'We Can't End Climate Change Without Changing Our Eating Habits' (theguardian.com) 393
Saturday the Guardian published a call to action by the author of the new book, We are the Weather: Saving the Planet Begins at Breakfast:
[W]e cannot save the planet unless we significantly reduce our consumption of animal products. This is not my opinion, or anyone's opinion. It is the inconvenient science. Animal agriculture produces more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire transportation sector (all planes, cars and trains), and is the primary source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions (which are 86 and 310 times more powerful than CO2, respectively). Our meat habit is the leading cause of deforestation, which releases carbon when trees are burned (forests contain more carbon than do all exploitable fossil-fuel reserves), and also diminishes the planet's ability to absorb carbon. According to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, even if we were to do everything else that is necessary to save the planet, it will be impossible to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord if we do not dramatically reduce our consumption of animal products...
There is a place at which one's personal business and the business of being one of seven billion earthlings intersect. And for perhaps the first moment in history, the expression "one's time" makes little sense. Climate change is not a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, which can be returned to when the schedule allows and the feeling inspires. It is a house on fire. The longer we fail to take care of it, the harder it becomes to take care of, and because of positive feedback loops -- white ice melting to dark water that absorbs more heat; thawing permafrost releasing huge amounts of methane -- we will very soon reach a tipping point of "runaway climate change", when we will be unable to save ourselves, no matter how much effort we make...
The four highest impact things an individual can do to tackle the planetary crisis are: have fewer children; live car-free; avoid air travel; and eat a plant-based diet... [E]veryone will eat a meal relatively soon and can immediately participate in the reversal of climate change. Furthermore, of those four high-impact actions, only plant-based eating immediately addresses methane and nitrous oxide, the most urgently important greenhouse gases.... We cannot keep eating the kinds of meals we have known and also keep the planet we have known. We must either let some eating habits go or let the planet go. It is that straightforward, and that fraught.
Beef has the biggest "greenhouse gas impact," according to a recent article in the New York Times (followed by lamb and then "farmed crustaceans.") While there's also some impact from pork, poultry, farmed fish and even eggs, their table suggests it's a small fraction when compared to the climate impact of beef and lamb.
There is a place at which one's personal business and the business of being one of seven billion earthlings intersect. And for perhaps the first moment in history, the expression "one's time" makes little sense. Climate change is not a jigsaw puzzle on the coffee table, which can be returned to when the schedule allows and the feeling inspires. It is a house on fire. The longer we fail to take care of it, the harder it becomes to take care of, and because of positive feedback loops -- white ice melting to dark water that absorbs more heat; thawing permafrost releasing huge amounts of methane -- we will very soon reach a tipping point of "runaway climate change", when we will be unable to save ourselves, no matter how much effort we make...
The four highest impact things an individual can do to tackle the planetary crisis are: have fewer children; live car-free; avoid air travel; and eat a plant-based diet... [E]veryone will eat a meal relatively soon and can immediately participate in the reversal of climate change. Furthermore, of those four high-impact actions, only plant-based eating immediately addresses methane and nitrous oxide, the most urgently important greenhouse gases.... We cannot keep eating the kinds of meals we have known and also keep the planet we have known. We must either let some eating habits go or let the planet go. It is that straightforward, and that fraught.
Beef has the biggest "greenhouse gas impact," according to a recent article in the New York Times (followed by lamb and then "farmed crustaceans.") While there's also some impact from pork, poultry, farmed fish and even eggs, their table suggests it's a small fraction when compared to the climate impact of beef and lamb.
So do your part and "Eat An Eviromentalist" ? (Score:5, Funny)
N/T
Re:So do your part and "Eat An Eviromentalist" ? (Score:5, Funny)
Vegetarians are my favorite food. Especially cows.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:So do your part and "Eat An Eviromentalist" ? (Score:5, Funny)
I have always been carbon neutral. I have never driven a car (I have several very nice bicycles and use the metro), my home has solar electric + I have paid for green energy for decades, I am a vegetarian,
You are a good and wonderful person, who is making a difference in this world! Thank you for all that you have done.
I don't have children (and I don't ever want any)...
Unfortunately, all the good people like you seem to be a dying breed these days... Not sure what's going on here.
We have to change everything we do (Score:5, Insightful)
and we don't have the will so we, or rather many who'll come after us, are screwed.
Re:We have to change everything we do (Score:4, Insightful)
and we don't have the will so we, or rather many who'll come after us, are screwed.
No, they aren't. A quick look at places like North Korea and many other dictatorships shows overbearing government is far worse for humanity.
Easy does it. It is not an argument for total centralized planning and control.
Re: We have to change everything we do (Score:3)
No one cares about that. Tens of thousands of years ago, humans were hunter gatherers, everything was free: game, fresh water and air, plants. However humans learned as populations grew that they had to manage populations of plants and animals so they donâ(TM)t all get eaten, and agriculture was born. Then, you had to pay the farmer/rancher who kept custody over cows and wheat to preserve them. In recent times we find ourselves with less clean water like in Flint, so we are having to pay for that so it
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, maybe not everything, but a lot of the things we have to do are a good idea for other reasons.
I have no intention of becoming a vegetarian, but I'm eating a healthier diet than I used to, featuring a smaller quantity of higher quality meat. Of course due to government subsidies meat is ridiculously cheap, so I'm not saving any money, but I'm actually eating better food and it's good for me, so that's a win, and no sacrifice.
I have no intention of giving up my car, but except in special circumstances I
All sorts of bad assumptions behind this.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Even if we were willing to stipulate that conventional meat farming is necessarily unsustainable (which I do not), poster totally ignores the possibility of manufactured meat proteins which would have a radically different feed stock infrastructure.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm hopeful that lab grown meat can develop quickly and become a part of our diets, but it's not something that can be relied upon and we have to have a more realistic plan. Fortunately plant based meat substitutes are pretty damn good and the costs are falling rapidly.
Re:All sorts of bad assumptions behind this.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Plant based meat substitutes I've seen all have lousy nutritional quality and high price. If you don't want to eat meat, just cook a meal using plant based ingredients, rather than eating industrial frankenfoods.
Lab grown meat has the same problem as other industrial foods: made for lowest possible price, without regard for health.
Re:All sorts of bad assumptions behind this.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly like meat based burgers
I try to avoid those too. I make my own food using big chunks of fresh meat.
In theory it could be a lot better than cheap natural meat.
Using the same theory, infant formula could be a lot better than cheap natural breast milk. However, it is not even close. Just look at the ingredients of infant formula, and you can see that the manufacturers aren't even trying. It's basically cheap junk food with a multivitamin pill.
Grown in a controlled environment
But much simpler than a real animal. The muscle of a cow is constantly infused with blood, containing a very complex mix of nutrients, made in other organs such as the liver, the skin, and even gut bacteria (it's those gut bacteria that are responsible for B12 vitamin, for instance). Lab grown meat will be designed to operate with the cheapest ingredient mix, not the most nutritionally complete. It's all about shareholder value.
Re: (Score:2)
Fortunately plant based meat substitutes are pretty damn good and the costs are falling rapidly.
I finally got around to trying an Incredible burger at Epcot over the weekend. There's no mistaking it for the grass-fed real thing, but it was certainly better than the crap McDonald's passes off as beef.
Only has to be good enough to stop people from going all 2nd amendment on the folks who want to take their real beef away, I suppose...
Re: (Score:2)
In the last month I've tried (not ordered for me) two burgers in two different places that I'd be totally OK with eating all the time.
(and I use "real" burgers as a reference, not the muck they sell at McDonalds, etc)
Both were tasty, juicy, good texture, etc.
I asked what they were and both were made with peas. Go figure...
If I go back to either of those places I wouldn't have any problem ordering one. One was at "Honest Burgers" in London, the other was in a restaurant in Spain somewhere, no particular bran
Re: (Score:2)
Given the gullibility of the population and the amount of money the meat/gasoline lobby is spending on FUD stories like this, that's probably the way forward, yes.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
A $5 package of cuts of beef ought to be $40 or $50 to start.
Yup, and gasoline should cost $20/gallon, electricity $1.00/kw, and people can start bitching for $50/hr minimum wages.
Also, why do only the poor have to be punished by efforts to save the environment? Make the rich suffer equally: Ban beef, ban ALL cars (no skipping out on the hardship of being car-less by getting an expensive EV), etc. Your money can't save you now, Mr. Richie Rich! /s
This is a threat from Big Oil (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the oil conglomerates saying "If you mess with us, you're life will be hell. No more meat. No more cars. No more vacations. We'll hurt you."
The antidote to this B.S. is the Green New Deal. But see the GND means 10 million new middle class jobs over 10 years. That would double total new jobs and quadruple the number of good paying jobs. And so you've got Big Labor (the real one, the "Job Creators" who want to keep the H1-B gravy train coming and wages going down down down) fighting that tooth and nail since more middle class jobs means they have to pay higher wages to compete.
All of this is a scam to keep all the wealth and prosperity of the modern age to themselves. Don't fall for it. We're better than that. Smarter. We see through their lies.
Re:This is a threat from Big Oil (Score:5, Informative)
It's lies. 100 companies are responsible for 70% of Emissions. When you've got a fire on your hands you spray at the source, not at the top of the flames.
Tell that to the politicians pretending to fight the opioid crisis. They seem to be willing to try almost any measure except going after the US based pharmaceutical firms manufacturing the drugs that are the cause of the opioid epidemic and the businesses handing the opioids out like smarties at a children's birthday party. Blaming everything and everyone except the people profiting from the destruction being wrought around you is an old and much treasured tradition in free market societies.
Re: This is a threat from Big Oil (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Now consider your typical politician. It's likely they found out about the crisis even later than you did.
Re: (Score:3)
Tell that to the politicians pretending to fight the opioid crisis. They seem to be willing to try almost any measure except going after the US based pharmaceutical firms manufacturing the drugs that are the cause of the opioid epidemic and the businesses handing the opioids out like smarties at a children's birthday party. Blaming everything and everyone except the people profiting from the destruction being wrought around you is an old and much treasured tradition in free market societies.
They're only willing to try the same thing that's failed for 50 years, drug war crackdowns. The government is largely responsible for most of the opioid crisis deaths, because their response to overprescribing was to force both abusers and legitimate pain patients off pharmaceutical meds and on to random fentanyl analogs in street heroin. This outcome was predicted.
Meanwhile, countless people are now forced to live in pain because it's nearly impossible to get relief for severe pain now. Many kill themsel
Re:This is a threat from Big Oil (Score:5, Insightful)
Now, then: You're not wrong about some things you said. However: AOC's 'Green New Deal' is too extreme. It's also too much too fast. No one will accept it. AOC is young, and while she has some good ideas, she lacks wisdom, and makes the mistake of thinking she knows everything already. Being a bartender in NYC doesn't make you an expert on human psychology.
We do need to change the way we do some things, namely stop burning things to generate energy, and we need to get over this boogeyman fear of nuclear power. But much of what she wants to do would wreck us.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
What's so extreme about it? What's "too fast" about it?
The problem is that AOC's GND tries to solve the problem with high taxes and subsidies. America is only 5% of the world, and most emission growth is happening in China, India, and Africa. Expensive solutions simply won't work there.
We should be devoting resources to R&D for solutions that are cost effective, rather than on subsidies for immature tech.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that AOC's GND tries to solve the problem with high taxes and subsidies.
Except it literally doesn't include either of those.
Re: (Score:3)
The problem is that AOC's GND tries to solve the problem with high taxes and subsidies.
Except it literally doesn't include either of those.
The word you are looking for is "explicitly" rather than "literally". I agree that it only calls for trillions of dollars in new government spending, but does not explicitly say where that money will come from.
Maybe the Mexicans will pay for it.
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't have details, just goals, so the answer is easy:
Fox News told him so.
Re: (Score:2)
Pretty much everything on both counts. It's too shocking to the average person, and that would cause them to dig their heels in. Nothing would get done, there'd be push-back, and congresscritters would be forced to listen to their constituents or face not getting re-elected. That's the socio-political reality.
Re: (Score:2)
Truth is the oil will be running out soon, which will, in a roundabout way, mandate all the advice given in this article (fewer children, less transport use, simpler meals), so doing these things by choice now will ease the stress of doing them by necessity later.
We made a Faustian deal in the last decade or so with fracking/shale oil - we gained a few more years of rising production in exchange for a much steeper down-slope at the back end of Hubbert's Peak, which will make adaptation to the post-oil age m
Re: (Score:2)
Truth is the oil will be running out soon, which will, in a roundabout way, mandate all the advice given in this article (fewer children, less transport use, simpler meals)
And more wars and killing.
Re: (Score:3)
Truth is the oil will be running out soon
New oil reserves are being discovered far faster than oil is being pumped out of know reserves.
We have enough oil to last more than two centuries at current usage rates, and there is plenty more to be discovered.
We are not running out of oil. Oil is cheap and abundant, and becoming more so.
Re: (Score:2)
It's lies. This is the oil conglomerates saying "If you mess with us, you're life will be hell. No more meat. No more cars. No more vacations. We'll hurt you."
+1 Informative.
Hm (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I want to eat meat/fish (Score:5, Interesting)
I want to eat meat. I will never become a vegan, because I need meat (my levels of B12 and iron constantly falling if I don't eat enough meat, and I rather get it from real food rather than vitamin pills). Find a way to make it sustainable then. It's not a solution to telling everyone to "stop eating meat". I rather have free range or wild, sustainable, organic meat, than industrialized meat. But to not have any at all, is not an option.
Re: (Score:3)
No one is saying that we should not consume meat at all. What they are saying is that having 8 billion people eating meat three times a day is not sustainable. And that's certainly true.
My parents grew up on eating meat once every other day. That is a perfectly acceptable diet for most of the human population. Why can't we revert to that level of meat consumption that we know is healthy on an individual level and at the ecosystem level?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Just on the subject of B12, it's recommended EVERYONE over the age of 50 take a B12 supplement:
"the IOM recommends that adults older than 50 years obtain most of their vitamin B12 from vitamin supplements or fortified foods"
This is from the US NIH: https://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminB12-HealthProfessional/#h6 [nih.gov]
The age keeps dropping (in a few years I bet it'll state 40 and under), and if you read through the piece B12 deficiencies are common across all ages. If you really want 'natural' B12, start eatin
Re: (Score:2)
If you really want 'natural' B12, start eating feces
Or eat liver. It's cheap and very high in B12.
Re: (Score:2)
Eating less beef and more chicken would be a big step forward. And they really need to internalize the cost of carbon into the price of meat to help people choose what's best for their health and their wallet! Otherwise, the market for protein isn't really free.
Re: (Score:2)
You can get more than enough B12 from cheese, eggs, chicken, etc.
All of those are waaay more sustainable then eating cows/pigs.
There's no shortage of iron in plant foods.
I'm asking, because I don't know (Score:2)
Honestly, I'm asking because I don't follow something.
We use the term "greenhouse gas" because the gas turns the planet into a greenhouse, warming it up by holding the sun in, right?
And we use greenhouses to nurture plant growth, whether it's in our gardens, in our hydroponics, or in our windows.
So wouldn't that mean the planet's plants prefer greenhouse gases?
Doesn't that mean that, like with so many other food cycles that we've destroyed, cutting greenhouse gases would result in less global plant-life?
Obv
Re: (Score:2)
plants don't care about nitrous oxide and methane. They do like co2 and water vapor. The correlation between plants and greenhouse is not the gases, however, it's the warmth.
Re: (Score:2)
Now where have I heard that before?
Kidding aside, that is a argument that you often hear from anti-climate change trolls, and with a very vague basis in science.
Plants could absorb CO2 better iff they also get more nutrition and enough water. This could happen inside an actual greenhouse, but you can't count on it in nature. There is also a maximum capacity, and a whole lot of CO2 goes elsewhere.
It is bad to have the excess in the upper atmosphere. At the same time. ozone is very good
Re: (Score:2)
Well, that's actually a great answer to my question. Also, quite concise. Thanks!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's also not quite right.
CO2 reduces C3 photosynthesis's need for water because less water is wasted. Under low CO2 concentrations, C3 photosynthesis "mis-fires" -- it produces peroxides instead of sugars while still consuming water. Under high CO2 concentrations, these same plants will avoid the unwanted peroxide generation, making them more productive and wasting less water.
Re: (Score:2)
So wouldn't that mean the planet's plants prefer greenhouse gases?
No. An actual greenhouse is a temperature control method. The glass acts to trap heat in, but too much heat and the plants die, thus there are fans and vents in the glass that can be opened to release some of the thermal energy. The actual gases within the greenhouse have nothing to do with the operation of a greenhouse, it's the glass. Additionally, the planet Earth doesn't have vents and fans to exhaust extra energy unlike a greenhouse.
The planet's plants use CO2, but they only use so much. Same thin
Excellent (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep up the draconian scare tactics - you are undermining any legitimate point you might have, and guaranteeing that you will be dismissed by the majority.
Nothing will torpedo the Gobal Warming industry faster than trying to dictate, or tax to oblivion, what people can and can't eat.
Re: (Score:2)
There's no such thing.
dictate, or tax to oblivion, what people can and can't eat.
That's going to happen. Sorry you don't like it.
Bullshit. (Score:5, Insightful)
2. Humans have been evolving into omnivores for a very long time now, you can't just willy-nilly turn back the evolutionary calendar and declare you're an herbivore without dire consequences for overall human health and vitality.
Re:Bullshit. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, humans are omnivores, not meat-eaters.
The thing is that global meat consumption has been steadily increasing. It has practically doubled since 1980.
Is there anyone (who was alive then) who thinks he didn't get enough meat in 1980? That there was a "great meat-shortage"? I don't think so.
Many in the western world eat more than a healthy amount of meat, and especially beef. We are made for a varied diet.
Meat has historically been a "sometimes-food", even for our hunter-gatherer ancestors during the many thousands of years during which our digestion and metabolism evolved.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course I am also an amateur athlete, former fatty, and taught myself to track what I eat every day, like 15 years ago now. I don't over-eat anything, and over-eating protein just makes more bodyfat, and I ain't going there again.
Can't speak for everyone else though. FWIW my observations of the 'average' persons' eating habits is they eat too many carbohydrates and too much dietary fat, and not enou
Re:Bullshit. (Score:5, Interesting)
inconvenient science for you, liar (Score:5, Informative)
Animals are not the majority of the carbon problem, we change change transportation and power generation and problem solved... we can continue to eat meat.
And we will.
take you unscientific vegetarian nonsense elsewhere
Re: (Score:2)
interesting assertion. I would like to see your breakdown of emissions by task in the animal agriculture field vs transportation to see where your info differs from theirs.
Re: inconvenient science for you, liar (Score:3)
Wrong, we need cattle (Score:2)
I don’t necessarily disagree (Score:2)
But the inconvenient truth is - when people use bad science as part of their argument, it just gives their opponents openings to undercut their legitimate concerns.
”... and is the primary source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions (which are 86 and 310 times more powerful than CO2, respectively).”
Which would be valid numbers to use if their relative abundance in the atmosphere were comparable to carbon dioxide’s. However, that’s not the case. So while methane is a concern, carbon
Re: (Score:2)
You are actually attacking the grammar of the sentence, not the science.
The numbers reflect the Carbon Dioxide Equivalent [wikipedia.org] of methane and nitrous oxide, respectively.
It means, how much of a climate impact the same amount of methane/nitrous oxide has compared to the same amount of CO2.
The purpose of the conversion is to be able to count carbon emissions of multiple different gases without being overwhelmed.
The sentence should have said:
"... and is the primary source of methane and nitrous oxide emissions (whi
Re: (Score:2)
You are actually attacking the grammar of the sentence, not the science.
The “grammar of the sentence” appears to have been deliberately chosen to make it sound as if those gasses are even bigger problems than CO2, which is not the case.
Everything you said is basically just a restatement of what I said.
methan (Score:2)
methane [...] 86 times powerful than CO2
While this is true, if you're talking about instantaneous effect, they conveniently forget to mention that methane only has a half life of 9 years.
So if you produce meat from a fixed number of cows, the amount of methane in the atmosphere reaches a constant level after a few decades. At that point, you can keep eating your meat without worsening the greenhouse effect.
The CO2 that you produce stays in the atmosphere for more than 1000 years, so even if the greenhouse effect is smaller, the effect will accum
Re: (Score:2)
you suck (Score:3)
Re: Triggered! (Score:3)
i already started changing my diet (Score:2)
no more steaks or roast, nowadays i do meals with mostly veggies and sometimes i will buy a pound of hamburger and divide it in 4 and put a quarter pound of browned hamburger in a pot of pinto beans along with a little bacon for flavoring, and i cook some rice separately (beans & rice) and just eat it in a bowl or wrap it in a large flour tortilla with cheese & picante sauce, beans & rice can save the environment if the human race is willing to eat it on a regular basi
Re: (Score:2)
Enjoy your broccoli. I'll let you deal with the oxlates, lectins and other nasties while I continue with my plant free diet.
We did ruminant farming long before we knew how to extract oil from under the sea and burn it in engines.
We could talk about the sustainability of an increasingly plant based diet, when grain farming is heavy on greenhouse emissions and *All the usable arable land is already being farmed*. Cows and goats don't need arable land. How's that going to work out? Feeding an increasing popu
Re: (Score:3)
> cows eat HUGE amounts of grass, grain, cattle feed,
Yes. But they co-evolved with grass and have are supposed to eat grass. The grain and cattle feed is what humans give them because we like excess inflammatory omega-6 fats in our beef.
We can't eat grass and we can't grow grains on grassland. But cows eat grass, that their guts turn into short chain fatty acids, that the cows metabolize to turn into more cow, that we can eat. The cow extracts more human nutrition from a unit area of grassland than human
This is based on faulty models (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
That blogger is one of the biggest name in climate science [wikipedia.org], and runs NASA's climate satellite network. His partner on the paper not only is a distinguished NASA scientist [wikipedia.org], but was a lead author for the IPCC. But since they provide inconvenient facts, best to ignore them...
I wonder if you realize the IPCC itself says it cannot model climate long-term because it's too chaotic?
26% of land is used for cattle (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
You spew bullshit.
26% is pasture, those pastures can support 10 times the cattle or more.
Meat eating is NOT destroying the planet.
Transportation and power generation need to be changed, that will solve the problem, and we can continue to eat meat.
It is physically possible, and it will be done.
Re: (Score:2)
Holy shit, you just solved a tremendous world-wide problem! Have you considered approaching the world's meat producers with your revolutionary ideas? I'm sure that nobody has previously considered this. You have just singlehandedly made delicious, delicious meat ten times cheaper for all humans! Huzzah! Huzzah!
Unless we apply science and engineering ... (Score:3)
'We Can't End Climate Change Without Changing Our Eating Habits'
Unless we apply technical solutions, science and engineering, to the problem. As we have done with ever other malthusian crisis that humanity has faced. These crisis are only catastrophic when you freeze technological development. We will (are in the process of) inventing technical solutions to climate change.
Turn to scientists and engineers for solutions, not politicians and political activists.
I'll get right on that, immediately after Al Gore (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll get right on that, immediately after Al Gore goes 100% vegan, sells his beachfront mansion, and gives up his private jet. Until then, let's recognize this shit for what it is: a scam. Note that I'm not denying global warming by saying this. I do think the world is warming, for reasons that aren't fully understood, and have an anthropogenic component. I just don't think "we're all gonna die" in 10 years, and the only way out is science (fusion, nuclear, carbon capture, biotech/genetic engineering), not throwing the world back to preindustrial age.
For the love of pete (Score:2)
Denialists alone are feasting on this article (Score:5, Insightful)
This a typical Grauniad politicized response to a scientific problem. Like the cow fart claim, the only effect of this is to unfairly make the climate problem look silly. If we want this problem to be attacked and solved, please stop publishing this stuff.
Moral Bankruptcy (Score:2, Informative)
Serious? This just goes to show that the Climate Alarmists have gone insane.
Earth is full of carbon based life forms. Carbon sequestration requires the FULL biological life-cycle. EVERYTHING eating EVERYTHING is part of that. Every action the crazy "environmentalists" have taken has actually made the problem worse and they are so fucking full of themselves being right they no longer have the ability to listen to reason.
The proof alone is how they treat anyone not regurgitating and worshiping their insan
from the let's-get-unreal dept (Score:2)
That's a whole lotta supposition going on there (Score:3)
Where are they getting their numbers from? (Score:3)
According to the EPAs website, agriculture (at least in the US) accounts for only 9% of CO2 emissions. Even the international emissions don't appear to be too much different (11% of total). Transportation and electricity releases +3x more CO2 than agriculture EACH (again, US). No doubt we need to improve efficiency in all sectors of our lives, but I fear this is yet another case of targeting some insignificant "problem" (straws, plastic bags, one country/region, etc) while ignoring the larger issues. Often so you can pat yourself on the back at the same time you're thumbing your nose at your political/social rivals. This is especially hypocritical when many of those pushing for things such as this are the same ones that push for "organic" farming, which is FAR more energy intensive compared to normal farming practices and requires vast amounts of fertilizer (animal and fossil fuel based BTW) and extensive operation of farm tractors for constant tilling.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio... [epa.gov]
https://www.c2es.org/content/i... [c2es.org]
Re: (Score:3)
But what the people arguing against eating meet fail to account for is that if we got rid of all the domesticated food animals, that would free up a lot of land currently fenced off by ranchers, and land used to grow plants to feed those domesticated animals. The larger wild herbivores like deer, elk, and bison would then grow in population to take up that newly available space and eat the plants grow
Re: (Score:3)
According to the EPAs website, agriculture (at least in the US) accounts for only 9% of CO2 emissions
No
According to the EPA, agriculture accounts for 9% of ALL "greenhouse gas emissions" - that includes CO2, N20, methane and the fluorocarbons.
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissio... [epa.gov]
Vegan hippie says meat unsustainable (Score:3)
This is ideological imposition,not climate control (Score:3)
All animal produce consumption in the US (including the agricultural needs for those animals) amounts to 3% of the total US carbon footprint. The same happens in all advanced industrial countries (tier 1 in the 4 tier country division). [1] [slashdot.org] [2] [skepticalscience.com]
Reducing all animal consumption in USA and EU, would cut down global emissions by 1%, due to the weight those 2 territories have in global emissions: [3] [wikipedia.org]
All this movement that is already starting to be an imposition about going vegan, is only about an ideological imposition from animal welfare organizations and from people that love to expose themselves as great supporters of environmentalism with their all "going vegan" posts on Instagram. These people have a right to their opinion? Sure. But let's stop this nonsense that they are cutting meat consumption to fight global warming.
Important distinctions to make (Score:3)
Re:oxymoron of being reasonable and prudent (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't see that as a negative thing. There's already way too many people on this planet.
Re:He's right (Score:5, Insightful)
You joke, but:
a) This is wrong: "The four highest impact things an individual can do to tackle the planetary crisis are: have fewer children; live car-free; avoid air travel; and eat a plant-based diet."
and
b) That's exactly the sort of FUD that's being produced by the climate denial lobby in order to make climate deniers self-reinforce their beliefs.
The lobby wants people to think that fixing climate change will need massive self-sacrifice, like not having a car and not eating any more steaks.
Not true. You can easily drive a more economical car (or just relax and use the gas pedal a bit less aggressively), you can easily reduce meat consumption by eating bean (or even chicken) burritos a couple of times a week instead of beef. Nobody's going to suffer much because they had to do that.
Re:He's right (Score:5, Funny)
you can easily reduce meat consumption by eating bean (or even chicken) burritos a couple of times a week instead of beef. Nobody's going to suffer much because they had to do that.
You obviously have never been around men that eat bean burritos. I can assure you that the suffering a few hours later of those around said men is EXTREME.
Re: (Score:2)
If they don't even rinse the beans after cooking, there are probably lots of other things wrong with that burrito.
Gas is mostly caused by certain carbs. If they're present in significant quantities in beans, that's a preparation problem.
The reason you're against dietary changes is that you don't know enough about food to be able to control your intake, so you become afraid of change.
Good news, though: If you switch to goat, that already removes most of the environmental impact of beef.
Re:He's right (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
You obviously have never been around men that eat bean burritos. I can assure you that the suffering a few hours later of those around said men is EXTREME.
Here's a video of this in action [youtube.com].
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, when it is cold, it is "just weather". When it is hot — why it is the Global Warming and something must be done now!!!
Classic.
Why do you constantly lie WindBourne? (Score:3)
How long do you think it will take America to drop both to zero? Are you claiming it will even be possible in a relevant time frame?
Especially when transport is still going up [epa.gov] as it has been for years in America.
Re:Eat insects instead of steak! (Score:5, Insightful)
What we really need to do is stop raising livestock in concentration camp conditions, and instead use managed intensive rotational grazing [wikipedia.org] which actually builds more top soil, thus capturing and sequestering CO2 from the atmosphere. If all beef cattle in the USA were raised this way it would sequester all the CO2 we've emitted since the industrial revolution within a decade or two.
Re:Eat insects instead of steak! (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, we already know how to dramatically reduce the methane emissions from beef. You just add some seaweed to the cows' diet. Why would we need to change our eating habits if the entire problem can be solved with changes to farming habits?
No, what we have here is someone pushing an anti-meat agenda under the guise of climate science.
Re: Eat insects instead of steak! (Score:4, Insightful)
The litany of agendas being pushed under the guise of Climate Change is endless
Re:Eat insects instead of steak! (Score:5, Informative)
You just add some seaweed to the cows' diet.
Feeding seaweed to cows is unethical. Seaweed is not a normal, natural source of food for cows. Even if cows lived near the sea and had abundant sources of seaweed available to eat, cows do not like the taste of seaweed.
The amount of seaweed added to the cow's diet to eliminate most methane production is of the order of one percent, and no one is contemplating wild harvest to obtain the seaweed. Australians are already planning an aquaculture scheme.
Re: (Score:3)
That's a common argument that is total bullshit.
The amount of such land is very small compared to the amount of land that could have been used more efficiently to produce plant protein for human consumption instead of animal feed.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)