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The "Backlash" to Plant-Based Meat Has a Sneaky, if Not Surprising, Explanation
(sentientmedia.org)
this post was submitted on 02 Aug 2023
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Short version for anyone wondering:
Even assuming the absolute best, most rose colored glasses kind of outlook, lab-grown meat will be many times as expensive as meat currently is, and that's notwithstanding the billions in investment it will take to get there. Currently it's so expensive to produce that it doesn't even really exist except as publicity stunts. But unlike other potentially paradigm-shifting tech like solar, there's not an exponential downward-sloping cost-adoption curve to look forward to. As of right now, inexpensive lab-grown meat doesn't seem difficult, it seems scientifically impossible.
It would probably be much better to spend those billions on reducing methane in cow farts (seriously), using sustainable grazing to preserve and rejuvenate disappearing and desertifying grasslands, accelerating carbon capture, subsidizing Omnivore's-Dilemna-style holistic farming, etc.
Because, seriously, affordable lab-grown meat is not going to happen without several Nobel-worthy breakthroughs. Instead, it's just going to waste a bunch of money out of the pockets of well-intentioned VCs and institutional investors who could be using it more effectively.
Exactly this.
And then there's some other contexts with the meat production to help realize that those billions might be better spent on something totally different. The US only produces about 30% more methane total than it did in the colonial days. Back then it was largely buffalo. SO long as there's a balance of things, we have a cycle of cows producing methane, breaking down to CO2, the CO2 being absorbed by crops, and the crops eaten by cows. Honestly, research in carbon seems to be the best focus if we want to make any improvements without just cutting down the major contributors. And the real biggest are fossil fuel emissions, mining, and deforestation.
Completely agree that in general, methane/carbon emissions from ruminants cannot be much of a long-term problem since they're part of a closed carbon cycle.
But, it is worth research IMO, simply because methane is so much more powerful as a greenhouse gas for the short time it remains methane. And it seems quite possible we could steer cow diets in a less methane-y direction without much cost if we had all the right information.