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> you actually can't completely replace the macronutrient profile with vegetables. You can get close, but you lose out on things, and this is especially the cas

> you actually can't completely replace the macronutrient profile with vegetables. You can get close, but you lose out on things, and this is especially the case for parts of nutrition that we're still continuing to learn more about. Do we have a history of eating so much meat, corn and diary? Humans in history have had very varied diets depending on location as far as I understand and the existence of vegan + vegetarian athletes is very convincing to me we don't need meat. > I'm a little curious as to why you didn't address my other points. Which ones? I probably tried to implicitly. > We need huge reductions to corporate emissions to avoid dangerous climate change. I think it's a bit of an anthropomorphic fallacy to believe that our consumption habits have a larger impact on the climate than demonstrably larger corporate contributors. Given these figures, do you still think believe this? https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... "The new analysis shows that while meat and dairy provide just 18% of calories and 37% of protein, it uses the vast majority – 83% – of farmland and produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions." > If we really want to battle climate change, it requires coordinates, global pressure to the top. Yes, but consumers definitely have an influence too. There's certainly been more demand for meat-free products in the last decade which companies are acting to profit from for example.

yowlingcat 8y ago
I agree with you that humans in history have had very varied diets. Some humans have had a very long history of lots of meat and dairy. Some have a history of eating grains, pulses, vegetables and other plants. It really depends on what point in time, what civilization and which geographical area we're talking about. Humans are remarkably capable of adapting to a very wide variety of diet when they need to. At any rate, I'd like to show a chart: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... And this is just in the USA. Only 9% of emissions comes from agriculture. Even if you cut out all of that, you don't even nearly make a dent in greenhouse emissions. The real challenge is figuring out how we clean up our transportation, energy and industrial infrastructure. The problem is, consumption doesn't necessarily have an impact there. I think I principally just really disagree with you about consumer activism. I think that the reason why regulation was needed in the first place in order to accomplish many overall wins was because consumer activism is just too weak. Long term, externalities will produce a race to the bottom that is disastrous for society -- individuals don't give things up for moral reasons, they give them up because of incentives. I think we need to close the feedback loop and take the negative externalities of all of these contributors to climate change and integrate them back into our financial, political and social incentives system. But that requires us to take aim at businesses. Big businesses, of course, would rather us take aim at each other as consumers. If consumers are busy policing each other, they'll get distracted from ever holding the big businesses to task when they're not doing their fair share. And of course, it's scary to hold them to task. They have endless resources, they can bury individuals in court, lobby politicians, spend on PR campaigns that serve as risk mitigation for their regulatory costs. It's much safer to change your behavior as a consumer and moralize other consumers if they don't change their own. But again, it has limits. Once you get beyond those limits, consumers do not have influence. But, consumers are citizens, and citizens have influence over their country. They can participate in their communities to perform direct action, they can run for office to effect political change, and they can organize to vote for politicians that can make changes that help society run better. I believe in there being more than consumerism to citizenship (not saying you don't).
- seanwilson 8y ago
  > And this is just in the USA. Only 9% of emissions comes from agriculture. Even if you cut out all of that, you don't even nearly make a dent in greenhouse emissions. The real challenge is figuring out how we clean up our transportation, energy and industrial infrastructure. The problem is, consumption doesn't necessarily have an impact there. See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-red... and the link to the Nature article: "The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades. Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets." > I think I principally just really disagree with you about consumer activism. What should consumers do then? Nothing? Demand better meat alternatives? Keep eating meat? Stop eating meat? Would your views here change if you agreed consumption has a big impact?
  - yowlingcat 8y ago
    They would if I agreed, but I don't. Consumers have every right to demand better meat alternatives, but I think that's more because they're tasty and cheaper if anything. But they should understand that their consumption doesn't really matter and is a red herring. If you care about help solve climate change, the first step is understanding the largest contributors to it. For what it's worth, I do think that industrial agriculture is heavily flawed and unsustainable. But that cross cuts across meat and plant based agriculture, and I think it has more to do with how we turn arable land into monocultures that deplete the soil and destroy biodiversity. That's a problem, for sure, but it's not the biggest problem as far as climate change is concerned. The biggest problem with respect to climate change is sustainable industrial infrastructure. It is not enough to consume sustainable products. We must demand and politically organize for sustainable infrastructure globally -- demand the allocation of resources, the stewardship of research and infrastructural development that will require. I think moralizing about the choices of what people eat suffers from a bit of tunnel vision. I'm also skeptical of any study that draws conclusions about climate change based on 9% of something's contribution to it. What is expected to happen with the other 91%?

yowlingcat 8y ago

I agree with you that humans in history have had very varied diets. Some humans have had a very long history of lots of meat and dairy. Some have a history of eating grains, pulses, vegetables and other plants. It really depends on what point in time, what civilization and which geographical area we're talking about. Humans are remarkably capable of adapting to a very wide variety of diet when they need to. At any rate, I'd like to show a chart: https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis... And this is just in the USA. Only 9% of emissions comes from agriculture. Even if you cut out all of that, you don't even nearly make a dent in greenhouse emissions. The real challenge is figuring out how we clean up our transportation, energy and industrial infrastructure. The problem is, consumption doesn't necessarily have an impact there. I think I principally just really disagree with you about consumer activism. I think that the reason why regulation was needed in the first place in order to accomplish many overall wins was because consumer activism is just too weak. Long term, externalities will produce a race to the bottom that is disastrous for society -- individuals don't give things up for moral reasons, they give them up because of incentives. I think we need to close the feedback loop and take the negative externalities of all of these contributors to climate change and integrate them back into our financial, political and social incentives system. But that requires us to take aim at businesses. Big businesses, of course, would rather us take aim at each other as consumers. If consumers are busy policing each other, they'll get distracted from ever holding the big businesses to task when they're not doing their fair share. And of course, it's scary to hold them to task. They have endless resources, they can bury individuals in court, lobby politicians, spend on PR campaigns that serve as risk mitigation for their regulatory costs. It's much safer to change your behavior as a consumer and moralize other consumers if they don't change their own. But again, it has limits. Once you get beyond those limits, consumers do not have influence. But, consumers are citizens, and citizens have influence over their country. They can participate in their communities to perform direct action, they can run for office to effect political change, and they can organize to vote for politicians that can make changes that help society run better. I believe in there being more than consumerism to citizenship (not saying you don't).

seanwilson 8y ago
> And this is just in the USA. Only 9% of emissions comes from agriculture. Even if you cut out all of that, you don't even nearly make a dent in greenhouse emissions. The real challenge is figuring out how we clean up our transportation, energy and industrial infrastructure. The problem is, consumption doesn't necessarily have an impact there. See https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-reduction-in-meat-eating-essential-to-avoid-climate-breakdown https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/10/huge-red... and the link to the Nature article: "The research also finds that enormous changes to farming are needed to avoid destroying the planet’s ability to feed the 10 billion people expected to be on the planet in a few decades. Food production already causes great damage to the environment, via greenhouse gases from livestock, deforestation and water shortages from farming, and vast ocean dead zones from agricultural pollution. But without action, its impact will get far worse as the world population rises by 2.3 billion people by 2050 and global income triples, enabling more people to eat meat-rich western diets." > I think I principally just really disagree with you about consumer activism. What should consumers do then? Nothing? Demand better meat alternatives? Keep eating meat? Stop eating meat? Would your views here change if you agreed consumption has a big impact?
- yowlingcat 8y ago
  They would if I agreed, but I don't. Consumers have every right to demand better meat alternatives, but I think that's more because they're tasty and cheaper if anything. But they should understand that their consumption doesn't really matter and is a red herring. If you care about help solve climate change, the first step is understanding the largest contributors to it. For what it's worth, I do think that industrial agriculture is heavily flawed and unsustainable. But that cross cuts across meat and plant based agriculture, and I think it has more to do with how we turn arable land into monocultures that deplete the soil and destroy biodiversity. That's a problem, for sure, but it's not the biggest problem as far as climate change is concerned. The biggest problem with respect to climate change is sustainable industrial infrastructure. It is not enough to consume sustainable products. We must demand and politically organize for sustainable infrastructure globally -- demand the allocation of resources, the stewardship of research and infrastructural development that will require. I think moralizing about the choices of what people eat suffers from a bit of tunnel vision. I'm also skeptical of any study that draws conclusions about climate change based on 9% of something's contribution to it. What is expected to happen with the other 91%?