hello,
How many cows are killed for the seats in a Cadillac, and how does that compare to the number of cows killed by the amount killed to feed the average meat-eating human in a lifetime?
Welcome to the SDMB. You can use a little reasoning and a modest amount of Googling to solve this problem.
From my little bit of research, Americans eat an average of 70 lbs. of beef per year. The average beef cow will yield about 600 lbs. of beef (give or take). Given 70 years of beef eating, an American will consume about 8 cows in a lifetime.
Now to the Cadillac. Here is where your questions hits a fatal flaw because it is a trick question. Zero cows are actually killed to make the seats in a Cadillac. Leather production is a byproduct of other kinds of cow farming. It would be stupid to raise cows, kill them for leather and let the rest rot. There are plenty of cows raised for other means to provide leather. I actually don’t know how many cows it takes to make luxury grade car seats. Judging by the size of a typical cow, it should be 2 - 3 at the most. Those things are big if you look at them as a wrapped cylinder. In any case, I would say that it can’t take the full leather output of 8 cows (noted in the first question) to make the seats in a Cadillac. If it does, that is because only part of the leather is used and the rest goes for other uses.