Eating less meat could slow climate change, experts say

Or that is what the AP article states. Of course that disturbs me - eating less meat, so let's take look at the article. It's ten paragraphs long. The first restates the title claim that livestock methane production is in part responsible for climate change and the second presents a study by experts printed in The Lancet.

Paragraph three quotes Geri Brewster as saying, "

We are at a significant tipping point. If people knew that they were threatening
the environment by eating more meat, they might think twice before ordering a
burger."

Who is she? She is a nutritionist at Northern Westchester Hospital in New York, who was not connected to the study.

Why does the AP give this non-expert precedence over the one true expert mentioned in the article (paragraphs 5 and 7)? This seems a very careless way to build a news report. Ms. Brewster is given another paragraph to expound. "

As a society, we are over consuming protein. If we ate less red meat, it would
also help stop the obesity epidemic."

First, livestock do produce a lot of methane. But that is usually not the primary or even secondary source of methane in the countries that produce the most.

China, India, the United States, Brazil, Russia, and other Eurasian countries are responsible for almost half of all anthropogenic methane emissions. Methane emission sources vary significantly among countries. For example, the two key sources of methane emissions in China are coal mining and rice production. Russia emits most of its methane from natural gas and oil systems; India’s primary sources are rice and livestock production; and landfills are the largest source of U.S. methane emissions.

In the U.S., enteric fermentation (livestock methane), is third behind landfills and natural gas systems. Again, livestock do produce a large source of methane, but there are methane reduction practices - little used outside of the dairy industry - that address this problem. However, I think priority should be given to the two larger sources.

As for over consuming protein, well, here she is the expert. But is red meat the main culprit? Is too much protein the cause of so much obesity? I don't know but I do know that milk, cheese, chicken, fish, peanut butter, eggs, rice and beans are also common food staples and high in protein. Over consuming protein? Probably. We're fat because of red meat? I'm not too sure about that one.