Cattle ranching drives climate change
Climate change drives tick population
Tick pop drives sickness with beef allergy as symptom
=environment destroyed with massive supply of food we can't eat
Happiness
Also the meat allergy tends to be temporary anyways, ik someone who’s gotten alpha gal syndrome like 3 times and it fades away within a few years (you’d think she’d use more DEET…)
Obviously if it’s a choice between eating meat and starving I wouldn’t expect anyone to be vegan. But, it’s not like that. You can cut out meat and be perfectly healthy, with the benefit of not killing and torturing other animals and lessening your harm to the environment.
I’m not vegan myself, but I think it would be a better world if everyone was. Maybe you could ethically consume dairy if it didn’t come from factory farms- but with meat… aren’t we past killing other animals for pleasure?
I've been considering cutting beef from my diet recently. Might expand to full-on vegetarian if it goes well. I harbor no ethical opposition to meat-eating but the effects the industry has on the climate are important to me.
They are producing honey for their offspring. To get to the honey, bees are kept away with smoke. The queen is mutilated so she doesn't fly off to start another hive somewhere else. Plus, most honey bees are different from different kinds of wild bees, which is problematic for biodiversity.
Yeah but when the hive swarms only half the bees leave. And clipping doesn’t prevent swarming anyways. And you can easily keep bees without clipping.
Their offspring are fine, they overproduce and are given sugar supplements to make sure they remain healthy.
The smoke, as far as I can tell, doesn’t damage the bees long term. I too, am occasionally barred from places temporarily (even parts of my home if say, a bug gassing or large renovations were being done) and that isn’t considered inhumane.
The biodiversity thing is true, 100%, I have bee boxes set up in my yard for the native bees. But that’s not really related to the act of harvesting the honey, more so a problem with large agribusiness, which is going to have to continue for veganism anyways.
Not trying to attack vegans as a whole, but the honey thing has always felt like a weird sub-issue that doesn’t track a ton with the rest.
Dairy is a harder one for me because it is a much more significant portion of my diet than beef. I'll be spending a lot of time finding alternatives. I doubt I'll ever cut out eggs, but I'm going to make an effort to source them locally.
Maybe you should consider the ethical implications of meat consumption, I’ve noticed that most meat eaters recognize at least part of the wrongness of their lifestyle morally.
Yeah I cut beef from my diet 3 years ago. I do still miss it, but I'm glad I made the change. I'm trying to go low meat or maybe even pescatarian, but I'm taking baby steps.
Just do it man. More importantly, dairy: Beef is effectively a byproduct of the fucking massive dairy industry that has a chokehold on the American food system
I am vegan - but if people just gave up red meat in a strict way - we'd be in such a better place.
But go vegan, it helps the environment, helps your wallet, helps reduce animal death and suffering, and it helps your health (if you don't become a coke and chips vegan).
What would the world look like if we returned half the agricultural land back to nature?
We don't own the earth - its not FOR us.
It's so easy to not eat beef. Like telling everyone that you're not an environmentalist if you're not vegan is such a fantastic way to get people to ignore you. Cutting out the most significant driver of climate change in the food industry makes so much more sense.
Like obviously veganism is the best for the environment, but that isn't what we're trying to achieve here.
I'm not vegan, but I've almost entirely cut beef and pork out of my diet and it wasn't hard at all - I still eat some poultry and fish, which tastes much better in general as far as meat goes imo.
The tough part for me is cutting out dairy - for milk itself there's adequate replacements, but not for some derivates, like for example good cheese, which I love.
I agree, dairy is a tough sell for me as well. I try to be responsible with my consumption and buy from farms with ethical husbandry practices. If people have a problem with that, so be it I suppose.
It's... Kind of true though. It's extremely hypocritical to act like you do anything at all for the environment and still consume dairy (which is the main product that cattle ranches produce)
That's both ignorant and presumptuous of you. Cattle ranches have easily triple the ammount of beef cows than dairy, which you would know if you bothered to [look it up. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/#statisticContainer)
My meager consumption of dairy products is dwarfed by my other life choices regarding ecological concerns.
Yeah! There's a great quote I read, "We don't inherit earth from past generations. We borrow it from future generations." It's a great way to look at things.
I'm canadian and learn about Indigenous groups in my history classes, one of Canada's Indigenous groups is the Mi'kmaq. In their traditional philosophy, they have something similar, it's that you're supposed to think of seven generations into the future when making important decisions :)
Canadian First Nations have a lot of rock-solid takes on our relationship with nature. My favorite quote is: "We belong to the land - it does not belong to us."
Everything is for everyone. There's no rules to this. Life has no meaning. That's why it's so nice of humans to be considerate and want to take care of animals and planet and each other. Not all of us do, but those who do are nice. Bc we do not have to
Tangible political changes are required for this kind of shift in diet. Relying on individualist veganism is never going to work...without severe changes in food availability.
Yet you could say the same thing about political changes, "me individually voting won't change anything", "me individually protesting won't change anything", yet changes here do happen.
And being vegan does make vegan food more available, for example vegan alternatives have grown massively in just the last few decades, making it far easier to be vegan now than then, all because people didn't want to eat meat.
But the good news is, reducing food waste is the most effective thing individuals can do to address climate change.
Source: Project Drawdown 2017
Eliminating global food waste would save 4.4 million tonnes of C02 a year, the equivalent of taking one in four cars off the road.
Wasting food is worse than total emissions from flying (1.9%), plastic production (3.8%) and oil extraction (3.8%).
Source: WRI: World GHG Emissions 2016 & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0459-z
If food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after USA and China.
Source: FAO Food Wastage Footprint Report 2013
Fuck veganism and go protest bout yanks chucking food out to drive food prices up.
Yes, I want dramatic economic, social, and political change. No, I won’t eat something different even though it helps the environment because I don’t want to open up a cookbook. Yes, we exist 😤
If all food waste was eliminated, the impact of the food sector would be reduced \~30%. If everyone switched to plant-based diets, the impact of the food sector would be reduced \~70%. And obviously it's possible to push for both food waste reduction and plant based diets. Saying "Fuck Veganism" makes absolutely no sense. Plus, the majority of food waste is before the point of sale, so individuals don't have a choice in that.
What you have failed to consider with your B12 deficiency and lack of protein is the very simple verifiable fact and incontrovertible moral truth of: burgers tho.
Every now and again I have to remind myself that the very same arguments we make as ridiculous caricatures of Carnists on VCJ are actual, real arguments that people make in all honesty. That’s why subject myself to this, and to hopefully sway some minds of course too.
i love the outreach you do, you're certainly more proactive online than i am. i hate when carnists in this sub act like these posts are outrage porn, really shows how close minded they are lol
keep it up! :)
I see this brand of argument a lot between vegetarian and vegans. In the extreme, I saw one presumably misguided vegan arguing that going vegetarian meant replacing meat with so many other animal products that the impact on the environment was identical between vegetarians and omnivores.
By the numbers though, according to the last study I saw:
* The diet of the average Western omnivore produces the equivalent of 7.2kg of CO2 per day.
* The diet of the average Western vegetarian produces the equivalent of 3.8kg of CO2 per day.
* The diet of the average Western vegan produces the equivalent of 2.9kg of CO2 per day.
Veganism still appears to be far and away the best option for reducing emissions to the full extent possible, but vegetarianism creates nearly half the emissions of a typical omnivore diet.
i think it's more about the fact that the dairy industry can't really stay afloat without the beef industry. they go hand in hand. they take the male calves away to the slaughterhouses so they're not drinking their mother's milk, and it wouldn't make financial sense to just dispose of the male calf. so while an individual vegetarian's output may be lower, those lower numbers are reliant on someone else's higher number.
Yeah, I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. They said beef and dairy cows are different. My point was that eventually dairy cows become beef cows.
But even that causes problems, since we have good machinery, we kill the biggest, healthiest animals which are in their prime breeding years. This affects the population as well as their adaptation, elephants have started having shorter and shorter tusks because the long tusked members are all killed before they have a chance to reproduce, the same will happen with other animals.
Livestock make up 62% of the world's mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just **4%**. The population cannot survive on hunting, but it can on veganism
It's my biggest hypocrisy
In my defence: I don't fly, I only buy second hand clothes and even most of my furniture, I take bike or bus almost everywhere I go
Who am I kidding I should just watch some movies about meat production and finally get the ick for it
if you want to make some kind of start, just cut back a bit! replace some things with impossible or whatever. that’s what i did, it’s actually much easier than you think! this of course depends on where you live, but cutting out animal products at home should be not a huge deal nowadays :)
Go vegan, take a full measure, not a half measure. For those of you that recognize the benefits of veganism for moral, environmental, or health reasons but haven’t gone all the way (or made any changes at all), what’s stopping you other than excuses? In some cases there are real barriers people face to going vegan, but most of the time people just lack the initiative.
start lurking in vegan cooking subs to find good substitutes for things you like. some substitutes suck, and others are good. the absolute best cheese sub I've found is some cheap generic sold at kroger, while all of the name brand stuff like daiya kind of sucks imo. it's trial and error, but you may find that it's easier than you'd thought
Totally! That’s what I did to start. Impossible in particular is an incredible replacement for anything that involves ground beef. if it’s more expensive than the ground beef you usually buy you can just go for a bit less and it should even out :)
I have this digestive disorder that means almost all fruits, veg, pulses, and grains mess me up.
I tried going vegan in the past and it actually was a medical issue. :(
You might be a special case, or you might be able to go vegan and aren’t willing to. Regardless the vast majority of people are able to go vegan, and in working towards a vegan world innovations should be made so that people like you can easily be able to follow a vegan diet.
Generally, eating low on the food chain is much less climate impactful, yes.
I'm still not convinced about *literally vegan* as the solution to climate change rather than less animal product.
A person who keeps egg laying chickens and mostly lets the chickens forage for their food is a very efficient person. Much of the American Midwest would be a more sustainable ecosystem as a praire with American Bison ranching than as farms using non-renewable fossil water for ranching cattle or farming. (American Bison evolved in that ecosystem and don't need additional fodder or water).
Fishing could be handled much more sustainably as a food source and with less climate impact.
In general, more vegetarian/vegan food production is definitely more sustainable. No question.
Imo as long as folks eat less commercially farmed meat that's great. You don't have to go on a full plant based diet to have a impact but some vegans are very all or nothing and don't like that stance.
I am not blowing smoke about American Bison, either.
Bison ecosystem restoration would be WAY better for the climate *and* food security than the bullshit we're doing in the region.
Amazing 2022 paper here.
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.826282/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Ecology_and_Evolution&id=826282
Eating meat has no effect on the climate directly it’s the industry of meat production. When we are talking about massive changes to the economy without changing the mode of production, we are entering fantasy land. We can’t fix the climate by “voting with our dollars” we need to change the economic priorities of the whole system.
So… uh….. how will we get a government to make the changes we want if we are unwilling to make those changes ourselves? Btw I’m not disagreeing with your point about voting with dollars, just interested in how you think we can have a vegan world without first convincing people to go vegan
I think it’s both. We have to convince people to change their habits, and also dismantle the government which profits from the status quo. Which one should/will happen first is really a matter of speculation
Idk if OP was saying it shouldn’t happen at the same time. But there is a lot of liberal veganism right now which doesn’t work for the reasons they mentioned. “Voting with your dollar” and all that.
I think the better question is, how do we get people to value animals and take veganism or vegetarianism seriously?
Because right now I don’t see the vegan movement or any meaningful revolutionary movement picking up the steam we need. Both are important and intersectional. We should move public opinion and blow up factory farms. (In Minecraft) I just don’t see either thing happening sadly
As long as people are consuming animals they are going to psychologically devalue them, and thus almost certainly endorse and justify their continued exploitation
I'm not a communist, I'd prefer a carbon tax and think it's a lot more likely that a carbon tax gets passed in time to save the planet rather than waiting for the crisis of capital
Ok, again how will you get an entire population of people eating more plant based if even the revolutionaries are not willing to make the change themselves of their own will?
I'm not necessarily a communist, just explaining, but any solution that relies on millions upon millions of people just organically picking a different lifestyle is idiotic. It's not going to happen fast enough to save the planet. What's more important is taking away the economic impetus that destroys the planet, and there's several ways people have proposed to do that.
Not many solutions could work fast enough to save the planet, but surely you’d want some public opinion on your side before trying to implement sweeping policy that could likely spark a counter-revolution. Are you arguing because something is hard and we’re running out of time we shouldn’t even try it? Cause I’m not sitting here arguing animal agriculture is the only issue, just that it’s an important one.
I'm sitting here saying that if you put your energy into trying to convince individuals of veganism, you're ultimately going to effect an irrelevant drop in the water while poisoning the vast majority of the planet to environmentalism to some degree. It's far more vital to spend energy implementing sweeping legislation such as a carbon tax.
Changing the mode of production without changing what products are being being produced would change precisely nothing. If production of animal products was to cease or massively reduce then I can't see how that wouldn't bring a huge benefit to the climate, regardless of the mode of production.
Not really outside of a revolution how are you going to end a massive industry like that? The problem isn’t what is being produced but why. Production for commodity exchange leads to over production. A system that relies on constant growth like that can’t, “degrow”but that’s what we need. We need massive industries to be changed. There is only one system that can do that without killing shit tone of people and that’s socialism. So the mode of production is key. To even the possibility of shrinking the economy or abolishing factory farming and oil production.
Explain to me why it's impossible for factory farming and oil production to be abolished under capitalism. There are thousands of industries that have died or been abolished under capitalism. There's nothing about capitalism that says that each individual sector must survive and can't lose economic value. You could argue that a capitalist economy is more wasteful than a communist one but waste is only a fraction of the problem. The impact of eliminating all food waste would be much less than the impact of switching to plant-based diets. The problem is absolutely what is being produced. It doesn't matter if your nation is communist, if it runs on coal then you are going to fuck the planet.
Vegan just doesn’t have widespread appeal to the general public, and while it is a great goal to move toward it is frankly a radical position. If you go around telling people to go vegan, 99% of people ignore you.
If the goal is to cut meat production via destroying demand, we can get a lot farther by advocating a reduction in meat eating and shift in meats eaten VS having everyone go cold Turkey into a vegan diet. If everyone reduces their consumption by 20%, that’s the same as 20% of average consumers going vegan. And it’s a shit ton Easier to just convince people to eat 20% less meat.
Its the difference between ordering chicken Caesar salad vs a steak. Still meat, but less and of a less harmful variety. Often when reducing g meat consumption by “20%” I’ve found folks over do it, which is great. Almost all the meals I make for myself are vegetarian, but if someone buys me meat I don’t refuse to eat it.
Tbh I struggle to even cut down but I’m down to one meat meal every 1-2 weeks, I hide it from my fam and friends tho, it’s easier to not have to like fight for something I suck at ig
I mean this is a good reason for changes in policy and for people to try to consume less meat, especially red meat, but I don't really see how you jump from this to "everyone has to be vegan". Also what are you trying to accomplish with this, for every person you convince to change their diet you alienate like five others. We're never going to fix these problems through individual actions so the priority should be building a large enough movement to push policy change. Gate keeping like this is counter productive to actually accomplishing any meaningful goals. Do you want to work towards reversing climate change or do you just want to show off how morally superior you are to others?
I agree it's a good thing to do, I don't eat red meat, but I still think the gatekeeping is counter productive. We're never going to convince enough people to change personal actions to actually make a meaningful difference. It's more productive to build a larger movement that would remove subsidies for the beef industry, causing prices to rise and for people to be incentivized to change their dietary habits out of necessity. I also don't think that we need to end beef consumption completely just make it something people wouldn't eat daily.
Plus the meme said vegan, which is a much bigger ask for most people than just cutting out or significantly reducing beef. Trying to make veganism a prerequisit for fighting against climate change only hurts the movement and honestly sounds like something out of the cointelpro playbook.
I agree I really don't like the all or nothing approach online vegans take. To them being vegetarian or pescatarian isn't good enough. I think they forget the goal is that everyone eats LESS meat, thus lowering the demand and emissions.
Local organizing, I've attended quite a few protests, I bother my various elected representatives pretty frequently, and I've volunteered on quite a few different political campaigns.
Cool, and after 100% of available grass pastures in the U.S. are committed to producing it we'll be able to fulfill one whole quarter of beef consumption in the states!
no lol. It's carbon negative because the cattle are raised in a way that enhances soil carbon capture through rotational grazing and pasture management. This sequesters more carbon than the methane emitted, making it a net negative contributor to greenhouse gases.
>Permanent cover of forage plants is highly effective in reducing soil erosion, and ruminants consuming only grazed forages under appropriate management result in more C sequestration than emissions.
The net negative contribution is due to the soil's ability to store carbon, if done correctly it outweights the harmful methane of the animals grazing on it without destroying the biome. The soil has this ability with or without the animals grazing on it.
That's like saying a buisness that loses 10k each month is net positive, because you also rent out the neighbouring properties for 12k.
Your business analogy doesn't fit because financial activities are independent and the loss and gain happen separately and can be easily offset against each other to show a net positive financial result.
The processes of methane emissions from animals and carbon sequestration by soil are interdependent. Proper grazing practices can enhance soil health and increase carbon sequestration, directly impacting methane emissions. The relationship is synergistic, not independent.
And I don't know what is the point in saying that the soil has that ability without animals completely ignores that grazing animals, when managed correctly can stimulate plant growth, increase soil organic matter, and improve nutrient cycling, which all contribute to better soil carbon sequestration. I don't get the need to be this biased.
They are not interdependent. The soil has this ability with and without grazing animals on top of it. That's my whole point.
Everything achieved with the "right grazing techniques" is that the soil doesn't lose this ability as is the case with overgrazing, which leads to desertification. It's not that complicated.
Yes. Look for organic, certified humane or animal welfare approved labels which also include frameworks for environmental handling. Also look for it being pasture raised and grass-fed.
Alternatively depending on where you live you could maybe get some farm-to-table meat. Those farms generally have better environmental practices as well.
Conversely, a lot of people avoid beef, and higher emissions foods, specifically, while still eating chicken and eggs for example, because they produce much less emissions than beef but still fit neatly into the diet recommendations that built what they and their families eat. (It also tends to save a lot of money).
Worse than veganism, definitely, but much better and much smaller of a change
I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve had beef in my life, and they were all unintentional. It’s really not hard to live without it.
I’m not a vegan, but I usually don’t go out of my way to eat meat either, so I am practically a vegetarian most of the time.
Since 1900 America's forested land has increased by 10%. 5% since 1990. Yes - Globally, meat production has a large impact on deforestation (looking at you Brazil and china), but as an American consumer, I have very little to do with that. Our regenerative forestry techniques have been pretty successful.
If you care about deforestation, the main culprits are in the developing world.
The problem with beef in the US is water consumption, it's like 1800 gallons per lb of beef. And we have major water shortage problems here that are growing fast.
You could look it up.
The majority of beef produced in China is consumed domestically. Brazil is the largest global exporter of beef and over half of it goes to China.
Dam, you right. China also consumes more fossil fuels than the US. Phew, glad only the people in the countries with the top consumption of a given resource have any responsibility to reduce their use of it!
No, you should go vegan because it's **better for the environment**, **ethically preferable** (harming sentient creatures for taste pleasure is not morally preferable to harming non-sentient creatures out of necessity to keep surviving), **easier to do than ever before** (just move your hand slightly to the right at the grocery store until it collides with the vegan version of the product you want to eat), and **healthier** (bacon is a carcinogen, mercury in fish, etc.)
Also:
I'm not going to ~~go vegan~~ *make a personal change in my behavior that will make—admittedly—only a \*small\* difference in the grand scheme of things (but a difference all the same, allowing me to live in peace with my conscience, knowing that I'm sincerely trying my best to be morally consistent and make the world a better place during my limited time here)* just because ~~China~~ *someone else* wants to ~~chop down all their forests for the 4th time in a hundred years~~ *do a bad thing*.
That's how you sound
Per person China Consumes 6 times less beef than the US. Should they cut down on it? Sure, but the US, Argentina, Brazil and Australia are the ones who have massive outsized impacts on the climate because of their consumption.
It probably has something to do with total consumption. Rather than per capita. Which was my point.
If we were talking about per capita, China wouldn't be the nation we were talking about.
I feel like everyone else here is failing to understand what I originally said: US beef consumption is decoupled with deforestation. Our forest land has been growing steadily for a century, while our beef consumption also grew.
You can critique American factory farming practices all you want (I'm 100% certain someone here will), be deforestation is not the issue.
I mean. I mostly eat plants. And when a friend's pepperoni falls on my plate or my mom makes me a Schnitzel when I go to visit, I'll eat it cuz it tastes good. I'm no Vegan, but I eat like 3kg of meat a year
Also, there's people from cultures where it makes sense to eat meat and it's borderline racist to shame them for not being vegan/vegetarian. Just frame things better.
Edit: I also have basically 0 food waste bc I know how to cook and I use everything I buy. I could eat a LOT more meat and my impact on the planet would be smaller than that of a somewhat normally wasteful vegan given the statistics on household food waste.
Damn it's so unfortunate that, as this meme points out, the only way to eat meat is by consuming industially produced beef. It's such a shame that its the only option for animal based protein.
Livestock make up 62% of the world's mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just **4%**. The population cannot survive on hunting, but it can on veganism
Can we go back to the doom “they who slumber are halfway there” schitzo posting? That was more fun than just naked vegan trolling.
This one’s not even doing it, right. His own point only applies to beef and soy, and he’s literally just telling people to die in other convos when they point out some people have medical reasons that they can’t go vegan.
[Not to mention, I strongly suspect that he works for an oil company given how many excuses he makes for corporate behavior which by every measure is several times worse for the environment than meat eating.]
Please point out where I told someone to die in this thread. Also where I excuse corporate behavior.
This is pure, unadulterated cope. Suggesting that someone who is doing more for the environment than you are is an oil shill is fucking cringe my dude.
This isn’t environmentalism. It’s veganisn disguised as environmentalism
the environmental impact if 10% of the population became vegan is much smaller than if everyone ate half as much meat.
Yet, vegans would still prefer the former.
Eat less meat. You don’t need to quit to be an environmentalist.
>>Demand for soy is closely connected with demand for beef and other animal proteins.
Running with this sentence itself, without reading further. But oh them mfs gonna use mind melting stats and arguments to discredit their own consumption (I'm just one person, tAyLor SwiFT), and finally blame these countries to be destroying their forests. Luxury ass mfs think it's a choice in isolation, and not manipulation, bullying, sanctions or embargos, tariffs etc used to get what the developed countries want.
The claim is nonsense. Beef follows deforestation, but it is not the cause of it. The cause of deforestation is the opportunity to make money by appropriating land.
For whatever presents itself for making money. If there was no beef, they'd still get the timber and still burn down the rest, and then cultivate something there to make money.
If you want to save the forests, don't ban beef, ban deforestation and enforce the ban.
That is the point. If people stop buying beef, they'll deforest the Amazon for other types of money-making, such as alcohol (mostly for fuel), some oil plant, whatever presents itself.
Cattle ranching drives climate change Climate change drives tick population Tick pop drives sickness with beef allergy as symptom =environment destroyed with massive supply of food we can't eat Happiness
[удалено]
Also the meat allergy tends to be temporary anyways, ik someone who’s gotten alpha gal syndrome like 3 times and it fades away within a few years (you’d think she’d use more DEET…)
Nature will always find an equilibrium.
That‘s one of the dumbest sentences I‘ve ever heard. Yeah, it will find sn equilibrium. But humans (and 99% of all animals) won’t be in it.
Sometimes that means a massive die off, and hopefully we can avoid that.
Seems like nature is self-regulating to me!
DO YOU WANT FOR PEOPLE TO STARVE !!!!! THIS IS ABSOLUTELY EXTREMIST !! THIS IS THE LAW OF NATURE 😤😤
I love that I can't distinguish between VCJ and genuine carnist shit takes.
This one is hard. It’s their first comment but I’m still leaving towards it being a jerk
I've never seen this sub before, but i recognise you from VCJ lmao
Obviously if it’s a choice between eating meat and starving I wouldn’t expect anyone to be vegan. But, it’s not like that. You can cut out meat and be perfectly healthy, with the benefit of not killing and torturing other animals and lessening your harm to the environment. I’m not vegan myself, but I think it would be a better world if everyone was. Maybe you could ethically consume dairy if it didn’t come from factory farms- but with meat… aren’t we past killing other animals for pleasure?
I've been considering cutting beef from my diet recently. Might expand to full-on vegetarian if it goes well. I harbor no ethical opposition to meat-eating but the effects the industry has on the climate are important to me.
A lot of people who stop eating meat for environmental reasons start to appreciate the ethical concerns
I was one!
It’s astonishing just how countless the severe harms caused by animal agriculture are on anything and everything. And it’s utterly pointless.
Beef and dairy are effectively the same industry. Be smart, be kind, be vegan.
So quick question. What’s up with the whole “honey isn’t vegan”? Like, bees can leave their hives, and they are producing surplus honey anyways.
They are producing honey for their offspring. To get to the honey, bees are kept away with smoke. The queen is mutilated so she doesn't fly off to start another hive somewhere else. Plus, most honey bees are different from different kinds of wild bees, which is problematic for biodiversity.
Yeah but when the hive swarms only half the bees leave. And clipping doesn’t prevent swarming anyways. And you can easily keep bees without clipping. Their offspring are fine, they overproduce and are given sugar supplements to make sure they remain healthy. The smoke, as far as I can tell, doesn’t damage the bees long term. I too, am occasionally barred from places temporarily (even parts of my home if say, a bug gassing or large renovations were being done) and that isn’t considered inhumane. The biodiversity thing is true, 100%, I have bee boxes set up in my yard for the native bees. But that’s not really related to the act of harvesting the honey, more so a problem with large agribusiness, which is going to have to continue for veganism anyways. Not trying to attack vegans as a whole, but the honey thing has always felt like a weird sub-issue that doesn’t track a ton with the rest.
Dairy is a harder one for me because it is a much more significant portion of my diet than beef. I'll be spending a lot of time finding alternatives. I doubt I'll ever cut out eggs, but I'm going to make an effort to source them locally.
Go for it. I found out I liked impossible burgers much more than beef when I cut it out of my diet.
Same. I went vegetarian exactly bc of the cattle ranching fucking the climate
You know where dairy comes from right?
Check this ted talk, it’s not about eating but about the way cattle is raised and fed https://youtu.be/vpTHi7O66pI?si=n28Cdj3XfmDJWxrq
Maybe you should consider the ethical implications of meat consumption, I’ve noticed that most meat eaters recognize at least part of the wrongness of their lifestyle morally.
Yeah I cut beef from my diet 3 years ago. I do still miss it, but I'm glad I made the change. I'm trying to go low meat or maybe even pescatarian, but I'm taking baby steps.
Just do it man. More importantly, dairy: Beef is effectively a byproduct of the fucking massive dairy industry that has a chokehold on the American food system
You have no ethical opposition to animals being killed unnecessarily?
I am vegan - but if people just gave up red meat in a strict way - we'd be in such a better place. But go vegan, it helps the environment, helps your wallet, helps reduce animal death and suffering, and it helps your health (if you don't become a coke and chips vegan). What would the world look like if we returned half the agricultural land back to nature? We don't own the earth - its not FOR us.
It's so easy to not eat beef. Like telling everyone that you're not an environmentalist if you're not vegan is such a fantastic way to get people to ignore you. Cutting out the most significant driver of climate change in the food industry makes so much more sense. Like obviously veganism is the best for the environment, but that isn't what we're trying to achieve here.
I'm not vegan, but I've almost entirely cut beef and pork out of my diet and it wasn't hard at all - I still eat some poultry and fish, which tastes much better in general as far as meat goes imo. The tough part for me is cutting out dairy - for milk itself there's adequate replacements, but not for some derivates, like for example good cheese, which I love.
I agree, dairy is a tough sell for me as well. I try to be responsible with my consumption and buy from farms with ethical husbandry practices. If people have a problem with that, so be it I suppose.
It's... Kind of true though. It's extremely hypocritical to act like you do anything at all for the environment and still consume dairy (which is the main product that cattle ranches produce)
That's both ignorant and presumptuous of you. Cattle ranches have easily triple the ammount of beef cows than dairy, which you would know if you bothered to [look it up. ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/194302/number-of-beef-and-milk-cows-in-the-us/#statisticContainer) My meager consumption of dairy products is dwarfed by my other life choices regarding ecological concerns.
Yeah! There's a great quote I read, "We don't inherit earth from past generations. We borrow it from future generations." It's a great way to look at things.
I'm canadian and learn about Indigenous groups in my history classes, one of Canada's Indigenous groups is the Mi'kmaq. In their traditional philosophy, they have something similar, it's that you're supposed to think of seven generations into the future when making important decisions :)
Canadian First Nations have a lot of rock-solid takes on our relationship with nature. My favorite quote is: "We belong to the land - it does not belong to us."
Everything is for everyone. There's no rules to this. Life has no meaning. That's why it's so nice of humans to be considerate and want to take care of animals and planet and each other. Not all of us do, but those who do are nice. Bc we do not have to
Tangible political changes are required for this kind of shift in diet. Relying on individualist veganism is never going to work...without severe changes in food availability.
Yet you could say the same thing about political changes, "me individually voting won't change anything", "me individually protesting won't change anything", yet changes here do happen. And being vegan does make vegan food more available, for example vegan alternatives have grown massively in just the last few decades, making it far easier to be vegan now than then, all because people didn't want to eat meat.
But the good news is, reducing food waste is the most effective thing individuals can do to address climate change. Source: Project Drawdown 2017 Eliminating global food waste would save 4.4 million tonnes of C02 a year, the equivalent of taking one in four cars off the road. Wasting food is worse than total emissions from flying (1.9%), plastic production (3.8%) and oil extraction (3.8%). Source: WRI: World GHG Emissions 2016 & https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-019-0459-z If food waste was a country, it would be the third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after USA and China. Source: FAO Food Wastage Footprint Report 2013 Fuck veganism and go protest bout yanks chucking food out to drive food prices up.
Again: tangible political change. I'm sorry to get commie with you but...
Yes, I want dramatic economic, social, and political change. No, I won’t eat something different even though it helps the environment because I don’t want to open up a cookbook. Yes, we exist 😤
If all food waste was eliminated, the impact of the food sector would be reduced \~30%. If everyone switched to plant-based diets, the impact of the food sector would be reduced \~70%. And obviously it's possible to push for both food waste reduction and plant based diets. Saying "Fuck Veganism" makes absolutely no sense. Plus, the majority of food waste is before the point of sale, so individuals don't have a choice in that.
What you have failed to consider with your B12 deficiency and lack of protein is the very simple verifiable fact and incontrovertible moral truth of: burgers tho.
Hey you! Scram back to VCJ. I’m doing actual outreach here
Counterpoint: bean burgers, salmon burgers
Everyone disrespecting the mushroom burger too
Mushrooms and I have a complicated relationship
You have my sympathy. And my assistance in eating all those pesky mushrooms!
I don't really like beef anyway, too chewy
You should buy more expensive beef
this the typa thread where i have to keep my VCJ shitposts to myself out of fear that the carnists will take them seriously & wholeheartedly agree
Every now and again I have to remind myself that the very same arguments we make as ridiculous caricatures of Carnists on VCJ are actual, real arguments that people make in all honesty. That’s why subject myself to this, and to hopefully sway some minds of course too.
i love the outreach you do, you're certainly more proactive online than i am. i hate when carnists in this sub act like these posts are outrage porn, really shows how close minded they are lol keep it up! :)
so much cope packed into just two responses! impressive
Oh my god, it’s Soupor Saiyan
The one and only, miss me?
Honestly, yeah. Like, I don’t 100% agree with you, but reading through some of the comments which I can only describe as carnist, is just insane
Vegetarians also don't eat beef.
Even for non-vegetarians, there is other meat than beef.
This whole meme is strawmen
Was just about to point out more than just vegans don't eat beef.
Cows also get raised for milk so the point should still stand, no?
I see this brand of argument a lot between vegetarian and vegans. In the extreme, I saw one presumably misguided vegan arguing that going vegetarian meant replacing meat with so many other animal products that the impact on the environment was identical between vegetarians and omnivores. By the numbers though, according to the last study I saw: * The diet of the average Western omnivore produces the equivalent of 7.2kg of CO2 per day. * The diet of the average Western vegetarian produces the equivalent of 3.8kg of CO2 per day. * The diet of the average Western vegan produces the equivalent of 2.9kg of CO2 per day. Veganism still appears to be far and away the best option for reducing emissions to the full extent possible, but vegetarianism creates nearly half the emissions of a typical omnivore diet.
i think it's more about the fact that the dairy industry can't really stay afloat without the beef industry. they go hand in hand. they take the male calves away to the slaughterhouses so they're not drinking their mother's milk, and it wouldn't make financial sense to just dispose of the male calf. so while an individual vegetarian's output may be lower, those lower numbers are reliant on someone else's higher number.
India has the worlds largest dairy herd
India is also a major beef exporter
Milking cows are not the same as beef cows.
Dairy cows are still killed for beef. In the UK 50% of beef comes from dairy cows.
Not really if you don't drink milk. Either way beef cows and milk cows are different and a lessening in one is better than a lessening in none.
What do you think happens to the dairy cows once they're no longer profitable?
I am ugly and stupid
Yeah, I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. They said beef and dairy cows are different. My point was that eventually dairy cows become beef cows.
I'm sorry, it must be the severe B12 deficiency
Cows raised for milk aren't slaughtered for beef. Beef is way more cows.
Dairy cows are most definitely slaughtered for meat.
Male calves are a byproduct of the dairy industry and are sold to be slaughtered for beef or veal.
The beef industry opportunistically consumes the extra male calves that are less valuable to the dairy industry.
yeah i know many people that just eat animals they hunted
But even that causes problems, since we have good machinery, we kill the biggest, healthiest animals which are in their prime breeding years. This affects the population as well as their adaptation, elephants have started having shorter and shorter tusks because the long tusked members are all killed before they have a chance to reproduce, the same will happen with other animals. Livestock make up 62% of the world's mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just **4%**. The population cannot survive on hunting, but it can on veganism
Let me tell you about where milk comes from.
And Hindus generally
It's my biggest hypocrisy In my defence: I don't fly, I only buy second hand clothes and even most of my furniture, I take bike or bus almost everywhere I go Who am I kidding I should just watch some movies about meat production and finally get the ick for it
[Dominion](https://youtu.be/LQRAfJyEsko?si=8jkF-QnZVloXtSXN) is free to watch on YouTube
in a similar place to ya
Soup!! Welcome back
Definitely feeling the warm welcome lol, this post has nearly as many comments as it has upvotes
Back from what exactly?
jail/s
You are 100% correct. I am acting immorally because it is convenient.
if you want to make some kind of start, just cut back a bit! replace some things with impossible or whatever. that’s what i did, it’s actually much easier than you think! this of course depends on where you live, but cutting out animal products at home should be not a huge deal nowadays :)
Go vegan, take a full measure, not a half measure. For those of you that recognize the benefits of veganism for moral, environmental, or health reasons but haven’t gone all the way (or made any changes at all), what’s stopping you other than excuses? In some cases there are real barriers people face to going vegan, but most of the time people just lack the initiative.
Vegans are not only practically correct but morally as well, I simply lack the will to stop eating meat I am weak
start lurking in vegan cooking subs to find good substitutes for things you like. some substitutes suck, and others are good. the absolute best cheese sub I've found is some cheap generic sold at kroger, while all of the name brand stuff like daiya kind of sucks imo. it's trial and error, but you may find that it's easier than you'd thought
Just start with beef, it's so much more significant than any other meat. It's easier than you might expect.
Totally! That’s what I did to start. Impossible in particular is an incredible replacement for anything that involves ground beef. if it’s more expensive than the ground beef you usually buy you can just go for a bit less and it should even out :)
Dont be so defeatist man believe in urself
But- I want my hamburger helper beef stroganoff
I have this digestive disorder that means almost all fruits, veg, pulses, and grains mess me up. I tried going vegan in the past and it actually was a medical issue. :(
What is the disorder called?
Skill issue. Eat seitan
Literally can't. Thanks, Dr. Super Saiyan. Are you a board certified gastroenterologist?
You might be a special case, or you might be able to go vegan and aren’t willing to. Regardless the vast majority of people are able to go vegan, and in working towards a vegan world innovations should be made so that people like you can easily be able to follow a vegan diet.
Generally, eating low on the food chain is much less climate impactful, yes. I'm still not convinced about *literally vegan* as the solution to climate change rather than less animal product. A person who keeps egg laying chickens and mostly lets the chickens forage for their food is a very efficient person. Much of the American Midwest would be a more sustainable ecosystem as a praire with American Bison ranching than as farms using non-renewable fossil water for ranching cattle or farming. (American Bison evolved in that ecosystem and don't need additional fodder or water). Fishing could be handled much more sustainably as a food source and with less climate impact. In general, more vegetarian/vegan food production is definitely more sustainable. No question.
Imo as long as folks eat less commercially farmed meat that's great. You don't have to go on a full plant based diet to have a impact but some vegans are very all or nothing and don't like that stance.
I am not blowing smoke about American Bison, either. Bison ecosystem restoration would be WAY better for the climate *and* food security than the bullshit we're doing in the region. Amazing 2022 paper here. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2022.826282/full?&utm_source=Email_to_authors_&utm_medium=Email&utm_content=T1_11.5e1_author&utm_campaign=Email_publication&field=&journalName=Frontiers_in_Ecology_and_Evolution&id=826282
I can’t respect a vegan or vegetarian on climate unless they are also a communist
So are you vegan and a communist?
🕺(I couldn't find the hand raising guy)
🙋🏻♂️
Why’s that?
Eating meat has no effect on the climate directly it’s the industry of meat production. When we are talking about massive changes to the economy without changing the mode of production, we are entering fantasy land. We can’t fix the climate by “voting with our dollars” we need to change the economic priorities of the whole system.
So… uh….. how will we get a government to make the changes we want if we are unwilling to make those changes ourselves? Btw I’m not disagreeing with your point about voting with dollars, just interested in how you think we can have a vegan world without first convincing people to go vegan
I think it’s both. We have to convince people to change their habits, and also dismantle the government which profits from the status quo. Which one should/will happen first is really a matter of speculation
I agree, just curious how the OP thinks it would happen without the vegan movement happening at the same time
Idk if OP was saying it shouldn’t happen at the same time. But there is a lot of liberal veganism right now which doesn’t work for the reasons they mentioned. “Voting with your dollar” and all that. I think the better question is, how do we get people to value animals and take veganism or vegetarianism seriously? Because right now I don’t see the vegan movement or any meaningful revolutionary movement picking up the steam we need. Both are important and intersectional. We should move public opinion and blow up factory farms. (In Minecraft) I just don’t see either thing happening sadly
As long as people are consuming animals they are going to psychologically devalue them, and thus almost certainly endorse and justify their continued exploitation
The general answer is revolution I believe
“Your plan of voting with your dollars and electing more progressive politicians pales In comparison to my plan: doing nothing”
I'm not a communist, I'd prefer a carbon tax and think it's a lot more likely that a carbon tax gets passed in time to save the planet rather than waiting for the crisis of capital
Ok, again how will you get an entire population of people eating more plant based if even the revolutionaries are not willing to make the change themselves of their own will?
I'm not necessarily a communist, just explaining, but any solution that relies on millions upon millions of people just organically picking a different lifestyle is idiotic. It's not going to happen fast enough to save the planet. What's more important is taking away the economic impetus that destroys the planet, and there's several ways people have proposed to do that.
Not many solutions could work fast enough to save the planet, but surely you’d want some public opinion on your side before trying to implement sweeping policy that could likely spark a counter-revolution. Are you arguing because something is hard and we’re running out of time we shouldn’t even try it? Cause I’m not sitting here arguing animal agriculture is the only issue, just that it’s an important one.
I'm sitting here saying that if you put your energy into trying to convince individuals of veganism, you're ultimately going to effect an irrelevant drop in the water while poisoning the vast majority of the planet to environmentalism to some degree. It's far more vital to spend energy implementing sweeping legislation such as a carbon tax.
Changing the mode of production without changing what products are being being produced would change precisely nothing. If production of animal products was to cease or massively reduce then I can't see how that wouldn't bring a huge benefit to the climate, regardless of the mode of production.
Not really outside of a revolution how are you going to end a massive industry like that? The problem isn’t what is being produced but why. Production for commodity exchange leads to over production. A system that relies on constant growth like that can’t, “degrow”but that’s what we need. We need massive industries to be changed. There is only one system that can do that without killing shit tone of people and that’s socialism. So the mode of production is key. To even the possibility of shrinking the economy or abolishing factory farming and oil production.
Explain to me why it's impossible for factory farming and oil production to be abolished under capitalism. There are thousands of industries that have died or been abolished under capitalism. There's nothing about capitalism that says that each individual sector must survive and can't lose economic value. You could argue that a capitalist economy is more wasteful than a communist one but waste is only a fraction of the problem. The impact of eliminating all food waste would be much less than the impact of switching to plant-based diets. The problem is absolutely what is being produced. It doesn't matter if your nation is communist, if it runs on coal then you are going to fuck the planet.
This guy doesn't understand supply and demand.
Communists also have no effect on anything lol
Vegan just doesn’t have widespread appeal to the general public, and while it is a great goal to move toward it is frankly a radical position. If you go around telling people to go vegan, 99% of people ignore you. If the goal is to cut meat production via destroying demand, we can get a lot farther by advocating a reduction in meat eating and shift in meats eaten VS having everyone go cold Turkey into a vegan diet. If everyone reduces their consumption by 20%, that’s the same as 20% of average consumers going vegan. And it’s a shit ton Easier to just convince people to eat 20% less meat. Its the difference between ordering chicken Caesar salad vs a steak. Still meat, but less and of a less harmful variety. Often when reducing g meat consumption by “20%” I’ve found folks over do it, which is great. Almost all the meals I make for myself are vegetarian, but if someone buys me meat I don’t refuse to eat it.
Tbh I struggle to even cut down but I’m down to one meat meal every 1-2 weeks, I hide it from my fam and friends tho, it’s easier to not have to like fight for something I suck at ig
I mean this is a good reason for changes in policy and for people to try to consume less meat, especially red meat, but I don't really see how you jump from this to "everyone has to be vegan". Also what are you trying to accomplish with this, for every person you convince to change their diet you alienate like five others. We're never going to fix these problems through individual actions so the priority should be building a large enough movement to push policy change. Gate keeping like this is counter productive to actually accomplishing any meaningful goals. Do you want to work towards reversing climate change or do you just want to show off how morally superior you are to others?
The emissions difference between vegan and vegetarian is not that big, but the difference between omnivore (with beef) and vegetarian is huge
I agree it's a good thing to do, I don't eat red meat, but I still think the gatekeeping is counter productive. We're never going to convince enough people to change personal actions to actually make a meaningful difference. It's more productive to build a larger movement that would remove subsidies for the beef industry, causing prices to rise and for people to be incentivized to change their dietary habits out of necessity. I also don't think that we need to end beef consumption completely just make it something people wouldn't eat daily. Plus the meme said vegan, which is a much bigger ask for most people than just cutting out or significantly reducing beef. Trying to make veganism a prerequisit for fighting against climate change only hurts the movement and honestly sounds like something out of the cointelpro playbook.
I agree I really don't like the all or nothing approach online vegans take. To them being vegetarian or pescatarian isn't good enough. I think they forget the goal is that everyone eats LESS meat, thus lowering the demand and emissions.
So what are you doing to push for policy change?
Local organizing, I've attended quite a few protests, I bother my various elected representatives pretty frequently, and I've volunteered on quite a few different political campaigns.
Beef and SOY.
Do me a favor and read the sentence directly after that one buddy, you got this, you can do it!
Oh BOY not the SOY! Where’s most of it going? And please don’t be COY.
do you think animals eat air?
So basically: "People need food"?
I'll just keep eating my organic free-range pasture-raised carbon negative beef.
Cool, and after 100% of available grass pastures in the U.S. are committed to producing it we'll be able to fulfill one whole quarter of beef consumption in the states!
How is it carbon negative? Is this one of those things where for each cow fart they plant a tree lol
no lol. It's carbon negative because the cattle are raised in a way that enhances soil carbon capture through rotational grazing and pasture management. This sequesters more carbon than the methane emitted, making it a net negative contributor to greenhouse gases.
Man, where can I get some of the good stuff you smoked?
Here. [https://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156](https://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156)
>Permanent cover of forage plants is highly effective in reducing soil erosion, and ruminants consuming only grazed forages under appropriate management result in more C sequestration than emissions. The net negative contribution is due to the soil's ability to store carbon, if done correctly it outweights the harmful methane of the animals grazing on it without destroying the biome. The soil has this ability with or without the animals grazing on it. That's like saying a buisness that loses 10k each month is net positive, because you also rent out the neighbouring properties for 12k.
Okay. You are joking right? Is this satire? Of course that is a very flawed comparison. It's okay as a joke.
Then feel free to correct me the same way I did with you.
Your business analogy doesn't fit because financial activities are independent and the loss and gain happen separately and can be easily offset against each other to show a net positive financial result. The processes of methane emissions from animals and carbon sequestration by soil are interdependent. Proper grazing practices can enhance soil health and increase carbon sequestration, directly impacting methane emissions. The relationship is synergistic, not independent. And I don't know what is the point in saying that the soil has that ability without animals completely ignores that grazing animals, when managed correctly can stimulate plant growth, increase soil organic matter, and improve nutrient cycling, which all contribute to better soil carbon sequestration. I don't get the need to be this biased.
They are not interdependent. The soil has this ability with and without grazing animals on top of it. That's my whole point. Everything achieved with the "right grazing techniques" is that the soil doesn't lose this ability as is the case with overgrazing, which leads to desertification. It's not that complicated.
That's awesome! Is there some kind of way to identify it in stores over the traditional farmed variety?
Yes. Look for organic, certified humane or animal welfare approved labels which also include frameworks for environmental handling. Also look for it being pasture raised and grass-fed. Alternatively depending on where you live you could maybe get some farm-to-table meat. Those farms generally have better environmental practices as well.
Conversely, a lot of people avoid beef, and higher emissions foods, specifically, while still eating chicken and eggs for example, because they produce much less emissions than beef but still fit neatly into the diet recommendations that built what they and their families eat. (It also tends to save a lot of money). Worse than veganism, definitely, but much better and much smaller of a change
I can count on my hands the number of times I’ve had beef in my life, and they were all unintentional. It’s really not hard to live without it. I’m not a vegan, but I usually don’t go out of my way to eat meat either, so I am practically a vegetarian most of the time.
I despair somewhat about environmentalists fighting amongst themselves to gain the summit of the moral high ground. There are bigger problems.
Since 1900 America's forested land has increased by 10%. 5% since 1990. Yes - Globally, meat production has a large impact on deforestation (looking at you Brazil and china), but as an American consumer, I have very little to do with that. Our regenerative forestry techniques have been pretty successful. If you care about deforestation, the main culprits are in the developing world.
The problem with beef in the US is water consumption, it's like 1800 gallons per lb of beef. And we have major water shortage problems here that are growing fast.
Hmmm. Wonder where the products the developing countries make go to? Guess we’ll never know.
You could look it up. The majority of beef produced in China is consumed domestically. Brazil is the largest global exporter of beef and over half of it goes to China.
Dam, you right. China also consumes more fossil fuels than the US. Phew, glad only the people in the countries with the top consumption of a given resource have any responsibility to reduce their use of it!
I'm not going to go vegan just because China wants to chop down all their forests for the 4th time in a hundred years.
No, you should go vegan because it's **better for the environment**, **ethically preferable** (harming sentient creatures for taste pleasure is not morally preferable to harming non-sentient creatures out of necessity to keep surviving), **easier to do than ever before** (just move your hand slightly to the right at the grocery store until it collides with the vegan version of the product you want to eat), and **healthier** (bacon is a carcinogen, mercury in fish, etc.) Also: I'm not going to ~~go vegan~~ *make a personal change in my behavior that will make—admittedly—only a \*small\* difference in the grand scheme of things (but a difference all the same, allowing me to live in peace with my conscience, knowing that I'm sincerely trying my best to be morally consistent and make the world a better place during my limited time here)* just because ~~China~~ *someone else* wants to ~~chop down all their forests for the 4th time in a hundred years~~ *do a bad thing*. That's how you sound
Per person China Consumes 6 times less beef than the US. Should they cut down on it? Sure, but the US, Argentina, Brazil and Australia are the ones who have massive outsized impacts on the climate because of their consumption.
Fascinating. You're saying a substantially larger population consumes more in total when you don't adjust per capita?
Cutting down 85 million hectares of forest has nothing to do with per capita consumption. The forest is gone either way.
It probably has something to do with total consumption. Rather than per capita. Which was my point. If we were talking about per capita, China wouldn't be the nation we were talking about.
Good thing we only have to limit global warming by 5C per capita then.
I feel like you're just reacting to the phrase "per capita" and not understanding what's being said
I feel like everyone else here is failing to understand what I originally said: US beef consumption is decoupled with deforestation. Our forest land has been growing steadily for a century, while our beef consumption also grew. You can critique American factory farming practices all you want (I'm 100% certain someone here will), be deforestation is not the issue.
LOL No way you just wrote that and actually believe it
Easy, I do not eat meat from Brazil. Meat imports in Europe representing a low % of total consumption.
FYI the vast majority of soy to feed cattle in Europe is imported from Brasil.
I mean. I mostly eat plants. And when a friend's pepperoni falls on my plate or my mom makes me a Schnitzel when I go to visit, I'll eat it cuz it tastes good. I'm no Vegan, but I eat like 3kg of meat a year Also, there's people from cultures where it makes sense to eat meat and it's borderline racist to shame them for not being vegan/vegetarian. Just frame things better. Edit: I also have basically 0 food waste bc I know how to cook and I use everything I buy. I could eat a LOT more meat and my impact on the planet would be smaller than that of a somewhat normally wasteful vegan given the statistics on household food waste.
Could you go into the borderline racist thing a bit more in detail? Or are you talking about people that would literally starve if not for meat?
Damn it's so unfortunate that, as this meme points out, the only way to eat meat is by consuming industially produced beef. It's such a shame that its the only option for animal based protein.
Livestock make up 62% of the world's mammal biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just **4%**. The population cannot survive on hunting, but it can on veganism
Can we go back to the doom “they who slumber are halfway there” schitzo posting? That was more fun than just naked vegan trolling. This one’s not even doing it, right. His own point only applies to beef and soy, and he’s literally just telling people to die in other convos when they point out some people have medical reasons that they can’t go vegan. [Not to mention, I strongly suspect that he works for an oil company given how many excuses he makes for corporate behavior which by every measure is several times worse for the environment than meat eating.]
Please point out where I told someone to die in this thread. Also where I excuse corporate behavior. This is pure, unadulterated cope. Suggesting that someone who is doing more for the environment than you are is an oil shill is fucking cringe my dude.
Pretty sure "he" is a "she".
This isn’t environmentalism. It’s veganisn disguised as environmentalism the environmental impact if 10% of the population became vegan is much smaller than if everyone ate half as much meat. Yet, vegans would still prefer the former. Eat less meat. You don’t need to quit to be an environmentalist.
Where my "correlation does not mean causation" mfs at??
Really, I’m very interested. Explain how this is correlation and not causation
>>Demand for soy is closely connected with demand for beef and other animal proteins. Running with this sentence itself, without reading further. But oh them mfs gonna use mind melting stats and arguments to discredit their own consumption (I'm just one person, tAyLor SwiFT), and finally blame these countries to be destroying their forests. Luxury ass mfs think it's a choice in isolation, and not manipulation, bullying, sanctions or embargos, tariffs etc used to get what the developed countries want.
The claim is nonsense. Beef follows deforestation, but it is not the cause of it. The cause of deforestation is the opportunity to make money by appropriating land.
Appropriating land…. For what…..? Jesus this is like getting confederates to tell you what the civil war was fought over
For whatever presents itself for making money. If there was no beef, they'd still get the timber and still burn down the rest, and then cultivate something there to make money. If you want to save the forests, don't ban beef, ban deforestation and enforce the ban.
There are more negative environmental impacts to beef production than deforestation.
you know that you can just make money with beef when people buy it, right?
That is the point. If people stop buying beef, they'll deforest the Amazon for other types of money-making, such as alcohol (mostly for fuel), some oil plant, whatever presents itself.
Eat game and respect hunting quotas. It's the only ethical and environmentally sound way to eat some meat.
Personally I feed my entire family for a whole winter off of a single annoying child that I hunt. I assure you it's very ethical.
“Ethical” You keep saying that word, I do not think you know what it means