Switching from beef to non-ruminant meats or plant proteins like beans and pulses could liberate almost 11 million square miles of land – the size of the United States, Canada and China combined.18 This simple shift would allow us to return vast swathes of the planet to forest and wildlife habitat, creating new carbon sinks and cutting net emissions by up to 8 gigatons of carbon dioxide per year, according to the IPCC.
