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People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

blogs.scientificamerican.com

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Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#71

Post by craigds »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #39
mythrwy wrote: post #22

People don't believe the link between meat consumption and climate change. It seems like one leftist agenda being used to push another leftist agenda and pretty much anyone who isn't down with leftist agendas tunes right out as this is just too far fetched to even consider. (Not a heavy meat eater myself but not for planet saving reasons. I just don't like a lot of meat sitting in my stomach. Beans and whole grains a…

People love to neglect grass fed meat. Much of the planet is grasslands that require grazing animals. You put grazing animals on the land, move them around, and that’s it. The only real energy input is the sun. Compare that to monocropping which requires vast oil and pesticide/herbicide input, displaces local habitats, reduces the biodiversity of the planet.

Grass fed beef isn't a solution. Cows still produce a lot of methane. http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-b...

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#72

Post by melling »

lozenge wrote: post #64
melling wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t get the connection either. The United States with 4% of the world’s population produces a lot of CO2. India with 4 times the number of people produced half as much. China with 4 times the number of people now produces twice as much as the US. China’s CO2 surged in the past two decades. Finally, does this have anything to do with meat? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

A lot of China's CO2 production is to create goods that are purchased by the US and other developed countries. http://m.pnas.org/content/107/12/5687 And yes, some 15% of humans' GHG production can be attributed to meat.

The first line states this:

“CO2 emissions from the burning of fossil fuels are the primary cause of global warming”

China uses almost much coal as the rest of the world combined:

https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=16271

That chart seems to correlate with China’s emission increases:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_...

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#73

Post by 1457389 »

peg_leg wrote: post #30

Meat is cheap. AND it's not up to individuals to make the broad policy changes needed to affect climate change. That's done by governments. People will follow suit. If there's a tax on meat, less meat will be eaten. To put the onus on individuals to make policy decisions is preposterous.

You can try and tax your way to culture shifts but since we aren't all Homo economicus it is often not as effective as directly appealing to morality and individual responsibility.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#74

Post by hycaria »

twostoned wrote: post #15
alex_duf wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like saying recycling is useless because no one recycles. You have to start somewhere

I don't disagree in principle, "Be the change you want to see in the world" and all that, but climate change from an individual level to me seems silly, or perhaps overwhelming. I have stopped really worrying about it in the Dr. Strangelove sense because it's out of control. We're supposed to sort our plastics and papers and yet all of our options available for purchase have been shipped, at least in part, from acros…

It makes you think about it and sensibilize to it. Which probably failed by you considering :

>On topic: I have little doubt there's a strong link between climate change in general and the production and consumption of livestock.

The most common cow diet at the moment is 50kg of corn + 3 kg of soy + maybe 10kg (dry) of hay. Everyday. Do you think this grows out of the blue or uses arable land ? Also Europe imports soy (from southamerica mostly) to feed cattle. Add the transport costs & pollution and what have you and you might get a glimpse of how eating 100g of beef is producing way more GHG than 100g of beans.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#75

Post by erispoe »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #65

This is a useless article with a serious vegan bent. Humans cannot survive as vegans, and suggesting so is a pretty backwards thing given that these are basic scientific facts; so called "healthy vegans" often are taking supplements that they believe are vegan when they are in fact animal-sourced, or they are using algae-based products that are often highly contaminated as a nature of their production. Literally, the…

Evolution doesn't have a purpose. Just because you can eat meat doesn't mean you have to, or that you should. You can have a meat-free, protein-heavy diet.

Most of meat products are so processed that they are indistinguishable from plant-based substitutes anyway. If you try an Impossible Burger without knowing it's plant-based, you wouldn't notice it's not meat.

Beside, are you seriously denying anthropic climate change?

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#76

Post by majewsky »

pif wrote: post #48
amelius wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we should consider a rule that everybody who wants to eat an animal, has to kill it themselves. At least that will solve the mental disconnect between reality and food consumerism.

Absolutely! And everybody who wants to type a message on HN, has to build his keyboard himself. And his computer. And the internet.

I like to imagine that the internet was better way back when it was kinda sorta that way.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#77

Post by fileeditview »

erispoe wrote: post #75
DiabloD3 wrote: post #65

This is a useless article with a serious vegan bent. Humans cannot survive as vegans, and suggesting so is a pretty backwards thing given that these are basic scientific facts; so called "healthy vegans" often are taking supplements that they believe are vegan when they are in fact animal-sourced, or they are using algae-based products that are often highly contaminated as a nature of their production. Literally, the…

Evolution doesn't have a purpose. Just because you can eat meat doesn't mean you have to, or that you should. You can have a meat-free, protein-heavy diet. Most of meat products are so processed that they are indistinguishable from plant-based substitutes anyway. If you try an Impossible Burger without knowing it's plant-based, you wouldn't notice it's not meat. Beside, are you seriously denying anthropic climate cha…

Even if evolution doesn't have a purpose it's pretty clear that meat consumption has been a boost to human evolution.

Also I wonder what kind of meat products you are eating?! If I buy and prepare a steak or some other raw meat it's pretty clearly meat. I also tried vegan sausages and stuff multiple times because of some friends. I NEVER could confuse it for meat.. so forgive me but this argument is totally invalid for me.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#78

Post by falcolas »

tfolbrecht wrote: post #62

People still don't get that haphazard false equivalences weaken trust in media. I live in the rural south. The cows in my lumpy unfarmable backyard eat grass. How is it a harmful practice? I can't convert grass to a complete protein source. Any link between wild game and climate change? Fishing? Articles like this are alienating to the average person. Why not use this opportunity push more ethical options? Grass fed…

Rural north-west here, same issue. I get it, there are some cattle ranches which would turn my stomach, but the average ranch around here is hundreds of acres of unfarmable (or unprofitable to farm) land dedicated to a few hundred head of cattle (i.e. you don't see the cattle most of the time).

They're oddly beautiful spaces to look upon, compared to the mechanical oddity (circular fields in a square plots) that is the modern farm.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#79

Post by Turing_Machine »

craigds wrote: post #71
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People love to neglect grass fed meat. Much of the planet is grasslands that require grazing animals. You put grazing animals on the land, move them around, and that’s it. The only real energy input is the sun. Compare that to monocropping which requires vast oil and pesticide/herbicide input, displaces local habitats, reduces the biodiversity of the planet.

Grass fed beef isn't a solution. Cows still produce a lot of methane. http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2017-10-03-grass-fed-beef-good-or-b...

In North America, much of the land now used for grazing cows was formerly occupied by bison (which are so close to cows that they can actually interbred).

I seriously doubt that this caused any significant net change in methane production.

Re: People Don't Get the Link Between Meat Consumption and Climate Change (2016)

#80

Post by emodendroket »

mrarjen wrote: post #66
ryanwaggoner wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Such as? You think if meat in the US doubled or tripled in price there’d be a black market that would overwhelm those gains? I really doubt that you have any evidence for that.

I mean the bio meat market for example. Here (netherlands) any bio product is more expensive on average, and the cheaper non bio products are cheaper, so guess what meats are consumed more?

I'm guessing that you mean "organic" here (since e.g., the French word for organic foods is "biologique").
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