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> Your comment makes it sound as if eating meat is some kind of indulgence, like eating sweets. Really, it is. It doesn't make a lot of sense to eat meat from

> Your comment makes it sound as if eating meat is some kind of indulgence, like eating sweets. Really, it is. It doesn't make a lot of sense to eat meat from an efficiency point of view, or from the sense of impact on the climate. >Meat is a rich source of protein and energy. We don't need any more justification than that to want to eat other animals. I don't see how the second sentence follows from the first. > At the end of the day- many animals eat other animals' meat. Why is it any different for humans to do the same? Humans plus livestock make up 96% of the biomass of mammals on the planet. Domesticated poultry is 60% of the birds. That makes us a special case in terms of impact, to put it mildly. From an animal welfare point of view, it's also different to kill a wild animal for food compared to shutting it in a cage and pumping it full of hormones and antibiotics for a few months before killing it.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. Everybody doesn't need to have their personal automobile or fly everywhere in jets that consume tons of fossil fuels at a time. Everybody doesn't need to go around with a portable computer in their pants. But everybody does need food to eat. Why would we first limit a fundamental need, before unnecessary technologies? >> I don't see how the second sentence follows from the first. It follows because we need protein and energy. >> That makes us a special case in terms of impact, to put it mildly. That makes us a special case in the way we find meat to eat. But why are we a special case when it comes to eating meat?
- chimprich 8y ago
  > The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. It's not logical to say we need to tackle the biggest problems first before tackling the smaller problems. Tackling the easier problems first, or tackling as many problems as we can simultaneously makes more sense. It's also wrong to imply that food is not a major contributor to climate change. It's hard to compare (because of methane emissions v CO2 emissions, food is transported on vehicles etc.) but it looks like food production is similar in impact to transport. > Why would we first limit a fundamental need Eating food is a fundamental need, but not eating meat.
  - YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
    Well, changing the way people eat is much harder than changing their use of technology. It's not just that it's a larger problem- it's also harder, like you say. Of course farming uses transport, just as everything else does. But the emissions from transporting food come from transport vehicles. I don't see how these must be assigned to farming. If we reduce transport emissions, we'll reduce all transport emissions, including those from transporting food. If we only reduce emissions from farming we'll still have to deal with transport emissions. In any case, going by the graphs on this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Anthropogenic_greenhouse_gases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Anthropogenic_g... - It really looks like a clear majority of total emissions is from energy production, transport and industry.

YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago

The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. Everybody doesn't need to have their personal automobile or fly everywhere in jets that consume tons of fossil fuels at a time. Everybody doesn't need to go around with a portable computer in their pants. But everybody does need food to eat. Why would we first limit a fundamental need, before unnecessary technologies? >> I don't see how the second sentence follows from the first. It follows because we need protein and energy. >> That makes us a special case in terms of impact, to put it mildly. That makes us a special case in the way we find meat to eat. But why are we a special case when it comes to eating meat?

chimprich 8y ago
> The major driver of climate change is energy production and transport. We can reduce our impact by limiting those first, before we get to the food we eat. It's not logical to say we need to tackle the biggest problems first before tackling the smaller problems. Tackling the easier problems first, or tackling as many problems as we can simultaneously makes more sense. It's also wrong to imply that food is not a major contributor to climate change. It's hard to compare (because of methane emissions v CO2 emissions, food is transported on vehicles etc.) but it looks like food production is similar in impact to transport. > Why would we first limit a fundamental need Eating food is a fundamental need, but not eating meat.
- YeGoblynQueenne 8y ago
  Well, changing the way people eat is much harder than changing their use of technology. It's not just that it's a larger problem- it's also harder, like you say. Of course farming uses transport, just as everything else does. But the emissions from transporting food come from transport vehicles. I don't see how these must be assigned to farming. If we reduce transport emissions, we'll reduce all transport emissions, including those from transporting food. If we only reduce emissions from farming we'll still have to deal with transport emissions. In any case, going by the graphs on this wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Anthropogenic_greenhouse_gases https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greenhouse_gas#Anthropogenic_g... - It really looks like a clear majority of total emissions is from energy production, transport and industry.