The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce. The next best thing is to quit eating meat. The less meat you eat the better. And as a bonus it’s highly unlikely to be as much of a sacrifice as not having a wanted child.
The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce
This relies on some assumptions that I question. Each person doesn’t contribute a fixed amount to emissions, and it’s not even a bell curve distribution. The rich contribute orders of magnitude more to the problem than the poor. The top 1% contributes almost twice as much as the bottom 50%..
And with birth rates where they’re at, at different levels of income/wealth, I’m thinking that plenty of childless people can contribute more to the problem than an entire bloodline of people who have huge families.
Iirc, there’s a population of livestock that can be sustained without feed crop (instead living off of by-product and untillable pasture), and reducing it past that is less sustainable overall. So while it’s true that we eat way too much meat, it’s not a great idea to get rid of it entirely in the context of sustainability. There are other arguments regarding the ethics of the meat industry, but that goes beyond the scope of the discussion.
Yeah my attitude is to carbon tax it and stop subsidizing it. If meat is a luxury it’s not something people bitch about accidentally not having in their dinner.
The methane production from bovine rumination absolutely has an impact. As does the massive supply chains and absurd amount of agriculture necessary to feed those cows.
FFS it’s not only the methane. It’s all the GHG sinks we destroy to let cattle graze and feed other animals caught in CAFO. In addition it’s the whole infrastructure around the system
Half of habitable land is used for agriculture (5x the USA). 2/3 of that is grazing land. 1/3 crop land. One half of the 1/3 crop land is used for plants that are directly consumed by humans. The rest is animal feed and stuff like biofuel.
Crop land and grazing land for animals combined make up 80% of all farmland. Meat, dairy and fish combined make up only 17% of all calories and 38% of protein.
If everyone went plant based the global farmland use would be reduced from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and therefore crop death would be dramatically reduced. The land could be rewilded and natural GHG sinks could be established again.
Everyday 5000 soccerfield sized areas of amazonas rainforest are razed to the ground for cattle,
leather, soy (for animal feed ofc) and palm oil. Mafia like cartels of cattle breeders threaten and murder indigenous people and activists there and implemented a complicated system of cattle laundering to hide that they burn intact rain forests (green lung of the earth) there. The 10.000.000 anually slaughtered cows there are also exported to US meatpackers. The leather ends up in european car seats. Via container ships.
Exactly, in the last decade or so I went from pescetarian to vegetarian to vegan and for the last few years I have been “flexitarian”. My own adoption of it is different to others in the sense that most of what I eat at home is still vegan but on average I probably have 1-2 vegetarian meals at home a week and I don’t have many issues eating vegetarian (sometimes meat) outside of the house.
I still avoid a lot of meat, especially things like veal, but I find being “flexible” also helps talk to people about it. It is much less intimidating asking someone to try having 2 veggie meals a week than telling them they need to universally drop all animal products from their diet.
My spouse is vegetarian for health reasons, so there are always vegetarian options at mealtime.
I eat primarily vegetarian, but I don’t go out there and say “I am vegetarian.” I found it easier to go to restaurants and merely say “I am not eating meat today” if I need to order something odd.
I suppose that I have been a flexitarian for a while, then.
I think it’s more about knowingly switching out a meal rather than just patting yourself on the back because you eat mac and cheese twice a week. For every conversation we have online there are a few people that learn something from it, myself included, I think the thread is interesting!
Basically. We have a couple no meat meals per week and we have cut back the amount of meat per recipe as well. Not for the environment so much but we have just naturally drifted away from eating so much meat.
Does “flexitarian” mean “eat less meat”, basically?
I refuse to click the link because I hate the guardian.
Yes.
The best thing you can do to limit global warming without political power is to not reproduce. The next best thing is to quit eating meat. The less meat you eat the better. And as a bonus it’s highly unlikely to be as much of a sacrifice as not having a wanted child.
This relies on some assumptions that I question. Each person doesn’t contribute a fixed amount to emissions, and it’s not even a bell curve distribution. The rich contribute orders of magnitude more to the problem than the poor. The top 1% contributes almost twice as much as the bottom 50%..
And with birth rates where they’re at, at different levels of income/wealth, I’m thinking that plenty of childless people can contribute more to the problem than an entire bloodline of people who have huge families.
That’s complete bullshit as the article is based on complete bullshit.
Iirc, there’s a population of livestock that can be sustained without feed crop (instead living off of by-product and untillable pasture), and reducing it past that is less sustainable overall. So while it’s true that we eat way too much meat, it’s not a great idea to get rid of it entirely in the context of sustainability. There are other arguments regarding the ethics of the meat industry, but that goes beyond the scope of the discussion.
Yeah my attitude is to carbon tax it and stop subsidizing it. If meat is a luxury it’s not something people bitch about accidentally not having in their dinner.
I think that’s a splendid idea.
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The methane production from bovine rumination absolutely has an impact. As does the massive supply chains and absurd amount of agriculture necessary to feed those cows.
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Look up the main cause of the deforestation of the Amazon. Look up the number of cattle alive today compared to any other point in history.
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FFS it’s not only the methane. It’s all the GHG sinks we destroy to let cattle graze and feed other animals caught in CAFO. In addition it’s the whole infrastructure around the system
https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
Half of habitable land is used for agriculture (5x the USA). 2/3 of that is grazing land. 1/3 crop land. One half of the 1/3 crop land is used for plants that are directly consumed by humans. The rest is animal feed and stuff like biofuel.
Crop land and grazing land for animals combined make up 80% of all farmland. Meat, dairy and fish combined make up only 17% of all calories and 38% of protein.
If everyone went plant based the global farmland use would be reduced from 4 billion to 1 billion hectares and therefore crop death would be dramatically reduced. The land could be rewilded and natural GHG sinks could be established again.
Everyday 5000 soccerfield sized areas of amazonas rainforest are razed to the ground for cattle, leather, soy (for animal feed ofc) and palm oil. Mafia like cartels of cattle breeders threaten and murder indigenous people and activists there and implemented a complicated system of cattle laundering to hide that they burn intact rain forests (green lung of the earth) there. The 10.000.000 anually slaughtered cows there are also exported to US meatpackers. The leather ends up in european car seats. Via container ships.
Exactly, in the last decade or so I went from pescetarian to vegetarian to vegan and for the last few years I have been “flexitarian”. My own adoption of it is different to others in the sense that most of what I eat at home is still vegan but on average I probably have 1-2 vegetarian meals at home a week and I don’t have many issues eating vegetarian (sometimes meat) outside of the house.
I still avoid a lot of meat, especially things like veal, but I find being “flexible” also helps talk to people about it. It is much less intimidating asking someone to try having 2 veggie meals a week than telling them they need to universally drop all animal products from their diet.
My spouse is vegetarian for health reasons, so there are always vegetarian options at mealtime.
I eat primarily vegetarian, but I don’t go out there and say “I am vegetarian.” I found it easier to go to restaurants and merely say “I am not eating meat today” if I need to order something odd.
I suppose that I have been a flexitarian for a while, then.
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I think it’s more about knowingly switching out a meal rather than just patting yourself on the back because you eat mac and cheese twice a week. For every conversation we have online there are a few people that learn something from it, myself included, I think the thread is interesting!
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I suppose that is meat free and you’d have to extraordinarily flexible, but sure, go for whatever works fr you
Basically. We have a couple no meat meals per week and we have cut back the amount of meat per recipe as well. Not for the environment so much but we have just naturally drifted away from eating so much meat.