this post was submitted on 04 May 2024
345 points (96.0% liked)
Degrowth
721 readers
11 users here now
Discussions about degrowth and all sorts of related topics. This includes UBI, economic democracy, the economics of green technologies, enviromental legislation and many more intressting economic topics.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
We need to stop eating beef. The fact that no one thinks that if they stop eating beef they won't have any effect is disturbing as fuck. If everyone stops eating beef then the industry will collapse.
The fact that I don't see this graph more often is annoying, I hate having to keep bringing this up, someone else share this for fucks sake please.
Seriously. Animal agriculture needs to end and not exist whether we live in a capitalist dystopia or communist utopia, for the environment and for the sake of all sentient beings
The fact that you and I got downvotes just speaks massive volumes. We might not make it as a species because we have so many individuals who think it doesn't matter either way. WE ALL PLAY A FUCKING ROLE, TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR DECISIONS IN YOUR LIFE TIME.
Also concerning how many tons of beef products I've tossed due to mold in food production. Large-scale manufacturing has so many holes we could fill if only it was profitable for the companies to do so.
I agree meat is a luxury. If we look historically, farm meat was common at the table of the wealthy, but sparring at the table of the common man. It's often made me wonder about the sustainabity of hunted meats if we were to treat meat as a luxury item reserved for celebrations. It seems like there's quite the potential for carbon offset according to this article: Wild meat consumption in tropical forests spares a significant carbon footprint from the livestock production sector. The article also seems to suggest in this context a necesity of more and larger reforesting/rewilding efforts. I skimmed through this, so if there's contradiction I missed please comment.
If the people that exclusively eat meat just reduces to a few times a week would do wonders.
I only eat Chicken and meat substitutes like Beyond meat. The problem is that greenhouses also produce a worrying amount of carbon and ramping that up could have similar effects.
I think you misunderstood this graph. This is per kilogram of food product. It has nothing to do with scale, it's a ratio.
I think you misunderstood my comment. I'm saying that as we transition away from meat products into meat substitutes, actual greenhouses will start producing more carbon emissions and simply replace the beef industry rather than amend it entirely. The systems used to regulate greenhouses are unfortunately contributing to the problem they were meant to solve.
This comment confuses me. How do you reckon that growing plants produces more carbon than growing plants and feeding them to animals?
Growing them outside is a lot different than doing so in a temperature controlled and highly regulated environment. Air cooling, sun lamps, all that uses power and that demand goes to the grid, which is coal and oil fueled.
Right so grow them outside or don't power it with coal and oil
Sure, but how do you grow enough to last the winter without greenhouses? Do you only eat meat alternatives in the growing seasons? The problem with everyone being vegan is that we don't have an agricultural infrastructure to fully support plant based food to last the entire year without greenhouses. Winter, disease, sunlight, water, all these things have a carbon cost to obtain, use, or fight against.
How do you feed the animals in winter?
Livestock requires food too. However much you need to grow and store in the warm months to feed the animals in winter could feed 10 times as many humans instead, regardless of how you do that. Not feeding the plants we grow to animals would necessarily be more efficient.
I'm not saying greenhouses are worse I'm saying they aren't so much better than changing to plants only would be a significant enough change at scale. We need to address the core of power production, coal and oil.
Between beef and dairy herds, cows have about the same impact as everything else combined.
We coukd start by not replacing meat eating pet's when they pass,this fetisihization of pets is bizzare. The US uses more meat for pet dogs then all of the meat conumed in Germany as one example.
That aside, we could start with banning advertising, private jets, cruise ships, jet skis, flying, motocross bikes, private cars etc why ? Some poor dude being told to stop eating a burger isn't going to take anyone seriously if Gate's etal are still flying around in a private jet and folks are jetting around the world to see a Taylor Swift concert.
https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm
I'm not nearly as worried about carbon dioxide as I am methane. Not eating beef is much easier than not burning fossil fuels.
https://www.factcheck.org/2018/09/how-potent-is-methane/