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.
Inefficiency doesn't particularly matter if it's a closed system, it only effects how much we can get out of a thing.
If we need 100% efficiency yields because humans are so numerous that there can no longer by any inefficiency in the conversion of sun rays into energy fit for human consumption: then you have a point.
But we're not there, so the inefficiency of food production is not particularly relevant.
Where you and I will agree is that the scale of meat production is unsustainable, as evidenced by the fact that we are feeding cows fucking oil from the ground. If we could sustain a population of cattle and enough energy for human population then I don't see a problem, but that is obviously significantly lower than the scale we currently see cattle-rearing.
How can inefficiency lead to systemic collapse in a way that cannot be reversed inside of a year?
We're not talking about contributing to the carbon cycle anymore, we're talking specifically about converting rays from the sun into human consumable matter.
I think you've come into a reasoned conversation with an idealised take that meat consumption is inherently stupid, and this doesn't not necessarily make sense because inefficiency is totally acceptable as long as the needs of the system are met.
People use python for making websites, after all, one of the least efficient languages available. People move to higher efficiency languages when the system begins to demand it.
You have heard climate scientists talk about tipping points, right? Methane is short lived but extremely potent. Its warming effect can push systems (ice melt, permafrost thaw, ocean circulation) past irreversible thresholds. Deforestation to support meat production isn’t easily undone. Regrowing forests takes decades to centuries.
Ok, so you're continuing to push the topic in a direction of methane and not inefficiency as we were discussing.
I think I'll conclude the conversation here as it's clear you're just conversing from an ideological point of view.
Methane is a problem, as discussed elsewhere in the thread, but the largest issue continues to be the fact we're digging up oil and feeding it to herds, you've not convinced me that this is not the largest issue, or not a larger issue than: air travel, cars etc;
