Since livestock production is the #1 cause of climate change, why don the government address the main issue?
Well, like other respondents, I don’t know that livestock production IS the #1 cause of climate change, but that’s not the point of your question. The first issue is individual liberty. Like rationing gas or restricting the number of miles people are ‘allowed’ to drive, the government doesn’t want to do anything that impinges on the constitutional rights of the individual. That gets a party voted out of office. So if government would get TOO restrictive of livestock production, in the best light it would be received as a poor excuse for social engineering-not REALLY about climate change, but about health and obesity by dictating what people should be eating. The second-and more important issue-is upsetting the economic and food delivery balance. If the government were to say well, we’re going to cut livestock production in half because it is a) environmentally damaging and b) killing people who are clogging their arteries by eating too much red meat, we could have a real mess on our ha
As detailed in the IPCC report http://www.ipcc.ch/ the number 1 cause of climate change is thought to be fluctuating greenhouse gases with an emphasis on Carbon Dioxide. Methane production from livestock does contribute to some of the current warming we are experiencing, but it is not the “number 1” cause. Solar radiation is another – but only a very small amount. Greenhouse gas production from burning fossil fuels is thought to be the main driver of the current climatic changes. It is relatively well documented in the IPCC report that I refer you to. Without backing up your wild claims about livestock production with some proper scientific documents, I don’t really think you can argue the IPCC case.
