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Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

nature.com

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Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#21

Post by kd5bjo »

pikma wrote: post #4

I'm doubtful that much change can come from personal choices made by consumers. It seems to me that it would require tremendous energy and commitment from a very large number of people to significantly reduce the global demand. It seems to me that it's much more effective to raise the price or to reduce the supply (something like quotas or cap-and-trade). Can anyone point me to examples where my thinking is wrong, wh…

Changing the demand side is fundamentally what marketing does. It’s how Frito-Lay and Coca-Cola and any big worldwide brand came into existence, by convincing consumers to choose their product over the alternative.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#22

Post by deworde »

tsherr wrote: post #9

The UN doesn't have the guts to target the task issue: too many humans. And recommend the only solution: one child per couple until we get down to about half the current population.

Didn't work in China. It actually causes a massive "aging population" crisis, some serious gender imbalances, and some weird economic effects throughout the stack.

I mean, if you must be a film and TV dystopian bad guy, Thanos' idea doesn't work.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#23

Post by K0nserv »

I read somewhere that the one meat free day a week initative is laughable and we should really be aiming for one meat day a week. Personally I've switched to a mostly vegetarian diet in the past few years and when I do eat meat it's good high quality meat.

Meat consumption seems like one of the easiest things governments could change to tackle climate change. Unlike cars and travel it's hard to make the argument that humans depend on access to meat so making it 700% more expensive via tax would effectively shift consumption patterns with few if any downsides. If anything it would probably have the excellect side effect of improving public health.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#24

Post by throwaway3957 »

I personally used to be very concerned about ressource efficiency. With a new doomsday message every day, I decided to make most out of my resources now until some eco-shmock is going to make it unavailable for me. I fly all the time and eat as good as I can. Maybe tomorrow it will be only a memory but that’s more than making a big trip other year and then nothing.

Edit: BTW, this is not trolling. I represent a real niche group with an unknown number of people behaving consciously or unconsciously the same. I think it’s an important information in the discussion. People downvote me because they don’t like that it is happening but it’s real.

It’s like downvoting climate change because you don’t like it happening.

Edit: Rebuilder, that’s a good question. What would change my behavior? I think positive role models could help. Leaders that say we restrict ourselves to meat once a week or even better: here is my CO2 footprint (and please no offsetting bullshit). That’s how it developed over the last 2 years. Etc.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#26

Post by mklarmann »

pawanrawal wrote: post #15

I am excited about the work Impossible Foods and Beyond Meat are doing in this space. Creating alternatives with same nutrient content and similar taste but 1/10th the land usage and consuming less of other resources.

Specifically - and this is much more important right now: 1/10 of GHGs compared to their meat counterparts.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#27

Post by darawk »

pikma wrote: post #4

I'm doubtful that much change can come from personal choices made by consumers. It seems to me that it would require tremendous energy and commitment from a very large number of people to significantly reduce the global demand. It seems to me that it's much more effective to raise the price or to reduce the supply (something like quotas or cap-and-trade). Can anyone point me to examples where my thinking is wrong, wh…

Well, boycotts are a pretty good example. Those seem to change corporate behavior pretty frequently actually. That being said, i'm very skeptical of this type of demand-side strategy, in this particular area.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#28

Post by deworde »

mklarmann wrote: post #19
tsherr wrote: post #9

The UN doesn't have the guts to target the task issue: too many humans. And recommend the only solution: one child per couple until we get down to about half the current population.

This would ignore the fact that almost all emissions are caused by the richest 10%. Reducing this population would be more effective.

And they apparently transition to an average of 0-2 children naturally as a function of wealth management and survival confidence.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#29

Post by danmaz74 »

pikma wrote: post #4

I'm doubtful that much change can come from personal choices made by consumers. It seems to me that it would require tremendous energy and commitment from a very large number of people to significantly reduce the global demand. It seems to me that it's much more effective to raise the price or to reduce the supply (something like quotas or cap-and-trade). Can anyone point me to examples where my thinking is wrong, wh…

Why tremendous energy? Cutting individual consumption by eg 30% doesn't look so difficult to me.

Re: Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet

#30

Post by est31 »

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theoretical advantage that artificial meat has is the lower amount of resources needed. Over time, because of this it can get much cheaper than real meat, at least if you don't factor in skewing of the market due to government subsidies. Then, if they truly have comparable tastes, people will naturally choose those alternatives.

This seems like the best strategy: If you force people to become vegan by law without giving good alternatives, you just make them angry at people who want to stop climate change. If you nicely ask them, some will switch but most won't. So I believe the best way forward is to invest into meat alternative startups and help them make their product as widely used and as cheap as possible.

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