Red meat has a huge carbon footprint because cattle requires a large amount of land and water.
https://sph.tulane.edu/climate-and-food-environmental-impact-beef-consumption
Demand for steaks and burgers is the primary driver of Deforestation:
https://e360.yale.edu/features/marcel-gomes-interview
If you don’t have a car and rarely eat red meat, you are doing GREAT 🙌🙌 🙌
Sure, you can drink tap water instead of plastic water. You can switch to Tea. You can travel by train. You can use Linux instead of Windows AI’s crap. Those are great ideas. But, don’t drive yourself crazy. If you are only an ordinary citizen, remember that perfect is the enemy of good.
No shade on people trying to make sustainable choices, but if the solution to the climate crisis is us trusting everyone to “get with the program” and pick the right choice; while unsustainable alternatives sit right there beside them at lower prices, then we are truly doomed.
What the companies behind these foods and products don’t want to talk about is that to get anywhere we have to target them. It shouldn’t be a controversial standpoint that: (i) all products need to cover their true full environmental and sustainability costs, with the money going back into investments into the environment counteracting the negative impacts; (ii) we need to regulate, regulate, and regulate how companies are allowed to interact with the environment and society, and these limits must apply world-wide. There needs to be careful follow-up on that these rules are followed: with consequences for individuals that take the decisions to break them AND “death sentences” (i.e. complete disbandment) for whole companies that repeatedly oversteps.
This is true, and also not usually well taken by most people, even the ones claiming to be pro environment.
Wait until this thread gets full of people saying that their habits are irrelevant because companies pollute much more - which they do indeed, but that absolutely does not negate the many studies we have that calculate a major impact if we simply dropped red meat.
Which is again quite obvious if you think about the energetic demand of growing food only to feed an animal that then will become food, rather than skipping this step and eating the original food instead.
The idea that we have to grow food for food is ridiculous. Cows turn grass into meat just fine, why do we need to grow corn and soybeans for them
I bet it’s because, like with hogs, we’ve bred them to be so growth optimized they can’t get enough calories from grass anymore.
Unfortunately grass-fed production is no solution. It both does not scale or help reduce emissions
We model a nationwide transition [in the US] from grain- to grass-finishing systems using demographics of present-day beef cattle. In order to produce the same quantity of beef as the present-day system, we find that a nationwide shift to exclusively grass-fed beef would require increasing the national cattle herd from 77 to 100 million cattle, an increase of 30%. We also find that the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply (27 million cattle), an amount 30% smaller than prior estimates
[…]
If beef consumption is not reduced and is instead satisfied by greater imports of grass-fed beef, a switch to purely grass-fed systems would likely result in higher environmental costs, including higher overall methane emissions. Thus, only reductions in beef consumption can guarantee reductions in the environmental impact of US food systems.
Not scaling could be a feature and not a bug. It would raise the price of beef and thus lower demand.
To an extent, yes it would likely do that. Though on the other hand running into the maximum capacity limitations would not look pretty. Even countries that have a just bit higher grass-fed production than others have a fair number of issues (and still use plenty of supplemental grain)
For instance, in New Zealand, they use a massive amount of synthetic fertilizer on grasslands to try to make it keep up for dairy production
The large footprint for milk in Canterbury indicates just how far the capacity of the environment has been overshot. To maintain that level of production and have healthy water would require either 12 times more rainfall in the region or a 12-fold reduction in cows.
[…]
The “grass-fed” marketing line overlooks the huge amounts of fossil-fuel-derived fertiliser used to make the extra grass that supports New Zealand’s very high animal stock rates.
Or in the UK and Ireland where grass-fed production leads to deforestation and they still need additional grain on top of it
Most of the UK and Ireland’s grass-fed cows and sheep are on land that might otherwise be temperate rainforest – arable crops tend to prefer drier conditions. However, even if there were no livestock grazing in the rainforest zone – and these areas were threatened by other crops instead – livestock would still pose an indirect threat due to their huge land footprint
[…]
Furthermore, most British grass-fed cows are still fed crops on top of their staple grass
the first time in probably a year i’ve seen someone explain supply and demand correctly. thank you.
What?!?
It doesn’t mean that you must supply me with everything I demand?!?!
Well, it’s not “growing” per se, but we produce fertilizers which are “plant food”, so you could say we grow food for our food even for plants.
why do we need to grow corn and soybeans for them
we don’t. but we do grain finish most cattle, because it’s faster.
because companies pollute much more
This argument drives me crazy. Companies, in this context, are the people. The companies pollute exclusively on behalf of their customers. WE ARE THE COMPANIES.
My big problem is not with individuals ethically trying to do the right thing, or about people trying to convince individuals to be ethical and to do the right thing.
My big problem is the amount of effort in this when it will have only small gains. In today’s society, meaningful gains come from changes in government regulations and policies.
If you want people to stop eating as much red meat, get the government to stop providing subsidies to cattle owners. I have a money-focused relative who owns cattle only because of the subsidies. At least let the price of beef go up to its actual market value. You’d think that would be an easy sell for Republicans who believe in the free market, but they’re the ones who want the subsidy the most.
Of course, then, you can add additional regulations and encourage environmental responsibility.
We should push for large institutional change, but don’t ignore individual change either. Problem is how will you get said governments to act if people aren’t also stepping up and they expect backlash to acting? The more people expect it to be cheap and highly consumed, the harder it will be for them to act. Moving people away from meat individually makes it easier. Movements that succeed usually have both individual and institutional change
Institutional change that is achievable at the current moment is smaller. There’s been some success with things like changing the defaults to be plant-based (which is good and we should continuing to push for that), but cutting subsides is going to be an uphill battle until a larger number of people change their consumption patterns
I agree that individual change is important, but you have to go about it a certain way. Actually the way OP is phrasing it is pretty good. Let people understand that just eating less red meat is always better.
Because if the messaging is at all confusing, you’ll get the kind of result you got during the start of Covid with the masks. It was always true that any amount of masking helped, but when you started to make it complicated, you got a lot of backlash and people completely stopped masking. And of course, with both Covid and red meat, there are people out there incentivized to make things complicated so that people give up. I think it really needs to be dead simple to work.
I enjoy red meat, but I avoid it most of the time because of trying to be healthier. Also guilt from seeing videos of happy cows looking like gigantic dogs.
Fucking shit though I had no idea coffee was so high up the list. I probably should drink less of it anyway, but ouch, that one hurt me way more than the beef.
I was surprised it was that high. I don’t ever drink coffee, so hopefully it offsets some of the meat. We have already reduced our consumption.
if you think about the energetic demand of growing food only to feed an animal that then will become food, rather than skipping this step and eating the original food instead.
most people don’t want to eat grass or soy cake. letting cows graze, and feeding soycake (the byproduct of soybean oil production) to pigs and poultry is a conservation of resources.
most people don’t want to eat grass or soy cake
If only we mastered farming, allowing us to plant a wide variety of crops. But alas, we are left eating grass.
not all land is suitable for crops. letting cattle graze it is fine.
You’re delusional if you believe most of the meat you consume comes from cows eating naturally growing grass in areas no other crops can grow.
this is a strawman
The only way this is a strawman is if your statement is a non sequitur. Otherwise, my reply very much holds.
You can’t counter “raising enough cows to supply our current meat demand takes a lot of resources we could be eating instead” with “its okay for them to eat grass :D” unless the implication is that eating grass is sufficient to meet that demand.
Otherwise, you’re just commenting that cows eat grass. Which congrats, I guess? I think I know some middle school students who might be surprised by the information?
You can’t counter “raising enough cows to supply our current meat demand takes a lot of resources we could be eating instead” with “its okay for them to eat grass :D”
this conversation didn’t happen.
Good news is that overall arable farmland usage goes down the less meat you eat. Don’t need to use all the same land, you have flexibility to move around production
we show that plant-based replacements for each of the major animal categories in the United States (beef, pork, dairy, poultry, and eggs) can produce twofold to 20-fold more nutritionally similar food per unit cropland. Replacing all animal-based items with plant-based replacement diets can add enough food to feed 350 million additional people, more than the expected benefits of eliminating all supply chain food loss.
overall arable farmland usage goes down the less meat you eat.
I don’t think that has ever happened.
It’s worth noting that soybean meal is not a byproduct. When we look at the most common extraction method for soybean oil (using hexane solvents), soybean meal is still the driver of demand
However, soybean meal is the main driving force for soybean oil production due to its significant amount of productivity and revenues
[…]
soybean meal and hulls contribute to over 60% of total revenues, with meal taking the largest portion of over 59% of total revenue
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0926669017305010
This is even more true of other methods like expelling which is still somewhat commonly used
Moreover, soybean meal is the driving force for the whole process [expelling oil from soy] because it provides over 70% of the total revenue for soy processing by expelling
some studies show soybean oils being as much as half the value of the crop, despite being just 20% of the weight.
If we assume that’s the case, half of revenue is still not a byproduct, it’s a coproduct. The other half is still pretty relevant to its value and usage. If 50% of your revenue disappears from something, you’re going to be making a lot less of it
i think at this point we’ve devolved into arguing semantics. you’re not going to convince me soybean is a viable crop unless you can press it for oil, and i don’t think i can convince you it’s a viable product unless the meal is fed to livestock. but i hope you have a good night!
hexane solvents are not the most common method of oil extraction. you have been misinformed.
See, OP is not saying we should “just drop red meat”, and this is probably why you get that kind of reactions.
I’ve got a special trick where I can make pretty much the entire internet rage at me. Check it out:
I’m vegetarian.
Imagine how being vegan makes you the most horrible pariah. Change of diet was not difficult at all, but I wasn’t quite prepared for the social consequences.
People will look at an image like this, read that 80% of deforestation in the Amazon happens for cattle, and go “I’m powerless, Exxon is bad” and continue to not only eat meat 5x a day but also actively try to convince other people that reducing their meat consumption is silly and they might as well keep eating it as much as they want because grocery stores will stock it anyway and Elon Musk rides a jet.
or eat the wealthy is a better start
Save the planet! Eat Deez Nutz!
Finally, me being gay can actually be useful
YSK you should stop guilting us peasants.
Everyone knows who’s to blame.
Tired of this shit.Let me tell you something, the consumer is to blame.
Nobody needs to orient their life around anything that they don’t choose. For example I willingly gave up my car and picked a job near me so I didn’t have to drive.
There wouldn’t be a market for bottled water if people wouldn’t drink the fucking shit.
This whole cognitive dissonance crap where you get to live a completely hedonistic trash-filled lifestyle, while justifying that you have the right because you’re sad about your earning… I am sick to death of this attitude in people.
Oh and the shitty product that exists? I must consume it, it’s not me for purchasing it and creating a market, it’s them for serving my need & this market.
It’s pretty lame to use the (imperically correct concept) of, no ethical consumption under capitalism to blanket absolve you of willful, informed choices. Humans all eat approx the same amount of calories, but the production of said calories are far from equal. Like you can be mad at the statistics but that doesn’t really change the reality of an unnecessary cultural pratice which massively contributes to climate.
I mean just for your own sake, stop this line of thinking at “I don’t care” instead of looking for a scapegoat to justify you indifference as praxis.
There wouldn’t be a market for bottled water if water was clean and readily available for free.
The bottled water industry is way worse in Norway than in Spain for example.
Even if you justification added up, you could just go get barrels of water, you don’t need to get individual bottles.
You people actually make me sick with your BS
Most scandinavians don’t buy individual bottles because of the drinking water quality. water is usually available most places. And it’s always free in regular cafes and restaurants in Norway if you ask for it.
It’s solvable if the state does what’s it’s supposed to.
Get out of here with your logic and reason!
LOL
Tell me what is your job?
Don’t they sell crap?
Do you live in a hut?
Clean your ass with grass?
Piss off with your selfrightious BS.How about you go fuck yourself?
:)
🙄
This is such a colossal cop out. Without question corporations and individual billionaires produce more pollution by several magintuedes of individual people. But even that is a drop in the bucket between the deforestation, the years of transporting food for livestock and the final transportation of end product meat to the world population that can be fed on plant based protein.
Save this line for plastic straws and other frivolous demonization from those in private jets. But don’t use it as a thought terminating cliche aginst the single biggest source of historical human made climate change.
Oh please.
Every food needs to be transported.
Well not if it’s produced and consumed locally but you forget you’re in capitalism where it’s cheaper to get your quinoa from 4000km away, etc.
Also I don’t want to be fed on plant based protein.
The world population can be fed anyway but capitalism says we need to destroy a lot of food to keep the prices down.
And some regions don’t have food bcs it can’t get there or their crops are destroyed by war, again caused by capitalism.
There’s a reason you don’t hear about little Greta anymore, she got wise.
Everyone can parrot the BP carbon footprint garbage all they want, IDC. I have zero guiltAlso I don’t want to be fed on plant based protein.
At the core of literally every anti-vegan argument is, "but I don’t wanna!"
yep imagine not doing what you want
Do beliefs and principles even matter if, whenever they’re inconvenient, you ignore them and do whatever you were going to do anyway?
you have zero knowledge of my beliefs, let alone if I find them inconvenient or ignore them.
No need for your pedantic ramblings.
Going to have a cocktail in the sun with a little umbrella. ByeThis conversation is about whether eating meat is unethical, if you’re saying “I don’t wanna” then what you’re saying is that it doesn’t matter whether it’s ethical or not, because even if it were shown to be unethical and against your principles, you wouldn’t care, because “I don’t wanna.” Because your treats are more important to you than beliefs or principles.
Not disagreeing that meat is bad for the environment, but I think not having kids is probably way above cutting out meat.
Veganism is good, necessary even, but more than voting we need to actually overthrow capitalism and replace it with socialism. Profit will destroy the planet unless we take control of the reigns from capital.
Yeah plants, the only thing that creates Oxygen
I could devote all my time to recycling, reducing carbon emissions, not driving, voting, not eating red meat, including forcing everyone i know to do the same - and the net result would be an iota of a drop in the ocean of change. i.e. nothing.
As others have said, until there is a global shift on how the world operates and the major oil companies, cruise lines, and airlines all shut down, nothing you or i can do will matter.
Edit: folks still don’t get it. It’s not a matter of apathy, it’s pragmatism. You will never, ever convince enough people to make a significant change relative to the big consumers. You will be dealing with the people who literally pollute and consume out of spite, and/or principle, or ignorance. For every thing you do, someone’s doing the opposite. We failed the planet a long time ago though lack of education and giving too many greedy people power. The world is too large and the snowball is over the hill.
The amount of fuel used by the cruise industry in about 1 minute, on average, is more fuel than you or I or any normal person would consume in their entire lifetime, by a lot. That’s on the low end. They consume 500,000 to 1.5 mil gallons an hour. The average person uses maybe 20 to 50k gallons their entire lives. You’d have to convince millions and millions of people to stop driving completely for 40 years to offset that. Tens of millions probably.
Not gonna happen. That’s just one industry.
Everyone’s not gonna just stop flying. Or stop driving. Or stop eating meat. It’s idealistic and impossible and frankly imaginary, no matter how much it may be necessary.
Why waste your time and energy doing things that will do nothing? Focus your efforts elsewhere. Policy change probably has the best chance of helping. But then I point back to the people actively and purposely thwarting any attempts at curbing consumption, and these people are billionaires etc. And at least in the USA, running the country.
Airlines, cruise lined oil companies are not immutable forces of nature. They have grown to their current size to meet the demand of individuals like you and me who want to buy shit and go places.
If everyone stopped flying, passenger airlines would be out of business and no longer flying planes within a year or two. Same with cruise companies. Oil is used in more things but if everyone switched to EVs or stopped driving oil production would go way down- even more if we cut our plastic usage as well.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking consumers are powerless. In a free market economy they are very powerful- that’s why boycotts can be so effective.
Seriously. Some people here are so happy they’ve found the “perfect” justification for their apathy and inaction.
Your edit makes me wish I could downvote this again. Your flawed logic can be used to excuse a number of ridiculous and fucked up shit. “Folks just don’t get it.” Fuck off with that bullshit.
It’s not apathy it’s pragmatism? But then you rant about how nothing matters.
Better to spend time and energy elsewhere? So you spend time and energy convincing others to be as apathetic and weak as you. So weak you needed to desperately justify your apathy to yourself and to others by editing your comment.
Don’t wanna eat less meat? Go for it dawg. Eat it up. Don’t give a fuck about deforestation? The fucked up conditions animals are raised in? The pollution and everything that comes with it? Just because cruises are wasteful? You do you, big dawg.
But to tell everyone else to not give a fuck either is just some absurd fucked up apathetic shit. It’s not pragmatic. It’s so obvious you lie to yourself. The audacity to say “folks just don’t get it.”
I’m just laughing cause you still don’t get it. Nothing you do will matter. Yes, that’s depressing, and it’s also true. The numbers don’t check out. You can wave it away all you want, nothing you do will matter. Sorry. And yes that should make you angry. But that is what I mean by pragmatism. It’s a waste of time and energy to be angry. To believe you can do something about it. Instead, focus on being happy and making life better for others in ways we can, in the time we have.
Trust me, I get it more than you. I try to live with principles instead of just thinking whether “it’ll matter” and being a coward because billionaires ride jets and rich people take cruises.
You’re “just laughing” and thinking you’re above me, explaining to me your idiocy as if I don’t see how pathetic you actually are.
Nope, you still don’t get it, lol.
We lost.
“I have no principles because people take cruises and I believe nobody else should have principles either.”
I believe it’s all gonna collapse too. That doesn’t mean I cry in the drive thru line waiting for a bacon burger then go on Lemmy and build a facade that I’m enlightened just because I understand the extremely simple fact that humans fucked up the planet. And then “laugh” at people with principles as if having principles means they “don’t get it,” when the modern meat industry, for one, is an absolute horror show that causes so much present harm beyond emissions to not just the animals.
You’re hilariously inconsistent too for someone who “gets it.” In your other comment you’re telling people to focus energy where it matters, but here now you’re saying nothing matters and that “we lost.”
People who “get it” don’t go around telling people that they’re laughing and that they get it.
Maybe resolve your inner conflicts first before you tell people what to do and what not do to, oh enlightened laughing one.
The number of assumptions you make about my “principles” are ridiculous. You are reading way too far into the like 100 words I wrote. You sound super pissed and projecting a lot onto me.
All that garble to tell me no, you still don’t get it.
A quarter of emissions is nothing? Yeah the overwhelming majority is attributable to major oil companies, but you’re just being lazy and fatalistic. But sure, just sit there and wait for a paradigm shift to come save you from yourself I guess. Literally the first two search results I found:
https://www.dw.com/en/fact-check-is-eating-meat-bad-for-the-environment/a-63595148 https://www.c2es.org/content/regulating-transportation-sector-carbon-emissions/
Right but you have to begin somewhere, and being a good example for others certainly helps as well.
I try to change my life such that it doesn’t impact me much while having fairly large effect. For instance I’m basically vegan (still eat meat occasionally, e.g. when it’s otherwise thrown away), I even don’t want to eat meat anymore, the taste just got worse for me over time.
It also has effects on the market, e.g. Meat replacement products are quite affordable and popular.
It wouldn’t be nothing and you know that. If you simplify the meat problem to just emissions, sure, it might look small in comparison to cruises, etc. But if you look at it as the multifaceted problem it really is, then reducing consumption will have several effects. Especially, as you exaggerated, if you forced everyone you know to do the same.
The last thing we need is people advocating for these “fuck it” attitudes. Should we really excuse better choices and better directions of behavior and culture just because there’s a “small” effect? I feel like this line of logic can be used to excuse some pretty dark shit.
Not loving that the exact source of the data in this graph is not clearly linked in the description.
All you fuckers act like your individual choice to not eat meat or have kids won’t just have another eat up the same resources or have kids in your stead. We need smart people to have ethical kids and we need extreme systematic political change for any real affect whatsoever. Even if the ENTIRE WORLD dropped red meat, while still a good chunk, it’s only 6% of our global annual emissions that we’d save. The top 3 sectors for emissions are energy transportation and general industry which makes up about 75% of global emissions, at about 25% each. The individual choices not mattering as much as political systematic change is huge, and that won’t happen if the Trumpers are having most of the kids and we’re having stupid divisive arguments about what our individual food choices should be.
Emissions are just a piece of it. There’s land use, consequences of this land use, etc, which involve changes in rain patterns, soil acidification, and so forth.
It’s enough to make it difficult to keep to 2C climate targets on its own. Its not something we should ignore - especially since much of it comes in methane emissions which means reduction in it can be felt quicker and reduce chance of hitting feedback loops. We must tackle all sources
To have any hope of meeting the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to limit global warming to 2°C or less, our carbon emissions must be reduced considerably, including those coming from agriculture. Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. Thus, major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357
That’s also on top of other environmental issues that it contributes to besides just climate change. Land usage, water usage, waste runoff
Transitioning to plant-based diets (PBDs) has the potential to reduce diet-related land use by 76%, diet-related greenhouse gas emissions by 49%, eutrophication by 49%, and green and blue water use by 21% and 14%, respectively, whilst garnering substantial health co-benefits
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/8/1614/html
And pesticide and fertilizer usage is lower
Thus, shifting from animal to plant sources of protein can substantially reduce fertilizer requirements, even with maximal use of animal manure
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921344922006528
The diet containing more animal products required an additional 10 252 litres of water, 9910 kJ of energy, 186 g of fertilizer and 6 g of pesticides per week in comparison to the diet containing less animal products
You have anger problems as well as responsibility problems.
How much less red meat to offset all the private jet that flew to Venice for bezos’ wedding?
“Your strategy, eating less red meat, pales in effectiveness to my strategy, blowing up Jeff Bezos’ private jet” alright, go blow up Jeff Bezos’ private jet then.
No, its fine, he paid for a carbon offset. That makes everything ok.
Being alive is bad for the environment.
Operative word you. Individual action was a deliberate red herring constructed by the FF industry propaganda machines half a fucking century ago, because they knew who the actual significant contributors to the problem were.
It’s a manner of perspective, Coca Cola is considered one of the largest polluters on the planet but that’s not because corporate Coca Cola is out there polluting for funsies it’s because they make a product that individuals purchase and then individuals improperly dispose of. Sure no one person can stop Coca Cola from polluting but isn’t the pollution caused by your individual purchase your own responsibility?
No. Coke could make biodegradable packaging and choose not to because number go up. Next question.
And people could not purchase non biodegradable products
Operative word you. Individual action was a deliberate red herring constructed by the FF industry propaganda machines half a fucking century ago, because they knew who the actual significant contributors to the problem were.
I do agree that real change takes political power. You need things like tax breaks for people who use public transit, congestion pricing, taxing airports more, banning ads for SUVs, requiring electronic devices to be repairable, etc… These actions would be far more efficient than any individual action. Sure.
But political power isn’t enough. Look at what just happened in Canada.
Justin Trudeau banned oil tankers off the coast of British Columbia and he tried to ban single use plastics. He faced outraged reactions.
Some angry politicians were publically taunting him on social media and sued his government :
A guy literally campaigned on defending plastics and slashing the (tiny) tax on carbon.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/poilievre-scrap-plastics-ban-1.7514037
See what happened? The guy was the Prime Minister. He tried some small changes. He faced brutal political backlash. Why? His people weren’t ready.
Change starts with individuals. Only when you reach a critical mass of individuals can you start trying to push for policy changes.
