Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one • Hacker News Board

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#101

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:24 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #57

jeffbee wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308521X1...

That source is primarily examining conventional feedlot approaches. > An all grass cow-calf – to – finish operation was included as a minor component in the eastern and northwestern regions They examined a single all grass finished operation. There are studies that have found grass finishing can cut emissions in cattle by as much as 80%. > The modeled operations were not intended to be actual operations; they were de…

I guess I expected that if you wanted to see sources you would retort with your own published sources.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#102

Post by dbingham » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:29 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #91

dbingham wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diet is also one of the most personal things to ask people to change, deeply tied in with their health, habits, cultures, and religion. If you ask them to do something that crosses some of those lines, you will have exactly the opposite effect you are claiming it will have. If you tell people that the most important thing they can do is adopt a diet that undercuts their health (many people cannot healthily maintain a…

No one is suggesting people become vegan. You keep constructing strawmen, and proposing things that will in fact dramatically increase the costs of meat and force the things you say you don’t want. It’s non-sensical. “… while shifting to a vegetarian meal one day a week could save the equivalent of driving 1,160 miles.” https://css.umich.edu/publications/factsheets/sustainability...

The root comment had "stop eating eggs, honey, and fish" before "take public transportation".

The comment above mine includes eating fake cheese.

Come on, it's pretty clear what they're driving at.

Also, nowhere have I said I don't want a reduction in meat consumption. In multiple comments I have said that it is a necessary part of the solution, whether by personal choice or driven by market forces as people shift to more sustainable agricultural solutions.

I am arguing against putting it front and center in the fight against climate change as the OP does and as the root comment on this thread does.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#103

Post by prmoustache » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:32 PM UTC

willis936 wrote: post #42

prmoustache wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The emergency was 50 years ago.

And today and 50 years from now and very likely at least another 100 years beyond that. Prior inaction does not mean it's over. We don't get the luxury of having a "oh well we lost this round" mentality.

If you really want to curb co2 emissions significantly, the only effective way would be to nuke the USA, Europe, China and sterilize all but 5% of the remaining world population.

Anything else is just greenwashing at this point.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#104

Post by dbingham » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:35 PM UTC

jeffbee wrote: post #101

dbingham wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That source is primarily examining conventional feedlot approaches. > An all grass cow-calf – to – finish operation was included as a minor component in the eastern and northwestern regions They examined a single all grass finished operation. There are studies that have found grass finishing can cut emissions in cattle by as much as 80%. > The modeled operations were not intended to be actual operations; they were de…

I guess I expected that if you wanted to see sources you would retort with your own published sources.

Gladly, although, with the caveat that science works in the aggregate so any individual paper should be treated with skepticism and that I have no idea what quality of journals these are coming from because the open access literature is currently a royal fucking mess.

But here's a paper that found that properly grazed beef could not only potentially reach net-zero emissions, but might even be a carbon sink: http://www.thefutureoffoodjournal.com/index.php/FOFJ/article...

Here's another study that found that the soil type of the grassland and the dominant species of grass had a significant effect on whether intensively grazing it sequestered or released carbon from the soil overall:

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/gcb.12144

And that one appears to be a literature review of other studies.

Related note, you have to be so careful looking through the studies, here's one that purports to compare the different systems. But when you read the abstract it uses "A deterministic model based on the metabolism and nutrient requirements of the beef population". In other words, they aren't actually measuring anything. They just have numbers in a database for "x lb of beef requires y inputs" and "x lb of beef gives z outputs" and they're crunching those numbers under assumptions about the productivity of each approach. Naturally, they find that conventional feedlots are the most environmentally friendly.

https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/2/2/127

Note that one's also in an MDPI journal, which MDPI has begun to get a reputation as a pay to play paper mill.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#105

Post by seasox » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:39 PM UTC

xenocratus wrote: post #25

seasox wrote: post #4

Don‘t think about microwave vs. stove. Instead, do the following: 1. stop buying meat 2. stop eating meat 3. stop buying dairy-based products 4. stop eating dairy-based products 5. stop eating eggs, honey, fish 6. use public transport, if possible 7. don‘t fly, if possible Congrats, you now are an environmentalist.

Link(s) to a source that analyses the health impact of those first 5 things on your list?

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19279075/

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#106

Post by willis936 » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:49 PM UTC

prmoustache wrote: post #103

willis936 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And today and 50 years from now and very likely at least another 100 years beyond that. Prior inaction does not mean it's over. We don't get the luxury of having a "oh well we lost this round" mentality.

If you really want to curb co2 emissions significantly, the only effective way would be to nuke the USA, Europe, China and sterilize all but 5% of the remaining world population. Anything else is just greenwashing at this point.

That is not true. The all-or-nothing mentality is why vegetarian purists do little to curb mass meat consumption. We don't need to choose between industrial society and destroying our habitat. We can have both if we're thoughtful about what indulgences we allow.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#107

Post by kcplate » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:54 PM UTC

RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: post #17

dbingham wrote: post #5

This is what happens when you optimize for only a single variable. And the end result won't be what you want it to be. It doesn't do us any good to stop climate change if the ecosystem still collapses out from under us. Creating a sustainable environment is a systems problem and carbon is just one of many variables in that system. Yes, it's a really important one and in many ways it is the most pressing. But biodiver…

By the way, this is exactly what a climate change denier would write, except that that would talk about collapsing the economy if we focused too much on reducing carbon emissions. The truth is reducing CO2 emissions is an emergency, and any other environmental considerations other than doing that is just arguing about deck chairs on the Titanic. At this point, we would have been in a much better position if the Green…

> if the Greens had no been so rabidly anti-nuclear.

honestly I never understood this. Always seemed a more Luddite response than a environmentally principled one.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#108

Post by seasox » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 8:55 PM UTC

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #88

seasox wrote: post #4

Don‘t think about microwave vs. stove. Instead, do the following: 1. stop buying meat 2. stop eating meat 3. stop buying dairy-based products 4. stop eating dairy-based products 5. stop eating eggs, honey, fish 6. use public transport, if possible 7. don‘t fly, if possible Congrats, you now are an environmentalist.

That’s extreme and I think most of your point comes from a belief in being vegan as an ethical way of life rather than from a genuine willingness to limit people environmental impact. The proper way to frame it provided someone has no desire to be vegetarian would be limit your consumption of meat - only eat red meat as an exceptional treat and favour poultry a few times a week - and switch to plant based milk. Eggs…

Honeybees‘ environmental impact: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-problem-with-...

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#109

Post by jeffbee » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #104

jeffbee wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess I expected that if you wanted to see sources you would retort with your own published sources.

Gladly, although, with the caveat that science works in the aggregate so any individual paper should be treated with skepticism and that I have no idea what quality of journals these are coming from because the open access literature is currently a royal fucking mess. But here's a paper that found that properly grazed beef could not only potentially reach net-zero emissions, but might even be a carbon sink: http://ww…

Thanks! Not my subject area at all, so I'm happy to read these.

Re: Being an effective environmentalist can often feel like being a bad one

#110

Post by em-bee » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 9:17 PM UTC

gruez wrote: post #39

_petronius wrote: post #2

Although "environmentally friendly" is not strictly equal to "minimum possible GHG footprint". The plastic bag may have a lower carbon footprint, but it isn't going to biodegrade as quickly, and may end up turning into microplastics that persist for a long time.

>The plastic bag may have a lower carbon footprint, but it isn't going to biodegrade as quickly, and may end up turning into microplastics that persist for a long time. What you described is a non-issue if the bag is disposed of properly. Presumably you, as a environmentalist can be relied upon to do that.

that's only true if every plastic bag user disposes of the bags properly. part of the problem of using plastic bags is that it increases the demand. i specifically ask for less plastic bags in the produce section in order to teach the sales person that it is not necessary to have each item individually wrapped as is the custom here. i want them to apply that to other customers and so reduce the use of bags even more.