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[0]https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAARS/bulletins/2...
[1]https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/1058333491623067648
I know there will be comments saying that individual action is not enough to combat climate change, or that it's too late for that, but when governments are so slow to act and corporations will only change when their bottom line is at stake, it is left to individuals to take action. Going vegan is simply the right thing to do at this point.
Destroy your health for virtue points trying to tackle the smallest contributor to global warming, sounds right to me /s
https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...
It's not the largest contributor, for sure. But it's sizable.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-017-06466-8
Reducing meat intake _does_ sizably reduce overall emissions.
Honestly the links between diet and health are always thin at best, but I don't know of any that strongly link a well-balanced vegan diet with reduced health. Usually, the opposite.
https://academic.oup.com/ajcn/article/89/5/1627S/4596952
> "In general, vegetarians typically enjoy a lower risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD), obesity, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers [...]"
I'm curious how the stated article jives with the following research by the USDA [0] into it's current resource and greenhouse emissions and the work done by Bjorn Lomberg and team that showed a modest 2% reduction in total CI globally [1] if the entire population switched to a vegetarian diet. [0] https://content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USDAARS/bulletins/2... [1] https://twitter.com/BjornLomborg/status/105833349162…
This would be like asking "but how does all this new molecular biology work showing how smoking causes mutations that drive lung cancer square with Ronald Fisher's analysis showing that smoking is just correlated with lung cancer?" It just doesn't matter, because we need to realize when people are using statistics and analysis to push particular agendas, rather than using it to answer questions about the world.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can see why being "preached at" is being annoying, but the fact have been here long enough, yet a large percentage of the population haven't tried to change their diet. If public shaming and social clout isn't involved, no one will.
Or we can accept people will keep their diet and go on with our lives. Just because something impacts the environment (literally everything does this btw) doesn't mean that we need to stop doing it. The climate will always be changing and humans will always have some impact on it. We need to accept that as fact.
Climate change is already displacing tens of thousands of people every year to floods, forest fires, and arid land. It's going to get worse before anything we do today to survive has an effect.
I think the thousands of scientists studying this phenomenon already understand the impact of human civilization on Earth rather well.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Destroy your health for virtue points trying to tackle the smallest contributor to global warming, sounds right to me /s
All the evidence seems to indicate that the less meat and dairy one eats, the healthier they are. I also used to believe vegans were unhealty until I did some research. As a personal anecdote, I've been vegan for about 4 years now and my health is better than ever.
Various diets are worth trying -- you never know until you try, and you learn a lot by trying. So for readers out there, try being vegan for a month: you'll learn a lot about what you eat and how to cook and you can observe how you feel.
Also worth noting: many traditional cultures embedded food restrictions into calendars and/or religious rules. Being vegan for a while before Easter is more or less a thing in some Christian groups; Ramadan involves fasting as a practice. These cultural practices, combined with the seasons in nature, make me wonder if we were built to be cyclically vegan/omnivore/berry-eater. This may be more sustainable for many.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Destroy your health for virtue points trying to tackle the smallest contributor to global warming, sounds right to me /s
All the evidence seems to indicate that the less meat and dairy one eats, the healthier they are. I also used to believe vegans were unhealty until I did some research. As a personal anecdote, I've been vegan for about 4 years now and my health is better than ever.
My belief is that our biology is complex and specific to each individual to the point where we can't all share the same diet and expect the same effects on our bodies.
* The vast agricultural monocultures of the US have changed our climate on their own. Our fields of soy, wheat, and corn have decimated local ecosystems, led to high nitrate levels in the water, changed air temperature and humidity on their own, and encouraged a US diet that is high in processed food, leading to its own set of health problems.
* Yes, these vast monocultures are in a feedback loop with raising animals for meat. Corn-fed cattle and pigs and chickens are part of the reason Iowa is what it is today.
* If we all switch to tofu and tortillas with a side of Coke made with corn syrup, we overall preserve the agricultural status quo in the US. Is that really that big a win? Curious.
* Vegetables seem to be lacking in the standard American diet, and they're not subsidized by the federal government the way grains/corn/soybeans are, and they're also something a lot of us buy from far away. How can we change all that?
* Many people will still want meat products, some for health reasons -- it can be hard for some folks to be vegetarian or vegan healthfully (I had trouble with fatigue and anemia for instance, and yes I understand that maybe I could have tried harder/eaten more supplements/etc). How can we encourage the shift to animal production on 'waste' land, and decrease the incentives to ship beef from Brazil and Bolivia? Can we make goat meat cool again, for instance? or rabbit?
The alternatives I'm personally more interested in: shifting transportation patterns for US adults (biking and transit). Increasing green space. Re-encouraging locally grown food, where by local I mean the back yard. Rediscovering the foods you never knew you could eat but your great-grandparents did: nettles, dandelions, Virginia waterleaf, garlic mustard, purslane, daylilies, hostas. Many of you could get a whole week's worth of greens, even in May in colder climes, by walking outside -- and how many of us know it? Right now I'm motivated to rediscover these local foods for myself for health reasons, but it helps that they're $0 to grow and $0 to transport, and thus add 0 to my carbon emissions.
(edit for formatting)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I have been actively trying to reduce my ecological footprint because I believe climate change is real. I don't feel it's a matter of "personal choice" at this point. The way we live has a profound impact on the planet, and we all need to try and reduce that impact in any way we can. I realize this is a message people don't want to hear, but I believe they need to hear it. Going vegan and flying less are two of the b…
> I don't feel it's a matter of "personal choice" at this point. Unless you're suggesting forcing people by law to be vegan, then it most definitely is a personal choice. > I realize this is a message people don't want to hear, but I believe they need to hear it. It's precisely that attitude that ensures no one will ever listen to what you have to say.
Was it your personal choice to cut down rain forest to raise beef cattle, or palm oil? What about air freighting in fruit and veg that common sense says comes on a ship? No?
Your diet is small part personal choice, within the far larger part played by cultural mores and market-led financial choices imposed by producers and supermarkets. You can't escape the part played by billions on advertising, and the choices of restaurants and supermarkets that led to your "personal choice".
"The market" is not going to phase out ecologically reckless methods unless people stop buying. Yet how can they when that detail, very intentionally, never appears on the label, and 365 day availability ensures almost no one remembers when things are in season any more?
So much for personal choice.
keep in mind though managing your carbon budget is like managing any other budget, which in turn is like optimizing any other queue. meaning: don't over-optimize the 5th most important thing when you're ignoring the top 2 - 3 most important things.
by which I mean: #1 flying, #2 driving, #3 heating and #4 cooling.
just to put a sortof min-max on it: if you eat vegan but fly to a conference once a quarter and drive to work every day your emissions will be greater than if you eat cheeseburgers for lunch every day but take the subway to work and rarely fly.
which is why imho you should go for the 50 - 80% win (80+% reduction in red meat) in this category (food) instead of going all the way to vegetarian/vegan.
or put another way, being pro video-conference has a better GHG reduction return than being vegan :)