There’s two different opportunities here — a suffering-free meat substitute and a meat substitute with a lower carbon footprint.
This can get us closer to the former, but it’s not obvious it gets us closer to the latter.
The common component to pretty much every process, product and comfort in our our society is energy utilization. Most people are not going to give anything up just because "the carbon footprint is bad/worse". So let's work on making it so the carbon footprint isn't even a factor.
Which one to justify to consumers, farmers, and developing nations? Hmm.
If we returned to 1950s levels of meat consumption (my parents and grandparents regarded eating a chicken as a treat), or grew chickens or cows in our own backyards, maybe. But in a world of 8 billion people with our diets, cruelty, pollution, carbon impact etc are all intrinsically tied to our meat consumption.
So lab-grown, cruelty-free, without the carbon impact especially for highly polluting animals like cattle -- it's a wonderful idea.
Please have a look at the definition of "intrinsic".
If something costs more, that's a good proxy for that product being more energy-intensive. And where thst isn't the case, the higher cost is likely lining someone's pocket, who will then go on to consume more, thereby generating more pollution.
New products that come from new tech always cost more and early adopters tend to be people with money to spare. Unless you can come up with a source showing the higher energy usage -- one with a comprehensive lifetime comparison, not cherry picked -- this is a baseless comment.
> Murder is the unlawful killing of another human without justification or valid excuse [...]
Animals are not humans, killing an animal is not a murder. Attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to animals is called anthropomorphism.
- 1: to kill (a human being) unlawfully and with premeditated malice
- 2: to slaughter wantonly : SLAY
- 3a: to put an end to
- 3b: TEASE, TORMENT
- 3c: MUTILATE, MANGLE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQRAfJyEsko
Watch Dominion and tell us these animals are not being mutilated, mangled, tormented, slaughtered and murdered.
Animals do not want to die. The will ALL naturally cry, scream, run, fight and generally do anything possible to avoid getting killed. Killing them is murder. Discrimination or unjustified treatment of animals based on an individual's species membership is called Speciesism. The belief that humans alone possess intrinsic value or are the central entity in the universe is called Anthropocentrism.
“ INGREDIENTS: Water, Wheat Flour, Wheat Gluten, Faba Bean Protein, Modified Corn Starch, Natural Flavors, Expeller-Pressed Canola Oil, Pea Starch, Methylcellulose, Salt, Refined Coconut Oil, Rice Flour, Corn Starch, Yeast Extract Garlic Powder, Onion Powder, Pea Protein (Peas Are Legume, People with Severe Allergies to Legumes Like Peanuts Should Be Cautious When Introducing Pea Protein Into Their Diet Because of the Possibility of a Pea Allergy, Contains No Peanuts or Tree Nuts), Titanium Dioxide (for Color) Sugar, Dried Yeast Spices, Leavening (Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, Baking Soda, Monocalcium Phosphate), Sunflower Oil, Canola Oil, Paprika, Dextrose.”
Do you eat pepperoni pizza? Seems to have a lot of same ingredients
ENRICHED WHEAT FLOUR (WHEAT FLOUR, NIACIN, REDUCED IRON, THIAMINE MONONITRATE, RIBOFLAVIN, AND FOLIC ACID), WATER, LOW-MOISTURE PART-SKIM MOZZARELLA CHEESE (PART-SKIM MILK, CHEESE CULTURE, SALT, ENZYMES), PEPPERONI MADE WITH PORK, CHICKEN AND BEEF (PORK, MECHANICALLY SEPARATED CHICKEN, BEEF, SALT, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF SPICES, DEXTROSE, PORK STOCK, LACTIC ACID STARTER CULTURE, OLEORESIN OF PAPRIKA, FLAVORING, SODIUM NITRITE, SODIUM ASCORBATE, PAPRIKA, PROCESSED WITH NATURAL SMOKE FLAVOR, BHA, BHT, CITRIC ACID TO HELP PROTECT FLAVOR), TOMATO PASTE, 2% OR LESS OF VEGETABLE OIL (CORN OIL AND/OR SOYBEAN OIL AND/OR CANOLA OIL), SALT, YEAST, SUGAR, MALTED BARLEY FLOUR, SPICES, DRIED GARLIC.
Just visit a factory farm sometime. They are pretty cruel. Even if it's removing that cruelty for the sake of our own humanity makes sense to me. It's interesting to me that the Old Testament prohibition on "You shall not boil a young goat in its mother’s milk" appears to be intended to avoid this sort of wrongness/cruelty. As in taking something that's fundamentally meant to provide sustenance and perverting it to cook the child it's meant to nourish seems pretty messed up right? Even if the goat itself doesn't care (though I think they do have some level of sentience). The effect isn't huge, but you can imagine that it produces a bit of desensitization to things that are important to our own humanity.
One thing with traditional family farms is that you gain a connection with the animals. Yes, you'll eat them but you know the cost of doing so. Modern factory farms completely remove that.
Of course, I'll continue eating regular meat due to convenience. That said, I do eat more substitute as it becomes more available.
Electricity generation takes up less than half of global energy consumption, I think the figure is 30-40%.
This means most fossil fuels are burned for purposes other than generating electricity, and even if 100% of electricity generation was carbon-free you would still have a ton of fossil fuel consumption, things like heating, transportation, etc.
Transitioning all of that energy consumption to electricity is a huge feat, AND you need a f-ton more electricity generation, transportation, and storage, and of course it needs to be carbon free otherwise the problem is just made worse by the inherent inefficiencies.
Beef and lamb are probably the least cruel, at least when they are fed grass outside (and where I live, they always are)
I understand that grain fed beef can be more cruel, depending on how long they are kept inside.
The efficiency of that is utterly terrible. That's also the reason why any form of bioenergy from crops has such huge landuse requirements. It is likely almost impossible to do any worse with any technological process.