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People generate a lot of carbon emissions. You're adding part of another person's carbon emissions to what is required to prepare your meal.

dTal 7y ago
Well, by that argument, all economic activity of any description is bad for the environment. Paying anyone to do anything ever is bad. In fact, just being alive is bad. Anyone who talks a big talk about the environment without immediately reducing their carbon footprint by committing suicide is a hypocrite. Which may well be true! But then it seems unfair to single out eating in a restaurant - given that the other humans already exist whether you buy the meal or not, it doesn't seem especially bad in the scheme of things you could be paying someone to do.
- toasterlovin 7y ago
  You're putting words in my mouth. The key fact about eating at restaurants is that you don't need other people to prepare food for you in order to eat. You can make food for yourself. That is not true of most other consumption. But speaking of consumption, the best thing most people can do for the environment is to reduce consumption. And the easiest way to know whether you've achieved that is to just spend less money on everything you buy. Buy a used car instead of new. Take a road trip instead of traveling via plane. Make more food yourself. Eat more grains and less leafy greens. Eat more chicken and less beef. Etc.
acidburnNSA 7y ago
Well, I mean, that person serving the food would still exist and respirate and consumer even if they had a different job. The slippery slope of "humans cause carbon emissions" quickly descends to some Malthusian debates which basically end up as "Thanos did nothing wrong".
- dTal 7y ago
  It's true though - saying the person serving food would still exist if you didn't order the meal is like saying that someone else will burn that gasoline if you don't. It's true, but it doesn't absolve you from responsibility. You're still creating demand and contributing in some fractional way to the problem. The logical endpoint of "humans inevitably cause catastrophic destruction" doesn't have to be "kill all humans" though. It could be, "make sure we're worth it". Can we build a society so amazing, so transcendent, that it was worth the destruction of our ancestral ecosystems? If so, then let's get cracking. If not, well then yes, maybe then we really ought to be thinking about suicide.

dTal 7y ago

Well, by that argument, all economic activity of any description is bad for the environment. Paying anyone to do anything ever is bad. In fact, just being alive is bad. Anyone who talks a big talk about the environment without immediately reducing their carbon footprint by committing suicide is a hypocrite. Which may well be true! But then it seems unfair to single out eating in a restaurant - given that the other humans already exist whether you buy the meal or not, it doesn't seem especially bad in the scheme of things you could be paying someone to do.

toasterlovin 7y ago
You're putting words in my mouth. The key fact about eating at restaurants is that you don't need other people to prepare food for you in order to eat. You can make food for yourself. That is not true of most other consumption. But speaking of consumption, the best thing most people can do for the environment is to reduce consumption. And the easiest way to know whether you've achieved that is to just spend less money on everything you buy. Buy a used car instead of new. Take a road trip instead of traveling via plane. Make more food yourself. Eat more grains and less leafy greens. Eat more chicken and less beef. Etc.

acidburnNSA 7y ago

Well, I mean, that person serving the food would still exist and respirate and consumer even if they had a different job. The slippery slope of "humans cause carbon emissions" quickly descends to some Malthusian debates which basically end up as "Thanos did nothing wrong".

dTal 7y ago
It's true though - saying the person serving food would still exist if you didn't order the meal is like saying that someone else will burn that gasoline if you don't. It's true, but it doesn't absolve you from responsibility. You're still creating demand and contributing in some fractional way to the problem. The logical endpoint of "humans inevitably cause catastrophic destruction" doesn't have to be "kill all humans" though. It could be, "make sure we're worth it". Can we build a society so amazing, so transcendent, that it was worth the destruction of our ancestral ecosystems? If so, then let's get cracking. If not, well then yes, maybe then we really ought to be thinking about suicide.