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

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

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I decided to make most out of my resources They’re not “your” resources: they’re shared among everyone, including future generations.

Well, so far I have no kids. My impact on the planet seems to be very temporarily and the damage I do will be forgotten in a hundred years. If I have 1.4 kids (my expected number of kids), it will take a bit longer but still damage is decreasing at fixed resource consumption per person.

But other people exist. Are you willing to leave the world in a worse place for them just because they’re not related to you? Also,

> My impact on the planet seems to be very temporarily and the damage I do will be forgotten in a hundred years.

As far as we know, this is not how climate change works.

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

#122
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'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 To really contribute, it would be nice if you came up with some citations to your claim.

Our stomach pH is very low, comparable to carrion eaters and some carnivores.

"It is interesting to note that humans, uniquely among the primates so far considered, appear to have stomach pH values more akin to those of carrion feeders than to those of most carnivores and omnivores" https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

Our requirements for DHA and B12 indicate a diet rich in both - both found almost exclusively in animal foods

Evolution of the Human Brain: the key roles of DHA(omega-3 fatty acid) andD6-desaturase gene https://www.ocl-journal.org/articles/ocl/pdf/2018/04/ocl1700...

We wean our young for a very short amount of time compared to other apes.

"Our model indicates that carnivory has a specific and quantifiable impact on human development and life history and, crucially, explains why Homo weans so much earlier than the great apes." Impact of Carnivory on Human Development and Evolution Revealed by a New Unifying Model of Weaning in Mammals https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

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

#123
Regulate the industries and trade, not people's behavior. It's much easier and you actually get results and people adapt to pricing by themselves. The reality is that we have a few billion people that are doing pretty well economically and they are going to be feeding themselves with whatever they can afford. Unless you can convince more than half of them to become vegans, that means demand for meat is going to go up, rather than down. A few privileged rich hipsters choosing to only eat food others can't afford is not going to be doing anything for this planet. It's not statistically meaningful. Not even close.

Industrial farming is the main problem here. We're literally eroding farmland by growing mono cultures (using pesticides, herbicides, fertilizers, etc) whose primary function is to feed cattle that spends all its life indoors turning this farm produce into manure. That in turn gets mixed with urine to produce a chemically very active mix that produces all sorts of nasty stuff. It's stupid and massively wasteful. It's only cheap because doing that is being subsidized and stimulated by governments. Stop doing doing that and the price of meat goes up and people adapt their behavior. Unsustainably produced cheap meat is the problem.

It's not the only way to produce meat but the it is the cheapest one and it's only cheap unless you also factor in the cost of destroying this planet. There are forms of farming that are effectively carbon negative (i.e. they capture more co2 than is released) that still produce meat and other produce. We can actually start undoing a lot of the damage already done simply by farming more smartly. This starts by stopping to reward harmful behavior with subsidies. Lots of farmers are already switching to more sustainable production methods because it makes business sense. Removing subsidies for their unsustainable competitors will help them.

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

#124
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, which animals are more efficient? Do you have a source on that? There are, as far as I know, regions where the soil is only capable of growing pasture, hard to plant trees in.

for the first two questions refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feed_conversion_ratio > There are, as far as I know, regions where the soil is only capable of growing pasture, hard to plant trees in. I assume that those areas would not be sufficient to cover current meat and dairy demands. If they were there wouldn't be any deforestation or soy fields for animal feed. And non-grazed grasslands is still going to re…

Great link, thank you.

Regarding deforestation and so on, I think we must also take into account that "industrialized" non-pastured husbandry (is that the correct term?) is probably cheaper and easier than the greener alternative.

Sadly, it's usually a matter of profits and not a matter of environmental friendliness.

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

#125
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The methane turns into CO2. Which means for the amount of carbon they release it's strictly worse than the same amount of carbon released as CO2.

Yes, you are right. I have conveyed my point only half-way and I apologize. What I meant is that methane is known to have a bigger heating effect than other greenhouse gases, like x28 that of CO2 if I recall correctly. This is used as part of the anti-ruminant argument, when comparing the effect of methane expelled by animals to the rest of greenhouse gas emissions. However, if you take into account the reduced lifes…

From the WP article you linked:

> Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is a strong greenhouse gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 104 times greater than CO2 in a 20-year time frame; methane is not as persistent a gas as CO2 and tails off to about GWP of 28 for a 100-year time frame

And once you take positive feedbacks into account additional emissions can be problematic even within "short" timeframes.

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

#126

The real culprit is the uncontrolled population growth but nobody wants to talk about that. Ok, let's assume that people do indeed eat too much meat and that we halve our current consumption. Population grows until it has doubled and the meat consumption is then back to the same level as to what it is now. Eventually we can all be eating grass and rocks and there'd still be too much demand on nature crated by the exi…

It is approximately 200.000 new humans every day. Or an entire new Germany every year.

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

#127
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which subsidies is meat getting? The ones that go to the agriculture industry responsible for feed? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_subsidy#United_St...

Sure, why not? From the same wikipedia page, a bit above what you linked, there's also this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Meat_Atlas_2014_subsidies... showing how many billions are spent on animal product subsidies. Unfortunately I had no luck finding the actual OECD reports, though (aside from the " Agricultural Policy Monitoring and Evaluation 2019" report, but that seems to just compare each country to…

"[...] animal products and feed", straight from the image. Sadly, no distinction. I would assume that it's mostly subsidies to feed. I am unable to find any sources on subsidies to meat directly.

I'm all for removing subsidies to monoculture agriculture.

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

#128

It’s also worth pointing out that even if you don’t want to reduce the amount of meat you eat, changing the type of meat can have big effects. For example (and ignoring transport to the consumer), lamb produces about 35 kg CO₂ per kg of meat, beef 25kg CO₂ / kg, pork and farmed salmon 8kg CO₂ / kg and chicken 4kg CO₂ / kg.

this suggests taxing meat as a function of CO2 production, as opposed to price taxation. This would automatically reward local production (the same additional tax for an imported cheaper meat as for a local but more expensive meat, hits the cheaper one harder)

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

#129
post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no need to go from one extreme to the other. This is about eating "less" meat. People do not traditionally eat that much meat because meat used to be expensive and its supply limited. This is still the case in poor countries. In developed countries, people started to eat more and more meat as they got richer because we naturally like meat and because of clever marketing. We now eat too much meat, and also co…

Given the extreme we are in yes, going to the other extreme would be a good thing. And even then, not enough. This is just one of the multiple changes that humanity need to bring about. I don't think people should be prohibited from eating animal products, but those who have the will to remove it completely from their diets would definitely be having a much higher positive impact on the environment.

It would be helpful, obviously, but it is not necessary and not realistic.

Trying to go to an extreme is counter-productive because people won't follow.

Convincing people not to eat meat at every meal or every day has a much higher chance of delivering significant results quickly.

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

#130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, you are right. I have conveyed my point only half-way and I apologize. What I meant is that methane is known to have a bigger heating effect than other greenhouse gases, like x28 that of CO2 if I recall correctly. This is used as part of the anti-ruminant argument, when comparing the effect of methane expelled by animals to the rest of greenhouse gas emissions. However, if you take into account the reduced lifes…

From the WP article you linked: > Methane in the Earth's atmosphere is a strong greenhouse gas with a global warming potential (GWP) 104 times greater than CO2 in a 20-year time frame; methane is not as persistent a gas as CO2 and tails off to about GWP of 28 for a 100-year time frame And once you take positive feedbacks into account additional emissions can be problematic even within "short" timeframes.

Absolutely, I never said methane was without effect.

However, its effects on global warming are greatly exaggerated by environmentalists and/or those with vegan ideologies.

In my opinion, focus should definitely not be on meat consumption.

Anyway, as a disclaimer, I follow a carnivore diet consisting of only animal products. You can expect me to be heavily biased.

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