4 ms·

Sierra Club, why do you refuse to ever mention the one thing we could all do easily that would have a dramatic effect on slowing climate change, i.e. not eating

by uhtred 8y ago

Sierra Club, why do you refuse to ever mention the one thing we could all do easily that would have a dramatic effect on slowing climate change, i.e. not eating animal products anymore. Because you care more about donations than the actual causes you profess to care so much about.

ryanmercer 8y ago
Compared to energy generation that directly produces CO2, if everyone on the planet stopped eating beef today, it would be an insignificant change. It would ever so modestly slow global warming. (Edit: I would note though, that if people gave up beef for chicken you get roughly an 85% reduction per unit of measure of meat! I've personally switched the bulk of my meat consumption to chicken this year without having to drastically change my dietary preferences). A cow averages 70 and 120 kg of methane a year, this gives us a CO2 equivalent (methane is more powerful than CO2) of about 2300 kg per cow per year. There are 1.3bn to 1.5bn cattle on the planet. That's an average of 3.22 Gt CO2-equivalent, we're going to produce nearly 40 Gt of ACTUAL CO2 this year. Sure, transporting/slaughtering/refrigerating the meat adds some actual CO2 production as well for the beef but still, if you add up all methane and CO2 sources I imagine it's less than 3% of global production.
- 8bitsrule 8y ago
  Compared to electricity generation, a lot of progress is possible in the US ... but too slowly implemented. OTOH, prying people loose from dependencies on their gasoline vehicles (and the transportation of consumer goods over long distances, and the transportation of human bodies by jets) is going to be a long, slow job. From what I'm seeing, they're concerned about climate change ... until they see where that leads... and then the resistance to the inevitable gets at least as fierce as it is over gun-control. The possibility of a democratic solution here -may- have vanished.
- deleted 8y ago
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by uhtred 8y ago

ryanmercer 8y ago

Compared to energy generation that directly produces CO2, if everyone on the planet stopped eating beef today, it would be an insignificant change. It would ever so modestly slow global warming. (Edit: I would note though, that if people gave up beef for chicken you get roughly an 85% reduction per unit of measure of meat! I've personally switched the bulk of my meat consumption to chicken this year without having to drastically change my dietary preferences). A cow averages 70 and 120 kg of methane a year, this gives us a CO2 equivalent (methane is more powerful than CO2) of about 2300 kg per cow per year. There are 1.3bn to 1.5bn cattle on the planet. That's an average of 3.22 Gt CO2-equivalent, we're going to produce nearly 40 Gt of ACTUAL CO2 this year. Sure, transporting/slaughtering/refrigerating the meat adds some actual CO2 production as well for the beef but still, if you add up all methane and CO2 sources I imagine it's less than 3% of global production.

8bitsrule 8y ago
Compared to electricity generation, a lot of progress is possible in the US ... but too slowly implemented. OTOH, prying people loose from dependencies on their gasoline vehicles (and the transportation of consumer goods over long distances, and the transportation of human bodies by jets) is going to be a long, slow job. From what I'm seeing, they're concerned about climate change ... until they see where that leads... and then the resistance to the inevitable gets at least as fierce as it is over gun-control. The possibility of a democratic solution here -may- have vanished.
deleted 8y ago
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