20-Year Prospect

20-Year Prospect

Vegetarians aside, most people enjoy a good burger or lamb chop or B.L.T. every once in a while. Even after all of the negativity and campaigns against eating red meat, it's still a hugely popular protein in America. In fact, each meat-eating person in the United States eats over fifty pounds of beef on average per year, and then there's all the pork and lamb to boot (source). 

While such high levels of meat consumption are great for cattle ranchers who'd like to keep the family spread nice and profitable, they aren't so fabulous for the environment. See, cows fart a lot (you're welcome), and the methane they produce does a much better job of trapping heat within the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. 

In other words, cows are partially responsible for climate change. It's actually been a part of their nefarious cow plot all along.

That means that you'll likely see a change in the way livestock are raised, cared for, and ultimately turned into dinner, with emphasis on more environmentally friendly practices. That may even include mainstream citizens eventually cutting down on the amount of burgers and bacon they consume. You'll just have to do what cattle ranchers have been doing for the last century and a half—deal with it.