How much would giving up meat help the environment?

[GulfCoast66]

93. Now there's a good way to win an election. Run against the hamburger!

Obviously, that’s not what is being proposed here. But there are things we can do from a policy standpoint that improve the situation. Use tax policy to encourage the eating of farm animals that are consume near where they are raised. Although that is becoming more popular everywhere. We can actually get grass fed Florida beef here now which was unheard of 10 years ago. Ruminates evolved on this planet and we evolved eating them. Trying to change that is pissing into the wind. We are hard-wired to eat meat.

Actually, recent research strongly suggests that had our ancient pre-human ancestors not begun to eat meat we would have not had enough calories in our diet for our massive, energy consuming brain to evolve.

Personally I eat a good amount of venison I kill myself, so except for the 600 miles I drive to shoot the deer I am not eating industrial meat. Plus lots of fish I catch in the gulf. But of course, that involves pulling a boat with an internal combustion engine 60 miles using a truck with and 8 cylinder engine.

Rather than tilting at the windmill of trying to eliminate meat consumption I think we should long term focus on policy that encourages better livestock distribution. Most meat eaten in Florida is shipped from Midwest feedlots. The irony is that Florida raises huge numbers of calves which are shipped to the Midwest to be fed out. Then slaughtered and shipped back. Crazy!