A brand-new study published Feb. 1 in the gazette PLOS Climate therefore seems that phasing out animal agriculture in the course of the coming 15 times would have the same effect as a 68% reduction in carbon dioxide emissions through the end of the century.

The analysis draws upon data from the Intergovernmental committee of experts on Climate Change( IPCC) and the United Commonwealth Food and Agriculture Organization( FAO) showing that at least a third of anthropogenic methane emissions and more than 90% of nitrous oxide emissions–both powerful planet-warming emissions–come from livestock. It compounds those findings with estimates of the amount of biomass like trees and grasses–critical in storing carbon dioxide–lost in the clearing of land for animal agriculture and estimates of what kind of carbon sequestration would be possible if that arrive were returned to its original commonwealth. [time-brightcove not-tgx =” true “]

I spoke with co-authors Michael Eisen, a professor of genetics and progress at the University of California Berkeley, and Patrick Brown, a biochemist and the CEO of Impossible Foods Inc ., a company that sells plant-based meat substitutes. Eisen is also an advisor for the company.

TIME: Tell me about your findings.

Brown: What we acquired is that there’s a very simple–which isn’t to say simple to execute–way to open net negative[ greenhouse gas] radiations , not only on a huge scale but rapidly, and the way to do it is to phase out animal agriculture as an industry.[ Doing so] would offset more than two thirds of fossil fuel radiations through the end of the century.

Why this study now?

Eisen: A much of the consequences of climate change are potentially irreparable and set up positive feedback loops-the-loops. Which means that it’s essential to act fast. If we phase out fossil fuel and combining it with phasing out animal agriculture in the course of the coming 15 times, we are also able, by the end of the century, effectively increase the amount of greenhouse gas in the environment back to where it was at the beginning of this century. This is news. And I would say, without a doubt, it’s the best climate news that we’ve had in a very long time because what it says is that there’s a realistic way to keep the brakes on the global greenhouse gas radiations that are causing all the consequences of climate change.

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In the paper you describe it as a “hypothetical” and radical change in the global diet and agricultural arrangement. In reality it’s hard to imagine this ever happening, and certainly not within 15 years.

Brown: Market pressures are the fastest acting institution on Earth.[ Before automobiles] more than 90% of households had a mare. Fifteen years later, it was 5 %. The automobile became reigning , not because of legislation or pressure, but because it was a better engineering. No one’s gonna go up to any of those farmers or slaughterhouse proletarians with a firearm and tell them to stop make what they’re do. It’s going to be driven by consumer choice on the demand side. If there are produces that do a better task of delivering what customers crave , nothing can stop that.

Your newspaper concludes that there is an opportunity to bend the path of climate change, “with minimum economic disruption.” How is this possible, when in the U.S. alone it is a multi-billion dollar industry?

Brown: People overestimate how much of a capacity swine agriculture plays in the overall economy. It’s something like one or 2% of world GDP.

Yet raising livestock equips subsistences and incomes for at least 1.3 billion people.

Brown: While the extermination manufacture makes a lot of money, farmers heightening swine don’t. It’s a crappy business to be in and the dollar yield per acre is very low. It’s hard work. It’s exceedingly high-risk.

What about reducing industrial agriculture, which is responsible for most of those radiations, and ousting it with more sustainable techniques like regenerative agriculture?

Brown: Regenerative agriculture is a propaganda term used by the industry. What’s driving the burning of the Amazon is clearing shore for cattle. What you get after you burn the Amazon is a bleak grassland covered with cows. I don’t think you’re ever going to convince me that those kine stomping around in that grass are going to capture more carbon than that wood.

If, say, one tonne of captivated CO2 is worth $50, the large majority of animal agriculture moor in the world would be more valuable for carbon capture than it is for raising livestock. Farmers could induce more money with less misgiving by discontinue what they’re currently doing and focusing on restoring the native ecosystems and capturing carbon and selling carbon credits.

But the carbon market is hypothetical at this degree. No farmer are truly make this choice.

Brown: Part of the reason we don’t have it is that the farmers and proprietors haven’t realized that there’s a boon to be made by promoting a carbon sell. Like if, instead of going to their senators and saying, “we need to fight the threat of alternative meat and dairy concoctions, ” they went to them and[ said ], “I as an individual, and we as a country, would be doing better if there was a viable and thriving carbon market because we have the land that is worth restoring, ” that’s how it would happen.

Eisen: Our estimates–conservative estimates–of what kind of price carbon would reach in a thriving world-wide carbon market place the best interest of the land that is currently used for animal agriculture at an order of magnitude more than its current market value. It is a potential goldmine. You don’t have to imagine massive authority programs or some kind of pushed modulation coming from the outside[ to end animal agriculture ]. What you need to do is to unlock the market on both sides of the equation. On the demand side by having alternatives to meat that are produced by swine, and on the make slope where property has a higher value for a different exert. What has to happen is that farmers are in a position to become carbon ranchers rather than cattle ranchers.

You are selling a commodity[ plant-based flesh] that advantages immediately from a reduction in animal agriculture, so how is this not a conflict of interest?

Brown: Just to be clear. This is no longer about alternative meat. The issue is fundamental climate change mixtures. I had zero fundamental interest in being in the nutrient business. What happened was that I “ve learned that” the only channel we’re going to solve this impending environment calamity was to find a way to drastically reduce the scale of animal agriculture. Absurd is a result of my expressed concerns about these environmental issues. It’s not the other way round. This is not our data. This is IPCC, FAO, and UN data gathered by others. The huge thing about discipline is that it all comes down to: are you able prove it? If what you’re saying is not supported by evidence, if it cannot be independently verified by someone checking the data, it’s not reliable. But if it can, it doesn’t matter.

This paper has already generated a lot of discussion. What else do you hope it will achieve?

Brown: I hope it will lead to action and not just discussion. Ideally, farmers will realize that they’re in the wrong business. Maybe people will realize that we want a health carbon marketplace. That could be game changing in an fantastically positive direction. I hope parties will see this as good bulletin and feel energized by it.

Read more: time.com