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The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

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Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#111

Post by cowl »

anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

No matter where you stand, these type naive recommandations are responsible for some of the greatest enviornmental dissasters of the last century. "Bio"-Fuels being one of the main culprits of deforestation that has created way bigger problems than the ones they were trying to fix. In this case a Plant based Diet would require much more agricultural land for the same calorie intake than a balanced meat and plant one. And guess where that land will come from? guess how much more automation will be needed to take care of that extra agriculture, so more machinery, more pesticides, more transport etc. There is nothing scientific about a recomandation. it's a hypotesis that until gets implemented can not be called scientific. Like the the implementation of BioFules showed, that recommandation was not scentific at all. And by definition can not be scientific.

There's an inflation of the word "scientific" nowadays that is beinng used for any study that makes it almost a religion. the core concept of Scientific it is always to question and especially can not be applied to new un-tested procedures that however rigorous they might have been on planning phase, can not by definition account for all variables. Something that is un-tested by definition can not be scientific.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#112

Post by vintermann »

ajsnigrutin wrote: post #55
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

The problem here is, that the giant corporations can pollute the environment (eg. coca cola in a plastic bottle, with a plastic cap, with a plastic label, wrapped in a plastic 6-pack, with a plastic handle, on a plastic pallet wrapped in plastic foil), and rich environmentalists then fly their private jets to some 'green' conference and tell an 'average joe' that he shouldn't drive his car and eat meat, and should pa…

Most people who complain about rich environmentalists flying on private planes seem to be on the right. I don't quite get this: you aren't opposed to the existence of millionaires, are you?

You already accept that some people, through their hard work or inheritance or whatever, are entitled to a larger share of material goods. Why shouldn't they also be entitled to a larger share of the total emissions we decide we can handle? As long as they compensate the rest of us for the privilege, maybe - though people on the right tend not to be too excited over severance taxes either.

Assuming they're OK with great material inequality, which sadly they usually are, a rich environmentalist is not especially hypocritical for talking a bigger share of what nature can bear.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#113

Post by sprucevoid »

klipt wrote: post #18
Tade0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.

Isn't beef bad because cows release methane, but feeding cows seaweed can mitigate that?

The seaweed/algea story is pushed strongly by meat industry greenwashing efforts. It isn't large scale deployed anywhere and the potential benefits are overblows.

https://www.wired.com/story/carbon-neutral-cows-algae/ "What’s more, feeding cattle algae is really only practical where it’s least needed: on feedlots. This is where most cattle are crowded in the final months of their 1.5- to 2-year lives to rapidly put on weight before slaughter. There, algae feed additives can be churned into the cows’ grain and soy feed. But on feedlots, cattle already belch less methane—only 11 percent of their lifetime output. ... This means that even if algae diets on feedlots worked perfectly, it wouldn’t help with the 89 percent of cows’ belches that occur earlier in their lives."

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#114

Post by anonyfox »

cowl wrote: post #111
anonyfox wrote: post #12

No matter where you stand (some meat eaters tend to become extremely emotional on this): The fact that the scientific results and recommendations get utterly censored like this before publication makes me really angry. It’s somewhat fine for me if people/governments choose to ignore or argue against these results after publication, but this is just absurd… and is then used from people all over the world to point to „…

No matter where you stand, these type naive recommandations are responsible for some of the greatest enviornmental dissasters of the last century. "Bio"-Fuels being one of the main culprits of deforestation that has created way bigger problems than the ones they were trying to fix. In this case a Plant based Diet would require much more agricultural land for the same calorie intake than a balanced meat and plant one.…

so you say that the amount of land and water needed to grow a cow that ultimately I can eat is LESS than if I would use that land to grow food to eat directly? thats pretty wild, I'd think. Not even thinking about the methane issues with cows and other things they add ontop of land use.

BioFuels are a joke, though, a result of lobbyism, fully agree. Individually owned ICEs on a large scale are the problem here, that BioFuel shit is just deflecting blame.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#115

Post by Sankozi »

iakov wrote: post #104
Sankozi wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is pure FUD. > Were these the same people who told us the glaciers would be melted and the Maldives under water by 2000? Were they? Please tell us. > How narcissistic do you have to be to believe the world is going to end in your little eye blink of a lifetime? Who says that? Where in the article have you read something like that? > Look, the West can go carbon negative, but it makes no difference at all if Chin…

The FUD is spread by climate activists so often that nobody takes them seriously anymore. Look, this [0] is the latest example - I've heard about it from my friends. They were mocking the poster child of climate change activists and her doom-and-gloom prophecies that she promptly deleted once it became clear that the permanent ice is still there, and that humanity is not, in fact, extinct. Of course now it's an "impr…

I completely agree that some climate activists are spreading FUD (for some time I was a climate denialist because of that), but it cannot be used as an argument against sensible climate policies. Here we are not even talking about policy - it is just a recommendation that was blocked by lobbying group.

Even just a recommendation cannot pass and people are defending this by bringing up some ignorant climate activists or using manipulation tactics (like in fwungy post).

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#116

Post by sprucevoid »

jononomo wrote: post #108
autoexec wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sooner we can get lab grown beef the better. I don't care if it's more expensive or even if it isn't as efficient in terms of energy input as growing, raising, and slaughtering actual cows. It'd still come with tons of benefits like reducing antibiotic use, taking up less land, causing less suffering, eliminating illnesses, etc.

We're not about to run out of land. My recommendation is to use nuclear power to desalinate seawater and turn the Sahara Desert into a vast grassland on which we can raise a couple of billion cattle in order to feed the world. I think the same should be done in the Australian Desert.

> We're not about to run out of land

We already did, in the sense that we'd need more earths to let everyone on earth eat the kind of diets prevalent in rich countries today. https://ourworldindata.org/agricultural-land-by-global-diets

Current enourmous land use by meat industries has many negative effects. We should individually switch to plant based (if you haven't already) and in public policy rapidly remove all subsidies from meat and animal industries and fully price in all negative externalities (GHG, antibiotics risks, pandemic risks, air and water pollution). At the same time subsidize plant based alternatives. As a result plant based alternatives would be several times lower in cost than the meat versions, which in turn would drive consumption changes.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#117

Post by mejutoco »

colordrops wrote: post #75
mejutoco wrote: post #74

I find it bad that scientific results get censored, and I am also wondering if there is proof that a plant-based diet is more healthy. My suspicion is it might be for the average American, but it is based on gut feeling (pun intended). I remember margarine (plant-based) was all the rage too and IIRC it was much less healthy than butter (animal-based). My guess is it depends on the specific meals.

Margarine is a synthetic product, with the oil created in complex refineries then hydrogenated. You can't compare this to something like lentil stew or a salad. If the recommendation is that eating anything you want as long as the origin can be traced back to plants, then I agree, plant based diets aren't necessarily healthier. A WFPB (whole foods plant based) diet is undeniably healthy though. The problem with marga…

Those are very good points. I agree on animal foods being worse for the environment too. Cheers.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#118

Post by sprucevoid »

himinlomax wrote: post #26
Tade0 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. I looked at the different scenarios and we would probably do fine on chicken and cheese in terms of water consumption, CO2 and land use. Pork is where it starts being risky. Beef, lamb etc. are the most problematic parts.

The water use claim regarding beef has been debunked, it was based on the weird accounting trick where you count rainfall on pasture as wasted water for some reason. Also speaking of pasture, afaik the equation for cattle is completely different whether they're fed corn vs grazing on marginal land as they're supposed to.

If you have evidence then please provide it. I'd be happy if you could point out any incorrect claims on this and related Our World In Data pages that cover climate and environmental impacts from beef and the meat industry more generally https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#119

Post by vintermann »

incone123 wrote: post #60
vegetablepotpie wrote: post #17

It really does feel like we’re living in bizzaro world. If you want to make recommendations based on evidence, make sure it doesn’t impact the profits of powerful groups. Many negative things we see in public policy stem from this fact. Lack of right to repair, lack of broadband in America, lack of cyber security in corporations, US tax law. Maybe you like your meat. That’s fine. You can make decisions for your self,…

"I think the solution is to blanket ban corporate speech." How will you ban corporate shills?

It shouldn't be all that hard, really. We ban prostitution (whether we should or not is another question). It's the same principle: you can do the thing as much as you like, but you can't pay people for it.

It doesn't have to be strict. It doesn't have to be two sided. For simplicity, maybe you want to only ban the paying side. Say there can't be a post in your budget that says "influence politicians for favourable legislation" if you're an LLC. How limited liability corporations spend money is already pretty monitored, for obvious reasons, so it wouldn't be that hard.

Re: The meat industry blocked the IPCC’s attempt to recommend a plant-based diet

#120

Post by mejutoco »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #88
mejutoco wrote: post #74

I find it bad that scientific results get censored, and I am also wondering if there is proof that a plant-based diet is more healthy. My suspicion is it might be for the average American, but it is based on gut feeling (pun intended). I remember margarine (plant-based) was all the rage too and IIRC it was much less healthy than butter (animal-based). My guess is it depends on the specific meals.

The Eat Lancet report covers this from health, carbon and pollution angles: https://eatforum.org/eat-lancet-commission/ The results are pretty much what you'd think.

Thanks. To spare a click to others. The part I found relevant to my question: Animal-based being healthier or not, independently of the environment in general.

> Current overconsumption of meat in Western diets is a significant contributor to poor health and increases a person’s risk of becoming overweight, obese or developing certain noncommunicable diseases. Projections show that a global adoption of a Western diet high in meat intake matched with global population and economic growth will drive significant health burdens and push food systems well beyond environmental limits – multiple studies make the same predictions.

> Avoiding these risks calls for a significant reduction of unhealthy food consumption – particularly poorly produced meat – in high- income countries, in addition to avoiding increasing consumption trends in middle-income countries. At the same time, it is critical that the food system ensures sufficient access to healthy levels of protein that are sustainably produced where hunger and malnutrition persist.

It seems overconsumption of meat and poorly produced meat are the health problems, according to this report (with respect to individual health, environment concerns aside). I wonder how overconsumption is defined. Will try to dig in later.

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