Is lab-grown meat actually worse for the environment?

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

he idea that we should get our hamburgers from a lab and not from a slaughterhouse — the basic premise of the “cultured meat” or “clean meat” movement — tends to get people excited for two main reasons: It could save billions of animals from immense suffering, and it could fight global warming by reducing the number of methane-producing cattle.

But a new study suggests that the second reason may be wrong, and that lab-grown meat could actually be worse for climate change.

Published February 19 in the journal Frontiers for Sustainable Food Systems, the report argues that lab-grown meat, in the long run, may accelerate climate change more than regular beef does.

The authors note that other studies calculating the greenhouse gas emissions of cattle have lumped the gases together as if they’re all equivalent. But not all gases are created equal. Yes, cows produce a lot of methane, and methane is very bad for global warming. Yet it only lasts in the atmosphere for a dozen years. Carbon dioxide, on the other hand, lasts more than a century. And you know what releases a lot of CO2? Labs — including those that make cultured meat.

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/2/22/18235189/lab-grown-meat-cultured-environment-climate-change

[MLAA]

1. I go with the Impossible Burger and Beyond Meat Burger, both are planet based 😉

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

2. I think I'd rather eat that than a frankenburger

[NickB79]

3. The sodium and saturated fat in the Impossible Burger are crazy high

I was going to try one until I read the nutritional value comparison.

[MLAA]

4. I am vegan, but can't resist a treat now and then.

Would love non vegans to try them for cruelty and environmental reasons 🙂

[DavidDvorkin]

5. There's a giant flaw in that argument

From the article:

The authors emphasize that their study is based on highly speculative modeling, which is itself based on some pretty strong assumptions. Two of them are especially glaring. The study models what will happen assuming that 1) lab-grown meat will keep being produced using the same methods of energy generation that currently power production, and 2) this will continue over the course of 1,000 years.