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A cow also produces a lot of methane, a much worse greenhouse gas.

Besides, the problem isn't the grass from cows grazing, it's the rainforests that go down all around the world to convert to farmland to produce animal feed.

It's much more efficient to use that farmland to feed humans than to feed cows and then feed humans (1kg of meat needs 25kg of feed)

Disclaimer - I'm not vegan but I try to reduce my meat consumption overall, especially red meats.

I feel the need to explain the natural carbon circle.

You know that the problem with ruminants is that they produce methane and not CO2 which is 25 times worse? A cow takes carbon from the ground and the bacteria creates a 25 times more potent GHG. But you are right that creating new fields and tiling the soil is a huge factor.

IPCC on methan

Never mind the fact cows release methane which is 25 times more warming than CO².

I'm not really sure the point your trying to make here.

Yeah, the main focus of greenhouse gasses in the literature is from land use. The amount of land used for rumanents and their feedstock could plant forests the world over. And don't get me started, noone is farming on the sides of mountains

This sounds like a balance. Is that balance still intact? Doesn't the combined effect of unprecedented scale of animal consumption and existing global warming necessitate a compensatory and proportional reduction of GHG?

I like eating meat, but I feel like this is not the complete picture.

One great option instead of going cold turkey is just to drastically reduce your meat intake. Eating red meat from cows and white meat for pigs also has a disproportionately large environmental footprint compared to say chickens or turkey. Chickens and turkeys are also fairly stupid and undeveloped from me consciousness perspective if that is your reasoning for going vegan, so one could argue that it is objectively less bad to eat a stupid bird/decendant from a dinosaur (they had their day) Rather than our mammalian cousins who may actually deserve to roam the earth unfettered aside from the occasional lion or hyena attack.

I digress.

That being said, humans have evolved over this millennia to occasionally or more often feed on the flesh of air vegetarian cousins. There is nothing inherently wrong with that, as many species that have existed and exist today are in fact carnivorous. It is of course the rapacious nature of mankind and its insatiable appetite for consuming as many resources possible that is the biggest problem, aside from our over abundant numbers that are largely responsible for wholesale destruction of the natural environment on our planet.

I have opted to reduce my meat intake by about 75% or so and to limit my red meat intake and mostly eat chicken and eggs which are interestingly don't directly cause the death of the chicken. You could opt to follow this strategy to help mitigate your environmental impact, or you can take it a step further and support your local small family farm by doing a direct purchase of meat from your local farmer of choice. That way you can have your meat pie and eat it too by subsidizing local Farmers over the giant agribusinesses that are really responsible for fucking over our planet.

If you have read this far thank you very much, I appreciate your interest in the subject. I grew up on a small family farm where we raised approximately 60 sheep every year and even though it was very sad to have them slaughtered, they were all grass-fed locally raised animals that never saw anything close to a feedlot. Well killing animals is never pretty, killing has been a core part of humanity since its inception including our ancestors like the chimpanzee.

One other thing, vegan meat substitute like impossible Burger is actually a really good option for burgers. Almost nobody in my family and friends who I've had tried them can even tell that they aren't really meat.