3 HN users recommended this explainer5 months2020–2023score 5.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN commenters cite it as a short, accessible overview of the climate and water case for plant-based meat.
Mark Rober makes a plant-based burger for Bill Gates and explains why meat production strains the environment. Gates also appears and discusses his worry about steel and cement.
“This video from Mark Rober was eye opening for me.” (HN, 2021)
I blame meat consumption. This video from Mark Rober was eye opening for me. As a meat eater myself I'm convinced that eating meat is unsustainable. It's just a matter of time until we can't keep up with demand and meat will become something only the 1% can afford. [this video] While it's so profitable to burn down forests and grow cattle people will keep doing it. Until there's nothing left .
Eye-opening case that meat consumption is unsustainable
The ever growing demand for meat is a leading cause of deforestation. Forests remove far more CO2 than grasslands (think 3 dimensions vs 2 dimensions). Cows require orders of magnitude more land to be devoted to them than plant based food, simply due to the inefficiencies of the sunlight -> plant -> meat -> food production process. If you cut the middle-man out (meat), then the process becomes orders of magnitude more efficient. This reminds me that if by "better farms with better practices" you mean free-range type farms, then they are actually far worse for the environment because they are less efficient. Eg, you need more land per pound of meat produced. Cows also produce vast quantities of methane, which is a leading greenhouse gas. The quickest way to slow down global warming would be to cease livestock farming entirely. Watch the documentary "Cowspiricy" ( [link] ) Or for a shorter view, Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates Fake Burger (to save the world) [this video]
Short overview of why plant-based meat helps the environment
This is the best news I've heard all week. The more widely vegan "meat" is available, the more likely it is to be adopted by average people and not just dedicated vegans. Reducing the demand for real beef is probably one of the best things we can do in the short term for the environment, due to the amount of land required for cattle farming, and due to the surprising amount of methane emitted by cattle. (see the documentary "Cowspiricy", or Mark Rober's "Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger to save the world: [this video] )
A couple years ago my son and I watched the Mark Rober video "Feeding a fake burger to Bill Gates to save the world" [1], and one of the takeaways from that is "you don't have to go full vegetarian, you can take a step by doing Meatless Mondays". I don't recall if his video talked about Methane, I do recall it talking about the staggering amount of water that is involved in making meat, and I live in a high plains desert, so water is something on my mind. It's been fun taking small steps. [1] [this video]
I've been eating more plant based burgers because meat is unsustainable. Carbon emissions from meat are more than all the planes, trains, and automobiles combined. Water required to make 24 hamburgers will fill a pool. Meat is simply an inefficient way of making the calories and proteins we need. I still eat meat, I've just started moving to more plant based products. Mark Rober has a good coverage of this in his video "Feeding Bill Gates a Fake Burger (to save the world)": [this video]
[this video] He wants fake meat so we eat plants instead of real meat. He wants the fake meat to cook and taste like meat. This is to save the planet from climate change. Try an Impossible Whopper at Burger King, it is on the 2 for $6 menu now. The toppings make it taste like a Whopper but if you just eat the meat it tastes like beans but still enough to pass for a burger. Tyson quit being a meat company and became a protein company to server fake meat for chicken substitutes.
He knows eventually there will be shortages and the price of food will go up. Also he wants people to eat plant based burgers instead of beef based for health reasons. As the population grows farms can't breed enough animals to eat, but plants grow like weeds. [this video]
Animal agriculture, especially cattle, is one of the least efficient ways to produce food in terms of energy and land use. Its responsible for almost 10% of greenhouse gases.[1] One of the best things you can do for the planet it to stop eating meat and dairy. [1]: [this video]
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