687
Eating meat creates four times more greenhouse gases than being vegan, landmark study finds
(www.independent.co.uk)
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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Oh look, another article pointing the finger at the meager consumption habits of citizens and completely ignoring the massive ocean of CO2 production by large companies.
Don't people get tired of seeing this same argument being made? The amount of carbon produced by barges carrying cargo over the Atlantic so far greatly exceeds the consumption of many millions of people every single day but I'm supposed to feel guilty for eating a piece of steak today instead of some semi-edible "impossible meat" bug protein?
ETA: Nice, my first blowup since leaving reddit. Very refreshing to see some people arguing passionately. I appreciate the vigor and the quality of argumentation, everybody. The quality of discourse here is so much better than on reddit.
I'm willing to admit the "semi edible impossible meat bug protein" gamut was a bit tongue in cheek, but I recognize how it can sound genuine. I do think Impossible Meat is disgusting, but that's neither here nor there.
I eat plenty of plant matter and I regularly forage in the local forests to learn about edible plants. But I'm not going to stop enjoying steak just because it might put a bit more CO2 (why do people keep writing it as C02 online?) into the atmosphere. If removing subsidies and putting more pressure on the meat industry to be less wasteful, less environmentally impactful and more ethical towards animals causes steak to rise to $40/lb as some here have stated I'll gladly pay.
FWIW, I get my steak from local farms that are free range and grass fed. Grass feeding is healthier for the cow than the typical grain, it produces less CO2 and the steak is better quality. Plus the cows are better taken care of. Again, thanks for the great messages (generally).
Meat production causes 25% of all GHGs in our atmosphere. Personal consumption, on this matter, is 100% the cause. No one is forcing anyone to eat meat on the staggering level North Americans do. If we as North Americans didn't demand so much cheap plastic shit to buy as part of our lifestyle, there would be less of it made, less of it shipped, fewer cargo ships, less GHG. Your beef isn't with people telling you that we consume too much, your beef is with the insurmountable prospect of convincing billions of people to cool it.
This increases food insecurity. There is absolutely no way you remove a major source of food production without more people going hungry. I don't think I need to belabor this aspect further.
Not to mention, the logic of your argument also shifts the blame of fossil fuel emissions from corporation to consumer. No one is forcing us to use gasoline or plastic on the staggering level that North Americans do. If we simply cut back, then there'd be fewer emissions. For that matter in fact, this very discussion we're having is possible because of electrical power, which more than likely produced GHG as well. Should we hold the blame for this as our consumption, and let dirty coal plants get a pass?
Finally, these researchers have a major hole in their research. They haven't even looked at what emissions and resource usage we'd have if we scaled up vegan food production to replace current meat consumption. And I suspect we'd find one major health problem -- there are some amino acids we only get from meat. To prevent health deterioration, we'd need massive production of vitamin supplements that are mandatory for everyone to consume for their health. Even if we somehow manage this in a vegan friendly process, it will use an extortionate amount of energy, resources, and freshwater. Enough that I can't say definitively it would be less than meat consumption.
The difference between the calories an animal consumes vs the amount that animal provides to us is huge. If we converted the animal feed to direct food production we would not have 'food insecurity'.
https://awellfedworld.org/feed-ratios/ has sources, if you actually care to learn rather than talking from your armchair.
And yes consumers absolutely should have some blame in climate change. Corporations don't pollute for fun, they do it for profit. It's way easier for us to point fingers and continue to do fuck all while the planet burns.