We know that meat eating is one of the activities that has a detrimental effect on the environment. Not only that, but we know that much of the meat is created in factory settings the pollution can be particularly high.
Livestock rearing is responsible for around 14.5% of human warming emissions. in 2020 almost half a trillion dollars was invested into global meat and dairy companies. Unfortunately with this much financial investment, an increase of about 40 million tonnes of meat is expected.
75% of agricultural land is used to raise livestock (or grow crops purely for their food. Brazil alone has as much land given over to raising cattle, as the whole of the EU has agricultural land including everything. Unfortunately there is an increasing level of big companies buying small ones – while this might sound like business as normal, small meat producers often worry more about their carbon footprint than big ones. This means that increasingly, sustainable meat creation gets pushed out of the market.
These sorts of practices must end if we are to meet our climate goals. Could meat grown in a lab meet take over? I suspect so, and probably sooner than one would think.
