Eating the rich is by far the most eco-friendly approach as it can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
I vehemently disagree with this statement.
We need to compost the rich and use that as a soil amendment to grow heirloom vegetables.
Ok, are actively working on this? Is your work on it so horrendously demanding of all your attention of every single day, that you couldn’t ALSO go vegan, or vegetarian, or just eat less meat? Eat the rich is just a fun day dream and a lazy excuse to not do what you can (like going vegan).
Eating the rich would also vastly reduce racism, sexism, classism, and worker exploitation. Can I therefore ignore my negligible personal impact, and keep being racist, sexist, classist, and buy only the cheapest clothes crafted by the most exploited third world toddlers?
You sound like you are fun at parties. This was obviously a joke. Also, Why can’t we do both?
Again, would you think this a joke if racists made it after you told them about small way they are racist every day? Wouldn’t you see very clearly that it’s a way to remove any and all personal responsibility?
And if you had read my comment, you’d actually see I do think we should do both. Most vegans agree, do you think most non-vegans agree? Which of the two groups do you think is more likely to actually do things that affect change in the real world? The shit posters, or the people demonstrating a willingness to change fundamental lifestyle choices?
This crucially important caveat they snuck in there:
“Prof Scarborough said: “Cherry-picking data on high-impact, plant-based food or low-impact meat can obscure the clear relationship between animal-based foods and the environment.”
…which is an interesting way of saying that lines get blurry depending on the type of meat diet people had and/or the quantity vs the type of plant-based diet people had.
Takeaway from the article shouldn’t be meat=bad and vegan=good - the takeaway should be that meat can be an environmentally responsible part of a reasonable diet if done right and that it’s also possible for vegan diets to be more environmentally irresponsible.
That’s both absolutely true and a massive distraction from the point. An environmentally friendly diet that includes meat is going to involve sustainable hunting not factory farming. In comparison an environmentally friendly vegan diet is staples of meat replacements and not trying to get fancy with it. It’s shit like beans instead of meat, tofu and tempeh when you feel fancy. It means rejecting substitutes that are too environmentally costly such as agave nectar as a sweetener (you should probably use beet or cane based sweetener instead).
So in short eat vegan like a poor vegan not like a rich person who thinks veganism is trendy
“So in short eat vegan like a poor vegan not like a rich person who thinks veganism is trendy”
But in the context of this conversation, wouldn’t eating like a poor vegan rely heavily on buying products that also have a heavy impact on the environment?
You would have to buy cheaper products which come from mass produced farms that use TONS and TONS of water! And generate TONS and TONS of carbon emissions during production of those products.
To be vegan AND
advocate for conservation(you can advocate for something no matter your own behavior. That’s the wrong word to use) to claim that your lifestyle is better for the environment than your non-vegan counterparts, you have to have money.I ain’t never heard of a gram of black beans with more co2 emissions than a gram of beef
I upvoted because this message still didn’t reach everyone, but I guess it’s just that people are in denial… like, isn’t this obvious? And weren’t there already dozens of studies proving it?
people ate meat for MILLIONS OF YEARS with negligible global warming effect from the animals
vegans going start blaming the Assyrianz for inventing husbandry before blaming Exxon Mobile BP
like dude pick your battles
You have no idea of the scale we are dealing with.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357
Vegans still care about the ban of oil and many other topics like zero waste, it is not exclusive.
Due to the current infrastructure not everyone can just stop using fossile fuel based transport, but we all can go vegan. So yes, we pick battles, those we can win now and we still fight against what we cant change as individuals.
the whole world can choosd to be a Catholic mate. and it would be a good thing
thats what you sound like. a fascist. People have the RIGHT to choose what they eat
That is a lie.
“study finds eating meat is bad”
no sh*t
I was just talking about this idea with a friend. We decided it would be political suicide in the US for anyone to suggest eating less meat.
People would literally rather see the world burn than give up their chicken nuggets.
I’m not even hardcore vegetarian. I looked at the situation and agreed it’s hard to ethically justify eating meat. So I started eating less. I’m down to pretty much just “sometimes I get a pizza slice with a meat topping if there’s nothing good without meat”. Maybe I’ll cut that out too one day.
People can’t think critically over why they prefer meat over vegetables. They just think they do it because hurr durr meat tastes better or you need protines.
If they actually think about the fact that they have been eating meat for every meal since they were a child they might understand that it is just a habit they have formed.
I strongly suggest to those people to try to have 1 dinner a week without meat or fish. It has nothing todo about taste and all about habits and what you are used to.
Try to challenge yourself a little bit and you might get a better perspective over these things.
Well that’s no surprise. Raising animals for meat is horribly inefficient compared to plants.
A couple of people have spoken to me before about wanting to cut back on, or completely cut meat from their diets, but didn’t know where to start. If anyone reading this feels the same way, here’s some fairly basic recipies that I usually recommend (Bosh’s tofu curry is straight up one of the best currys i’ve ever had - even my non-vegan family members love it)
Written:
- ‘Butter’ Tofu Curry (Written Recipe)
- Lentil Soup (Written Recipe)
- Caribbean Stew (Written Recipe)
- Sweet Potato & Cauliflower Curry Pies (Written Recipe)
- Afghan Kidney Bean Curry (Written Recipe)
Videos:
- 5 Minute Vegan Pasta Sauces (YT / Invidious)
- Ultimate Vegan Chilli (YT / Invidious)
- Enchiladas Verdes (YT / Invidious)
- Ultimate Plant-Based Fried Chicken (YT / Invidious)
- Mac & Cheez (YT / Invidious)
- Wicked Lasagna (YT / Invidious)
- Smash Tacos (YT / Invidious)
Tofu is also super versatile and is pretty climate-friendly. there’s a bazillion different ways to do tofu, but simply seasoning and pan frying some extra/super firm tofu (like you do with chicken) with some peppers and onions, for fajitas, is an easy way to introduce yourself. Here’s a little guide for tofu newbies: A Guide to Cooking Tofu for Beginners - The Kitchn. If you wanna level up your tofu game with some marinades here’s six.
Lentils and beans are also super planet friendly, super cheap, and super versatile! You’ll be able to find recipies all over that are based around lentils and beans so feel free to do a quick internet search.
Sorry for the huge, intimidating wall of text! I do hope someone interested in cutting back on meat found this useful though :)
One of the things that annoys me about vegans… is they always try to convince me [this recipe] always tastes like the real thing.
And I think any one who eats meat on a regular basis is going to know an impossible burger is not beef- it might be the closest, sure.
Probably the best way to “convert” people- or encourage reductions- is to be less apologetic. Tofu is wonderful and delicious as it’s own thing- but as tofu-chicken or tofurky or anything of that sort, it sets expectations that can never be met.
Forgetting to mention a dish that stands in its own happens to be meatless… well, my parents were halfway through the second bowl of a tofu stir fry before they realized it.
It really depends on the food, and just how much “into” food you are. We’re probably never going to have a perfect replacement for a medium rare steak. But how many meat eaters eat medium rare? 90% of the women I know, and 70% of men will happily eat a shoe sole steak smothered in cheap ketchup, or pink sludge pressed into chicken nugget form. Those things can definitely be made vegan, and those people (generally, more often than not) wouldn’t taste the difference.
But yes, meat alternatives (Tofu, Tempeh, BEANS), instead of replacements (Beyond Meat) are the better long term option.
And articles like this require electricity for the duration of it’s existence… and people aren’t going to stop eating meat any time soon
I have, partially based on scientific data like this. It’s okay that you won’t.
Every time I read about meat and greenhouse gases I feel the need to explain the natural carbon circle. A cow does not produce carbon. It takes carbon from plants and releases it to the atmosphere. Then plants retake that carbon.
Humans are adding carbon to the atmosphere by digging out stored carbon from the ground and bring it to the atmosphere.
So we have to fix the part where we bring additional carbon to the atmosphere. But yes, there are other environmental issues with cattle if you read the op’s article.
The Biogenic Carbon Cycle and Cattle: https://clear.ucdavis.edu/explainers/biogenic-carbon-cycle-and-cattle
I feel the need to explain the natural carbon circle.
You know that the problem with ruminants is that they produce methane and not CO2 which is 25 times worse? A cow takes carbon from the ground and the bacteria creates a 25 times more potent GHG. But you are right that creating new fields and tiling the soil is a huge factor.
I feel that anyone who advocates to stop eating meat for methane reasons is a vegetarian in disguise who latched onto global climate change to push their own agenda, having failed to dissuade meat eaters on animal rights grounds. They are doing the fight against climate change a disservice by muddying the waters. If they were serious about methane specifically (which anyone concerned about GHG should be, to within (x*25)% of its contribution), they would be dedicating 10 times more of their time in researching some kind of pill to give the cows to stop them from making methane - a much more feasible outcome. But doing so does not synergize with their animal welfare goals.
The other thing is that cattle needs much more space. From all the fields that we could use to grow food, a large part ends up as cattle fodder.
A cow also produces a lot of methane, a much worse greenhouse gas.
Besides, the problem isn’t the grass from cows grazing, it’s the rainforests that go down all around the world to convert to farmland to produce animal feed.
It’s much more efficient to use that farmland to feed humans than to feed cows and then feed humans (1kg of meat needs 25kg of feed)
Disclaimer - I’m not vegan but I try to reduce my meat consumption overall, especially red meats.
Methane is broken down within 10 years which is pretty short. Yes, the other environmental issues are real. BTW, I am eating less and less meat. I just see a lot of false assumptions regarding carbon in the atmosphere.
This sounds like a balance. Is that balance still intact? Doesn’t the combined effect of unprecedented scale of animal consumption and existing global warming necessitate a compensatory and proportional reduction of GHG?
I like eating meat, but I feel like this is not the complete picture.
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 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.
It largely depends on the way the meat is produced.
You may have beef that is corn fed so you use all the energy of multiple times more corn production and transport to feed them vs. just eating the corn.
Or you may have ranched grass fed beef that eats grass in a field that required nothing other than a fence. No plowing, destroying soil with pesticides and running heavy machinery. A few hundred years ago there were 3 times more roaming bison than there are cows in the US today, so gas isn’t really an issue.
Best reason to go cut down on meat is for health reasons. And be careful of where your meat is sourced.
Correction: it is a factor of 2 not 3. See reply for source.
Grass feed ruminants produce more CO2 than starch feed, grass fed is less than 10% in the US and they still get soy from the rain forest feed, its not exclusive.
You compare wild animals to the 90 billions that are killed each year. To give you some scale: https://xkcd.com/1338/
A few hundred years ago there were 3 times more roaming bison than there are cows in the US today, so gas isn’t really an issue.
I have my doubts that this is correct, or a very conveniently selective statistic, especially considering this
Livestock make up 62% of the world’s mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just 4%.
It’s also much tastier.
There are plenty of things that create more greenhouse gases that should be more thoroughly regulated than eating meat.
There are also plenty of ways to improve the carbon foot print of cows (the worst offenders), like feeding them seaweed: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0249053
I’m looking forward to cultured meat becoming cheap and available. Then we can haz peopleburgers!
I’m all for lab grown meat if it can taste even 90% the same as real meat and have the same benefits.
Would you be good with Bezos saying
I’m all in for robots if they work as fast as humans and are cheaper than the slave wage I pay them now
Yes. I’m all for automation of menial jobs.
But it is cheaper to hire slaves and let them piss in bottles, so you have to accept that as long as robots are not cheaper and faster. As long as robots are not 90% as fast and cheap as humans.
Not it doesn’t, and that was basically industry propaganda: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/jul/13/seaweed-cow-feed-trial-fails-methane-reduction-australia
Did you read the article you posted?
"Australian trial of seaweed cow feed fails to achieve hoped-for methane cuts
Longest trial so far of supplement derived from red seaweed produced 28% less of the greenhouse gas – a much smaller reduction than in previous studies."
So, not as much as the 97% in the shorter trials, but 28% is certainly statistically significant, and doesn’t really fall under the category of “industry propaganda.” They also used less seaweed for this trial and used a breed not tested before, along with an open air sampling process, while other trials had been indoor, sealed environments. Even if other breeds had the same weight gain issue (no evidence of that so far) and needed to wait longer until slaughter it’s still a 19% reduction.
Even with 19% it’s still many many many many many percent wrose than plant based alternatives.
It’s absolutely propaganda, I know you agree. I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume you’re against racism.
Assume some “preliminary study” made the rounds that 97% of black people do X (X being a bad thing), and everyone talked about it, and it was in sooo many news stories, and sooo many racists used that study to argue that racism is correct, akshually. Now, a year or so later, a bigger study reveals that it’s not 97%, it’s 19% percent. It’s not making the rounds, because it’s boring news, and noone that talked about the earlier study even notices, and you STILL have to constantly bring up this new result, because people are STILL quoting the older study. You genuinely don’t think that’s propaganda? The fact that the study good for the racists made it to so many news outlets, but the not so good one didn’t? That noone anywhere put any money towards making that happen?
Having fewer children is the number one thing you can do. And it’s not even close.
I mean, do the other things anyway if you like. They can’t hurt. They may even save you money. But they won’t save an overpopulated planet.
The graphics 58,6 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per Year and Child are 266,25% higher than the average americans 16 tonnes and 1365% higher than the global average of 4 tonnes.
What are the assumptions on that hypothetical child’s lifestyle? Will it roll coal and eat beef jerky 24/7?
The Guardian article says thatfigure was calculated by totting up the emissions of the child and all their descendants, then dividing this total by the parent’s lifespan. Each parent was ascribed 50% of the child’s emissions, 25% of their grandchildren’s emissions and so on.
Considering the global total fertility rate dropping from now 2.42 childs per woman to 1.66 in 2100, a global sex ratio of 101:100, average age at first child of 28 and a global life expectancy of currently 74.3 years (82.1 in 2100) my crude calculation would look like this:
0.5 * 4t * (74.3 + 28 * ((82.1 - 74.3) / (2100 - 2023))) / 74.3 + 0.25 * 4t * (74.3 + 56 * ( 7.8 / 77 )) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 28 * ((2.42 - 1.66) / (2100 - 2023))) / (201 / 100) + 0.125 * 4t * (74.3 + 84 * ( 7.8 / 77 )) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 56 * ( 0.76 / 77 )) / 2.01 + 0.0625 * 4t * (74.3 + 112 * 0.1012 ) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 84 * 0.0098 ) / 2.01 + 0.0313 * 4t * (74.3 + 140 * 0.1012 ) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 112 * 0.0098 ) / 2.01 + 0.0156 * 4t * (74.3 + 168 * 0.1012 ) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 140 * 0.0098 ) / 2.01 + 0.0078 * 4t * (74.3 + 196 * 0.1012 ) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 168 * 0.0098 ) / 2.01 + 0.0039 * 4t * (74.3 + 224 * 0.1012 ) / 74.3 * (2.42 - 196 * 0.0098 ) / 2.01 ==================================================================================================================================== = 2.076t + 1.148t + 0.518t + 0.228t + 0.1229t + 0.0634t + 0.0327t + 0.0168t + 0.0087t + 0.0045t = 4.2191t @ 10 generations = 4,2238t @ 25 generations = 4.2238t @ 50 generationsEven if i quadrupled those 4.23t to match the US citizens average CO2 footprint, 16,89t doesn’t even come close to the claimed 58,6.
where’s my mistake?
pS: for the calculations I fixated the birth rate at 1,66 starting in generation 5 as well as the age with an estimated maximum of 123 years starting in generation 18.
“Overpopulation” is simply one perspective on the problem of overconsumption. It’s the lazy option, because esp. childfree people can pretend they tOTallY would’ve had 5 children, but they valiantly put the planet before their personal wishes. Incidentally, those same people then do nothing else and smugly point at other people. The truth is you didn’t want to have children anyway, so you saved 0 CO2. I say this as a childfree person myself.
We can either reduce consumption or reduce population. I find only one of these has a chance to happen ethically, without, you know, genocide.
I know a vegan with like 6 kids who tries to lecture me for eating meat.
I lecte you about drinking strawberry milk wrong!!1!!1!!
putting the strawberry pulver in almond milk is better because almond milk is a lot thicker what really fits the strawberry taste. But i would not reccomend drinking it raw because i dont really like itAt least here somemmilk alternatives are cheaper then the cheap normal milk so it could even be profitable to test them out or “gasp” to mix them with milk (i did not test it but could be interesting)
