Whatever happened to that seaweed thing that you sprinkle on cow feed and it cuts a significant percentage of methane?
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The resistance on reducing meat consumption
- Thread starter Amnixia
- Start date
I think you ought to actually read the details. The myth is that just going vegan will totally solve the problem. That's not what he OP or anyone in this thread is saying. Reducing your meat intake (mainly red meat) is just one part of combating climate change.
Do you think the world's consumption patterns, tastes and preferences are completely static and determined only by marketing? We get an article every week about how Millenials are killing some industry.
It's easier to throw up your hands and say "advertisers gonna advertise" than accept any responsibility :(
Just get rid of livestock subsidies. If meat is expensive, people will buy and eat less.
We live in a market-driven economy AND culture. If you want someone to stop doing something, you make laws that make that thing expensive.
We live in a market-driven economy AND culture. If you want someone to stop doing something, you make laws that make that thing expensive.
I think if you put a few minutes of thought into that question you'll find the answer yourself. To help you on your journey, here's a question for you: do you think an article like 'Millenials are killing sit down restaurants' stems from growing personal dissatisfaction with service or from marketing of ease of access alternative services like Ubereats, onlineordering, etc.
Bonus round: Those articles are themselves very successful advertisements.
Its not my responsibility when something like just 100 corporations contribute 71% of global greenhouse gasses.
overpopulation is the root of the climate change problem, not beef.
less people, less beef/animal products eater
less people, less beef/animal products eater
Damn, this thread. Some people simply don't think rationally.
No one's asking you to cut off meat entirely.
Just to reduce your consumption by 30%.
Concretely, that's having one no-meat lunch every two days. You could have a marinara pizza instead, or a dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce, or some Indian bean curry.
Or alternatively, you could eat your burgers with a 85g patty instead of 120g (or 120g but 70% meat and 30% vegetable-based replacement).
No one's asking you to cut off meat entirely.
Just to reduce your consumption by 30%.
Concretely, that's having one no-meat lunch every two days. You could have a marinara pizza instead, or a dish of spaghetti with tomato sauce, or some Indian bean curry.
Or alternatively, you could eat your burgers with a 85g patty instead of 120g (or 120g but 70% meat and 30% vegetable-based replacement).
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I don't think I could reduce my meat eating over moral concerns, but enviromental concerns are huge concerns for me.
Lucky for me, I'm a very picky eater, so I don't care for a lot of kinds of meat, particually lamb, most forms of beef and some forms of pork. I like chicken, but I like tofu even more somehow, so always go for tofu if I get the choice, but unfortunately I don't get that choice often. The only other Issue I have with cutting meat is that I love eggs, plus doing away with dairy would be very difficult. I could cut more meat from my diet if there was more options.
Lucky for me, I'm a very picky eater, so I don't care for a lot of kinds of meat, particually lamb, most forms of beef and some forms of pork. I like chicken, but I like tofu even more somehow, so always go for tofu if I get the choice, but unfortunately I don't get that choice often. The only other Issue I have with cutting meat is that I love eggs, plus doing away with dairy would be very difficult. I could cut more meat from my diet if there was more options.
So people's choices and consumption patterns are based on people's preferences for serivces and goods which better meet their tastes and wants. I'm not seeing how this bolsters your argument about how consumption is purely driven by marketing. Or are you suggesting sit down restaurants loss of popularity has solely to do with them losing the marketing game against food delivery services?
To be clear, I am not all suggesting marketing and pricing does not have a large influence on people's consumption behaviour. It totally does. But to say that consumers have little to no influence over long term trends or over their own choices is an exaggeration.
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Not really, no. Third world countries are ones that have an increasing population but they contribute far less to climate change than first world countries which have stable or declining populations. Population size isn't really a determinant in how much contribution to climate change a place has. Reducing the carbon footprint per person is much more useful than attempting to reduce the number of people since it's possible fewer people just increase their carbon footprint.
I'm not sure what's so funny. Have you purchased chicken thighs or pork chops recently?
I agree with this. The thing is though which politician today would dare to suggest this as a possible policy?
-1 child policy!
That is the big hurdle.
User banned (3 days): inappropriate joke, hostility
Move the vegans off planet.
I'm just about ready to call it quits with ResetEra because the hypocrisy for things like this is draining my desire to have any association with it. People who typically post thoughtful, compassionate comments on any other topic show up here to flaunt their resistance to any change in their own lives. If the subject involves sexism or racism, you count on 100s of comments calling it out. Deny global climate change and you'll get logical, well reasoned responses why that position is false. But point out that the biggest way to make a personal impact to climate change is by eating less red meat and you're now nothing but a dirty vegan and dismissed outright. The only home we have is headed for environmental disaster and we can't look beyond our own convenience.
Please do the following:
-Never fly on an airplane
-Sell your car and bike everywhere
-Install solar panels on your house and stop using electrical utilities
-Only take cold showers
Then we'll talk.
So until you can do everything right, you should do nothing? Terrible thought process. This is also called "making perfect the enemy of good." The fact remains that the single biggest impact you can have is by eating less meat. Start with that and we can work on the other things, too.
Clearly. Also, if the big corporations aren't doing anything to lower emissions then why should we bother, right? They do more damage then us, so it doesn't matter.
Also why bother with diversity in media if you don't include every minority? Don't bother with a half-step.
/s
Thats a 12 year from now me problem, I only care about 2018 problems 2030 Me can deal with the barren america wasteland with legalized hunger games
Maybe if you stopped to read the thread instead of flying into a fit of rage when you read the word vegan you wouldn't make such awful arguments.
No one is saying you need to become carbon neutral overnight. This thread isn't even asking you to become a vegan, it's just about reducing your meat intake just a little bit (or replacing it with meat besides beef and lamb).
No one is saying it's the only solution either, it's just part of the solution. If you are able to go full green energy, give away your car and never fly on a plane I'm pretty sure your most than doing your part.
Also if I'm pretty confident that those people who care enough to alter their diet to help the environment are far more likely to do the things you suggested there.
Wut. Venison is delicious. Deer isn't the only thing you can hunt btw. Duck, Dove, etc.
I mean, at the end of the day voting and being politically involved is still far, far, far and away the biggest way to fight climate change. Anything else is pretty secondary.
Meat consumption gets focused on a lot (probably too much in my opinion) because it's relatively easy and cheap to cut from your diet as opposed to buying a hybrid or making your house greener or w/e.
At the end of the day, the thing that'll kill regular meat consumption more than anything is gonna be cultured meat. As soon as it's as cheap and good tasting I'll switch over, though meat has never been a big meat eater anyhow.
Meat consumption gets focused on a lot (probably too much in my opinion) because it's relatively easy and cheap to cut from your diet as opposed to buying a hybrid or making your house greener or w/e.
At the end of the day, the thing that'll kill regular meat consumption more than anything is gonna be cultured meat. As soon as it's as cheap and good tasting I'll switch over, though meat has never been a big meat eater anyhow.
Yep, this is a major collective blind spot for this community. It's also incredibly frustrating to see list after list of justification for the status quo. I totally get the need to feel OK about the things we do (aka, "sleep well at night") but this issue isn't going away. Regarding corporations, none of us have any direct control over what they do short of protests and boycotts. So instead of shrugging our shoulders and waiting for someone else to fix the problem, why not take action in the areas that we do have control over?
These are some extremely rational and not at all over the top reactions to someone suggesting you eat less hamburgers on a semi regular basis because it's one of the easiest ways scientists believe we as individuals can reduce the likelyhood of the end of the ecosystem that supports our species.
Eating less red meat has been pretty easy for me. Cutting chicken is fairly difficult, as I've probably eaten some variation of it for the majority of my life. I tried tofu for the first time at some place by me, and I kind of hated it, which means either their tofu is bad, or I have to find a more creative way to not eat meat with meals
It's something I try probably at least once a month, but everytime I end up forgetting that this is something I'm trying to do, and go right back to eating meat the next day, and just giving up for a few weeks, which is more of a problem in my "I either go vegetarian or put in little consideration of what I eat" mindset, which is inherently flawed, as there is still a magnitude to which you can limit your carbon footprint, as opposed to it being just an on and off switch
I think I'll try to not eat meat for an extra meal or two every 3 days as a baseline, and work from there
It's something I try probably at least once a month, but everytime I end up forgetting that this is something I'm trying to do, and go right back to eating meat the next day, and just giving up for a few weeks, which is more of a problem in my "I either go vegetarian or put in little consideration of what I eat" mindset, which is inherently flawed, as there is still a magnitude to which you can limit your carbon footprint, as opposed to it being just an on and off switch
I think I'll try to not eat meat for an extra meal or two every 3 days as a baseline, and work from there
Unfortunately what you are saying is not backed up by any evidence. We had a thread about this recently based on the information in this article:
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...le-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth
That is an understatement:
http://www.beefusa.org/beefindustrystatistics.aspx
That's a healthy number of jobs, which look to be in predominantly Republican states.
No it absolutely is backed by evidence. I've done atmospheric science at a job I used to work at and encountering climate scientists the point that was driven home the most being politically engaged was the most important thing.
Seriously ask any climate science what you can do to fight climate change and their number one answer you will pretty much always get is to be politically active. Yes I can link to some statements saying that explicitly if you need. It's just "political activism" is a whole helluva lot more complicated to measure than something like meat consumption.
At the end of the day, improving your personal life in order to fight climate change is good but it won't do a damn thing unless the political environment changes.
Edit: Think of it this way: Meat consumption contributes about ~10-15% of climate forcing. Even cutting meat out of your diet completely you'll only affect that much. The rest is heavily dominated by industry and transportation and the way to fix that is through regulation which takes political activism and engagement.
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The argument is that if you can do something (stop eating meat) you should do it because it's good for the environment. There's a lot of others things that follow that logic.
People are creatures of habit. Focus on the next generation honestly.
Moreover, I do remember seeing stats that mentioned that most vegetarians go back to eating meat. I have lowered my meat consumption over the years, but I can't give up on it.
Moreover, I do remember seeing stats that mentioned that most vegetarians go back to eating meat. I have lowered my meat consumption over the years, but I can't give up on it.
I'd wager we could end systemic racism before we can convince people to limit meat consumption lol. Food is something else to people.
I'm not sure how much will be left for the next generation if this one doesn't get its act together.
This is fantastic and exactly what the OP was talking about - reduction not 100% elimination.
I'm not asking that we convince individuals to consume less meat when I say "sweeping systemic changes". What I mean is we need policy changes. For example policy that addresses the production of meat and contributors of climate change. Passing the buck to individuals isn't gonna do jack but it's probably easier to tell people to eat less red meat than it is to get policy changes
The policy changes that would be needex would be impossible in our world politics.