Executive summary: Replacing chicken meat with beef/pork significantly reduces animal suffering, and the greenhouse gas emission benefits of doing the reverse don’t justify the additional animal pain caused.
Key points:
Replacing beef/pork with chicken reduces emissions but causes 27+ hours of additional animal pain per serving, including several hours of severe “disabling pain”
The climate benefits are small: replacing beef saves 0.0961% of per capita emissions, while replacing pork saves 0.00316%
The climate impact on human health is minimal—about 15.6 minutes of total healthy life lost across all humans for beef replacement
While beef/pork require more land which could affect wild animals, it’s uncertain whether wild animal lives are net positive given natural suffering
The author recommends either adopting a plant-based diet or, if reducing meat is difficult, replacing chicken with beef/pork to minimize suffering
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, andcontact us if you have feedback.
Executive summary: Replacing chicken meat with beef/pork significantly reduces animal suffering, and the greenhouse gas emission benefits of doing the reverse don’t justify the additional animal pain caused.
Key points:
Replacing beef/pork with chicken reduces emissions but causes 27+ hours of additional animal pain per serving, including several hours of severe “disabling pain”
The climate benefits are small: replacing beef saves 0.0961% of per capita emissions, while replacing pork saves 0.00316%
The climate impact on human health is minimal—about 15.6 minutes of total healthy life lost across all humans for beef replacement
While beef/pork require more land which could affect wild animals, it’s uncertain whether wild animal lives are net positive given natural suffering
The author recommends either adopting a plant-based diet or, if reducing meat is difficult, replacing chicken with beef/pork to minimize suffering
This comment was auto-generated by the EA Forum Team. Feel free to point out issues with this summary by replying to the comment, and contact us if you have feedback.