There are plenty of ways in which fake meat is better than animal meat. Getting institutions like schools and hospitals to swap their poultry for soy saves countless animal lives—scaled up, these swaps would save millions if not billions of chickens each year—which packs a bigger welfare punch for poultry than for other forms of meat, since due to their cramped living conditions, chickens suffer much crueler deaths and lives compared to cows. It’s also a pretty clear environmental win depending on the swaps you make—alternatives are lower in emissions than beef and without the pollution from pork, dairy or poultry manure.
Yet this transition could (and should) still happen in the future—the latest IPCC report includes shifting to plant-based diets in its climate mitigation recommendations. One just transition report found plant-based agriculture could create more jobs than it eliminates. A 2020 Inter-American Development Bank paper found that a future plant-based agriculture system in Latin America and the Caribbean could add “19 million more full-time equivalent employees in 2030 in the decarbonization scenario than in the high-emissions scenario.” In other words, the plant-based agriculture sector would create a 54% increase in jobs over the high-emissions scenario. For comparison, the renewable energy sector has potential to produce just 22% growth in the same scenario.
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