Meat vs. Climate

There was once a sci-fi show called Seaquest DSV that was on TV from 1993-1996.  On one of the episodes, the character played by Roy Scheider talked about the good 'ole days of eating a hamburger before meat was banned because it its impact on global warming.  That was then, this is now.  A New York Times article rolls out the central thesis of this perspective on meat impacts on the climate, citing an editorial in the Archives of Internal Medicine by Dr. Barry Popkin.  Dr. Popkin's argument is based on a United Nations study suggesting that livestock accounts for more than 18% of green house gas emissions, an amount larger than transportation.  This report has been largely debunked in an Environmental Protection Agency report that suggests that the TOTAL impact of agriculture is around 6% of total GHG emissions (including livestock).

These are not new arguments and are not not going away any time soon.  I suspect we are a long way from an outright ban, but we are not far from taxes or other strategies aimed at raising the cost of production for livestock industries that will reduce competitiveness of livestock vis-a-vis other sources of protein or foreign imports of meat products.