[Azure]

It must be hard for you to wrap your head around the difference between policy changes that legislate things into effect like carbon taxes, energy production, transportation changes, etc, and a public message telling people to 'eat less meat.'

As for the research, it is quite clear that you haven't bothered to do a single bit of research on this subject, which is strange considering your dumb take on the matter. Ignorance is bliss I guess.

Roehe's work shows that genetics can predict which animals will have the right microbe cocktail to produce the least methane. In other words, you can breed low-methane-producing cattle.

"We are predicting that we reduce methane by 50%," Roehe said.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cows-me...ons-gas-study/

AgResearch’s aim is to develop this vaccine, along with other anti-methane methods, in an effort to allow us to continue eating meat and dairy products while lessening the impact the livestock industry has on the environment. Beef without blame, you might say; and cheese with a clear conscience.

But vaccination isn’t the only idea for cleaning up cows’ breath. Animals vary in their output of methane, and some at least of this variation is attributable to genetic differences. Eileen Wall, head of research at Scotland’s Rural College, explains that this offers scope for selective breeding for animals that produce less methane. She sees this not as something to be done in isolation, but as part of a wider breeding programme to develop healthier and more efficient sheep and cows – both these attributes also reduce the greenhouse gases generated per unit of meat and milk.

“Over the past 20 years we’ve already reduced the environmental footprint of milk and meat production in the UK by 20%,” she says. Breeding for low methane would simply be an add-on to existing programmes. She and her colleagues are experimenting with methods of doing just this.

Another alternative is to feed animals on a diet less to the liking of the archaea. This can be partially effective, says Phil Garnsworthy, who specialises in dairy cow nutrition at the University of Nottingham, so long as it continues to allow the animals to go on producing milk and meat.

“You can probably reduce methane by about 20-25% by altering diet,” he says. One study by researchers at the University of California, Davis, estimated it might be possible to reduce global methane emissions from cows by 15% by changing their diet. But Garnsworthy believes more may be possible. In the UK, he says, farmers mainly use grass-based silage.

“If you changed just to maize-based silage you might see a drop in methane production of 10%.”

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...-cow-emissions

Better breeding, genetics and nutrition have increased the efficiency of livestock production in the U.S. In the 1970s, 140 million head of cattle were needed to meet demand. Now, just 90 million head are required. At the same time, those 90 million cattle are producing more meat.

“We’re now feeding more people with fewer cattle,” Mitloehner said.

Researchers at UC Davis have projects in Vietnam, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso to boost livestock productivity through better nutrition. That may be critical going forward as demand for meat is rising in developing countries.

Kebreab, Mitloehner and other UC Davis scientists are looking for ways to make cows more sustainable and less gassy. One way to do that is to make their high-fiber diet easier to digest, so scientists often turn to feed supplements for this purpose. It sounds simple, but finding an affordable and nutritious additive has proved difficult.

However, Kebreab has succeeded in finding such a supplement by feeding dairy cattle a plant way off the trough menu: seaweed.

“We’ve done one trial and showed that there is up to a 60 percent reduction in methane emissionsby using 1 percent of seaweed in the diet,” Kebreab said. “This is a very surprising and promising development.”

https://www.ucdavis.edu/food/news/ma...re-sustainable

Meat consumption is rising across the globe, particularly in developing countries as they acquire more wealth, meaning that animal agriculture will likely continue to be part of a global diet. According to Mitloehner and others, it’s likely here to stay and necessary. Eliminating all cattle isn’t a realistic solution, so researchers in Mitloehner’s lab are working to reduce livestock’s methane emissions and impact on the environment. According to Mitloehner, the answers can be found in the world’s farmers modeling the efficiency advances American farmers have been making for decades. That is, increasing outputs while holding inputs steady. In addition, research into feed that will make cattle less gassy is proving itself promising.

Keeping animal agriculture’s methane emissions constant over time puts animal agriculture on the path to climate neutrality. Furthermore – and this is key – if the sector can reduce the level of methane emissions today by more than 10 percent, they will be contributing to global cooling. The reason is simple. Less methane means the natural carbon cycle is actively pulling from the stockpile of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Hence, the cooling effect.

https://clear.ucdavis.edu/news/metha...imate-solution

Synthetic chemicals, such as antibiotics, are sometimes used to improve the efficiency of feed conversion in cattle, although it is not a recommended practice to use these additives to reduce methane emissions. There are legislative restrictions and human health concerns about using antibiotics as growth promotants in livestock.

There is potential for natural compounds and materials to reduce methane production in livestock, though these products have not been widely commercialised. Feeding one type of seaweed at 3% of the diet has resulted in up to 80% reduction in methane emissions from cattle.

Fats and oils show the most potential for practical application to farming systems and have shown methane emission reductions of 15–20%.

https://www.agric.wa.gov.au/climate-...feed-additives

And lastly, switching to plant based diets on the individual level. does not necessarily corollate with a big decrease in overall emissions despite the ruh rah about meat is bad.

Plant-based diets, researchers find, are cheaper than those that include meat. As a result, people often end up spending their money on things that use energy, like consumer products. This phenomenon is known as the rebound effect. If consumers respent their saved income on consumer goods, which require energy, the net energy savings would only be .07 percent, and the net carbon reduction just 2 percent. [47]

https://environmentalprogress.org/bi...restry-sectors

From the same article.

Meat production roughly doubled in the United States since the early 1960s, and yet greenhouse gas emissions from livestock declined by 11 percent during the same period.[54] Producing a pound of beef in the U.S. today requires one-third less land, one-fifth less feed, and 30 percent fewer animals as the 1970s.[55]
.
American cow milk production in the U.S. today requires 90 percent as much land and 79 percent fewer animals as it did in 1944.[56] Fewer animals means two-thirds less methane, a potent greenhouse gas, per glass of milk today as compared to 1950.[57]

https://environmentalprogress.org/bi...restry-sectors

Also, people have naturally been switching to eating more chicken, and there is nothing wrong with incentivizing that on a policy level. Chicken is generally healthier anyways, and MUCH easier to raise.

The problem here is thinking that 'telling' people to do something will actually result in any kind of significant change. There is no way we change anything without actual policy.

As an example, if the 1% seaweed in a diet equals 80% less methane emissions from cows, there is no reason the government could not start mandating that in areas where such a diet is readily possible.

Also, plant based foods are definitely growing. The world's largest pea processing facility just opened up in Manitoba, and by and large there is significant investment into that part of the industry. Reason for this? Government incentives within Manitoba to encourage more pea production. A lot of the byproducts of this plant will be used in the making of plant based foods like the impossible burger, whereas previously many of this ingredients were being brought in from France and other countries.

Policy based decisions to incentivize agriculture production to produce less carbon would be the smart approach, and given how bloody successful the North American agriculture industry is at becoming more efficient, I am almost certain it could be accomplished.

But simply telling people to buy the plant based burger? Meh, probably not going to get anywhere.