Eat less meat: UN climate change report calls for change to human diet • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by dragonwriter » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:10 AM UTC

CommieDetector wrote: post #56

Let's open an history book an review what happens when the government controlls the food production.

Er, the results on that are rather mixed and ambiguous and depend more on other factors; but then again, controlling food production and distribution was the main role of most governments in most of history; it wasn't really until the agricultural revolutions that were a key factor in the feudal economic system starting to be replaced with capitalism that some governments could really afford (even in the short-term) not to make that their primary concern most of the time, and even now and even among advanced liberal Democratic “capitalist” (really, mixed economies) states, guiding food production and distribution remains a major role of government, even if the means used involve markets with government intervention through price controls, production subsidies, consumer (means-tested) subsidies, direct government purchase and distribution, aggressive negotiation of agricultural trade deals, etc., etc., etc., rather than transparent direct state direction.

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

#72

Post by Nyandalized » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

CommieDetector wrote: post #59

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

What gives you the right to control what people eat?

I believe the government already has the right and power to control what people eat. People form the government, and people (ideally) choose the people to hold that power.

In part I, too have the right to control what people eat through voting.

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

#73

Post by mklarmann » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

est31 wrote: post #30

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

I agree. Few years back I bought some tofu sausages to try out how they taste. They tasted interesting but not like real sausages. Definitely not a good replacement. Even if I made myself eat them because of moral reasons, ignoring how they taste, many people would still avoid them. As long as meat tastes better than its alternatives, people will use it. We need to bring good meat alternatives to the masses. The theo…

Our studies have shown, that about 10% are first movers (willing to give up benefits, to become climate friendly eaters) and 80% will go with the default when it is acceptable. The last 10% would still need to be coerced actively by some kind of restriction.

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

#74

Post by perlpimp » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:11 AM UTC

There are depictions of cows and mention of amazon forest. Could this be about fast food industry ? Also need scales of damage for poultry, swine etc, not sensational articles about going from one extreme to the other. I don't eat much beef but do love steak twice a month, is it alot? I don't think so, mostly have chicken bc it is easier to prepare and it seems to be easier to digest.

at any rate i hope to see some scales for this sort of thing.

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

#75

Post by glastra » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

the8472 wrote: post #64

glastra wrote: post #40

How about we don't change the diet but change where the food comes from? When talking about meat and damage to the environment, the only relevant figures are the ones associated with animal feed (e.g. water consumption per kg of meat). Pastured animals, by definition, don't eat feed coming from the monoculture industrial agriculture that is depleting the soil and consuming all those resources, and which is also used…

No matter what you feed them, compared to other livestock animals cows are a fairly inefficient at turning feed into meat, meaning you need to dedicate more land to agriculture when it could be forest instead and thus a better carbon sink.

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.

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

#76

Post by alexgmcm » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

tsherr wrote: post #9

The UN doesn't have the guts to target the task issue: too many humans. And recommend the only solution: one child per couple until we get down to about half the current population.

Birth rate seems to converge to 1-2 children per couple in advanced economies anyway.

Really we should be ensuring access to birth control and education in developing countries along with improving medical services to cut infant mortality (so that parents can be sure their young will reach old age and don't need to play it safe and have many young).

We are getting there slowly, but we could do more.

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

#77

Post by lol768 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:12 AM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #13

Nyandalized wrote: post #2

I don't think people will stop consuming meat if you ask them nicely. You have to make decisions that will hurt the meat industry and make it infeasible. This would likely best be achieved through slowly dropping tax incentives, and transferring them over to alternatives so that people have something equally economical to today's meat.

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…

>adult don't need to drink any milk and many don't digest it well, by the way

Never understood the obsession with drinking milk on its own (though I never liked the taste of it myself either). There's plenty of calcium to be found in other sources: kale, leafy greens, almonds, fortrified grains, beans/pulses etc.

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

#78

Post by n4r9 » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

baxtr wrote: post #8

I have become an 80% vegetarian - meaning I try to avoid meat completely, but I am not "strong" enough and end up eating a (usually small) piece of meat, once every week/second week. It took me at least one year to achieve this, because meat is so prevalent in our society. A friend of mine was in India recently and he said he did not miss meat at all since the non-meat dishes were so great. I think a lot of it is jus…

I'm similar. Only eat meat if I go out at weekends or if there's some left over that needs to get used up. My wife and I almost entirely cook for ourselves and it's pretty easy to make nice vegetarian meals. I do a fair amount of weightlifting and like to get the protein in - quorn, soy, tofu, lentils and eggs are key. I also supplement daily with whey protein shakes and creatine. It's a bit of a hassle and sometimes I find myself dying for a nice bit of lamb or steak, otoh it's good to pay this level of attention to one's diet.

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

#79

Post by jazzabeanie » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

robin_reala wrote: post #32

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.

And meat from wild invasive species is even lower.

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

#80

Post by ensiferum » Fri, Aug 09, 2019, 9:13 AM UTC

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 existence of humans.

The only real long term solution is start limiting population growth drastically. Any crutch trying to limit energy and material consumption will not solve the root cause. (Ofc it still makes sense to cut off the excess and not be wasteful or a resource hog)

Personally I'd like to have only enough people on this planet, so that everyone can be fed and educated and have access to health care, sanitation and all the basic needs.