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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

#471

Post by weberc2 »

cribbles wrote: post #368
mark_l_watson wrote: post #236

At least in the USA, this could in principle be fixed by ending the corporate welfare state. Old news, but All major industries like the beef industry get huge tax breaks, free water and other giveaways at the general taxpayer’s expense. Fixing the corruption (both democratic and republican parties) in our our political would end up helping the environment a lot. That said, we have zero chance of fixing our corrupt p…

Corporate welfare is one thing. I'd also like to direct readers to this thread from yesterday: https://twitter.com/unabanned/status/1159272783676891136 - which persuasively argues (with multiple sources) that the US meat industry depends upon massive labor exploitation of undocumented immigrants in order to 1) suppress wages and 2) maintain an otherwise intolerable working environment. This shows that the problem is…

Wouldn't the relationship between the meat industry and federal immigration authorities be the opposite of symbiotic? Federal immigration aims to curb the illegal immigration off of which (we reasonably alledge) the meat industry is profiting. Surely this is evident by the inclusion of "border coyotes" in the alleged symbiotic relationship?

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

#472

Post by asdfman123 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #451
asdfman123 wrote: post #446

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You want to find a rare issue with bipartisan support? Try raising the price of food and seeing how people like it.

> You want to find a rare issue with bipartisan support? Try raising the price of food and seeing how people like it. Food stamps are designed to raise the market clearing price of food as a subsidy to agriculture (they’ve since become a means-tested welfare program as well , while retaining the original purpose); they have fairly strong political support, which definitely shows a partisan divide. The Dairy Price Sup…

Actually, we started subsidizing farms to compete against the Soviet Union during the cold war, to demonstrate the superiority of "capitalism."

They served their purpose well, but now they're almost impossible to remove.

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/farms-race/

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

#473

Post by shlant »

saagarjha wrote: post #115
elktea wrote: post #92

There's a good case to be made for humans being primarily meat eaters for much of our history and only eating plants as an alternative to starving - we certainly haven't had time to evolve to eat a vegetarian diet. Agriculture has only been around for a small fraction of our history and the skeletal record clearly shows how disasterous it was for our health. The current 'plant based' fad diet recommendations are back…

There are entire cultures whose diet is plant-based.

naw, just a fad unlike Paleo, Keto, Carnivore etc. ;)

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

#474

Post by mklarmann »

marcus_holmes wrote: post #463
mklarmann wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This topic has gained substantial scientific evidence. More people have come to turns that the facts only point to possible solutions for the climate were we substantially eat less meat. Having you eat even more meat makes you indirectly responsible for people’s death. It might not be right. But in the near future (2-3 years) you might feel ashamed of what you said right now.

I'm fascinated that the solutions to climate change appear to line up neatly with the things that hippies have been saying for years (capitalism needs to be replaced with a state-managed global economy, nuclear power is bad, vegetarianism is good, bicycling is good, plant more trees). Particularly the nuclear power option. That one makes no sense. Concrete is a major source of CO2 emissions. In some places, it contri…

This report was generated by the IPCC on request of the international community at the COP in Paris, after they pointed out, that no information was available about 1.5 degree target (the first special report), and food and land was missing (second special report). There is a third one coming about the arctic as far as I remember.

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

#475

Post by RussianCow »

pizza wrote: post #447
RussianCow wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you buy the curry paste, Thai-style curries are ridiculously easy to make: you can basically just dump the paste, coconut milk, a bit of water/broth, fish sauce (or soy sauce, or even just salt), a tiny bit of sugar, and whatever vegetables and other ingredients into a pot and cook for 10 minutes. Daal can be similarly easy to make, though you usually at least have to sauté some onions, ginger, etc first before th…

Love buying Thai curry pastes for quick curries. Also I know the grandparent poster asked for easy recipes, but if you want one that's ridiculously involved (~30 min of prep if you're really quick, and ~3 hours of intermittent watchful stirring) but also ridiculously tasty, check out beef rendang. Lovely, very spicy, 'dry' curry with incredibly tender beef.

Hah, I've made this before and didn't know what it was called! I had it at a local Thai restaurant under the name "Kua tender beef", and decided to try to replicate it at home. It's so delicious! I wouldn't call it "ridiculously involved" (I've made phõ from scratch), but yeah, it's a bit labor intensive.

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

#476

Post by ihattendorf »

koolba wrote: post #339
TheBeardKing wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been trying to cut our meat consumption, but the cooking complexity is exactly my issue. We're lazy but healthy eaters, meaning our regular entrees are a meat and a couple veggie sides. We also do low carb, mainly because it's just easier to limit calorie intake that way. Most of the dinner work is usually cutting and preparing vegetables. When we cut meat, it cuts the main portion of the entree, which can some…

> We don't like buying processed foods, and soups without meat are nearly a no-go for me. But hey, I'm limiting consumption so I guess I'm doing my part. I lean toward the carnivore spectrum but there are a couple meatless soups that I enjoy: * New England clam chowder * Corn chowder * Barley mushroom (though it’s even better with meat) * Gazpacho And while I’d never order it if given the option for a “real one”, veg…

> New England clam chowder

Are clams not considered meat? Also any good New England Clam Chowder has bacon in it.

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

#477

Post by mklarmann »

tom_mellior wrote: post #255
dagw wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At a guess cows that are grass fed and not given growth hormones grow much slower and thus take longer to reach 'slaughtering' weight.

Good point, thanks. The 60% number cited above does seem oddly specific, like it would come from a concrete source. Though as others in this thread have pointed out, methane seems to be less of an issue than it's sometimes made out to be.

The 60% is indeed what we studied for cows here in Switzerland. It is clearly related to the amount of time they live longer (18 instead of 11 month). You can check the source here: http://www.eaternity.org/blog/smart-chefs-research-results

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

#478

Post by airstrike »

andy_ppp wrote: post #456
airstrike wrote: post #421

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally first hit on Google: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5475232/ "The science on this is very tainted" isn't a particularly strong argument.

Your article supports my argument but your comment sounds like you disagree :-) which is it?

It doesn't support your argument. "Replacing SAFA by cis-polyunsaturated fatty acids was associated with significant CHD risk reduction, which was confirmed by randomized controlled trials."

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

#479

Post by dsirola »

The report states with high confidence that balanced diets featuring plant-based, and sustainably-produced animal-sourced, food “present major opportunities for adaptation and mitigation while generating significant co-benefits in terms of human health”.

I think this says it all. The consumption is not as much of a problem as production. They don't mention how much forest is also cut to build farms and it's not like plant growing industry is any better in terms of emissions [1] and water / land poisoning with pesticides and GMO plants. Now, don't get me wrong, I have nothing against GMO that is done well, but the current direction that's only serving corporate greed instead of bettering farming industry is just disgusting. Without animals we are just as equally doomed as we are with them [2]. I also have a feeling that they're trying to optimize the 1% instead of tackling real problems caused by coal energy, cars, airplanes etc.

[1] https://agreenerworld.org/a-greener-world/it-wasnt-the-cows-...

[2] https://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI

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

#480

Post by mklarmann »

ailideex wrote: post #361
wtdata wrote: post #154

Very well, but why don't these reports ever call for reducing the birthrate in countries where this is exploding [1]? Now they are asking us to stop meat consumption, but the if number of people keeps increasing, what will they ask us to stop next instead of addressing the real problem? Clearly the real issue is having too many people. Birth control is the proper way to tackle the problem. [1] https://en.wikipedia.or…

Can't really argue with that, which is why people don't and just downvote.

Na, I think it is downvoted because it is pretty neo-liberal, to assume that population control is the solution, because it implicitly neglects that most emissions are caused by the richest people. Reducing those rich people would well be a fair point, though.
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