on HN - consider not using them too heavily ?) But we also need to lobby for building carbon-light electricity sources. AND we need to reduce the impact of agriculture.
The fact that some people are oblivious to the impact of activity A does not remove the impact of activity B.
[1] https://theconversation.com/almost-no-one-uses-bitcoin-as-cu...
Jealous8
[dead]
All "haha, but it's tasty!!!!" jokes aside, and even ethics and morality aside (which is tough, because we cause a LOT of suffering here), growing meat is just incredibly inefficient. We have to sustain so much additional biological machinery just to chop off some muscle tissue at the end, even if we assume everything of the cow will be used eventually, it's just incredibly wasteful.