"Despite the boom in vegetarianism, meat production around the world will grow by more than 50% by 2050,. Defenders of animals and climate advocates are sounding the alarm, but their options for solving the problem diverge, "writes the correspondent of Die Welt, Michael Gassman.

"It is possible that many consumers in rich industrialized countries in the future will intensively seek new options for healthy and balanced nutrition, but on the world scale, in the forefront of future growth today is a completely different product, the classic of those times when people were engaged in hunting and gathering: ", - the author of the publication writes.

According to the German Union of Butchers, the amount of meat consumed in the country fluctuates around 60 kg per person per year. The Chinese consume meat a third less, residents of some African countries do not eat and half of this amount. However, in other countries, for example, in Argentina or the US, meat consumption is more than 100 kg per person per year, the author.

"Along with the increase in the world's population and well-being around the world, the consumption of animal products is also increasing in an excessively proportional manner," says a document from the German Federal Ministry of Agriculture. If demand grows as much as forecasted, meat production will grow from 300 million tons to 480 million by the middle of the century and will account for half of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, experts say..

The worst effect compared to CO2 is in this case methane, released by ruminant animals. "In absolute terms, its quantity is relatively small, but a ton of methane contributes to the formation of a greenhouse effect in the same way as 25 tons of carbon dioxide. Nitrous oxide (N2O), which results from the use of fertilizers, has an even stronger effect. The action of "amusing gas" is stronger than the effect of CO2 by 298 times, "reads the article.

Some Germans today partially or completely refuse meat due to environmental problems or from ethical considerations. "If in the first decades after the war the chop was still a symbol of status, today many consume with meat consumption," the author notes..

"In the end, everyone can contribute: the most logical way to protect animals has been and remains a vegan or vegetarian lifestyle," said the president of the German Animal Protection Union Thomas Schroeder. However, to this conclusion so far only came every 20th German.

Instead, the German Peasant Union plans to make meat production more environmentally friendly. Peasant farms in Germany, for example, already use food, which is maximally fully digested by animals.

"At the same time, not only for the Peasant Union it is clear that the production of food products should be more important than other purposes - including animal protection, nature protection and climate," the journalist notes..

Thus, in the preface to the 2015 Paris Agreement it is said that food security and the elimination of hunger are of fundamental priority, Gassman reports..

"I always tell people: it is better to eat less meat, but there is good quality meat," the journalist quotes a young representative of one of the German farmers. "Probably, many Germans would agree with it," writes the author. "But the big question is whether it is possible to convince people in other countries who today aspire to meat as a symbol of welfare, like the Germans after the war".