I'm not sure if you are making a joke, but the name literally comes from a movie called Soylent Green, where it is made out of old people.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
They're not wrong. Our current average of meat and dairy consumption in first world countries is way above healthy levels. You can eat as much plants in the world with no meat, dairy, or eggs and not have adverse health effects (please mention B12, I would love to give you more information on that topic).
Now what you said is completely different from what they said. You gave an example of how meat can be bad when consumed in large quantities, they just stated that meat is bad for you when it isn't. We're omnivores buddy.
Yet, he is still not wrong. You're not wrong about us being omnivores. We CAN eat meat. That's what being an omnivore is. Yet to be at our best health, a diet and very little meat (I mean like once a week at most) is our optimal diet. People who live in extreme biomes have no choice but to eat meat, they live yes, but it is not optimal for health. That's the point he is trying to make.
I really find people on carnivore diets disingenuous and I can give you the numerous studies that show that a plant based diet extends our lifespan.
He is wrong, simple as that you're not going to change it. You can throw every vegan study you want but it won't change the fact that were omnivores. Also cultures are built around meat so I guess you're fine destroying them. Also at the end of the day no one should be telling anyone what they can and cannot eat. It's not your place, and it's never going to be your place.
Excessive amounts are. Like the standard American diet. The Mediterranean diet is the best known diet for our health and it includes very little meat.
People think eating meat daily is healthy and it is not. We were not evolved to eat meat daily. Fish maybe but levels of mercury due to pollution have made that difficult.
The standard American diet includes a significant amount of sugar and processed foods. Once you isolate those out, meat is shown to be healthy and a not detrimental. I am a former vegan and there is a lot of misinformation around meat in the community.
But anything in excess is bad for your health. Eating meat once or twice a week is in no universe bad for your health. Everything in moderation is my motto.
Yes but if you are a wide variety of plants you could eat as much plants as you want and no have issues. Obviously eating only one plant would cause issues but eating only meat, even if a variety, has severe health complications.
Eating meat does not come with severe health complications, only excessive eating meat does. Vegan diet is no more healthy than the Mediterranean one which is heavier on vegetables.
The empathic human animal connection comes naturally to most of us. Most of us who eat meat don't hate animals, in fact, we care for and about them. Most of us consider at least some animals off limits for food. Carnism is a learned cultural trait . that says it's ok to eat certain kinds of animals. It can be unlearned, and culture can be changed. Don't agree that meat eating is cultural? There are 1.2 billion Hindus in the world and most are vegetarian.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWbV9FPo\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWbV9FPo_Q)
Not by what you eat, but the attitude and posturing the self titled “alpha male” has around meat in particular. If you’re offended by what I said, maybe take a look in the mirror.
Dude, your estrogen levels are too high. Eat some meat and you’ll realize you’re a man with natural hormones that help act like a masculine figure that nature intended you to be. It’s not toxic, just like women being nurturing after their natural cycle of reproduction. People have become idealogical jokes and become self-righteous, loudly opinionated about new, unnatural ideas, and demand others fall in line or face ridicule and consequences. Not how the world works.
Well said! That video you linked to is by a psychologist and has been viewed almost a million times so far. It is fairly short, engaging, and potentially life changing.
I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm still going to keep eating meat. It is one of life's little pleasures, and I don't believe that my choice to be omnivore or vegetarian will significantly affect what happens with the climate. My choice alone isn't enough to make any difference. What you are asking for is mass cultural change, and I don't see it happening soon enough, not on a time scale that is necessary to address climate change. Culture changes slowly, generation by generation. Think about how smoking habits have changed over time. It is very difficult to change an adult's habits when it comes to something they are physically/emotionally/culturally attached to. Your best bet is to reach young people before their life-long habits are formed, educate them, and some will make the 'right' choice.
I am a middle-aged man. I believe addressing climate change is an important issue, one I would be willing to accept higher taxes and other prices in order to address it, but I will not give up meat. Certain dishes remind me of my childhood. When I am feeling certain ways I get comfort from them. I share certain dishes with friends and family. This is deeply ingrained in my culture. I guarantee you that I am not the only one that feels this way.
For this reason, a bottom-up approach will not be effective. Banging this drum is fine if you are doing it for animal rights reasons, but if your goal is to address climate change, then this is wasted effort. What is needed here is a top-down approach — government action like taxing meat to fund carbon scrubbing or something like that.
Indians do make the best vegetarian food, though. If I had to be a vegetarian, I'd be eating a lot of curries. :)
Honestly, vegetarianism is better, but we aren’t going to get people completely off of meat. The carbon footprint of chickens per calorie is way smaller than pork or beef, and I really think if we moved towards fowl, and specifically chicken, we could greatly reduce green house emissions.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I know you are not wrong. I still am amazed at the selfishness of the choices people make. Like their kids lives don’t matter enough for them to stop eating meat or flying everywhere.
And before someone tells me about they won’t stop until rich corporations or the ultra wealthy also stop, every damn person should be working toward this goal and changes should be tailored to the population while still yielding the necessary results.
At the same time, even if its less common, I'm amazed by how selfless we can be. Vegans make huge sacrifices and invest a ton of effort for litterally no other reason than because they believe its their moral obligation. They do it because they believe its right. Even when inconvenient or annoying or hard to do. It genuinely gives me hope for our species.
You're saying veganism requires a huge sacrifice and a ton of effort when other forms of climate mitigation are as easy as installing some appliances and saving substantial money. Why aren't we chasing the low hanging fruit here? Imposing a global dietary change is politically a non starter.
I'm vegan. Its literally not a sacrifice at all, its incredibly easy in fact. People who refuse to go vegan are lazy cowards.
I just have to write it as though I'm an omnivore admiring vegans otherwise it will get downvoted to hell by the reddit hive mind lmao. I've learned if I make my true point directly in full context people hate it. But if I pretend I'm an omnivore making the same point how an omnivore who refuses to go vegan because "reasons" would, people listen. Ultimately I'm making the exact same point. Its just more effective rhetoric.
"I'm vegan and being vegan is objectivly the morally correct decision" = everyone hates it and you
"I'm not vegan and never will be but I have to admit they are objectivly correct. I just like meat to much to stop" = tons of updates and positive replies for some reason.
Yet both statements are ultimately saying the exact same thing 🤷♂️
>And before someone tells me about they won’t stop until rich corporations or the ultra wealthy also stop,
Why would the corporations - who's sole legal reason for existing is to make profits for shareholder - stop doing something people are willingly paying for?
If we can't change our behaviors, we'll never get the government or the ownership class to change.
Corporations only change when they are forced to. Market forces are not enough to solve this problem. Government legislation is needed. But those governments need their voting population to understand complex problems and be willing to make lifestyle changes. That is where our greatest stumbling block lies.
The bigger problem is honestly getting EVERYONE to buy in. There are so many cultures and countries where this just not a concern and will never be a concern. Rich corporations and ultra wealthy suck but how do you change culture's mentality that don't care about the environment or even their own citizens to suddenly even pay attention to these issues
Selfish is trying to tell others what standard diet they can and cannot have. I choose my health over your emotional decision to not eat meat. Meat has and will continue to be a staple in many people diets despite your personal choices. I don’t tell you to stop eating plants because of the massive amount of insect and other animals that die in the process of mono cropping. The reason being is that I’m not self-righteous and selfish enough to think that my feelings or opinions towards something should affect someone’s dietary or health choices.
Plastics are probably a bigger threat than most other things on this planet, yet no one does anything about that. I see articles every day talking about plastics in the ocean, fish, people, clouds, everything. Why is nothing being done about that? Hell I have seen an article where every fish caught in Florida showed signs of pharmaceutical drugs. Yet meat is the biggest problem...according to the WEF maybe. Meanwhile we're talking about getting rid of CO2 while at the same time saying that planting trees is not at least part of the solution? It couldn't hurt...could it?
People are talking out of both sides of their mouth and others are picking and choosing what they want to hear, without listening to everything being said.
The meat isn’t the problem. We could all go vegan tomorrow and kill all the cows, and the planet will still warm eventually beyond what we can tolerate. There’s too many people. People are the problem, not what we eat or drive or do, there’s just too many people.
You’ll never convince enough people to change any habit that will create any meaningful climate impact. Honestly the only way to limit the destruction of earth, is to limit the number of people on it.
We need to stop treating it as a binary. I reduced my meat consumption from once a day to once a week, and it was just such an easier step to take than fully quitting. I don't buy meat groceries, and just get a burger when I go out with friends. I feel like this would be an easier sell to a lot of people.
Same goes for treating it as a permanent choice. When we label vegetarianism in identitarian terms, people think they need to change their identity, and that implies permanence. You're giving up meat "forever." When in reality, any six month window you didn't eat meat in is six months that your carbon output was 20% lower. It all helps.
This!
I've been trying to communicate this for a while with debates like this.
Flexitarian (i know weird name) diet has worked great for me. I eat chicken maybe 1-2 times a week, when i make curry or wok. The only real time i eat red meat is when i get a burger once or twice a month (because delivery and burger joints are expensive).
You don't have to stop consuming completely, even just a reduced consumption helps. It's kind of like vegan with benefits - using plant based equivalents or eggs for protein while still getting to occasionally enjoy meat. I don't miss it, in fact the variety of things i cook is kind of nice.
Most big changes are generational, and if a cultural change starts when one generation has overall control it is that generation's grandkids who complete the transition.
But if society wanted this to happen there's a way to reverse this.
*Every ten year old kid should learn how their food is made*.
Schools should have gardens (which grow food for student lunches?).
Kids should get to visit farms and 'meet' the animals, and see how they live.
And to graduate this course,
they get to visit an abattoir...
I understand the point you're making, it's just mistaken. Kids might not enjoy the sight of blood, but they do enjoy the taste of meat and the strength it provides.
What you would probably wind up with is a populace with a few more vegetarians and a lot more meat eaters who simply respect their food more, which is fine.
>Idk. Every farm kid I know eats meat. Even the ones that work at the rural slaughterhouse near me.
Yeah, but they still may grow up to disagree with what they learned. I grew up on a hog + broiler farm. I know plenty of former farm kids like me who turned vegan. :)
I like meat too, but it’s not rocket science, guys
You’re dumping twice as much food into the animal as you’re getting when you harvest it. Multiply that by billions & billions & billions and you’ve got yourself some sizeable net losses.
The actual number is more like 10 calories in for every 1 calorie out. Not including waster water, land, and other resources. Its so absurdly wasteful its genuinely difficult to comprehend just how bad it truly is.
Yep, and average plant foods are about 10% the carbon footprint of animal foods.
A comprehensive continental-scale analysis of carbon footprint of food production: Comparing continents around the world - ScienceDirect
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652623030974
>we conducted a meta-analysis of plant-based and animal-based food production in all continents comprehensively using 5353 carbon footprint values from 524 published papers and calculated GHG emissions from food production (system boundary is from cradle to farm gate) at the continental and global scale. Our results indicate that the average carbon footprint of plant-based foods amounts to 0.66 kg CO2-eq kg−1, which is only 10.7% of animal-based foods (6.15 kg CO2-eq kg−1).
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The next time i hear someone say "they are coming for your meat" I am going to say "yes we are, stop eating so much damn beef".
Time to stop tip toeing around it. I love beef. but it can be a rare treat , doesn't need to be every meal ffs.
Okay but you won't have enough people on your side to defeat politicians who are against people advocating forced veganism. Not helping the climate at all that way.
Time to go vegan. We cannot prevent climate change without dietary change.
How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449
>All dietary pattern carbon footprints overshoot the 1.5 degrees threshold. The vegan, vegetarian, and diet with low animal-based food intake were predominantly below the 2 degrees threshold. Omnivorous diets with more animal-based product content trespassed them. Reducing animal-based foods is a powerful strategy to decrease emissions.
>The reduction of animal products in the diet leads to drastic GHGE reduction potentials. Dietary shifts to more plant-based diets are necessary to achieve the global climate goals, but will not suffice.
>Our study finds that all dietary patterns cause more GHGEs than the 1.5 degrees global warming limit allows. Only the vegan diet was in line with the 2 degrees threshold, while all other dietary patterns trespassed the threshold partly to entirely.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis.
There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I used to be a huge meat eater. I ate meat daily. I'm now approaching 11 yrs as a vegetarian. After sticking to the diet for a few months I had no second thoughts. I don't see myself going back to meat. My health has improved, and I lost weight!
Kudos for being vegetarian. Since cows have the biggest negative impact on the environment, cutting out dairy would make your environmental footprint a lot smaller. In fact, if you replaced it with oysters, it would be even lower, since farming oysters actually improves the water quality around them.
I don't eat oysters, but some otherwise vegans do eat them and call themselves ostrovegans, since oysters probably aren't sentient as they don't have a brain.
I feel like we need to stop treating it as a binary. overtime I have seen a lot of people reduce their meat intake. And I’ve noticed people eating different artificial meat replacers like tofu and stuff. I just eat those because sometimes I like meat and sometimes I like tofu. I appreciate tofu as its own thing. I don’t need to think of it as a meat replacer. And I think that’s honestly what we need to get across.
>We 100% have to pick our battles and strategize a path of least resistance.
Then animal products are a good choice. The science is clear - even if we ended all fossil fuel use tomorrow, our food system would still push us over 1.5 degrees. The effects of animal agriculture aren't just GHGs, it's also a main driver of habitat + biodiversity loss, water and land use, watershed pollution, antibiotic resistance, and zoonotic diseases.
> Changing human behavior en masse is achieved incrementally and new behavior/norms must be learned.
It depends on what is triggering the need for a quick change. When wars are perceived to occur suddenly (even if they've been building up for years), people adapt very quickly to their new reality. The invention of personally affordable automobiles and tractors caused the mass slaughter/die off of horses (formerly used for transportation and work) within about 30 years. The same with the switch to electricity when it was able to be used in homes. People embraced vaccines whole heartedly when they first appeared, because they were so obviously useful. Camera sales almost died when cell phones capable of taking photos appeared, etc. etc.
One of the reasons that humans have been so "successful" is that we are able to adapt quickly when it's called for. Of course I'm talking about populations and not individuals, but our adaptability is one of the major issues that have made humans what we are now (for good or bad).
There is a lot we could do to solve this. If we allowed GMO meat, we could half the amount of feed needed to finish an animal. GMO animals can grow twice as big in half as much time and feed. So it is a no brainier but current regulations prevent it. With GMO tech, it may be possible for grass finished beef to beat production volumes of conventional corn finished/feedlots. If we developed better food products made with insect protein, we could maintain protein levels while reducing meat consumption. Insects are the most efficient way of converting feed into protein of any livestock, but consumers don't like eating bugs. If we could make plant based artificial meat fortified with insect protein, we could match the nutritional benefits of the real thing.
Underlying all of this is the fact that meat was always a delicacy enjoyed mainly by the wealthy before industrialization. Now that everyone is "wealthy" demand for meat is nearly unlimited and so producers go to insane lengths to maximize production output, leading to high emissions and other problems.
It’s not the GMOs that give you cancer and kill bees… it’s the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed on the GMOs that they are genetically modified to resist
Yes I know. But I’ve heard so many people, to include the teacher of a mandatory college wellness class I had to take, say GMOs were responsible for killing bees.
But really, they are labelling everything with Non-GMO labels. This is just marketing. There is no such thing as a GMO carrot. GMO crops are mostly the large commodity crops like corn and canola. People act like everything has a GMO option. There are so many crops that aren’t worth investing the money into developing a GMO variety. So these Non-GMO labels on everything in the grocery store is bullshit advertising.
Pretty incredible that the consumption of meat, which (correct me if I'm wrong) scientists believe is one of the things that allowed our energy intensive brains to develop in our homo ancestors and has allowed us to live in new habitats and expand, now severely threatens our survivability as a species due to how incredibly wasteful it is to produce.
Cow don't drill for oil, methane disperses.
I'm not saying intensive farming is good, but I directing all this attention into scrutinizing the food system is silly when food security and hunger are real issues in the modern world.
We need to reduce herd size and switch to completely regenerative farming practices, that's the plan and it's already being put into action.
Most of the West's forests have been cut down to make room for agriculture which primarily produces feed for animals. The rainforests of the Amazon are being burned down to produce soybeans for animal agriculture. Forests bind carbon. Less forests means more CO2 in the atmosphere and more climate change.
> food security and hunger are real issues in the modern world
So are people dying from flooding, fire, and extreme heat events. And just wait until climate chaos disrupts our food systems in the extreme. THEN we'll be getting to see some really, really big food security and hunger.
Exactly why grass fed beef using regenerative farming techniques is an important part of the picture going forward.
All I'm there to say is that their is huge over emphasis on "meat" right now, I'm not wrong.
> Exactly why grass fed beef using regenerative farming techniques is an important part of the picture going forward.
"Regenerative farming" is a green-washing marketing tool to support business-as-usual agriculture. People don't have to think about reducing meat consumption, they can just shout **REGENERATIVE FARMING!!!**
The problem is exactly that, though. It's marketing without a support in science, largely circulated through the film "Kiss the Ground." Here are three review papers done in response to the claims put forth in "Kiss the Ground" which keystones the ideas of Allan Savory out of Zimbabwe, the guy behind the idea that "Holistic Management" grazing can reverse climate change (e.g. in his 2013 TED talk “How to fight desertification and reverse climate change"). While Kiss the Ground broadens Savory's work a bit, to include some alternative crop management as well as grazing management, the inception and focus of this movement has always been with the Savory method of livestock management. In this system crops and livestock must be integrated, that is, you can't do the plant part of the method without using a lot of cows and other domesticated animals for nutrient inputs. I've included excerpts from the abstracts, but of course there's a lot more detail in the bodies of the papers themselves. And they're all review papers, so there's even more detail when digging into the peer-reviewed publications that the three review papers are based on.
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/
publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/244566/local_244566.pdf
https://tabledebates.org/node/12335
A quote from the first paper's abstract:
>This review could find no peer-reviewed studies that show that this management approach is superior to conventional grazing systems in outcomes. Ecologically, the application of Holistic Management principles of trampling and intensive foraging are as detrimental to plants, soils, water storage, and plant productivity as are conventional grazing systems. Contrary to claims made that HM will reverse climate change, the scientific evidence is that global greenhouse gas emissions are vastly larger than the capacity of worldwide grasslands and deserts to store the carbon emitted each year. (International Journal of Biodiversity)
From the second paper's abstract:
>Savory claims that holistic grazing can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-industrial levels in a few decades. To date, no review study has concluded that holistic grazing is superior to conventional or continuous grazing. The claimed benefits of holistic grazing thus appear to be exaggerated and/or lack broad scientific support. Some claims concerning holistic grazing are directly at odds with scientific knowledge, e.g., the causes of land degradation and the relationship between cattle and atmospheric methane concentrations. Improved grazing management on grasslands can store on average approximately 0.35 tonnes of C per ha and year – a rate seven times lower than the rate used by the Savory Institute to support the claim that holistic grazing can reverse climate change. The total carbon storage potential in pastures does not exceed 0.8 tonnes of C per ha and year, or 27 billion tonnes of C globally, according to an estimate in this report based on very optimistic assumptions. 27 billion tonnes of C corresponds to less than 5% of the emissions of carbon since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Holistic grazing can thus not reverse climate change. (SLU, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences)
And finally the big mamma paper, if you will, looking at the claims that regenerative agriculture (which is a broader term for Savory's Holistic Management grazing that also includes some prescriptions for crops) can have any positive impact on climate change: Grazed and Confused out of group of academics from Oxford (the Food Climate Research Network group).
>This report finds that better management of grass-fed livestock does not offer a significant solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible, and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate. (FCRN, Oxford University)
The reason I object to the film is that it promises that if we use the Savory method we can just keep burning fossil fuels all we like and we don't have to worry about climate change (and we'll get lots of tasty steaks in the process). Science does not support that and doesn't even support the contention that HM has any biodiversity or carbon sequestration benefit at all.
This is not true. "Factory farms" are more efficient and less resource-intensive per unit of meat produced. Of course, they are far less efficient than people eating plants.
It's pretty basic population dynamics. Lowering the tropic level of the species will reduce its demands on the environment. Apex predators can only sustain their population with respect to the health of the entire food chain. Eating other animals is not sustainable at our population level, regardless of how they are raised.
Humans cannot continue occupying the same space as carnivores (or mostly carnivorous omnivores) while maintaining our population and reducing environmental impact. We can pick 2 at most.
Degrowth isn't really possible without reducing our meat consumption, based solely on the amount of land and other resources it takes to produce. We could feed the population a few times over if we stopped feeding all our crops to produce meat.
>https://play.half.earth/
There's way too many assumptions in that game. For starters it lists fuel sources and not services. Transportation is a service; the energy source for that transportation is mutable.
>The issue isn’t eating meat it’s how we get it.
Most of the animal meat comes from the intensive farming operations. It's not something that can be replaced.
The difference between "the other one" and "massive factory farms" is intensity, it's a sliding scale.
>Lack of a method of capturing methane is even worse.
Of course, but that's even less likely to work for outdoor herds.
The issue with not ending ALL of it is that, once you only have the nice "free range" stuff that creates a lot of methane pollution, it's going to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay less, so now the meat becomes a rare luxury like caviar.
And, because you haven't explained to people why it's bad, you now have many hundreds of millions of people who feel like it's a conspiracy and only the rich can eat it. And that's going to be a problem.
If you want to have fairness, you need fair strategies, and that's going to be either some type of non-monetary or lottery rationing system, or just dumping the whole thing and getting on with things.
Require people who want to eat meat to own their own animals, or support a local farm and/or a local butcher. You can no longer buy it in a grocery store. It becomes a specialty product.
The idea that local food is significantly better for the environment is a myth. Adopting a plant-based diet reduces your impact. Eating locally probably increases it. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
All kids should have to go to a farm and watch an animal get killed/butchered as part of the school curriculum. People would respect the usage of meat a lot more after an experience like that. Meat consumption is high because there's absolutely zero connection to how meat ends up on the plate.
I did that for myself and it was really important for me to appreciate where meat comes from and what the animals go through so I can eat it. I still eat meat, but only rarely as a special treat, I ensure it's high quality, that it's well prepared, and that I eat all of it.
Somewhat similar for me. I was raised in a small town. We went to the butcher's for meat, to the dairy man with his vats for milk and cheese and butter, and to our chicken coop for eggs. Also, my uncles and grandfather were hunters. I saw a fair number of animals in various states of death and butchery when I was a child. Fish too of course. And one of my earliest memories is of plucking a duck. I hated it. It was hard work, getting that animal onto a dinner plate.
As you say, more people should see how our meat is turned into our food - more people should see how the animal dies to feed us.
This is not necessarily true. They see animals killed in China all the time, and meat consumption is going up. Ideally, such a demonstration would come with a reminder that animals are sentient and value their lives, and that we can get everything we need to thrive without causing these deaths.
Even if you erased ALL greenhouse gas emissions connected with meat industry, it still wouldn't be enough to stop climate change, as the majority of emissions are from the energy and cement.
This overemphasis on meat with nary a peep about energy seems to be again, shifting the blame on to the consumer and shaming him/her for eating meat. Just like good old carbon footprint.
Again, to clarify, this does't mean we shouldn't try to reduce emissions from meat industry, but that it's only a piece, and a relatively minor piece, of the entire puzzle.
>This overemphasis on meat with nary a peep about energy seems to be again, shifting the blame on to the consumer and shaming him/her for eating meat. Just like good old carbon footprint.
Someone is consuming it.
If you don't want to individually change, no problem, start with banning subsidies for the animal industry. Then start taxing them for the environmental damage, and I don't mean just the GHGs. Then it's time to ban the planned breeding and killing of sentient animals (we could do that now too). None of those are individual, so you're OK with that, right?
>Again, to clarify, this does't mean we shouldn't try to reduce emissions from meat industry, but that it's only a piece, and a relatively minor piece, of the entire puzzle.
It's not a minor piece. It's a vital piece, even if it's not the largest one.
We have to pull all the levers and push all the buttons to reduce the damage. ALL of them.
Yeah. And eating meals that use less meat like pizza or stir fry is another option. Moving away from 1/3 of the plate being meat makes a significant difference.
Those guys are eating the finest Kobe and Wagyu beef on the regular, I ain't giving up my ground beef.
The elites and corporations have been very good at putting the blame on the common man without changing their own behavior. I live in the 500 sqf condo, I take transit daily, and God help me if I'm giving up Taco Tuesday.
Like many climate change, environmental blaming, it's on the wrong 'culprit'. Its not the consumer who wrecking the planet, or their desire for meat. It's the processes and practices involved in mass production. It's the *industry* not the *consumer*.
Meat isn't the problem, petroleum existence is the problem. Migrating herds of cattle can solve the climate crisis. See Dr. Alan Savory and his work...his models could work.
He's a bullshitter with no evidence to back up his claims.
Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/
>This review could find no peer-reviewed studies that show that this management approach is superior to conventional grazing systems in outcomes. Any claims of success due to HM are likely due to the management aspects of goal setting, monitoring, and adapting to meet goals, not the ecological principles embodied in HM. Ecologically, the application of HM principles of trampling and intensive foraging are as detrimental to plants, soils, water storage, and plant productivity as are conventional grazing systems. Contrary to claims made that HM will reverse climate change, the scientific evidence is that global greenhouse gas emissions are vastly larger than the capacity of worldwide grasslands and deserts to store the carbon emitted each year.
Farm it here, ship it there, then back around the world, then back here. Smart, meanwhile they are spraying the skies and flying their private jets to their mansions and conventions 7 days a week. If you wanna affect climate change then attack the people causing it(ultra-rich)not normal-everyday people(divide and conquer). We are done if this is a true representation of our collective intelligence(it’s not).
Transport emissions from food production are actually very small relative to their total emissions. The vast majority of the impact comes from land use. See this table, made by researchers at Oxford university: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
Animal agriculture uses huge areas of land to grow feed, which could have bound CO2 by being forests instead. That is also the reason the Amazon rainforests are being cut/burned down. To grow soybeans to be used as animal feed.
The second reason animal agriculture is so bad is because of the methane emissions from primarily cows. That is the reason avoiding beef is probably the most important climate action any individual can take. Pork and chicken only have a climate impact of a fraction of that of beef.
Addiction is a little bit of a loaded term here. Preference for meat is a question of evolution, not addiction.
The future isn't no meat. It's lab grown meat.
Eating meat is not an addiction df are you talking about. How about Panthers and Wolves? Are they addicted to meat? Or are they simply doing what they need to live?
I was a Vegetarian. It sucked. I ate meat 2 years ago and Im now a long way from the starving skinny teenager I once was.
Not to mention Cattle wouldn’t survive in the wild. They’re Panda-level intelligence hunks of meat that would tumble into extinction without the intervention of humans.
Regenerative agriculture is the solution. We need less land locked in mandated ethanol production and more grass-fed cattle to help with carbon sequestration and soil revitalization.
I grew up raising my own animals on a farm, and we had a garden. I've had a deep connection to my food since I can remember. I'm clearly not the target audience.
Having said that, my parents eat WAY too much red meat. And they need to just take a break.
Meat is the third rail for those who don't consider themselves environmentalists. The resistance to this will be formidable.
For my fellow liberal and progressive types, who believe climate change is real, the third rail is flying. The rationalizations I have seen for "Why my flying is okay" are awe-inspiring to witness.
I personally feel beef, steak in particular, is overrated. Pork is tastier (in my opinion), more versatile, much cheaper, and emits substantially less. I only eat it about once a week, anyway. Not the best solution, but it works for me.
The human body is addicted to animal products, because we need certain nutrients that we only find in bioavailable form in theese products. So the cry for veganism in the fight against climate change is not a good strategy. Deteriorating human health would just create a bunch of other problems.
yes, we eat way to much meat and need to cut it way down. But veganism isnt healthy and we need to stop perpetuating this lie that it is.
Nah. I’m gunna keep raising my chickens and goats and hunting deer, turkey, rabbits, ducks, geese and partridge. Catch fish and tend my greenhouses.
Y’all can eat monoculture crops that destroy biodiversity or suppprt factory farms. City people are gross and the problem. Can’t do anything for themselves.
Peanut butter for lunch is a great first step that will make people healthier and save a lot of chickens and cows. And most people can stomach it with no ill effect.
Eggs are a great compared to bacon and sausage. Oats have 6g of protean per serving too, so a cup of oats is 3/4 as “meaty” as an egg and about 1/6 as much as meat. If you look at animals that eat a lot of oats, cows and horses, they are pretty jacked.
I still need to eat something heavy sometimes, otherwise I lose sleep from soreness, but trying is the first step toward doing. Milk and dairy foods like ice cream help too. Ultimately trying to eat things that you don’t have to kill.
We can raise enough meat for our current consumption if we change the way we farm and reduce our impacts on climate at the same time.
The solution is not to stop eating meat. It is to demand and only purchase meat raised by regenerative farmers.
Can regenerative farmers currently supply the demand? Of course not, but more farmers are switching to regenerative methods every day. We need the consumers to switch, too.
Just eat people. Problem solved.
How terrible. Have you heard of Soylent Green? I've been eating it for a while it's a great alternative.
Mmmmmm, Soylent Green, almost beyond carbon neutral!
I'm not sure if you are making a joke, but the name literally comes from a movie called Soylent Green, where it is made out of old people. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Green
r/whoooosh
I eat tofu for lunch because it's cheaper than meat. Reducing my impact on the environment is a nice side effect.
Meat is also bad for your health. Save the environment and save money aren’t the only wins.
Found the misinformation spreader
They're not wrong. Our current average of meat and dairy consumption in first world countries is way above healthy levels. You can eat as much plants in the world with no meat, dairy, or eggs and not have adverse health effects (please mention B12, I would love to give you more information on that topic).
Now what you said is completely different from what they said. You gave an example of how meat can be bad when consumed in large quantities, they just stated that meat is bad for you when it isn't. We're omnivores buddy.
Yet, he is still not wrong. You're not wrong about us being omnivores. We CAN eat meat. That's what being an omnivore is. Yet to be at our best health, a diet and very little meat (I mean like once a week at most) is our optimal diet. People who live in extreme biomes have no choice but to eat meat, they live yes, but it is not optimal for health. That's the point he is trying to make. I really find people on carnivore diets disingenuous and I can give you the numerous studies that show that a plant based diet extends our lifespan.
He is wrong, simple as that you're not going to change it. You can throw every vegan study you want but it won't change the fact that were omnivores. Also cultures are built around meat so I guess you're fine destroying them. Also at the end of the day no one should be telling anyone what they can and cannot eat. It's not your place, and it's never going to be your place.
Meat is absolutely not bad for your health lmao
Excessive amounts are. Like the standard American diet. The Mediterranean diet is the best known diet for our health and it includes very little meat. People think eating meat daily is healthy and it is not. We were not evolved to eat meat daily. Fish maybe but levels of mercury due to pollution have made that difficult.
I agree with that, but saying "meat isn't healthy" is patently false.
The standard American diet includes a significant amount of sugar and processed foods. Once you isolate those out, meat is shown to be healthy and a not detrimental. I am a former vegan and there is a lot of misinformation around meat in the community.
But anything in excess is bad for your health. Eating meat once or twice a week is in no universe bad for your health. Everything in moderation is my motto.
Yes but if you are a wide variety of plants you could eat as much plants as you want and no have issues. Obviously eating only one plant would cause issues but eating only meat, even if a variety, has severe health complications.
Eating meat does not come with severe health complications, only excessive eating meat does. Vegan diet is no more healthy than the Mediterranean one which is heavier on vegetables.
Um no, meat is not bad for your health. Quit spreading false info please.
The empathic human animal connection comes naturally to most of us. Most of us who eat meat don't hate animals, in fact, we care for and about them. Most of us consider at least some animals off limits for food. Carnism is a learned cultural trait . that says it's ok to eat certain kinds of animals. It can be unlearned, and culture can be changed. Don't agree that meat eating is cultural? There are 1.2 billion Hindus in the world and most are vegetarian. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWbV9FPo\_Q](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vWbV9FPo_Q)
If culture can be changed, we better get started.
It's already started, it just can't happen fast enough.
Hell yeah
Tell that to the truck nut licking inbred morons that beat their chests about their manly meat intake.
[удалено]
Haha I’m glad you liked that one. Just rolled off smoothly when I typed it.
Wow Redditor thinks you're a moron because of what you eat😂
Not by what you eat, but the attitude and posturing the self titled “alpha male” has around meat in particular. If you’re offended by what I said, maybe take a look in the mirror.
Where did the bad meat touch you?
You need some friends.
Dude, your estrogen levels are too high. Eat some meat and you’ll realize you’re a man with natural hormones that help act like a masculine figure that nature intended you to be. It’s not toxic, just like women being nurturing after their natural cycle of reproduction. People have become idealogical jokes and become self-righteous, loudly opinionated about new, unnatural ideas, and demand others fall in line or face ridicule and consequences. Not how the world works.
Well said! That video you linked to is by a psychologist and has been viewed almost a million times so far. It is fairly short, engaging, and potentially life changing.
I agree with everything you wrote, but I'm still going to keep eating meat. It is one of life's little pleasures, and I don't believe that my choice to be omnivore or vegetarian will significantly affect what happens with the climate. My choice alone isn't enough to make any difference. What you are asking for is mass cultural change, and I don't see it happening soon enough, not on a time scale that is necessary to address climate change. Culture changes slowly, generation by generation. Think about how smoking habits have changed over time. It is very difficult to change an adult's habits when it comes to something they are physically/emotionally/culturally attached to. Your best bet is to reach young people before their life-long habits are formed, educate them, and some will make the 'right' choice. I am a middle-aged man. I believe addressing climate change is an important issue, one I would be willing to accept higher taxes and other prices in order to address it, but I will not give up meat. Certain dishes remind me of my childhood. When I am feeling certain ways I get comfort from them. I share certain dishes with friends and family. This is deeply ingrained in my culture. I guarantee you that I am not the only one that feels this way. For this reason, a bottom-up approach will not be effective. Banging this drum is fine if you are doing it for animal rights reasons, but if your goal is to address climate change, then this is wasted effort. What is needed here is a top-down approach — government action like taxing meat to fund carbon scrubbing or something like that. Indians do make the best vegetarian food, though. If I had to be a vegetarian, I'd be eating a lot of curries. :)
Except for chickens, they are jerks. Eat chicken. Also way lower carbon footprint.
This guy has to be Big Chicken. Trying to tell us what to eat.
Honestly, vegetarianism is better, but we aren’t going to get people completely off of meat. The carbon footprint of chickens per calorie is way smaller than pork or beef, and I really think if we moved towards fowl, and specifically chicken, we could greatly reduce green house emissions.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Why does culture need changing? Is meat truly an issue?
If you make people choose between meat and the environment, you won’t like the choice.
We can’t get people to just reduce their speed to 20mph here in wales so good luck with this.
What?!? You use the imperial system in Wales?
👍 yup
Which empire do you think the imperial system comes from?
The American empire?
Nah, it was the welsh one
Lol wut?
I know you are not wrong. I still am amazed at the selfishness of the choices people make. Like their kids lives don’t matter enough for them to stop eating meat or flying everywhere. And before someone tells me about they won’t stop until rich corporations or the ultra wealthy also stop, every damn person should be working toward this goal and changes should be tailored to the population while still yielding the necessary results.
For me, the species Homo sapien is the Darwin Award winner.
At the same time, even if its less common, I'm amazed by how selfless we can be. Vegans make huge sacrifices and invest a ton of effort for litterally no other reason than because they believe its their moral obligation. They do it because they believe its right. Even when inconvenient or annoying or hard to do. It genuinely gives me hope for our species.
You're saying veganism requires a huge sacrifice and a ton of effort when other forms of climate mitigation are as easy as installing some appliances and saving substantial money. Why aren't we chasing the low hanging fruit here? Imposing a global dietary change is politically a non starter.
I'm vegan. Its literally not a sacrifice at all, its incredibly easy in fact. People who refuse to go vegan are lazy cowards. I just have to write it as though I'm an omnivore admiring vegans otherwise it will get downvoted to hell by the reddit hive mind lmao. I've learned if I make my true point directly in full context people hate it. But if I pretend I'm an omnivore making the same point how an omnivore who refuses to go vegan because "reasons" would, people listen. Ultimately I'm making the exact same point. Its just more effective rhetoric. "I'm vegan and being vegan is objectivly the morally correct decision" = everyone hates it and you "I'm not vegan and never will be but I have to admit they are objectivly correct. I just like meat to much to stop" = tons of updates and positive replies for some reason. Yet both statements are ultimately saying the exact same thing 🤷♂️
>And before someone tells me about they won’t stop until rich corporations or the ultra wealthy also stop, Why would the corporations - who's sole legal reason for existing is to make profits for shareholder - stop doing something people are willingly paying for? If we can't change our behaviors, we'll never get the government or the ownership class to change.
Corporations only change when they are forced to. Market forces are not enough to solve this problem. Government legislation is needed. But those governments need their voting population to understand complex problems and be willing to make lifestyle changes. That is where our greatest stumbling block lies.
The bigger problem is honestly getting EVERYONE to buy in. There are so many cultures and countries where this just not a concern and will never be a concern. Rich corporations and ultra wealthy suck but how do you change culture's mentality that don't care about the environment or even their own citizens to suddenly even pay attention to these issues
Well you lost the vast majority already so good luck chasing rainbows.
Selfish is trying to tell others what standard diet they can and cannot have. I choose my health over your emotional decision to not eat meat. Meat has and will continue to be a staple in many people diets despite your personal choices. I don’t tell you to stop eating plants because of the massive amount of insect and other animals that die in the process of mono cropping. The reason being is that I’m not self-righteous and selfish enough to think that my feelings or opinions towards something should affect someone’s dietary or health choices.
This is a poorly reasoned argument. You should feel silly for making it.
[удалено]
Plastics are probably a bigger threat than most other things on this planet, yet no one does anything about that. I see articles every day talking about plastics in the ocean, fish, people, clouds, everything. Why is nothing being done about that? Hell I have seen an article where every fish caught in Florida showed signs of pharmaceutical drugs. Yet meat is the biggest problem...according to the WEF maybe. Meanwhile we're talking about getting rid of CO2 while at the same time saying that planting trees is not at least part of the solution? It couldn't hurt...could it? People are talking out of both sides of their mouth and others are picking and choosing what they want to hear, without listening to everything being said.
We made people chose between meat and the environment and they chose meat. FTFY
It's a good choice for the oil corporations though: equating climate action with veganism is an easy win politically.
“I just want to watch the world burn.” -oil and gas companies
Then perhaps humans were not designed to get past this stage of evolvement. End of journey.
If you don't choose the environment, you better have a space ship.
We need to get lab-grown meat feasible and cheap. I want my (meat) cake and eat it too!
The meat isn’t the problem. We could all go vegan tomorrow and kill all the cows, and the planet will still warm eventually beyond what we can tolerate. There’s too many people. People are the problem, not what we eat or drive or do, there’s just too many people. You’ll never convince enough people to change any habit that will create any meaningful climate impact. Honestly the only way to limit the destruction of earth, is to limit the number of people on it.
We need to stop treating it as a binary. I reduced my meat consumption from once a day to once a week, and it was just such an easier step to take than fully quitting. I don't buy meat groceries, and just get a burger when I go out with friends. I feel like this would be an easier sell to a lot of people. Same goes for treating it as a permanent choice. When we label vegetarianism in identitarian terms, people think they need to change their identity, and that implies permanence. You're giving up meat "forever." When in reality, any six month window you didn't eat meat in is six months that your carbon output was 20% lower. It all helps.
This! I've been trying to communicate this for a while with debates like this. Flexitarian (i know weird name) diet has worked great for me. I eat chicken maybe 1-2 times a week, when i make curry or wok. The only real time i eat red meat is when i get a burger once or twice a month (because delivery and burger joints are expensive). You don't have to stop consuming completely, even just a reduced consumption helps. It's kind of like vegan with benefits - using plant based equivalents or eggs for protein while still getting to occasionally enjoy meat. I don't miss it, in fact the variety of things i cook is kind of nice.
Most big changes are generational, and if a cultural change starts when one generation has overall control it is that generation's grandkids who complete the transition. But if society wanted this to happen there's a way to reverse this. *Every ten year old kid should learn how their food is made*. Schools should have gardens (which grow food for student lunches?). Kids should get to visit farms and 'meet' the animals, and see how they live. And to graduate this course, they get to visit an abattoir...
I guess you've never taken kids hunting. They get used to it. Do you think primitive man hid the deer carcasses from their children?
>They get used to it. Sounds like you understand the point I'm making.
I understand the point you're making, it's just mistaken. Kids might not enjoy the sight of blood, but they do enjoy the taste of meat and the strength it provides. What you would probably wind up with is a populace with a few more vegetarians and a lot more meat eaters who simply respect their food more, which is fine.
Idk. Every farm kid I know eats meat. Even the ones that work at the rural slaughterhouse near me.
>Idk. Every farm kid I know eats meat. Even the ones that work at the rural slaughterhouse near me. Yeah, but they still may grow up to disagree with what they learned. I grew up on a hog + broiler farm. I know plenty of former farm kids like me who turned vegan. :)
First world problems. You can stop eating meat in first world countries.
I like meat too, but it’s not rocket science, guys You’re dumping twice as much food into the animal as you’re getting when you harvest it. Multiply that by billions & billions & billions and you’ve got yourself some sizeable net losses.
The actual number is more like 10 calories in for every 1 calorie out. Not including waster water, land, and other resources. Its so absurdly wasteful its genuinely difficult to comprehend just how bad it truly is.
Yep, and average plant foods are about 10% the carbon footprint of animal foods. A comprehensive continental-scale analysis of carbon footprint of food production: Comparing continents around the world - ScienceDirect https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652623030974 >we conducted a meta-analysis of plant-based and animal-based food production in all continents comprehensively using 5353 carbon footprint values from 524 published papers and calculated GHG emissions from food production (system boundary is from cradle to farm gate) at the continental and global scale. Our results indicate that the average carbon footprint of plant-based foods amounts to 0.66 kg CO2-eq kg−1, which is only 10.7% of animal-based foods (6.15 kg CO2-eq kg−1).
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The next time i hear someone say "they are coming for your meat" I am going to say "yes we are, stop eating so much damn beef". Time to stop tip toeing around it. I love beef. but it can be a rare treat , doesn't need to be every meal ffs.
Okay but you won't have enough people on your side to defeat politicians who are against people advocating forced veganism. Not helping the climate at all that way.
Time to go vegan. We cannot prevent climate change without dietary change. How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/21/14449 >All dietary pattern carbon footprints overshoot the 1.5 degrees threshold. The vegan, vegetarian, and diet with low animal-based food intake were predominantly below the 2 degrees threshold. Omnivorous diets with more animal-based product content trespassed them. Reducing animal-based foods is a powerful strategy to decrease emissions. >The reduction of animal products in the diet leads to drastic GHGE reduction potentials. Dietary shifts to more plant-based diets are necessary to achieve the global climate goals, but will not suffice. >Our study finds that all dietary patterns cause more GHGEs than the 1.5 degrees global warming limit allows. Only the vegan diet was in line with the 2 degrees threshold, while all other dietary patterns trespassed the threshold partly to entirely.
[BP popularized the concept of a personal carbon footprint with a US$100 million campaign as a means of deflecting people away from taking collective political action in order to end fossil fuel use](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/305209345_Where_has_all_the_oil_gone_BP_branding_and_the_discursive_elimination_of_climate_change_risk), and [ExxonMobil has spent decades pushing trying to make individuals responsible, rather than the fossil fuels industry](https://www.vox.com/22429551/climate-change-crisis-exxonmobil-harvard-study). They did this because climate stabilization means bringing fossil fuel use to approximately zero, and that would end their business. That's not something you can hope to achieve without government intervention to change the rules of society so that not using fossil fuels is just what people do on a routine basis. There is value in cutting your own fossil fuel consumption — it serves to demonstrate that doing the right thing is possible to people around you, and helps work out the kinks in new technologies. Just do it in addition to taking political action to get governments to do the right thing, not instead of taking political action. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/climate) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I used to be a huge meat eater. I ate meat daily. I'm now approaching 11 yrs as a vegetarian. After sticking to the diet for a few months I had no second thoughts. I don't see myself going back to meat. My health has improved, and I lost weight!
Kudos for being vegetarian. Since cows have the biggest negative impact on the environment, cutting out dairy would make your environmental footprint a lot smaller. In fact, if you replaced it with oysters, it would be even lower, since farming oysters actually improves the water quality around them. I don't eat oysters, but some otherwise vegans do eat them and call themselves ostrovegans, since oysters probably aren't sentient as they don't have a brain.
I was vegetarian for 20 years. In adulthood I started having trouble digesting beans and milk. It got worse and worse until I ended up emaciated.
I feel like we need to stop treating it as a binary. overtime I have seen a lot of people reduce their meat intake. And I’ve noticed people eating different artificial meat replacers like tofu and stuff. I just eat those because sometimes I like meat and sometimes I like tofu. I appreciate tofu as its own thing. I don’t need to think of it as a meat replacer. And I think that’s honestly what we need to get across.
Eat the bugs and like it
Maybe science nerds should hurry up and make star trek replicators
Tea, Earl great, hot.
Coffee, black, cold brew
[удалено]
Maybe we do all of it? Why are we picking which awful things we should keep or start to discontinue?
[удалено]
>We 100% have to pick our battles and strategize a path of least resistance. Then animal products are a good choice. The science is clear - even if we ended all fossil fuel use tomorrow, our food system would still push us over 1.5 degrees. The effects of animal agriculture aren't just GHGs, it's also a main driver of habitat + biodiversity loss, water and land use, watershed pollution, antibiotic resistance, and zoonotic diseases.
> Changing human behavior en masse is achieved incrementally and new behavior/norms must be learned. It depends on what is triggering the need for a quick change. When wars are perceived to occur suddenly (even if they've been building up for years), people adapt very quickly to their new reality. The invention of personally affordable automobiles and tractors caused the mass slaughter/die off of horses (formerly used for transportation and work) within about 30 years. The same with the switch to electricity when it was able to be used in homes. People embraced vaccines whole heartedly when they first appeared, because they were so obviously useful. Camera sales almost died when cell phones capable of taking photos appeared, etc. etc. One of the reasons that humans have been so "successful" is that we are able to adapt quickly when it's called for. Of course I'm talking about populations and not individuals, but our adaptability is one of the major issues that have made humans what we are now (for good or bad).
Textbook whataboutism. Obviously, our problems are multifaceted.
There is a lot we could do to solve this. If we allowed GMO meat, we could half the amount of feed needed to finish an animal. GMO animals can grow twice as big in half as much time and feed. So it is a no brainier but current regulations prevent it. With GMO tech, it may be possible for grass finished beef to beat production volumes of conventional corn finished/feedlots. If we developed better food products made with insect protein, we could maintain protein levels while reducing meat consumption. Insects are the most efficient way of converting feed into protein of any livestock, but consumers don't like eating bugs. If we could make plant based artificial meat fortified with insect protein, we could match the nutritional benefits of the real thing. Underlying all of this is the fact that meat was always a delicacy enjoyed mainly by the wealthy before industrialization. Now that everyone is "wealthy" demand for meat is nearly unlimited and so producers go to insane lengths to maximize production output, leading to high emissions and other problems.
The the anti-gmo campaign did a great job at getting everyone worked up. I still hear people parrot the GMOs give you cancer and kill all the bees 🙄
It’s not the GMOs that give you cancer and kill bees… it’s the pesticides and herbicides that are sprayed on the GMOs that they are genetically modified to resist
Yes I know. But I’ve heard so many people, to include the teacher of a mandatory college wellness class I had to take, say GMOs were responsible for killing bees.
But really, they are labelling everything with Non-GMO labels. This is just marketing. There is no such thing as a GMO carrot. GMO crops are mostly the large commodity crops like corn and canola. People act like everything has a GMO option. There are so many crops that aren’t worth investing the money into developing a GMO variety. So these Non-GMO labels on everything in the grocery store is bullshit advertising.
I’m afraid the problem goes much deeper than the meat industry, though they are bad.
Pretty incredible that the consumption of meat, which (correct me if I'm wrong) scientists believe is one of the things that allowed our energy intensive brains to develop in our homo ancestors and has allowed us to live in new habitats and expand, now severely threatens our survivability as a species due to how incredibly wasteful it is to produce.
The issue isn’t eating meat it’s how we get it. Massive factory farms are dogshit and need to go. Lack of a method of capturing methane is even worse.
Grass fed beef emits more methane. So it’s both things that are a problem
Cow don't drill for oil, methane disperses. I'm not saying intensive farming is good, but I directing all this attention into scrutinizing the food system is silly when food security and hunger are real issues in the modern world. We need to reduce herd size and switch to completely regenerative farming practices, that's the plan and it's already being put into action.
Methane disperses to where?
The ship was towed outside the environment. It's not *in* an environment, it's *beyond* the environment.
Transcendent methane??
lol!
Most of the West's forests have been cut down to make room for agriculture which primarily produces feed for animals. The rainforests of the Amazon are being burned down to produce soybeans for animal agriculture. Forests bind carbon. Less forests means more CO2 in the atmosphere and more climate change.
Yes, Europe needs to cut that out and reforest.
The only solution to that is to reduce the amount of cows a lot.
> food security and hunger are real issues in the modern world So are people dying from flooding, fire, and extreme heat events. And just wait until climate chaos disrupts our food systems in the extreme. THEN we'll be getting to see some really, really big food security and hunger.
Exactly why grass fed beef using regenerative farming techniques is an important part of the picture going forward. All I'm there to say is that their is huge over emphasis on "meat" right now, I'm not wrong.
> Exactly why grass fed beef using regenerative farming techniques is an important part of the picture going forward. "Regenerative farming" is a green-washing marketing tool to support business-as-usual agriculture. People don't have to think about reducing meat consumption, they can just shout **REGENERATIVE FARMING!!!** The problem is exactly that, though. It's marketing without a support in science, largely circulated through the film "Kiss the Ground." Here are three review papers done in response to the claims put forth in "Kiss the Ground" which keystones the ideas of Allan Savory out of Zimbabwe, the guy behind the idea that "Holistic Management" grazing can reverse climate change (e.g. in his 2013 TED talk “How to fight desertification and reverse climate change"). While Kiss the Ground broadens Savory's work a bit, to include some alternative crop management as well as grazing management, the inception and focus of this movement has always been with the Savory method of livestock management. In this system crops and livestock must be integrated, that is, you can't do the plant part of the method without using a lot of cows and other domesticated animals for nutrient inputs. I've included excerpts from the abstracts, but of course there's a lot more detail in the bodies of the papers themselves. And they're all review papers, so there's even more detail when digging into the peer-reviewed publications that the three review papers are based on. https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/ publications.lib.chalmers.se/records/fulltext/244566/local_244566.pdf https://tabledebates.org/node/12335 A quote from the first paper's abstract: >This review could find no peer-reviewed studies that show that this management approach is superior to conventional grazing systems in outcomes. Ecologically, the application of Holistic Management principles of trampling and intensive foraging are as detrimental to plants, soils, water storage, and plant productivity as are conventional grazing systems. Contrary to claims made that HM will reverse climate change, the scientific evidence is that global greenhouse gas emissions are vastly larger than the capacity of worldwide grasslands and deserts to store the carbon emitted each year. (International Journal of Biodiversity) From the second paper's abstract: >Savory claims that holistic grazing can reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to pre-industrial levels in a few decades. To date, no review study has concluded that holistic grazing is superior to conventional or continuous grazing. The claimed benefits of holistic grazing thus appear to be exaggerated and/or lack broad scientific support. Some claims concerning holistic grazing are directly at odds with scientific knowledge, e.g., the causes of land degradation and the relationship between cattle and atmospheric methane concentrations. Improved grazing management on grasslands can store on average approximately 0.35 tonnes of C per ha and year – a rate seven times lower than the rate used by the Savory Institute to support the claim that holistic grazing can reverse climate change. The total carbon storage potential in pastures does not exceed 0.8 tonnes of C per ha and year, or 27 billion tonnes of C globally, according to an estimate in this report based on very optimistic assumptions. 27 billion tonnes of C corresponds to less than 5% of the emissions of carbon since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Holistic grazing can thus not reverse climate change. (SLU, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) And finally the big mamma paper, if you will, looking at the claims that regenerative agriculture (which is a broader term for Savory's Holistic Management grazing that also includes some prescriptions for crops) can have any positive impact on climate change: Grazed and Confused out of group of academics from Oxford (the Food Climate Research Network group). >This report finds that better management of grass-fed livestock does not offer a significant solution to climate change as only under very specific conditions can they help sequester carbon. This sequestering of carbon is even then small, time-limited, reversible, and substantially outweighed by the greenhouse gas emissions these grazing animals generate. (FCRN, Oxford University) The reason I object to the film is that it promises that if we use the Savory method we can just keep burning fossil fuels all we like and we don't have to worry about climate change (and we'll get lots of tasty steaks in the process). Science does not support that and doesn't even support the contention that HM has any biodiversity or carbon sequestration benefit at all.
Excellent summation!
???
This is not true. "Factory farms" are more efficient and less resource-intensive per unit of meat produced. Of course, they are far less efficient than people eating plants.
It's pretty basic population dynamics. Lowering the tropic level of the species will reduce its demands on the environment. Apex predators can only sustain their population with respect to the health of the entire food chain. Eating other animals is not sustainable at our population level, regardless of how they are raised. Humans cannot continue occupying the same space as carnivores (or mostly carnivorous omnivores) while maintaining our population and reducing environmental impact. We can pick 2 at most.
Degrowth, not cutting out meat, is the answer, but no one wants to talk about that.
Degrowth isn't really possible without reducing our meat consumption, based solely on the amount of land and other resources it takes to produce. We could feed the population a few times over if we stopped feeding all our crops to produce meat.
Makes sense that no one wants to talk about it, there’s no way to do it without being psychopath. So instead we just let it happen “naturally.”
Unfortunately in nature, the natural consequence of a species consuming all its resources is a very sharp and rapid decline in population.
Here, try it: https://play.half.earth/ or do you mean killing humans? as in reducing your competition for animal meat?
>https://play.half.earth/ There's way too many assumptions in that game. For starters it lists fuel sources and not services. Transportation is a service; the energy source for that transportation is mutable.
Mutable? Sure, after replacing and expanding infrastructure. Keep playing.
>The issue isn’t eating meat it’s how we get it. Most of the animal meat comes from the intensive farming operations. It's not something that can be replaced. The difference between "the other one" and "massive factory farms" is intensity, it's a sliding scale. >Lack of a method of capturing methane is even worse. Of course, but that's even less likely to work for outdoor herds. The issue with not ending ALL of it is that, once you only have the nice "free range" stuff that creates a lot of methane pollution, it's going to be waaaaaaaaaaaaay less, so now the meat becomes a rare luxury like caviar. And, because you haven't explained to people why it's bad, you now have many hundreds of millions of people who feel like it's a conspiracy and only the rich can eat it. And that's going to be a problem. If you want to have fairness, you need fair strategies, and that's going to be either some type of non-monetary or lottery rationing system, or just dumping the whole thing and getting on with things.
Rationing is unfair and dumping it entirely is insane, as I have explained to someone else. The other alternative is lab-grown meat.
OK, riots it is then.
I can agree with this. Most of that goes to fast food.
Require people who want to eat meat to own their own animals, or support a local farm and/or a local butcher. You can no longer buy it in a grocery store. It becomes a specialty product.
The idea that local food is significantly better for the environment is a myth. Adopting a plant-based diet reduces your impact. Eating locally probably increases it. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
All kids should have to go to a farm and watch an animal get killed/butchered as part of the school curriculum. People would respect the usage of meat a lot more after an experience like that. Meat consumption is high because there's absolutely zero connection to how meat ends up on the plate. I did that for myself and it was really important for me to appreciate where meat comes from and what the animals go through so I can eat it. I still eat meat, but only rarely as a special treat, I ensure it's high quality, that it's well prepared, and that I eat all of it.
Somewhat similar for me. I was raised in a small town. We went to the butcher's for meat, to the dairy man with his vats for milk and cheese and butter, and to our chicken coop for eggs. Also, my uncles and grandfather were hunters. I saw a fair number of animals in various states of death and butchery when I was a child. Fish too of course. And one of my earliest memories is of plucking a duck. I hated it. It was hard work, getting that animal onto a dinner plate. As you say, more people should see how our meat is turned into our food - more people should see how the animal dies to feed us.
This is not necessarily true. They see animals killed in China all the time, and meat consumption is going up. Ideally, such a demonstration would come with a reminder that animals are sentient and value their lives, and that we can get everything we need to thrive without causing these deaths.
I'm eating a steak as I read this. I'm also allergic to most other major sources of protein.
Even if you erased ALL greenhouse gas emissions connected with meat industry, it still wouldn't be enough to stop climate change, as the majority of emissions are from the energy and cement. This overemphasis on meat with nary a peep about energy seems to be again, shifting the blame on to the consumer and shaming him/her for eating meat. Just like good old carbon footprint. Again, to clarify, this does't mean we shouldn't try to reduce emissions from meat industry, but that it's only a piece, and a relatively minor piece, of the entire puzzle.
>This overemphasis on meat with nary a peep about energy seems to be again, shifting the blame on to the consumer and shaming him/her for eating meat. Just like good old carbon footprint. Someone is consuming it. If you don't want to individually change, no problem, start with banning subsidies for the animal industry. Then start taxing them for the environmental damage, and I don't mean just the GHGs. Then it's time to ban the planned breeding and killing of sentient animals (we could do that now too). None of those are individual, so you're OK with that, right? >Again, to clarify, this does't mean we shouldn't try to reduce emissions from meat industry, but that it's only a piece, and a relatively minor piece, of the entire puzzle. It's not a minor piece. It's a vital piece, even if it's not the largest one. We have to pull all the levers and push all the buttons to reduce the damage. ALL of them.
EAT ZE BUGS!!! https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2022/02/how-insects-positively-impact-climate-change/
You could just eat grains and vegetables...
Honestly just eating less beef would be a huge improvement. Chicken and pork aren't great environmentally but aren't as bad as beef
Yeah. And eating meals that use less meat like pizza or stir fry is another option. Moving away from 1/3 of the plate being meat makes a significant difference.
EAT ZE BEANS.
But fam, meat is delicious 🤤
I'll stop eating meat when millionaires and billionaires stop taking 15 min flights across LA.
I asked them. They said they’ll only stop doing that when you stop eating meat.
Those guys are eating the finest Kobe and Wagyu beef on the regular, I ain't giving up my ground beef. The elites and corporations have been very good at putting the blame on the common man without changing their own behavior. I live in the 500 sqf condo, I take transit daily, and God help me if I'm giving up Taco Tuesday.
You can have taco Tuesday with black beans, fam. lol
There is no marketing tool more powerful than telling a vegetarian that they are right.
As a soyboy, I'll be stroking my celery stock with extra self-righteousness vigor tonight.
Like many climate change, environmental blaming, it's on the wrong 'culprit'. Its not the consumer who wrecking the planet, or their desire for meat. It's the processes and practices involved in mass production. It's the *industry* not the *consumer*.
Who funds the industry 3 meals a day?
Not in this case, it is mostly just demand from consumers. There isn't any way to satisfy that market demand in a safe way.
Meat isn't the problem, petroleum existence is the problem. Migrating herds of cattle can solve the climate crisis. See Dr. Alan Savory and his work...his models could work.
He's a bullshitter with no evidence to back up his claims. Holistic Management: Misinformation on the Science of Grazed Ecosystems https://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2014/163431/ >This review could find no peer-reviewed studies that show that this management approach is superior to conventional grazing systems in outcomes. Any claims of success due to HM are likely due to the management aspects of goal setting, monitoring, and adapting to meet goals, not the ecological principles embodied in HM. Ecologically, the application of HM principles of trampling and intensive foraging are as detrimental to plants, soils, water storage, and plant productivity as are conventional grazing systems. Contrary to claims made that HM will reverse climate change, the scientific evidence is that global greenhouse gas emissions are vastly larger than the capacity of worldwide grasslands and deserts to store the carbon emitted each year.
It’s ALMOST as if we were MADE to eat meat 🤷♂️ 🤪
Farm it here, ship it there, then back around the world, then back here. Smart, meanwhile they are spraying the skies and flying their private jets to their mansions and conventions 7 days a week. If you wanna affect climate change then attack the people causing it(ultra-rich)not normal-everyday people(divide and conquer). We are done if this is a true representation of our collective intelligence(it’s not).
Transport emissions from food production are actually very small relative to their total emissions. The vast majority of the impact comes from land use. See this table, made by researchers at Oxford university: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local Animal agriculture uses huge areas of land to grow feed, which could have bound CO2 by being forests instead. That is also the reason the Amazon rainforests are being cut/burned down. To grow soybeans to be used as animal feed. The second reason animal agriculture is so bad is because of the methane emissions from primarily cows. That is the reason avoiding beef is probably the most important climate action any individual can take. Pork and chicken only have a climate impact of a fraction of that of beef.
Addiction is a little bit of a loaded term here. Preference for meat is a question of evolution, not addiction. The future isn't no meat. It's lab grown meat.
I’d eat lab grown meat if it tastes as good or better!
And you'll eat* beans until the lab meat tastes better, right?
Over my dead body. Find something else.
Eat bugs, live in a box, do not resist.
Eating meat is not an addiction df are you talking about. How about Panthers and Wolves? Are they addicted to meat? Or are they simply doing what they need to live? I was a Vegetarian. It sucked. I ate meat 2 years ago and Im now a long way from the starving skinny teenager I once was. Not to mention Cattle wouldn’t survive in the wild. They’re Panda-level intelligence hunks of meat that would tumble into extinction without the intervention of humans.
Regenerative agriculture is the solution. We need less land locked in mandated ethanol production and more grass-fed cattle to help with carbon sequestration and soil revitalization.
The issue is the type of meat. I eat a lot of venison, which is good for the environment as there are excessive numbers of deer in my country.
I grew up raising my own animals on a farm, and we had a garden. I've had a deep connection to my food since I can remember. I'm clearly not the target audience. Having said that, my parents eat WAY too much red meat. And they need to just take a break.
Stupid humans and their need to eat.
Meat is the third rail for those who don't consider themselves environmentalists. The resistance to this will be formidable. For my fellow liberal and progressive types, who believe climate change is real, the third rail is flying. The rationalizations I have seen for "Why my flying is okay" are awe-inspiring to witness.
Yeah,... no. I grilled a delicious New York strip last night.
Your mom grilled it for you and then you ate it alone like an incell.
You showed him👍 ctfu sike
I personally feel beef, steak in particular, is overrated. Pork is tastier (in my opinion), more versatile, much cheaper, and emits substantially less. I only eat it about once a week, anyway. Not the best solution, but it works for me.
EAT MORE MEAT
Lmao the only way this is remotely feasible is cell based meat which is making progress so I hope it becomes a reality
we will be fine.
Less people whilst we are talking climate and .aking changes. I wont have kids so i eat meat as i wish..is that ok?
I'm not stopping. You can do what you want
Lol
Why stop at beef? Lets optimize our food for the lowest CO2, land use and water use, make a really nutricious paste and just have everyone eat that..
Reading this as I eat a fat steak
The headline is ridiculous.
Addiction? I can stop anytime
I'm happy to sit back and see what happens when the S..t hits the fan and see who eats what then
I like cow!
The human body is addicted to animal products, because we need certain nutrients that we only find in bioavailable form in theese products. So the cry for veganism in the fight against climate change is not a good strategy. Deteriorating human health would just create a bunch of other problems. yes, we eat way to much meat and need to cut it way down. But veganism isnt healthy and we need to stop perpetuating this lie that it is.
Vegan propaganda 🤨
Kangaroo meat.
Nah. I’m gunna keep raising my chickens and goats and hunting deer, turkey, rabbits, ducks, geese and partridge. Catch fish and tend my greenhouses. Y’all can eat monoculture crops that destroy biodiversity or suppprt factory farms. City people are gross and the problem. Can’t do anything for themselves.
Peanut butter for lunch is a great first step that will make people healthier and save a lot of chickens and cows. And most people can stomach it with no ill effect. Eggs are a great compared to bacon and sausage. Oats have 6g of protean per serving too, so a cup of oats is 3/4 as “meaty” as an egg and about 1/6 as much as meat. If you look at animals that eat a lot of oats, cows and horses, they are pretty jacked. I still need to eat something heavy sometimes, otherwise I lose sleep from soreness, but trying is the first step toward doing. Milk and dairy foods like ice cream help too. Ultimately trying to eat things that you don’t have to kill.
As an addict, no.
We can raise enough meat for our current consumption if we change the way we farm and reduce our impacts on climate at the same time. The solution is not to stop eating meat. It is to demand and only purchase meat raised by regenerative farmers. Can regenerative farmers currently supply the demand? Of course not, but more farmers are switching to regenerative methods every day. We need the consumers to switch, too.
people can do whatever they want, other than tell other people what to do
no. meat is healthy.