Since livestock production is the #1 cause of climate change, why don't the government address the main issue?

you are of course quite correct

as i understand it the following are equally at cause

Wastage

destruction of habitat

Transport is a bit of a red herring because Oil=political power oil=easy controllable source of revenue through taxes and only contributes about 15% to global warming

Government should take climate change and its causes more seriously It is a silent spectre as are floods or incoming tides that catch the unprepared unawares when they least expect it

Perhaps humans ought to build more islands to house the next generations homeless migrant from flooded lowlands

Joined up thinking doesn't happen. It doesn't even occur to most people that this is actually true, as is proven by some of your answers here. To make it simple for people attached is a wiki article that breaks it down nicely - it's important to remember too that a vast amount of energy and resources is wasted on Livestock production. Do these figures take account of the energy required to get it from the farm gate to the dinner plate? I would say the numbers are understated when taking that into account. The reasons the government are not doing anything about this are; 1) Ignorance 2) It's not a vote winner 3) It provides a lot of jobs and tax revenues It will take somewhere like China or India to take the lead, they have already run out of land to farm on and it's their populations changing eating habits that will make or break this. At the end of the day there simply are not enough resources on the planet for the entire world to eat the standard American diet at American consumption levels so something will give eventually, probably not in our lifetimes.

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.

Livestock itself is not the main reason. It's more about the waste of farmland used to raise livestock. So "meatarians" are a big reason.

Because men wants der beef boy that why and they're gonna keep on choppin them damn trees down until South America looks like Easter Island - what happened then; the population went extinct! But who cares huh? As long as dem men has gots der beef in em that's all that counts, plus the big bucks o course. It's just trees, they don't care, it's money it's beef it's politics that's counts, not trees, not the planet, not life. And definitely NOT methane and NOX emissions, which the IPCC hardly give lip service to!

Hey why don't we all go back to the stone-age, and then we can live by the rule of strongest takes all.

Their is no way this or any other country can operate if we go by the ideas you people have set out to so call fix mother earth.

You really should just stop and read what you are saying for everyone to do.

livestock are not the number one cause, however we could improve the livestock situation and turn to kangaroos come here skippy here boy come on

Sorry, but I don't remember reading that livestock production is the #1 cause of climate change. No one can really say what is the cause of climate change. It made be man-made or it may be natural. Whatever the cause is, the answer to the solution will not be easy.

Because the assertion that livestock production changes the climate is absurd.

Go Carnivore!

You must understand it has nothing to do with saving the environment and everything to do with collecting money and how to collect more.

You have to pick industries that you can get people to rally against and those that you'll be able to extract the most money from. Right now that's any company that produces our major sources of energy. There really isn't enough money in livestock to start taxing ranchers for methane emissions and they would end up having to give the money right back in government subsidies.

The answer to decreasing human effects of global warming so apparently obvious, since all scientific evidence on global warming is caused by man, in order to decrease these effect enough to save the earth we must begin massively reducing our population. But you can't collect money from dead people.