• "We are the last generation that can stop Climate Change" - UN summit
    51 replies, posted
The vast majority of people aren't going to reduce their meat consumption unless they're forced to, and we absolutely should be forcing them to. Banning beef entirely would be a good start.
Banning beef entirely would just remove another cheapened food source. You want to push people away from beef? Ban the automated/factory farms and ban the automatic cutting plants. If you introduce the human limitations, remove the ability for beef to mass produced the prices will spike back up to where they were before the automated parts of the market came in.
There is also the fact that cutting beef out of your diet (or even just limiting it) is far easier than giving up fossil fuels, particularly if you live in America. I just don't get this idea that because large corporations aren't doing their part, individuals shouldn't do theirs. . @_Axel posted a list of things individuals can do to reduce their carbon footprint and having implemented several of them myself I can't say I've suffered a massive loss in quality of life.
I think there’s very low likelihood enough people will change their lifestyles if the ultra rich aren’t doing the same. When many of the idols people hold are unaccountable for their actionable people act in kind. I find it very unlikely we’ll see the change we need if people still have those idols and still see such exuberant displays all over the place.
The vast majority of people simply won't, unless they're forced to or guilted into it enough.
My main point was that pork and chicken farming produces very little greenhouse gases in comparison, therefore the notion that "we should eat less or no meat whatsoever to make an impact" is wrong. Eating less beef alone is an environmentally conscious decision, other meats in comparison have way better protein-to-CO2-equivalent ratio. The 15% figure is certainly not insignificant, but like I said, this includes all the emissions along the supply chain. Substituting it with crops wouldn't reduce that figure to 0%.
That's really fundamentally different, doing soft drugs like cigarettes or weed isn't really a fundamental lifestyle change in the same way that lowering your carbon footprint is.
Just a friendly reminder that, at least as of 2017, 100 fossil-fuel companies were responsible for over 70% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, stud.. I find this push for "GRR NO MEAT WHATSOEVER" to be misplaced. By all means people should do what they can to reduce their footprint without inconveniencing their lifestyle. Toss cans in recycling rather than the trash, turn lights off when you're not in the room, shit like that. But bending over backwards and fundamentally changing your lifestyle is overkill for the amount of difference it'll make, even if every single person on the planet were to do it. I think it'd be more productive and useful to everyone if people were to take all that passion they have for beating people over the head about not eating meat, and instead apply it to pressure governments to fucking regulate these companies that are choking our planet.
They nearly own the government so people may just want to fight battles they think they can win.
Why not both. I can give up beef and vote at the same time.
Great, even better. I don't see too many people electing for that here, though.
Governments DO have to do more. What anout that story story of how Canada only recycles 10% of he recycling that they receive? That has to Ben government driven. The people do their part, governments need to do theirs to
Because its implied by the fact that they care about climate change to begin with. Literally no one stressing individual lifestyle changes to lessen the impact of global climate change are okay with corporations responsible for the bulk of emissions or the governments that enable them.
Could have fooled me. I'd think that people who care about climate change would be up in arms and fighting to get governments to actually do their fucking part at every chance they get. Instead, all I see is people wasting all their energy beating people over the head with "HOW DARE YOU EAT MEAT DON'T YOU CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT???" as if that will really change fuck all, so long as governments let these companies continue to belch pollutants into the air and contribute the vast, vast majority of greenhouse gasses on their own. Again, I don't want to underplay how much the meat industry contributes. It's just that the fossil-fuel industry contributes so much more.
It would be nice if certain unsustainable and arguably unethical methods of factory farming were outright banned, making meat and other animal products more of a financial luxury; but realistically production would just shift to countries without those laws, American farmers would suffer, and people would struggle to affordably get adequate nutritional value in the way of things like protein and iron - unless you just expect people to suddenly adjust to making tofu, tempeh, and lentils diet staples.
I'll also like to point out that livestock agriculture is currently the largest source of deforestation which is also a cause for worry
Are you an elected official? Anyone in this thread? No? Then why would we waste time and energy complaining about the way governments tackle the issue on this forum? It's way more productive to convince regular people reading these pages of how they can have a significant impact themselves. Pressuring the government happens in the voting booths. The fossil fuel industry doesn't contribute "so much more". It contributes ~1.5-2 times more. Both are significant. It makes no sense to focus on only one aspect.
I doubt that even if every single person in a nation was doing everything they could to be eco friendly,if the goverment and the companies responsible for emmisions dont do anything to reduce the damage they cause i am not sure if they could achieve much.
Thus we should do both.
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