I'll try not to be sarcastic here. I'll try. I swear.
"The law." You mention it as if it were a supernatural force. In the real world, laws are made by people. Specifically, by the majority. And that's where it gets interesting.
The majority doesn't understand
The majority is convinced meat is wonderful for you. Or at least that it contains the famous, mysterious NOBLE PROTEINS. If you explain that essential amino acids are also in vegetables — actually, they're only in vegetables since no animal creates them but must eat them — most people enter the Blue Screen of Death.
Who spread these beliefs? Shadowy elites? No. Common wisdom and tens of billions in annual marketing by the livestock industry. Their persuasion power is so great they manage to get billions in subsidies from our taxes through EU institutions.
Manipulated science
Decades of mass persuasion set legends in motion, influence experts, create theoretical patterns hard to dismantle, and fund studies. I've read some extraordinary things: from researchers who tried to prove vegetarians are less healthy — while including fish-eaters among vegetarians — to those who masterfully insert sampling and correlation errors.
Nothing unusual. It works this way in every industry. Remember tobacco? How many years were we told it cured sore throats? Science is one thing. Scientists are another. That's why meta-reviews and competent deductions are irreplaceable.
You wouldn't accept the fair price
Would you accept paying two or three times more for meat if farmers didn't receive public funds and were forced to pay for their CO2 emissions like other industries? I don't think so.
You are the masses. And the masses get influenced on one hand and perpetuate patterns on the other. Until the metaphorical brick wall hits — environmental collapse — or a proper revolution.
The elephant in the room
Meat is objectively the second largest pollutant driving global warming. Some deny it, but they're a tiny fraction of researchers — people who can't distinguish aggregated from disaggregated data. The laws of thermodynamics alone tell you that raising hundreds of billions of animals for calories and protein is a perfectly stupid way to produce food when plant alternatives have dozens or hundreds of times less impact.
Then there are antibiotics. 70-80% of antibiotics are literally dumped into livestock for prophylaxis. These bacteria evolve, create resistance, and escape farms. But this is long-term reasoning, and the masses can't connect such complex phenomena.
What I would do
Would I ban meat? No. That's stupid.
I'd simply make it cost what it should. Remove the billions in subsidies and incorporate the damage costs into the price. Capitalism alone would allocate a fairer value to meat and people would eat far, far less of it.
It works with cigarettes. It works with sugary drink taxes. You can't force people to do something they don't understand. But you can guide them: through education and by disincentivizing the most irrational behaviors.
