50% of habitable land on earth is taken up by agriculture, 77% of which is used for meat & diary (including the crops grown for livestock to eat), which contributes only 18% to the global calorie supply because of the inefficiency of animal products:
I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million km^2 out of the 104 million km^2 of habitable land, minus some for more crops for humans). Wild animals would have more of chance, they'd be more forests to capture more carbon, and industrial animal farming wouldn't be polluting the planet with carbon, methane and waste products that are contributing to climate change.
I don't know a practical solution to the above, but people are in denial about how much damage animal farming is doing globally and the insane scale of it (about 70 billion animals are used for food each year).
The general attitudes of "well, people are never going to reduce their use of animal products to help so..." and "lab based meat will save us at some point in the future and then I'll probably switch if they're indistinguible from real meat" is depressing. We're running out of time.
I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients.
Second of all, you can raise livestock like cattle, sheep, and goats on extremely rough terrain. Good luck growing soybeans on a bunch of jagged cliffs. Those areas may be highly inefficient in terms of land area per gram of protein, but it’s not going to be productive farmland otherwise.
> If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts
Most livestock aren't eating grass though, they're eating crops like soy because soy is full of protein (and that land use is included in the 40 million km^2 figure).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soybean
"Around 80% of the global soybean crop is used to feed livestock.[46] Soya imports represent 47% of Europe’s deforestation footprint"
> Replace all the milk with almond milk
Or rice milk, oat milk, or soy milk. When cows are eating soybeans to produce milk right now, soy milk is always going to be more efficient.
> Good luck growing soybeans on a bunch of jagged cliffs.
If we were only farming grass fed cows on jagged cliffs, it would be less of a problem compared to mass deforestation to grow soybeans to feed to cows in intensive farms. The latter is the reality right now for everyone to have access to cheap meat but it's not sustainable.
Saying that someone's figures are misleading because the alternative is "huge" isn't a compelling argument. What's the amount? How much does it depend on the crop? What about rice and lentils?
Why almond milk? Why not another alternative? Why do we need milk at current quantities at all?
You can raise livestock on rough terrain, but the vast majority of the world's livestock is not raised like that. Meat prices would explode if we did that. You don't have to ban all meat to get most of the effect, not everyone has to become vegan. Livestock are part of a healthy agriculture; for example by turning waste into manure. Grazing is also important for maintaining certain biomes.
What we need to stop is industrial meat production. Americans eat nearly 100kg of meat per year. How about we reduce that to 25kg like in Turkey for a start. That's still a steak per week.
Switzerland does a lot of raising livestock near mountaintops and I think none of the cows in boxes factory farming. Prices of beef in shops seem to not exceed $100/kg, for most cuts hover around $50/kg ($22.5/pound). How does that compare?
> I think these figures are pretty misleading. First of all, they only look at calories, not protein. If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts. Replace all the milk with almond milk and you’re still dealing with huge water and land use for a product that has inferior protein and nutrients.
I don't follow — I get my protein mostly from grains and a small amount of legumes. In Australia, about 2/3rds of all crop production is grown as animal feed, and 90% of the food given to farmed chickens and pigs are grains [1].
> Second of all, you can raise livestock like cattle, sheep, and goats on extremely rough terrain. Good luck growing soybeans on a bunch of jagged cliffs. Those areas may be highly inefficient in terms of land area per gram of protein, but it’s not going to be productive farmland otherwise.
And you can grow crops inside vertical farms within urban areas.
Inefficiency of meat and dairy production and land use were major arguments for switching to a vegan diet (when I did so) 20 years ago.
Others have chimed in with data, so here's today's anecdotal evidence: today I'm surrounded by fields and farmland. Fields make up roughly 60% of land. 20% of this land houses cattle and 80% grows barley which no human will ever consume. It's only grown for the cattle
I think it comes as no surprise that less land could produce more food for humans if the crops didn't have to pass through the cattle.
Some farmers not far from here are growing quinoa. It has a very good nutritional profile and offers a more effective use of land.
A bunch of people have said it already but I have to add my voice in the hope the message is heard: humans don't need tons of protein. Most sources list less than a gram per kilo of bodyweight per day, e.g.:
It's quite easy to achieve this with a no or low animal product diet.
I don't know for sure but I expect the obsession with protein is down to carbohydrates being demonised in the last couple of decades of fad diets (much as fat was before that).
> If you wanted to replace all the meat and dairy with equivalent protein substitutes you’d be looking at huge amounts of land for growing soybeans, peanuts, tree nuts
In addition to the other replies, I'd like to point out that insect farming is an often overlooked solution. But of course it's just not sexy enough for most westerners.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations:
> Edible insects contain high quality protein, vitamins and amino acids for humans. Insects have a high food conversion rate, e.g. crickets need six times less feed than cattle, four times less than sheep, and twice less than pigs and broiler chickens to produce the same amount of protein. Besides, they emit less greenhouse gases and ammonia than conventional livestock. Insects can be grown on organic waste. Therefore, insects are a potential source for conventional production (mini-livestock) of protein, either for direct human consumption, or indirectly in recomposed foods (with extracted protein from insects); and as a protein source into feedstock mixtures.
> In addition to the other replies, I'd like to point out that insect farming is an often overlooked solution.
What is the actual problem that needs a solution though? I feel like "but where will we get our protein from?" is a common fallacy on the subject of meat that people accept without evidence. We're eating more meat now than ever and most Americans eat too much protein:
> The Department of Health advises adults to avoid consuming more than twice the recommended daily intake of protein (55.5g for men and 45g for women).
Its main component is wheat flour with everything washed away but the gluten so it's super cheap to produce and make.
I think "you need meat for protein" is just a persistent meme/myth people cling on to to justify eating meat. Where do people think the animals are getting their protein from?
> Athletes require slightly more protein than the rest of the population. According to the British Nutrition Foundation (BNF), endurance athletes require between 1.2 and 1.4g per kg of body weight daily, while those competing in strength and speed events need between 1.2 and 1.7g per kg of body weight. These intakes can easily be achieved by eating a normal balanced diet.
This is in line with what most people aim for in macros. 1.2 g protein / kg body weight means way more than 50 grams per day.
I did not dispute that you can get proteins from plants. I am however not sure of their profiles; proteins are a group of compounds, not a single one. Typically since animals eat plants and not the other way around, animal-sourced proteins are a superset of vegetable ones.
Yes, but the recommended daily allowance for an adult male (which you said was too little) is for regular people - most people aren't athletes and shouldn't be eating like one.
> I am however not sure of their profiles; proteins are a group of compounds, not a single one
Maybe look up what plant based athletes eat if you're concerned e.g.
Seitan, pea protein and soybean products are all very high in protein for example.
> Typically since animals eat plants and not the other way around, animal-sourced proteins are a superset of vegetable ones.
Can you offer any proof that this is true + significant in some way compared to a plant based diet? How are plant based athletes performing at a high level if it's important? These kinds of statements are things that people cling to so they can keep a high meat diet, which has an environmental impact.
From all the history I have read of civilisation, it's been grain that has been the foundation of human society as we know it, meat couldn't get us anywhere.
Meat eating among the poor in European societies and derived societies is a new phenomenon at least in the idea that every meal has meat in it.
Take a look outside of Europe or even within less wealthy areas of Europe and their diets are magnitudes lower in their meat consumption.
I've read the opposite re: inflammatory side effects of meat that we are discovering. WHO a few years ago put eating sulfite infested meat as being carcinogenic.
Do you have any good sources on the bioavailability of meat vs. plant nutrients? I've tried giving up meat before and have found that I feel noticeably worse both physically and mentally when I don't eat it, even if I eat a lot of plant protein and take supplements.
I don't know if this simply due to my own unique biochemistry or what, but it's not subtle. I have a fast metabolism, so that may have something to do with it? I know plenty of vegans and vegetarians who say they feel better after giving up meat, so I've always figured it depends on the person.
> Do you have any good sources on the bioavailability of meat vs. plant nutrients? I've tried giving up meat before and have found that I feel noticeably worse both physically and mentally when I don't eat it, even if I eat a lot of plant protein and take supplements.
> I don't know if this simply due to my own unique biochemistry or what, but it's not subtle. I have a fast metabolism, so that may have something to do with it?
For better or worse, it's very easy to end up eating a caloric deficit on a plant-based diet. I'm very glad I use a kitchen scale and small script I wrote to calculate how much kcal/protein/carbs/fat I'm actually getting in comparison to what I should be getting. To put it mildly, plant-based diets take some getting used to.
Protein is important, but beyond 1.4-1.6 grams of protein per kg body weight, your body increasingly relieves itself of any excess. Particularly if you stick to eating low-fat legumes, grains and greens per Esselstyn [1], getting enough protein isn't a concern. In fact, I have to consciously choose low protein foods like potatoes and rice just to ensure I don't get too much protein.
I have to be honest I had the same experience (which is unfortunate).
I went vegetarian and borderline vegan for 2 years and I wound up feeling depressed and run down.
It could’ve been from other things too, it’s only anecdotal.
I started introducing some chicken and fish into my diet again and I felt better.
I now eat meat again, just conscious of how much I’m eating and try eat a bit less.
One thing I noticed is that with being a vegetarian, I found to eat properly is harder. I had to cook a lot more to find the protein and calories, it seems to be something which I could probably do correctly if I had more time for it.
Balanced diet is the way to go I think.
One of the things I hate about eating meat is the copious amounts of plastic it comes in. With fruit and vegetables I don’t need too worry as much as I don’t put it in plastic bags, it’s a shame that meat is sold in disposable plastic.
You were all probably low on iron, among other things.* B12, Calcium, Omega-3's, and a handful of trace elements are also on that list. Most of those can be solved by supplementation, but iron's more tricky. Likely why life evolved carnivorous tendencies in the first place - the iron is safely tucked away in a readily-absorbed heme complex.
Iron's one of those things your body doesn't absorb easily through supplements, and competes with Calcium absorption (So, no taking it in multivitamins or consuming dairy at the same time you take it, otherwise it will inhibit absorption). It will also chelate with tannins (which are in teas, coffee, wine, and chocolate), which also inhibits absorption. And, for more fun, if you over-do it on the iron, it will horribly poison you, so, uh, basically check with a doctor re: supplements. That said, if you're good about balancing out the protein, iron, b12, calcium, and omega-3's (among others), you'll feel a lot less crappy in transitioning over to a plant-based diet.
*In my semi-scientific, zero-medical-training, not-a-doctor opinion
I'm not a vegan of any sort, but one day I realized that I hadn't eaten meat for really long time and I didn't really want to anymore. That must have something to do with fruits: there's definitely some almost material "energy" in them and eating sandwiches with meat feels like chewing paper sometimes. 10 years ago my diet was almost entirely meat.
"Well-planned vegan diets are regarded as appropriate for all stages of life, including infancy and pregnancy, by the American Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics,[f] Dietitians of Canada,[23] the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council,[24] New Zealand Ministry of Health,[25] Harvard Medical School,[26] and the British Dietetic Association.[27]"
There's lots of examples of sports people, academics, musicians etc. who are on plant based diets too to prove the point:
> The unfortunate reality is that mankind as we know it, probably developed to the level it did, in part due to the consumption of meat.
Hedging language aside — i.e. "humans evolved because X to some extent" — I recently had an epiphany touring the north island of New Zealand by minibus. Productivity utterly collapses when you have to frequently move from one (temporary) settlement to another. What you eat isn't nearly as impactful as the degree to which you can be stationary.
Interestingly, primitive hunter-gatherer societies could rely upon wild game or fish for caloric intake, which was conducive to a nomadic life. There's no need for an agricultural revolution if you're OK with killing wild animals to harvest their flesh for food. But to call this instrumental in human development is I think wrong. Meat is without question the most primitive way to feed: meat consumption does not require any amount of long-term settlement nor does it require much intelligence: carnivorous animals low in general intelligence regularly kill each other in the wild for food.
Meat consumption is fundamentally a primitive adaptation. Factory farmed meat consumption is a relatively modern phenomenon driven first and foremost by human habituation to the taste of flesh. Plants can provide every nutrient required for human survival save for vitamin B12.
> Meat is absolutely PACKED with bioavailable nutrients in a way that most plant products simply aren't.
Such as? Meat is a euphemism for slabs of fat and muscle tissue containing amino acids. With the exception of wild-caught fatty fish like salmon — factory farmed fatty fish contain greatly reduced levels of omega-3s — the fat is of questionable healthiness compared to vegetable sources. And if you're convinced it's necessary to consume the muscle tissue of formerly living creatures for amino acids, you'd eat insects for environmental sustainability's sake. In fact, insect exoskeletons are a rich source of dietary calcium directly comparable to dairy. The fact most of you reading this wouldn't dream of eating insects, goes to show nutritional value is not why you're eating meat. Taste is #1.
> Add to that, the growing evidence that much of the plant material we're eating may have inflammatory side effects of consumption.
Citation needed.
> The point I am making is that a solution isn't a solution if it means getting rid of one of the most dense forms of nutrition we have.
Where do high-fat nuts and seeds fit in your view of "dense forms of nutrition"? E.g. gram for gram, you're getting much more calories from nuts and seeds than you're getting from low-fat muscle tissue such as chicken.
What a ridiculous hot take. We buy meat to have a varied and healthy diet, and yes we like our food to taste good - as is that is something to be ashamed of?
We don’t buy insects because last time I checked, supermarkets don’t sell them. Maybe you could look into why time and time again, insect food startups fail.
I'm not here to be your enemy, so please don't make me out to be one. I wasn't raised vegetarian by any means, and I know fully well meat tastes amazingly good, and that having a varied diet is important. But heart disease, diabetes and many types of cancers are worryingly linked with the consumption of meat, dairy and eggs. As the documentary Forks Over Knives [1] makes abundantly clear, a whole foods plant-based diet is in every way a life extension technology.
> Is that something to be ashamed of?
Wanting to feel satiated is nothing to be ashamed of. What is arguably shameful, however, is how the bacon gets made [2].
But heart disease, diabetes and many types of cancers are diseases that you will get, regardless of diet or lifestyle, if nothing else kills you first.
This part is more of a reply to people claiming meat is the natural thing to eat so it must be healthy, it's what we've eaten for centuries, you can't be healthy without eating meat etc.
Nobody is arguing that taste isn't important but are your current taste preferences more important than climate change and animal suffering?
Nobody is arguing that taste isn't important but are your current taste preferences more important than climate change
No, but synthmeat will largely take care of that aspect of the problem. Not as soon as we'd like, but we'll get there.
and animal suffering?
To the extent animals are suffering, I'd encourage you to get involved legislatively. Contact your representatives, and support organizations that work for change (ethically, which excludes PETA). Animal abuse is unnecessary and unlike climate change, it can be stopped, right now, if people speak up.
“Plants can provide every nutrient required for human survival save for vitamin B12.”
Which is what’s interesting to me, you basically cannot actually be vegan without supplements. Maybe this is where we should go as a specifies for ethical reasons.
But it’s a mental leap to rely on supplements for vital nutrients.
All of the B12 consumed anywhere in the world -- and all animals need it -- comes exclusively from bacteria. The bacteria in your colon produce thousands of times as much as you need, but you do not absorb so much as a nanogram of it. (Dogs and rabbits eat their own crap to get it.)
The process for absorbing B12, in the upper intestine, is the most intricate of any vitamin, starting with saliva. Apparently the huge variety of almost-B12 variants have to be filtered out, so as not to gum up the works.
It is common for Americans (and maybe others?) over 50 to develop an autoimmune reaction to some part of the process, and lose most ability to absorb B12. (You may notice shooting pains in your arms if you get this.) Then you need to take 5mg daily supplements. The micrograms in meat and dairy are then not enough.
So, if you think you are eating meat for the B12, surprise! that is not where it comes from. Homo erectus probably got enough from the dirt on everything, and grubs.
> Homo erectus probably got enough from the dirt on everything, and grubs
And now they are extinct. It seems that the plan didn't worked very well.
The faster way to ingest lots and lots of bacteria so you don't die is a simple one: Carrion. Our ancestors ate as much as they could find. The other monkeys are dead (and our plant eaters relatives are almost extinct).
You are descended from Homo Erectus. They survived for many times longer than H. sap has, and it is far from clear that we will outlast them, in the end.
Eat carrion if you like. I will send flowers to your grave.
I don't need to, animals have plenty of vitamin B12, but I could do if necessary of course, because my species is omnivore. Better than ignoring my real nature and being forced to eat dirt or my own crap to fix my diet.
> I will send flowers to your grave.
Can't fall to mention that is a nice detail. Will be appreciated.
B12 usually comes from bacteria in soil (and not meat directly) that we don't get now because of cleaner vegetables and cleaner water. Likewise, many industrial animals kept indoors won't get as much B12, so that's why they're given B12 supplements. If you avoid meat, you can just take B12 supplements directly instead of them being filtered through an animal first. If you think this sounds "unnatural", there's nothing natural about intensive animal farming which is where most people get their meat from.
We used to get B12 from bacteria in the soil, but these days we clean our food immaculately, and we're also ruining our soil. My understanding is that B12 deficiency is a potential problem for everyone; vegan diets are just under more scrutiny. Also, the whole notion of "supplements" is not very useful; it's all just food. I don't know how B12 is produced, but if they're growing it by culturing the same bacteria we used to get B12 from, we have only industrialized the same symbiotic relationship we already had with certain microbes.
My B12 supplement is derived from plant sources, which I find far preferable to secondary B12 consumption from injected grain-fed animal tissue which is the modern status quo.
It’s super frustrating to hear people defend their meat eating as if it has no impact on the world. Or that it’s a requirement for health or it’s the reason why we evolved (both of which don’t seem to be true). It’s one of the easiest and most straightforward changes a person can make to have a positive impact on the environment and their own health.
In many ways it reminds me of addiction, with people reacting in the same way any addict would in defense of their toxic habit. The path out of the addiction takes some initial thought and sustained effort (and even a bit of mental and physical withdrawal), but the other side isn’t that hard to get to in this case. Isn’t having compassion for the environment, the animals, and each other worth it though? If you look at it deeply you begin to see how much unnecessary suffering it causes in the world due to how interdependent everything is.
Surely a portion of grazing land is also habitat to a significant amount of wildlife. Whereas large mono crops leave no room for competition and result in much death in the automated processing of crops. Not a lot of great options with billions of people to feed.
Animal farming simply doesn't have to be so destructive. There's a simple solution to a simple problem. Look at New Zeland, regenerative agriculture. By allowing cattle to eat grass instead of grain (ha) we can avoid using pesticide and actually increase biodiversity, while planting trees as well. This increases carbon sequestration and has plenty of other benefits to the local wildlife.
In fact, it can have a positive carbon impact (well, negative, but you catch my drift).
In short, the solution: buy grass-fed or pasture raised animals.
> In short, the solution: buy grass-fed or pasture raised animals.
It's worth noting though that for this to work we'd need to eat less meat and pay more for it because grass-fed takes much more land. The reason we have industrial animal farms with soy fed cattle is we need so much meat and we want it cheap (and countries that used to eat less meat want more meat as they get richer).
This is a frequent paradox of industrialization: it makes certain things too cheap and that turns out to actually not be good for us. Corn Syrup, as one case in point. Plastic packaging as another. Traffic congestion on roads. Carbon in general.
If we were more comfortable pricing in externalities we could accomplish massive societal change in a quick and easy manner without most people even noticing too much. This was done all over the west to mostly eliminate smoking, and I'm surprised it isn't used more often.
So, to take your point, pass regulatory reform that only pasture raised cattle with appropriate limits on density etc. to be actually regenerative, and then the price of meat would go up quite a bit, and naturally most people would start to see it as a delicacy and eat less of it (and more importantly, expect less of it).
I've found that I perform way better when I eat well. So that has allowed me to eat more grass-fed meat. I think it's easily possible to do it in a ecologically conscious way if it was something anybody cared about. But they care more about the coast line they're still holding on to that's inevitably eroding.
We can also plant trees, it doesn't have to be a traditional farm. If we planted a certain number of conifers we could easily soak up all of that c02 and even convert it into oxygen, if that's your biggest concern.
They eat all the nutrients in meat, just in pill form. It's not very convincing. Also they have tons of problems with insulin resistance and supplements have tons of flaws. Most of these athletes are spending much more and destroying the environment much more than the equivalent amount of meat or eggs would do.
I don't think we're going to move away from an ecological collapse unless we stop using pesticides.
Most vegan athletes don't last too long. I'm of Indian heritage, so I'm well aware of vegetarianism.
I should also mention that there are many, many ways to do a vegan diet wrong. The studies probably don't include too many sources of sugar, which is probably the bane of a vegan's existence since they're constantly looking for blood glucose in order to do things as their body can't use gluconeogenesis as there is less protein (and therefore more cortisol!).
An Oxford research report refutes many of the claims made in favor of "regenerative animal agriculture" [1]. It's basically the clean coal of factory farming.
Also, to the extent "regenerative animal agriculture" works at all, it can be done without slaughtering the animals for their flesh.
I personally don't believe in anthropocentric climate change, so greenhouse emissions aren't a big deal for me--we've been warming for 10000 years and we're still -2C, and the temperature is always correlated with C02. I'd say there's no comparison to clean coal at all, you have the burden of proof there. Clean coal has no advantages other than less C02. Good farming practices can prevent ecological collapse. Especially avoiding use of roundup, which contains dioxin (!) now. Dioxin has been used in chemical warfare in the past. So is the problem meat, or agriculture?
Bigger deal is total ecological collapse. We can lose the coast, or we can lose the most. I don't think it's a choice we can avoid.
So yeah, it's really just a sell to those who believe C02 has a major impact on climate change. It's definitely well correlated--and it has been throughout time, before humans started combusting.
I'll read that study tomorrow and post back, you could be right in terms of the impact of C02 could be negligible, but there are other possibilities like planting trees to divide the cows up.
"lab based meat will save us at some point in the future and then I'll probably switch if they're indistinguible from real meat"
Why isn't that the answer? Nobody wants to be out of the animal husbandry business more than the meat producers do. Even if they haven't realized it yet.
> Why isn't that the answer? Nobody wants to be out of the animal husbandry business more than the meat producers do. Even if they haven't realized it yet.
Because lab based meat isn't here yet:
- You can't buy it in supermarkets or for cheap, and I haven't heard a realistic timeline for when this is going to change.
- Is there going to be realistic lab based cuts of steak, duck, pork and chicken? Whole chickens? Lab based ground beef is one thing but lab based versions of everything the public wants is another.
- Beyond burgers and similar are already here which some people say are as good a beef burgers, yet there isn't a stampede to change over by either consumers or manufacturers. Why would lab based meat be different? I can see people demanding the "real thing" on principle.
We don't have time to wait when climate change is here now. Lab based meat is not a solution if it takes decades to make an impact. People that say they'll switch from real-meat when lab based meat is here are essentially saying they'll change when they don't have to change anything.
We don't have time to wait when climate change is here now
Yes, we do, and we will. Everything you've said could apply equally to electric vehicles, which people like yourself said were never going to be "the answer" for a hundred different reasons, yet which are, nevertheless, happening.
The point is we should be doing something now and adopting lab based meat when it actually arrives, instead of doing nothing and hoping it comes. The catastrophic impact of climate change is coming on the scale of decades - we really don't have time to wait.
> which people like yourself said were never going to be "the answer" for a hundred different reasons
What a weird thing to write. You don't know anything about what I think of electric vehicles or my wider views.
You don't know anything about what I think of electric vehicles or my wider views
When you make identical arguments, it's reasonable to infer identical underlying motivations and beliefs.
What a weird thing to write
Not as weird as assuming that people are "doing nothing and hoping it comes" with respect to synthetic meat. There is serious money in that market. It's being worked on, trust me. Like EVs, it's not a trivial engineering problem.
> Not as weird as assuming that people are "doing nothing and hoping it comes" with respect to synthetic meat. There is serious money in that market. It's being worked on, trust me. Like EVs, it's not a trivial engineering problem.
I'm not talking about the people putting research and engineering time into synthetic meat, I'm talking about personal consumption - most people could give up meat today if they really wanted to and start helping the planet now. You don't need to wait for synthetic meat to arrive to start helping right now. I think synthetic meat is a great idea by the way but not when people have the attitude of "I will only reduce/avoid meat when synthetic meat arrives".
Electric cars doesn't hold as a good analogy to me e.g. many need a car to get work or make deliveries so you couldn't easily give up driving while you waited for electric vehicles to arrive, it could be expensive to replace your car (unlike changing your diet).
https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets
I wonder how much of an impact it would have to return the land used by meat & diary to nature (40 million km^2 out of the 104 million km^2 of habitable land, minus some for more crops for humans). Wild animals would have more of chance, they'd be more forests to capture more carbon, and industrial animal farming wouldn't be polluting the planet with carbon, methane and waste products that are contributing to climate change.
I don't know a practical solution to the above, but people are in denial about how much damage animal farming is doing globally and the insane scale of it (about 70 billion animals are used for food each year).
The general attitudes of "well, people are never going to reduce their use of animal products to help so..." and "lab based meat will save us at some point in the future and then I'll probably switch if they're indistinguible from real meat" is depressing. We're running out of time.