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Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

bbc.com

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Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#21

Post by afandian »

biddlesby wrote: post #15
codegladiator wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see this down voted, and frankly not surprised, this is a really unpopular opinion somehow, but this is not wrong. As a community we do see the duty of protecting environment imposed on us, but as an individual I don't think many people see it as that. I don't know how to put it in words exactly, but "future is doomed" is somehow "everyone knows" one way or another (at least I am going to die before doom happens an…

I'm inclined to agree. Framing environmentalism as a problem that individuals need to solve isn't going to get us anywhere. It's a problem with the rules of the game, it requires political willpower.

But to have any chance of getting out of this mess everyone will need to make sacrifices at massive and micro scales. The bit I was trying to draw attention to is whether, when faced with a very small piece of the puzzle, people are able to make a relatively small sacrifice or not, even something as trivial as cutting out beef. At the end of the day, it's only food and there's plenty of other things one could eat.

Because there's a lot worse coming in a few decades.

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#22

Post by afandian »

maallooc wrote: post #17
afandian wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is exactly what I mean. The immediate response is often one of dismissal, and it takes quite a lot of effort to move beyond it.

Why move beyond? I've just had 350g of juicy flat iron steak, produced 7 kilos of co2 and happy about it. Don't try to boss people around because I'm not buying. Thanks to people like you, I can finally enjoy beef without guilt. Keep up the good work.

I simply invited you to ask yourself a question, and suggested that the initial response can be a useful thing to engage with, rather than a hard stopping point. Like I said, an experiment.

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#23

Post by prawn »

UweSchmidt wrote: post #10
afandian wrote: post #4

Here's an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows the huge environmental costs we are responsible for when eating meat. But it's really interesting to pursue the tension in your own personal logic-brain vs lizard want-it-brain. I've stopped eating most refined sugar and massively cut down on meat in the past f…

The problem is the availability of vegetarian / vegan meals in western society. Sophisticated food culture revolves around meat. It requires planning and work (in addition to dealing with the lizard brain). In particular, as a gym-goer I want my protein, and if soya is out too, then it's quite a bit more difficult. Excuses, I know.

Is this a response to the beef question though? You can quit beef and find countless alternatives on menus involving pork, chicken, lamb, etc.

(I eat meat including beef, but try to stay aware of red meat consumption.)

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#24

Post by logicchains »

bttrfl wrote: post #20
logicchains wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people have different time preferences (preference for futures vs current satisfaction). Evidently most people don't even care what their diet does to their own health in fifty years time (given the massive rise in diet-related preventable illnesses), so I don't imagine they'd care about much about the environmental effects either. And there's nothing wrong with that; there's no "objectively correct" time p…

I don't care that much for my own health, but I do care about my ecological footprint. Not because of X units of satisfaction I'll take from glaciers thirty years from now, but because I don't treat the world as my property. We're guests here and should behave accordingly.

>We're guests here and should behave accordingly.

Guests of who, exactly?

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#26

Post by Shivetya »

afandian wrote: post #4

Here's an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows the huge environmental costs we are responsible for when eating meat. But it's really interesting to pursue the tension in your own personal logic-brain vs lizard want-it-brain. I've stopped eating most refined sugar and massively cut down on meat in the past f…

Well how far behind will we be in telling people to not consume sea food or any animal product. However for many diets meat products are there as it is a simple means to satisfy nutritional requirements and depending on meal a little meat and related products can go a long way.

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#27

Post by logicchains »

biddlesby wrote: post #13
logicchains wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Different people have different time preferences (preference for futures vs current satisfaction). Evidently most people don't even care what their diet does to their own health in fifty years time (given the massive rise in diet-related preventable illnesses), so I don't imagine they'd care about much about the environmental effects either. And there's nothing wrong with that; there's no "objectively correct" time p…

Just because there's no objectively correct measure, I wouldn't say that means it isn't wrong. There's nothing objective in ethics. In your example of people not caring about their health: the environmental impact of diet is in a different ethical class for me. If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are differen…

>If you choose to ignore your own health that's your deal, but if you make choices that negatively impact the lives of millions I think the ethics are different.

The impact of any individual unit of meat consumption by an individual is incredibly marginal. The standard society generally uses to determine whether an individual has harmed another is way higher than that. The satisfaction an individual gets from eating meat might well be greater than the dissatisfaction that instance causes others, and indeed since there's no objective standard it's impossible to measure exactly.

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#29

Post by briandear »

econcon wrote: post #18
maallooc wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because I don't care about the environmental cost beacuse people like you who don't eat meat will cover for my cost, god bless. Also tbqh I'd prefer some trees chopped off than to quit eating steaks.

Why is this being downvoted. It's true, I don't think non vegetarian pay higher health insurance premiums, so society as a whole will foot the bill of both health and environmental impact.

Do vegetarians have lower health costs? Is that a fact?

Re: Amazon soya and beef exports 'linked to deforestation'

#30

Post by luckylion »

0_____0 wrote: post #6
afandian wrote: post #4

Here's an interesting thought experiment for meat-eaters: Why not stop eating beef? your response might be a knee-jerk "but I really like it!". Everyone knows the huge environmental costs we are responsible for when eating meat. But it's really interesting to pursue the tension in your own personal logic-brain vs lizard want-it-brain. I've stopped eating most refined sugar and massively cut down on meat in the past f…

I cut down massively on beef during the worst of the California drought, when I found out what the resource consumption looked like. To the "if it's yellow let it mellow" crowd: just the beef in a typical burger has the water usage footprint of something like 40? 50? high-flow toilet flushes. Chicken is about 1/3rd the water footprint, and IMO it's a lot easier to get good texture when cooking it.

Is the cow for the burger you eat in California grown in California?

It's a good idea to be aware in general, but local under-supply isn't necessarily a helpful metric, I think. We've had the argument in Northern Germany that we should use less water, and it often went along with reports about droughts in Spain. But we're not Spain, we have plenty of rain (though it's not always equally distributed over the year).

Needless to say that we're not building a pipeline to transport the saved water to Spain. At the same time, we now have to regularly flush the sewers because we don't have enough "natural" flow and we have more issues with rising ground water damaging building foundations.

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