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Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

nytimes.com

61–70 of 143 posts

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#61
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except that meat/dairy production have zero effect on climate change. Other then that you are correct.

Care to provide a source to back up that claim? If you read the article and associated sources you'd find a stack of scientific evidence to confirm that it has quite a large impact.

I wouldnt say zero, but not much at a macro level, here are the stats: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19799246

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#62
while the world's economy is fueled by adding more people to the mix forever, we're not going to solve any problems. people have to imagine and accept a world where the market might not grow without limit and where outputs decrease from one year to the next without it being a disaster. grey pyramids have to be accepted without righteous outcry to open borders more fully. the population and its demands are the ultimate multiplier for all climate impacting activities.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#63

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

Most estimates put it at around 15%, not 5. Stopping climate change is going to require action on all these vectors, and diet is one of the easiest to change. It also has knock on effects like clear cutting rainforest to plant crops to feed to cows.

On top of that it’s just cruel and unnecessary to go on eating so much meat.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#64

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

mostly methane rather than CO2

Which makes it even worse, by my understanding.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#65

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

Why are you citing a popular science writer who is a psychologist? Who would bother to refute his numbers in the first place, when he's clearly not a primary source on them?

And that is only a secondary critique. Why should changing diets be mutually exclusive to other approaches? That seems like a false choice.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#66
Excerpt from a book I'm writing:

---

Life is experiencing an abrupt, widespread global species extinction event. Humans are destroying intricate webs of animals, plants, and microorganisms. These networks supply our food chain and sustain life on Earth; their annihilation from rapid deforestation and climate change is causing grave consequences: droughts, increased heat waves and wildfires, more frequent severe weather events, coastal flooding, food shortages, and water wars.

Earth’s atmosphere was once mostly carbon dioxide. Once life took hold, simple organisms (such as bacteria, algae, and plants) converted atmospheric carbon dioxide into oxygen by way of photosynthesis. When those organisms died, natural processes spanning eons changed their remains into carbon-bearing fossil fuels: coal, petroleum, and natural gas.

Burning fossil fuels recombines carbon with oxygen to make carbon dioxide (CO2). Since the mid-1800s humans have released a stupendous amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. In the following graph, average annual atmospheric CO2 measurements in parts per million (PPM) are plotted alongside averaged global ocean and surface temperature readings in degrees Celsius (°C), relative to 1881-1910:

https://i.imgur.com/zNuwtnP.png

Both atmospheric CO2 and temperature are increasing at an exponential rate, in lock-step.

Bubbles in ice cores drilled from polar glaciers trap historic atmospheric gas ratios. Long-term observations reveal an increasing average warming trend that is distinct from natural short-term fluctuations. Temperatures are climbing in proportion to the total amount of atmospheric CO2 added since the Industrial Revolution.

Choices

Our past choices have put life on Earth in peril; our children face an immense CO2 cleanup, devastating climate changes, or both. We can curtail the most severe catastrophic outcomes, though time to do so grows alarmingly thin.

If we choose air conditioner and refrigerator coolants based on hydrocarbon refrigerants; if we urge politicians to invest in on-shore wind turbines; if we reduce food waste; if we eat less meat; and if we support restoration of tropical forests. If we choose these, there is hope.

---

See also:

* https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2019/04/specials/climate-cha...

* https://www.drawdown.org/about

* https://igg.me/at/impacts (plug, plug; scroll down for previews)

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#67

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

>It would require forgoing electricity, heating, cement, steel, paper, travel, and affordable food and clothing.

I think this is where you would get the most disagreement. That is, people are focused on transforming all those listed rather than forgoing them, which is a non-starter. Transformation to emission-reduced or emission-free processes.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#68

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

Why are you citing a popular science writer who is a psychologist? Who would bother to refute his numbers in the first place, when he's clearly not a primary source on them? And that is only a secondary critique. Why should changing diets be mutually exclusive to other approaches? That seems like a false choice.

Why are you dismissing Pinker simply because he is "a popular science writer", and "not a primary source"? If you're going to refute Pinker, show your work. Otherwise, it's just borderline ad hominem.

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#69

I know this isnt going to be a popular opinion here, but I'm going to say it anyways -- we are simply not going eat our away out of this climate change problem, and we shouldnt even try, we should focus the efforts in other places Here is the current breakdown of the world's emissions as of 2018: 1. heavy industry (29 percent) 2. buildings (18 percent) 3. transport (15 percent) 4. land-use change (15 percent) 5. the…

mostly methane rather than CO2 Which makes it even worse, by my understanding.

According to its 'global warming potential', it's about 86x as potent over 20 years and 34x as potent over 100 years : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_potential#Value...

Re: Questions About Food and Climate Change, Answered

#70
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are you citing a popular science writer who is a psychologist? Who would bother to refute his numbers in the first place, when he's clearly not a primary source on them? And that is only a secondary critique. Why should changing diets be mutually exclusive to other approaches? That seems like a false choice.

Why are you dismissing Pinker simply because he is "a popular science writer", and "not a primary source"? If you're going to refute Pinker, show your work. Otherwise, it's just borderline ad hominem.

It's definitely not ad hominem, nor am I dismissing him. He is absolutely and indisputably a cognitive psychologist. And I would say that Enlightenment Now is clearly a popular science piece.

Nothing is wrong with that. But he is just not a primary source on this data. So there is no refutation to be made in this context. Go to the bibliography, find the citation for the statistics that he used, and those can be discussed. I don't have the book and can't quickly obtain it, so I cannot provide that information.

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