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

#121

Post by dbingham » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 11:15 PM UTC

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #114

dbingham wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Source please. There's currently a propaganda war between multiple powerful lobbies - the animal rights lobby, the meat producers, conventional ag producers, and more - which means there is a ton of misinformation flying around about the actual environmental impacts of eating meat. Really, of all things dietary. Meanwhile there are a bunch of people exploring alternate agriculture systems through agroecological appro…

https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/food-footprints

Again, that is a chart based on a single source. Which may or may not be open access and I've been through enough of these tonight, but look at my other comments on similar sources to see my problems with them. All too often they are based on "accepted dataset" which are full of all kinds of faulty assumptions and modeling. Meanwhile, there are people going out and actually measuring agroecology systems and finding a totally different result.

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

#122

Post by dbingham » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 11:16 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #93

dbingham wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, agreed, reduction of meat consumption does need to happen. But saying "we should reduce meat consumption and ensure the meat produced is produced through these systems" is very different from putting it at the top of the list and drawing almost all focus to it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u...

Did you actually read the study linked in the article? They didn't measure anything. They used accepted values for each phase of the process taken from databases. In several areas there weren't - notably around pasturing - there wasn't good data. So they more or less fudged and "accounted for it in their error bars".

Meanwhile, here's a study I found, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, that found that under the right circumstances, grass finished, rotationally grazed cattle can actually act as a carbon SINK. Not a carbon producer. Now that's one study and I have no idea of the quality and trustworthiness of the journal it's in, but it lines up with other studies I've read on the topic. And it tracks with the ecological model. There are ecosystems where these animals belong and in those ecosystems they play a key role in building the soil, and soil building is one of the key methods of carbon sequestration.

http://www.thefutureoffoodjournal.com/index.php/FOFJ/article...

Here's another study I found showing that many factors play into whether grazing hoofed animals builds soil or erodes it. Grass type, soil type, rainfall patterns - they all matter.

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

Again, single study, no idea of the quality of the journal, but it goes to show that these questions are not definitively answered. These lifecycle analyses that people keep pointing to are using a limited set of data sets that have huge deficiencies.

And that's why I push back on these narratives so hard. They are not well founded. Every time I dig into the studies being referenced, I find massive assumptions and huge deficiencies and a paucity of actual measurement.

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

#123

Post by jshen » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 11:26 PM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #122

jshen wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jul/21/giving-u...

Did you actually read the study linked in the article? They didn't measure anything. They used accepted values for each phase of the process taken from databases. In several areas there weren't - notably around pasturing - there wasn't good data. So they more or less fudged and "accounted for it in their error bars". Meanwhile, here's a study I found, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, that found that under the…

I have no idea why you keep bringing up these very niche methods that can’t produce the volumes of beef that people consume today by a very large margin. It’s like saying that it would use a lot less carbon to ride your bike from Los Angeles to New York than to fly there. It’s an absurd comparison. Honestly, what point do you think you’re making?

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

#124

Post by Gibbon1 » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 11:29 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…

We would have been in a much better position if nuclear and fossil fuel interests hadn't been rabidly anti-renewable either because we could have started the transition 20-30 year earlier.

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

#125

Post by dbingham » Mon, Sep 05, 2022, 11:55 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #123

dbingham wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you actually read the study linked in the article? They didn't measure anything. They used accepted values for each phase of the process taken from databases. In several areas there weren't - notably around pasturing - there wasn't good data. So they more or less fudged and "accounted for it in their error bars". Meanwhile, here's a study I found, which I linked elsewhere in the thread, that found that under the…

I have no idea why you keep bringing up these very niche methods that can’t produce the volumes of beef that people consume today by a very large margin. It’s like saying that it would use a lot less carbon to ride your bike from Los Angeles to New York than to fly there. It’s an absurd comparison. Honestly, what point do you think you’re making?

These are only niche methods because we haven't invested in them and they hold an enormous amount of promise.

The dialog around agriculture and sustainability all too often is akin to telling people to just cut their power consumption rather than discussing or exploring non-emitting sources of energy.

You say I have some weird axe to grind, because I keep pushing back on people saying that meat consumption is a much bigger contributor to GHG emissions than it is. Yet you keep insisting that I'm somehow not accounting for a meat reduction as a piece of the puzzle when I have readily admitted that it should be a piece of the puzzle multiple times, and have happily conceded that it will be necessitated if we switch to the more sustainable, but less productive modes of producing it.

I think I've made my point pretty clearly, and repeatedly. Seems to me like your the one with an axe to grind, one not supported by the data.

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

#126

Post by jshen » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 1:10 AM UTC

dbingham wrote: post #125

jshen wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why you keep bringing up these very niche methods that can’t produce the volumes of beef that people consume today by a very large margin. It’s like saying that it would use a lot less carbon to ride your bike from Los Angeles to New York than to fly there. It’s an absurd comparison. Honestly, what point do you think you’re making?

These are only niche methods because we haven't invested in them and they hold an enormous amount of promise. The dialog around agriculture and sustainability all too often is akin to telling people to just cut their power consumption rather than discussing or exploring non-emitting sources of energy. You say I have some weird axe to grind, because I keep pushing back on people saying that meat consumption is a much…

Again, no where in your list of what we should do did you include meat consumption. When you talk about these methods, that are unproven at scale, you do NOT mention the implications regarding the amount of meat that can be produced that way.

My suggestion that people eat one less meat based meal per day is far less drastic that if all meat was produced with the methods you are advocating. Yet, you imply that I am the one calling for the drastic action.

Edit: let me ask you this, what are you actually proposing? Should the government ban meat that isn’t produced the way you suggest? If not, what are you proposing that will have a bigger impact than my suggestion that people eat one less meat based meal a day?

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

#127

Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

xor99 wrote: post #119

BigRedDog1669 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, they exist, but are only implemented in very small pockets of neighborhoods in cities across the US and there is usually huge hurdles in expanding them. They seem like window dressing in wealthy neighborhoods rather than as solutions being expanded citywide.

Exactly.. and believing that this will distribute evenly across the population magically and solve the issues relating to dense and unhealthy post-climate cities is the kernel of moderate climate-utopic thinking. Sure these interventions exist but so do Ferraris. They may or may not scale.

> and believing that this will distribute evenly across the population magically

I don’t expect this will happen magically. I expect it will happen through advocacy and legislation.

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

#128

Post by ryukafalz » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 1:38 AM UTC

BigRedDog1669 wrote: post #117

ryukafalz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Low-traffic neighborhoods, grassy tram tracks for sound dampening, protected bike lanes, etc are also possible and not utopian. We do ourselves a disservice if we think about them as some unattainable ideal. They exist, right now.

Yes, they exist, but are only implemented in very small pockets of neighborhoods in cities across the US and there is usually huge hurdles in expanding them. They seem like window dressing in wealthy neighborhoods rather than as solutions being expanded citywide.

The US is not a particularly good role model here. Look to Western Europe for better examples.

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

#129

Post by yesco » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 2:42 AM UTC

jshen wrote: post #126

dbingham wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are only niche methods because we haven't invested in them and they hold an enormous amount of promise. The dialog around agriculture and sustainability all too often is akin to telling people to just cut their power consumption rather than discussing or exploring non-emitting sources of energy. You say I have some weird axe to grind, because I keep pushing back on people saying that meat consumption is a much…

Again, no where in your list of what we should do did you include meat consumption. When you talk about these methods, that are unproven at scale, you do NOT mention the implications regarding the amount of meat that can be produced that way. My suggestion that people eat one less meat based meal per day is far less drastic that if all meat was produced with the methods you are advocating. Yet, you imply that I am th…

Not him, but I think I can provide a blunt answer, though I'll caveat that it is likely different than what he may have provided, and one you will probably not like: I do not take people requesting me to eat less meat seriously. My family, my friends, my colleagues not only do not take you seriously, we have in fact already stopped listening to you.

The internet over represents vegans, so you and many others are naturally underestimating how much of a minority anti-meat fanatics truly are.

If a self-proclaimed environmentalist even suggests that we as individuals need to stop eating meat to save the planet, then we naturally assume you are a moralizing vegan who is trying to launder your issue under the guise of environmentalism.

Eating meat is a part of a humans natural diet, studies saying otherwise have repeatedly been proven to be wrong, we no longer trust you. The ketogenic diet has helped many people I know see real health improvements, further cementing our distrust for mainstream dietary "science" that always seem to align with the morals of vegans (and big corporations) but never show any genuine results in real life.

In fact over the course of my entire life, I have never met a preachy vegan who didn't either look like a cancer survivor or a fat ass who's diet only consists of junk food.

Studies showing the negative environmental impact of meat agriculture have the same smell as the ones saying it's bad for our health, we also do not trust them. Studies saying that adjustments to how it is farmed could help the environment, are much more palatable, something people would realistically be willing to try, since there is less likely to be moralizing vegans involved within the equation, and therefore more likely to actually work at all.

Any hint of moralizing veganism within any environmental suggestion is doomed for failure. The difference between your suggestion and his is that yours isn't even going to be acknowledged by the general public, while his solution could at least be feasibly accepted.

That is the difference, even if the effect ends up similar (higher meat prices).

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

#130

Post by rkallos » Tue, Sep 06, 2022, 2:57 AM UTC

photochemsyn wrote: post #89

These kind of articles usually have a summary buried in them, this might be it: > "Lab-grown meat, dense cities, and nuclear energy need a rebrand. These need to be some of the new emblems of a sustainable path forward." 1) Lab-grown meat is nowhere near commercialization. At best we have plant-based meat substitutes that have similar nutritional profiles (high protein) to meat that can be produced at scale. 2) Dense…

> Dense cities don't really matter that much

Are you sure? My understanding is that people who live in dense cities rely less on automobiles, have their waste treated more efficiently, and consume less energy per capita in order to enjoy clean air and water. Those factors are more important than the land mass required to feed someone.