Everything regarding Agriculture (not just in the US, look at how much of the russian harvest is just rotting on the fields this year because of the lack of fuel) is heavily dependent mostly on diesel fuel. All those large machines use lots of fuel, and they are used in every step - preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting and harvesting. The way the US is doing things, transportation also uses fuel for giant fleets of trucks for most of the distance - transportation by train exists, but suffers from decades of neglect and having to compete with subsidized fuel prices. If americans had to pay for fuel without externalizing costs, i’m sure that the train network would suddenly have enough resources to expand and do long overdue maintenance.
Sure, cattle is a huge part of the problem, but the above process is CO2-heavy even in areas where it would not have to be.
I find that everything related to meat and fish production produces 13.78% of global emissions excluding transport ([wikipedia] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_from_agriculture?wprov=sfti1)) or 53% of all agricultural emission, while the whole supply chain is 18% of agricultural emissions, thus 4.6% of total.
So meat production is by far the driver of agricultural emission, even if obviously the whole chain could become cleaner.
Additionally, all freight transport accounts for 30% of transport emissions, so a total of 6% of global emissions. So banning all camions would achieve half of what vegetarianism would achieve.
As i said, cattle is a huge part of the problem - i fully agree with you on that point. But the emissions are only one part of the equation: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_agriculture. The environmental effects of agriculture go much farther than their emissions, in many areas actively hindering reuptake of CO2 (or destroying CO2 binding capacity outright), or causing greenhouse gases to be emitted as a result of their actions (By heavily damaging / killing functioning ecosystems). These effects go much farther than anything that is discussed in the “official” count, and they don’t disappear by becoming vegetarian/vegan. The fuel addiction of our current agricultural practices only makes everything a lot worse.
Edit: I just checked - land use is somewhat counted into the stats you posted, but things like damage to ecosystems by pesticides, plastic use and damaging waterways because fertilizer runoff i can’t see anywhere.
Everything regarding Agriculture (not just in the US, look at how much of the russian harvest is just rotting on the fields this year because of the lack of fuel) is heavily dependent mostly on diesel fuel. All those large machines use lots of fuel, and they are used in every step - preparing the ground, fertilizing, planting and harvesting. The way the US is doing things, transportation also uses fuel for giant fleets of trucks for most of the distance - transportation by train exists, but suffers from decades of neglect and having to compete with subsidized fuel prices. If americans had to pay for fuel without externalizing costs, i’m sure that the train network would suddenly have enough resources to expand and do long overdue maintenance.
Sure, cattle is a huge part of the problem, but the above process is CO2-heavy even in areas where it would not have to be.
Do you have a source for this?
I find that everything related to meat and fish production produces 13.78% of global emissions excluding transport ([wikipedia] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas_emissions_from_agriculture?wprov=sfti1)) or 53% of all agricultural emission, while the whole supply chain is 18% of agricultural emissions, thus 4.6% of total.
So meat production is by far the driver of agricultural emission, even if obviously the whole chain could become cleaner.
Additionally, all freight transport accounts for 30% of transport emissions, so a total of 6% of global emissions. So banning all camions would achieve half of what vegetarianism would achieve.
As i said, cattle is a huge part of the problem - i fully agree with you on that point. But the emissions are only one part of the equation: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_agriculture. The environmental effects of agriculture go much farther than their emissions, in many areas actively hindering reuptake of CO2 (or destroying CO2 binding capacity outright), or causing greenhouse gases to be emitted as a result of their actions (By heavily damaging / killing functioning ecosystems). These effects go much farther than anything that is discussed in the “official” count, and they don’t disappear by becoming vegetarian/vegan. The fuel addiction of our current agricultural practices only makes everything a lot worse.
Edit: I just checked - land use is somewhat counted into the stats you posted, but things like damage to ecosystems by pesticides, plastic use and damaging waterways because fertilizer runoff i can’t see anywhere.
But on the previous comment you were explicitly talking about diesel fuel.