Red meat has a huge carbon footprint because cattle requires a large amount of land and water.
https://sph.tulane.edu/climate-and-food-environmental-impact-beef-consumption
Demand for steaks and burgers is the primary driver of Deforestation:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/marcel-gomes-interview
If you don’t have a car and rarely eat red meat, you are doing GREAT 🙌🙌 🙌
Sure, you can drink tap water instead of plastic water. You can switch to Tea. You can travel by train. You can use Linux instead of Windows AI’s crap. Those are great ideas. But, don’t drive yourself crazy. If you are only an ordinary citizen, remember that perfect is the enemy of good.
“A sustainable diet leaves room for 2 chicken breasts a week”
(Really, 2 servings of fish / poultry per week. No red meat.)
The average person outside of developing nations vastly outpaces this consumption rate.
The small, single-digit percent of the population that’s vegetarian/vegan, as well as people who are experiencing food insecurity and do not have consistent access to meat are ahead of the curve from a sustainability perspective.
When 95+% of people who have the means to dictate their meal choices do not achieve the target reduction it’s generally safe to say everyone who eats meat needs to cut back.