To the people who downvote our community, i also explained this concept of animal agriculture requiring more land because of the ecological pyramid: https://slrpnk.net/comment/23745702

You do not necessarily have to eliminate all meat, but reducing or eliminating your meat consumption is imo the biggest impact an individual person can make to help the environment.

I think what you’re missing here is the concept of the trophic pyramid or ecological pyramid which explains how energy is transferred from one level to the next. In the general only about 10% of energy is transferred from one level of the pyramid to the next.

Only 1 to 2 percent of the energy from the sun is absorbed by photosynthetic processes and converted into food.[2] When energy is transferred to higher trophic levels, on average only about 10% is used at each level to build biomass, becoming stored energy. The rest goes to metabolic processes such as growth, respiration, and reproduction.[3]

Right now you’re just thinking of the cattle themselves, but to support the cattle there is the additional land space of all the food they make (and also the lagoons for their shit). If we were to plot them in the food chain, then plants/grains would be the primary pruducer on the bottom tier of the pyramid, with cattle at the next tier. To gain 1 lbs the cattle would need to eat 10lbs of grains. Obviously cattle weigh much more than just 1 lbs so the land to support their 1100 lbs weight ends up being massive and not something a lot of people think about when they end up eating a burger. And above the cattle in this trophic pyramid we could place humans as a secondary consumer where there is another loss of energy as you go from one trophic level to the next. Not to mention 1 lbs of cattle is not 1 lbs of take home beef. A quick search on this number is ~35-45% of live animal weight ends up as take-home beef.

You had asked about what the plots would look like with replacement foods grown instead of animal agriculture. The trophic pyramid answers that and we could forecast if we were to remove an animal based product then we would require only 10% (on average) to replace it with primary source non-animal food

This is why I believe that if anyone seriously cares about the environment then the single, biggest thing they can do at an individual level is to reduce or eliminate their animal consumption. This doesn’t mean I think we shouldn’t care about AI data centers and other major elements of environmental impact, it just means that for me personally my diet I have direct control over. I can and should still care about other environmental impacts but I don’t need to ask a city board to stop feeding me animal products–I can make that choice on my own.

Here you go, I’m interested in your thoughts. The charts can also be adjusted to be per 100g of protein or 1 kcal

Greenhouse gas emissions per kilogram of food product

Land use per kilogram of food product

Freshwater withdrawals per kilogram of food product

Eutrophying emissions per kilogram of food product : Eutrophying emissions represent runoff of excess nutrients into the surrounding environment and waterways, which affect andpollute ecosystems. They are measured in grams of phosphate equivalents (PO₄eq).

• Source (more interactive selections)

As a vegan this was what i got from the post without additional commentary. Ive felt this way for a long time and while I’m glad people are vaguely aware of the environmental impact of data centers, i do wish they would be concerned enough to learn about other things negatively impacting the environment.

Because i don’t find the implication of eating sentient animals funny, least of all in a vegan space.

Cattle contribute to methane gasses through their burps and farts, as well as their shit fermentation ponds and maybe other things im forgetting.

Cattle, like cows, deer, sheep, and buffalo, belong to a specific group of animals known as ruminants. Characterized by their four-chambered organs, ruminants are able to rapidly have a large meal of grass and hay and later digest it by re-chewing it in their mouth. In the cattle’s stomach, a rumen microbe called methanogen converts the excess hydrogen and CO2 produced during the digestion of this high-fiber food to methane. This methane, called enteric methane, is expelled from the cattle’s body as belching or burping.

In 2022, methane from enteric fermentation accounted for 27.4% of total anthropogenic [caused by humans] methane emissions in the US and 3% of total gross emissions.

Source (links the EPA report these numbers come from)

There have been other studies on this topic I’ve read in the past but that was just first one that i came across

You are in a vegan community here though so maybe try engaging with the content and following the community rules instead of making jokes

What about insects? They are animals.

Lab grown meat / cloned cells are still initially extracted from animals. There is inherent exploitation and/or harm done to the animals. Some vegans may believe this utilitarian approach is ok. I do not.

Veganism isn’t a diet though. It is a way of life aimed towards excluding consumption of things that result in animal cruelty, exploitation, or death.

I’m not vegan because the vegan cheese is good. I’m vegan because i value life and, among many reasons, the dairy industry is atrocious.

You say if they can’t make the vegan cheese taste better then don’t bother, which is also problematic. The OP talks about how it is aimed to be more sustainable and mentions current vegan cheeses might use palm oil. Palm oil can be vegan if ethically sourced but the problem with the industry is that is not sustainable and leads to deforestation.

But even if you are not vegan, choosing to eat non-meat and non dairy alternative foods for even some of your meals can have a positive impact on the environment and your health.

Neat. It’ll be interesting to see the data they publish in 6 months and how much better the efficiency can be with two functional sails.