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Eating meat creates four times more greenhouse gases than being vegan, landmark study finds
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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In this thread: Shit loads of people who will say they care about the climate crisis on one day, then say they don't care about the 18.5% of global carbon emissions that the meat industry causes the next day because they can't get over the decade worth of anti-veganism jokes and memes that they've constantly repeated uncritically.
Individual habits MUST be changed to solve this part of the problem, there is literally no way around that. Getting triggered and writing screeds because you've spent decades getting caught up in hate over food choices won't stop the planet burning.
It's insane how hard the cognitive dissonance hits. Everyone is trying to find excuses to justify their choices
I used to be a smoker several decades ago and didn't defend smoking as hard as people defend meat.
Some people have made eating meat and making fun of vegans their entire personality. They buy things and spend time posting on social media about it. It is basically their hobby. Really sad, honestly.
I think part of it is that, similar to console wars there's like a consumer choice loyalty thing. But on top of that there's also a resistance generated by the moral part. And that's all in addition to the usual resistances to change.
Nope, gotta blame "the cooperations" because God forbid you admit cooperations only pollute because of your own demand.
Animal agriculture is a particularly good example here because literally nothing will ever make meat sustainable (except growing it in a lab).
Growing it in a lab is likely worse that growing it in an animal. Synthetic imitations are the only efficient replacement.
It is genetically the same thing? Have you ever read something on cultured meat before you made this statement?
What other solutions would you propose to the problem of meat production contributing 18.5%?
This mindset is going to get us all killed. I don't think you're quite aware of how serious it is. Climate scientists are now saying that things are happening faster than we ever predicted, they are warning that tipping points will be hit in the next 2-5 years. The time for change is now or literally never.
I am not even a vegan. I can see how right this is though. I did smoke in the past though and I know how hard that was to give up, I also know what a load of bollocks excuses I made up to justify continuing it.
I agree. I personally think we need the intervention to look similar to the way we changed smoking habits. There needs to be a multi-pronged approach that includes massive propaganda about the dangers of climate change, made visible in imagery on the meats, alongside massive tax increases on meat products and banning advertising of them. Banning branding and forcing generic branding would be useful too, that worked extremely well across europe for smoking. Spoiler warning for shock imagery:
spoiler
Meat free products are a big part of it. But growing that industry has to come alongside ending the old one, it won't grow to fill the gap without also making it competitively viable. If governments got behind ending meat in this way you'd see massive investments going into the alternatives as it would be obvious to the financial class that it will be a growth market.
No amount of individual choices can save the planet. The climate change causes by corporations is sufficiently world ending. So even if literally every single person on the planet went vegan it wouldn't be enough. The idea of a personal carbon footprint was created by BP in order to make people put the blame on themselves. The only way to stop it is mass industrial action. Personal choice, at least at this point, is completely irrelevant.
The only way to do this is to not buy products that are incredibly harmful to the climate and voting for politicians that want to sharpen climate policy. Industries won't regulate themselves. Acting like the consumer/voter can't do shit is just straight up lying and results in inaction.
I never said anything about not voting for industrial action. But if you look at it logically, if there's no industrial action with or without consumer choices the world burns, but if there is industrial action then with or without consumer choices (partly because the industrial action would alter what choices are available) the world has a chance to survive. So in our current situation devoting energy and thought to consumer choices is not just pointless if you would otherwise be working towards industrial action in any capacity it is actively detrimental (hence why BP created it as a concept)
Again who is going to work towards industrial action? Not the industries... That's not how capitalism works. Do you really think that asking them to be more climate friendly will work?
Industries listen to two things: money and policy. And I'm not even so sure about the latter. Vote at the ballot and vote with your wallet.
If you don't want to change, the CEO of BP won't either because he's still getting those tasty dollars out of your pockets at the pump and through government aid.
How do you think regulations work?? The poster is correct, no amount of individual action will save us. We need to collectively fight for regulations that force - not ask - businesses to change. “That’s now how capitalism works” — what does that even mean??
On the other hand, we could always just wait for the rich to tighten meat production and put us all on nutri-loaf.
Ahh yes we can just wait for the rich to willingly reduce their profits. I'm sure that will come before the heat death of the planet.
Don’t worry, such a change would be accompanied by significant increases in the price of nutri-loaf.
The natural market forces at work.
How you gonna change the world if you can't even change what you have for breakfast?
That still leaves over 80% in other industries. Though I'll admit dialing back ones meat consumption is advisable anyway, if only for health reasons, blaming meat consumption on anti-veganism is naive. For me personally it's about texture and taste and not somebody telling me that eating salad leads to deficiencies. Until real alternatives, not some crappy beyond meat soy proteins, emerge and are affordable, nothing will change on that front
Edit: phrasing
Yeah but we need to dial everything back, because we can't dial all industries back. Every single gain that we can make is worthwhile and this one is easy for almost everyone except those with understandable dietary problems like IBS sufferers and crohns. It's an area that we could completely eradicate our carbon output in, not just that but certain crops can actually be carbon positive so increasing what we need of them through replacement in diet is actually beneficial.
If you don't make the change there won't be any texture or taste soon because climate change is going to make the food supply collapse. If your country doesn't have a revolution in the chaos the government will go into rationing and you will have no choice. If the revolution succeeds the new government will do the same. And if that does not happen the country will just be in persistent civil war as people starve and die. These are the incoming realities of climate change. They are unavoidable if action is not taken literally yesterday.
Thank god we have people like you who can predict the future. Tell me will this next revolution starve those people before or after carbon emissions collapse our food chain?
Jesus christ mate I'm not the person saying it, the climate scientists are. The main warning happening now is that everything is happening faster than predicted and that we're likely to hit tipping points in 2-5 years that cause cascading failures destroying global food supplies.
Open your eyes ffs
Climate change deniers can eat my ass. The predictions have been true, what's worse is that they're happening a decade faster than predicted.
It's not that eating meat accounts for 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, it's the meat industry that does. I think if we do away with certain practices in the meat industry (ie. Feedlots), we'll see those numbers go down. Maybe if we can go back to hunting as our primary method of getting meat, that would also help.
Sadly, less intense meat production only uses more resources, as more land is needed. The longer an animal lives, the more resources it uses.
6 billion hunters would be a sight to behold!
Only if you factor in a constant demand which is not realistic. If supply goes down and meat becomes expensive, nobody can afford thier weekly meat anymore except for the rich.
Likewise, I'm sure.
It's not enough on its own, sure, but not taking any action will basically guarantee we miss climate targets. We have to reduce fossil fuels and reduce meat consumption
(emphasis mine)
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357
Totally agree. I was just highlighting how the excerpt I quoted could've been posted by either position; I wouldn't have been able to tell which.
Just think about it mate. Changing foods is better than watching the oceans acidify and all life around us die, mass crop failure, worldwide famines and societal collapse, fighting everyone for whatever exists. 6billion people will become 1billion and you'll be taking your chances on being one of the few that doesn't starve.
The future we're heading towards right now is not going to be fun. It's time to adapt rapidly to what needs to be done, or die.
Oh I agree. I was simply pointing out that the statement I highlighted can totally be applied by either side of the debate, verbatim.
It actually made me chuckle, since if it were the only thing in your comment, I wouldn't have known what your position was.
All that being said, I agree it's adapt rabidly or die. The real tragedy here in the short term, is it's going to be the worlds most vulnerable populations to die first.
I think it will surprise people when it happens. Nobody will be safe. When global food supply collapses it won't just be the poor countries that go into crisis. I'm fairly sure that it will simultaneously happen to almost everyone. The countries least likely to be harmed are the ones with large rice crops.