you really think all those people will willingly give up
Willingly?
Here are the common tools:
-- Higher taxes (to account for the environmental, health, and societal harm it does).
-- Higher regulation on farms or processing plants (with regard to emissions, effluents, safety of product, humane treatment of animals, disposal, allowed feed, allowed quantity of feed, allowed land, allowed arrangement of buildings and sizes, need for reams of permits that cost a lot and take forever to get, and whatever else can be thought up).
-- Higher regulation on transport.
-- Increase law suits (over any perceived violations, driving up cost of insurance and risk of being in that business).
-- Constant propaganda (in papers, studies talking about how bad for you meat is, and how bad for the world it is, have teachers teach kids constantly how bad it is for them and the world).
-- Maybe make some of it illegal. No animals under a certain age. Make some cuts of meat illegal, like t-bones (because of mad cow) or babybacks (because of age).
-- Maybe have rules on how and where it can be displayed so as not to offend particular religious groups, or vegitarians, as that is not inclusive.
-- Maybe mandate that a certain percentage of meat sold (in stores, or in fast food, or other restaurants) has to be synthetic or insect-based. Ramp up that percentage over time. Or it's not mandatory, but if your restaurant chain doesn't do it, it pays much higher taxes (for the impact to health and environment), and/or places that comply get pay offs (i.e., tax breaks).
-- Maybe outright price regulation at some point, or quotas.
You can start out small, but keep at it diligently, and ramp it up over a longer time span.
Fear not. Cricket tacos can be in your California future.