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Most estimates put it at around 15%, not 5. Stopping climate change is going to require action on all these vectors, and diet is one of the easiest to change. I

Most estimates put it at around 15%, not 5. Stopping climate change is going to require action on all these vectors, and diet is one of the easiest to change. It also has knock on effects like clear cutting rainforest to plant crops to feed to cows. On top of that it’s just cruel and unnecessary to go on eating so much meat.

TheBeardKing 8y ago
Also clearing rainforests for palm oil trees.
rayiner 8y ago
It's 15% globally, but just 5% in the U.S. That's because eating meat is one of the few things your average Bangladeshi or African does to create CO2 emissions. Those people aren't going to become vegans, and as those economies develop, they'll want more of the things that are responsible for the other 95% of your average American's carbon emissions.
mercer 8y ago
The main argument in favor changing diet, to me, is the potential psychological and social effects. When something you do multiple times a day is different from what you used to do, and what many others around you do, it stays active in your thoughts and might trigger other, more meaningful activity. I don't know if this is actually true, but anecdotally at least it seems to be. The people around me who seem to be most active when it comes to the topic of climate change also tend to be vegetarians or vegans. And many of them started down this path by changing their diets, sometimes even for reasons that weren't ideological.
- rayiner 8y ago
  > The people around me who seem to be most active when it comes to the topic of climate change also tend to be vegetarians or vegans. What do these people do? Unless they're working on renewables technology or carbon-capture technology, they're not doing anything useful. That's just how the math shakes out. The climate problem is so huge that only engineers and scientists can help us now. Everything else is just putting on one of those "raising awareness of breast cancer" ribbons.
  - mercer 8y ago
    Oh yeah, quite possible. I imagine some of them could be working on the things you mention, but most of them don't. But that's particular to my current network. But some of them do have strong relationships with people who play some meaningful role in the whole climate issue. At least two of these 'people around me' have siblings that occupy high-level engineering/management roles in some of the most impactful (and worst) companies. It's not much, maybe, but perhaps it's not meaningless.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - firethief 8y ago
    The math seems to be shaking the proximal solution (green tech), and ignoring the path to get there. Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, and green techs are disadvantaged because not only are they competing against options whose true costs are externalized, but there are trillions of dollars invested in the unsustainable status quo. We need not just for the right technologies to exist, but for policies that will allow them to win. And that requires people (even non-engineers) to care.

TheBeardKing 8y ago

Also clearing rainforests for palm oil trees.

rayiner 8y ago

It's 15% globally, but just 5% in the U.S. That's because eating meat is one of the few things your average Bangladeshi or African does to create CO2 emissions. Those people aren't going to become vegans, and as those economies develop, they'll want more of the things that are responsible for the other 95% of your average American's carbon emissions.

mercer 8y ago

The main argument in favor changing diet, to me, is the potential psychological and social effects. When something you do multiple times a day is different from what you used to do, and what many others around you do, it stays active in your thoughts and might trigger other, more meaningful activity. I don't know if this is actually true, but anecdotally at least it seems to be. The people around me who seem to be most active when it comes to the topic of climate change also tend to be vegetarians or vegans. And many of them started down this path by changing their diets, sometimes even for reasons that weren't ideological.

rayiner 8y ago
> The people around me who seem to be most active when it comes to the topic of climate change also tend to be vegetarians or vegans. What do these people do? Unless they're working on renewables technology or carbon-capture technology, they're not doing anything useful. That's just how the math shakes out. The climate problem is so huge that only engineers and scientists can help us now. Everything else is just putting on one of those "raising awareness of breast cancer" ribbons.
- mercer 8y ago
  Oh yeah, quite possible. I imagine some of them could be working on the things you mention, but most of them don't. But that's particular to my current network. But some of them do have strong relationships with people who play some meaningful role in the whole climate issue. At least two of these 'people around me' have siblings that occupy high-level engineering/management roles in some of the most impactful (and worst) companies. It's not much, maybe, but perhaps it's not meaningless.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- firethief 8y ago
  The math seems to be shaking the proximal solution (green tech), and ignoring the path to get there. Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum, and green techs are disadvantaged because not only are they competing against options whose true costs are externalized, but there are trillions of dollars invested in the unsustainable status quo. We need not just for the right technologies to exist, but for policies that will allow them to win. And that requires people (even non-engineers) to care.