I agree. And I do not think there is anything inherently wrong with eating meat. You'd never expect a wild animal to feel bad about eating another animal to survive, so why should we?
Good point. The money will be made out of guilting people into thinking eating meat is wrong. Meanwhile, they use a ton of power to run all these processing plants and have to spend a bunch of money on the equipment to make it, which will bring more plastics and other bad materials into existence.
I don't either. Even if I studied it I'm not clued in enough to make that comparison. A lot will depend in what assumptions you make and factors you consider. It also depends on what you consider to be a problem. Cattle and other animals are one of the largest contributors to greenhouse gasses, some people consider that to be a problem. Managing poop from the big operations is huge and can contribute to pollution. A few years back Oklahoma sued Arkansas, saying Arkansans spreading chicken poop from the commercial chicken operations on pasture and hay fields was polluting the Illinois River, for example. Look it up if you wish. Some people don't consider greenhouse gasses or polluting rivers to be problems. I don't know how this process compares in those regards.
What makes you think this has anything to do with small-scale meat operations? That's not where the money is. That's not where the most impact is.
Yeah, essentially money is what it comes down to. But to me, they wouldn't make so much money if people were able to see through the BS. If people knew that this "meat" isn't any real improvement and has unknown repercussions, they might steer their money elsewhere. But the companies will tell them their "meat" is more ethical and will try to guilt consumers into buying the fake meat to feel better.
