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> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-l

> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-local food, etc.

eksu 9y ago
I wanted to tack on here that even our agriculture has a huge environmental impact — nothing worse for biodiversity than how we’ve replaced animal habitats with fields of a single crop! And then pesticides etc. I don’t know if it ever happen, but we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game. Properly Managed Captured Fisheries (Mostly more prosperous nations have well managed fisheries, outstanding fisheries would be in Alaska & New Zealand) allow us to extract protien we all need without destroying ecosystems. Same goes for captured game but that scales significantly worse. Fish farms are in a unique position because unlike farming animals on land, it can be done without radically changing the part of the ocean the fish are farmed in. I think recently there have been some problems with fish farms and antibiotic / illness spreading but I really think these can be overcome and that long term aquaculture would be the most environmentally conscious option. (In a similar position to electric cars today).
- devmunchies 9y ago
  > we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game I guess if you HAVE to eat meat that is a better option, but we don't need it anymore. Its such an inefficient way to get calories and its not as nutritious as plant substitutes.
  - jm2721 9y ago
    Are you serious? Most of the plant substitutes for meat are based off nutrient-devoid grains, soy, and corn. It's also not at all an inefficient way to get calories; fat packs the most calories per gram, and fat (especially saturated fat) is not easily available in plants unless you're making a concerted effort to eat avocados, olives, and coconuts. I'd rather eat a fatty steak and be satiated for hours, than have the same calories from quinoa (or some other 'healthy' grain) and be ravenous 2 hours later when my insulin levels drop.
- carbonmachine 9y ago
  You make a compelling point. If I wanted to support one of those companies by purchasing their products, what would I look for? Any chance salmon is among the fish that are well farmed?
- e12e 9y ago
  > Fish farms are in a unique position because unlike farming animals on land, it can be done without radically changing the part of the ocean the fish are farmed in. Fish farms are a little like farming rabbits in packed, huge fenced in areas. You get a lot of disease, use a lot of medicine and antibiotics - and get a lot of feces. And escaped, diseased rabbits that breed in the wild. Fish farms on land are likely better - but at any rate, fish farms are far from being without environmental impact.
t420mom 9y ago
Factory-farmed meat is bad for humans and bad for the environment, true, but any industrial-scale monoculture crop has huge negative impacts, and that includes vegetables too. Better to avoid monocultures by buying organic/biodynamic, shopping at farmers' markets, CSA, growing your own food, etc. Eat less processed and make more from scratch. Better health, better for the environment, and you can still enjoy meat :)
- devmunchies 9y ago
  True, but it doesn't scale. Good luck if you live in a metro area.
  - zo7 9y ago
    How so? In San Francisco there are several local produce markets within walking distance of where I live. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are pretty common major grocery chains here, and there are two weekly farmer's markets I can think of that are accessible by bike/transit. When I visited Manhattan/Brooklyn recently I didn't get the sense that they were lacking in locally-sourced foods either. Main problem I can think of are food deserts, but those are more of an economic problem than scale. When I used to live in one in Baltimore though it was possible to find local food, it just took more effort.
    - devmunchies 9y ago
      this part specifically: > growing your own food I should have quoted that directly in my original comment.
  - emiliobumachar 9y ago
    If there was demand for it, every other apartment building rooftop could include a greenhouse.
    - devmunchies 9y ago
      you would need much more than a rooftop to feed a high rise apt building, no?
turk184 9y ago
8+ Billion people and rising. That's all you really need to understand.
jopsen 9y ago
Buy organic too
avar 9y ago
> don't consume as much non-local food This is actually an unscientific myth. It's counterintuitive but it can be much better for the environment to eat non-local food: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myth_about_buying_local_food.html http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myt...
- jm2721 9y ago
  That article is missing point. The point of eating local food is that you eat what's in season and what's available in your area. Obviously if you live in Canada you won't be able to find 'local' Avocados, but the idea is you would forfeit eating Avocados in favor of eating whatever is locally produced, instead of shipping those Avocados from Mexico.
  - avar 9y ago
    No, I believe you're missing the point. What the article is asserting and what the science shows is that even if you have Avacados being grown literally next door the environmental impact of buying them locally is often higher than shipping them from abroad. For example, the SGU podcast they link to [1] (around 55m:50s in) discusses that the net environmental impact (carbon emissions) of shipping beef to the UK from New Zealand is less than consuming UK beef in the UK. So if you're an environmentally conscious UK consumer you should be spending extra to buy NZ beef instead of buying locally produced beef. This is because the carbon impact of the transportation generally hovers around 10%, which leaves the other 90% for actually producing the product "locally", and some locations on earth are vastly more efficient by every environmental metric in growing certain crops or raising certain livestock. From the podcast: "An acre of land in Idaho can produce twice the amount of potatoes as an acre of land in Kansas". Which leaves two reasons to buy locally. Firstly you may be living in one of the places that's efficient at producing a given product, e.g. you'd buy local beef in New Zealand instead of importing it from the UK. Secondly there are certain products that don't ship well, e.g. heirloom tomatoes. There you simply don't have the option of buying anything except local varieties. 1. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/514 http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/514
hycaria 9y ago
Why does everyone seem to forget the essential "have less kids" one ? This is what puts me into the defeatist group. As long as people won't even put their reproductive urges in question (and rather discuss how flying is bad), how are we even supposed to achieve anything ? This should be one of the first logical moves, yet it's so frowned upon it's never brought up. Depressing.
- TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
  Totally agree. Condoms people ! USE EM !
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
jm2721 9y ago
"Eat less meat" is not a good solution since industrialized monocrop agriculture has tons of problems on its own like topsoil erosion and air/water pollution. The problem doesn't lie in any one single food, but in commercial food production in general, be it livestock or agricultural. If you want to help against that, the best option would be to support sustainably raised meat and vegetables from local farms by going to farmers markets or eating out at farm-to-table restaurants. If possible, plant your own vegetables, raise your own chickens or hunt. Avoid buying from the big food producers, like Kraft, Tyson, PepsiCo or ConAgra

> I want to dedicate a slice of time to doing something to solve the problem Eat less meat (huge environmental impact!), bike more, don't consume as much non-local food, etc.

eksu 9y ago

I wanted to tack on here that even our agriculture has a huge environmental impact — nothing worse for biodiversity than how we’ve replaced animal habitats with fields of a single crop! And then pesticides etc. I don’t know if it ever happen, but we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game. Properly Managed Captured Fisheries (Mostly more prosperous nations have well managed fisheries, outstanding fisheries would be in Alaska & New Zealand) allow us to extract protien we all need without destroying ecosystems. Same goes for captured game but that scales significantly worse. Fish farms are in a unique position because unlike farming animals on land, it can be done without radically changing the part of the ocean the fish are farmed in. I think recently there have been some problems with fish farms and antibiotic / illness spreading but I really think these can be overcome and that long term aquaculture would be the most environmentally conscious option. (In a similar position to electric cars today).

devmunchies 9y ago
> we really should support capture fisheries, fish farms, and captured game I guess if you HAVE to eat meat that is a better option, but we don't need it anymore. Its such an inefficient way to get calories and its not as nutritious as plant substitutes.
- jm2721 9y ago
  Are you serious? Most of the plant substitutes for meat are based off nutrient-devoid grains, soy, and corn. It's also not at all an inefficient way to get calories; fat packs the most calories per gram, and fat (especially saturated fat) is not easily available in plants unless you're making a concerted effort to eat avocados, olives, and coconuts. I'd rather eat a fatty steak and be satiated for hours, than have the same calories from quinoa (or some other 'healthy' grain) and be ravenous 2 hours later when my insulin levels drop.
carbonmachine 9y ago
You make a compelling point. If I wanted to support one of those companies by purchasing their products, what would I look for? Any chance salmon is among the fish that are well farmed?
e12e 9y ago
> Fish farms are in a unique position because unlike farming animals on land, it can be done without radically changing the part of the ocean the fish are farmed in. Fish farms are a little like farming rabbits in packed, huge fenced in areas. You get a lot of disease, use a lot of medicine and antibiotics - and get a lot of feces. And escaped, diseased rabbits that breed in the wild. Fish farms on land are likely better - but at any rate, fish farms are far from being without environmental impact.

t420mom 9y ago

Factory-farmed meat is bad for humans and bad for the environment, true, but any industrial-scale monoculture crop has huge negative impacts, and that includes vegetables too. Better to avoid monocultures by buying organic/biodynamic, shopping at farmers' markets, CSA, growing your own food, etc. Eat less processed and make more from scratch. Better health, better for the environment, and you can still enjoy meat :)

devmunchies 9y ago
True, but it doesn't scale. Good luck if you live in a metro area.
- zo7 9y ago
  How so? In San Francisco there are several local produce markets within walking distance of where I live. Whole Foods and Trader Joe's are pretty common major grocery chains here, and there are two weekly farmer's markets I can think of that are accessible by bike/transit. When I visited Manhattan/Brooklyn recently I didn't get the sense that they were lacking in locally-sourced foods either. Main problem I can think of are food deserts, but those are more of an economic problem than scale. When I used to live in one in Baltimore though it was possible to find local food, it just took more effort.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    this part specifically: > growing your own food I should have quoted that directly in my original comment.
- emiliobumachar 9y ago
  If there was demand for it, every other apartment building rooftop could include a greenhouse.
  - devmunchies 9y ago
    you would need much more than a rooftop to feed a high rise apt building, no?

turk184 9y ago

8+ Billion people and rising. That's all you really need to understand.

jopsen 9y ago

Buy organic too

avar 9y ago

> don't consume as much non-local food This is actually an unscientific myth. It's counterintuitive but it can be much better for the environment to eat non-local food: http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myth_about_buying_local_food.html http://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2015/06/the_biggest_myt...

jm2721 9y ago
That article is missing point. The point of eating local food is that you eat what's in season and what's available in your area. Obviously if you live in Canada you won't be able to find 'local' Avocados, but the idea is you would forfeit eating Avocados in favor of eating whatever is locally produced, instead of shipping those Avocados from Mexico.
- avar 9y ago
  No, I believe you're missing the point. What the article is asserting and what the science shows is that even if you have Avacados being grown literally next door the environmental impact of buying them locally is often higher than shipping them from abroad. For example, the SGU podcast they link to [1] (around 55m:50s in) discusses that the net environmental impact (carbon emissions) of shipping beef to the UK from New Zealand is less than consuming UK beef in the UK. So if you're an environmentally conscious UK consumer you should be spending extra to buy NZ beef instead of buying locally produced beef. This is because the carbon impact of the transportation generally hovers around 10%, which leaves the other 90% for actually producing the product "locally", and some locations on earth are vastly more efficient by every environmental metric in growing certain crops or raising certain livestock. From the podcast: "An acre of land in Idaho can produce twice the amount of potatoes as an acre of land in Kansas". Which leaves two reasons to buy locally. Firstly you may be living in one of the places that's efficient at producing a given product, e.g. you'd buy local beef in New Zealand instead of importing it from the UK. Secondly there are certain products that don't ship well, e.g. heirloom tomatoes. There you simply don't have the option of buying anything except local varieties. 1. http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/514 http://www.theskepticsguide.org/podcast/sgu/514

hycaria 9y ago

Why does everyone seem to forget the essential "have less kids" one ? This is what puts me into the defeatist group. As long as people won't even put their reproductive urges in question (and rather discuss how flying is bad), how are we even supposed to achieve anything ? This should be one of the first logical moves, yet it's so frowned upon it's never brought up. Depressing.

TheGrassyKnoll 9y ago
Totally agree. Condoms people ! USE EM !
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

jm2721 9y ago

"Eat less meat" is not a good solution since industrialized monocrop agriculture has tons of problems on its own like topsoil erosion and air/water pollution. The problem doesn't lie in any one single food, but in commercial food production in general, be it livestock or agricultural. If you want to help against that, the best option would be to support sustainably raised meat and vegetables from local farms by going to farmers markets or eating out at farm-to-table restaurants. If possible, plant your own vegetables, raise your own chickens or hunt. Avoid buying from the big food producers, like Kraft, Tyson, PepsiCo or ConAgra