12 ms·

That's great and all, but it's fighting symptoms, not the underlying problem. The underlying problem isn't cows emitting methane, the problem is too many peopl

That's great and all, but it's fighting symptoms, not the underlying problem. The underlying problem isn't cows emitting methane, the problem is too many people indoctrinated with the idea of eating all the animals, all the time. The amount of land, energy and ressources in general spent on producing way too many animals for eating is unreasonable.

tchalla 6y ago
What's the process to come up with the number for the right amount of animal eating?
- lm28469 6y ago
  idk but when I see the quality of the meat served at the cafeteria of my company I can clearly tell there is an issue, it's vile, I would probably not even give that to my dog. Somehow people prefer eating the most disgusting piece of chicken/beef I've ever seen every single day of their week rather than go for the totally fine salad bar, which is cheaper and has a variety of cheese, nuts, salad, &c. or the vegetarian dish of the day
- prox 6y ago
  You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week. Especially if your job isn’t that physically demanding. You reduce meat consumption to 1/7 if you do so. If most of us did that a lot of problems would be moot.
  - kolinko 6y ago
    You assume that the only reason people eat meat is either sociological or physical workout. You have multiple subsets of population that may find it more difficult to quit meat than the others. For women (especially pregnant), meat is a source of Iron. For people with adhd, there is a correlation with meat eating (and we can assume causation as well, since adhd is genetic). Meat is a source of vitamins that have been proven to help with adhd symptoms, and of course protein which helps with brain functioning in those cases. Personally, I don’t do much sport, but I get occasional cravings so high that I could kill anyone who would want to prevent me from eating meat. Trying to figure out what is responsible, and which supplements can help, but still haven’t figured out. With all the sympathy for animal suffering (my gf is a vegan fighter), just because you and some other people have it easy to quit meat doesn’t mean that it’s easy for all the rest.
    - Spacemolte 6y ago
      Eating less != quitting
    - callmemclovin 6y ago
      > just because you and some other people have it easy to quit meat doesn’t mean that it’s easy for all the rest. Yeah but... so what? What's the point in only pursuing easy goals? Do you think we should have cancelled the Apollo program just because it wasn't easy? Abandoning meat will be another milestone for mankind - even if it's just for our own long-term survival on this planet.
    - kortex 6y ago
      > For people with adhd, there is a correlation with meat eating > I get occasional cravings so high that I could kill anyone who would want to prevent me from eating meat. lightbulb moment I would love to cut down on meat consumption for ethics/sustainability/health, but it's almost like my body knows it runs better on it. I get extra cranky, foggy, and tired if I don't have a pretty dense protein meal early in the day, ideally red meat. Can't do legumes due to allergies. Even like whey protein isn't the same as meat. My iron levels are fine. Maybe it's one of the amino-adjacent compounds, like creatine?
      - dunefox 6y ago
        > I get extra cranky, foggy, and tired if I don't have a pretty dense protein meal early in the day Imagination is a powerful thing. You're just used to it.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
      I became a vegetarian over a decade ago and while it wasn't exactly easy, it certainly wasn't all that difficult compared to most of the other hard things I've done in my life. For instance, losing half my body weight (which occurred many years later because ice cream is vegetarian yo) was at least 2 orders of magnitude harder and maintaining that loss is a never ending battle. By comparison, getting out of bed to go to work is harder than maintaining my vegetarianism. Cutting back meat consumption to a mere 1 or 2 meals a week cannot be that difficult. I also think all the talk of missing protein, iron, and vitamins is significantly overblown. Every blood panel I've ever had has been normal with iron on the high end and I can maintain an active lifestyle quite easily.
  - chii 6y ago
    > You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week but it wouldn't produce as much pleasure as eating meat every day. I dont think depending on people to be altruistic (and give up what pleasure they can get) is a good way forward.
    - czottmann 6y ago
      That's a highly subjective statement. I eat well, and enjoy my meals, and I only eat animals about once per week, if any. I'm not missing anything. (I'm not a full-on vegetarian, and certainly not vegan.) _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset.
      - easytiger 6y ago
        > _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset If by marketing you mean centuries of behaviour, then ok. Certainly in my region of the world the basic diet has always been meat focused.
      - chii 6y ago
        > That's a highly subjective statement ... I'm not missing anything. exactly. You can do it. But based on empirical observation of what is happening in the world, there are more people who choose to eat meat rather than the existing substitutes.
        czottmann 6y ago
        Here in Germany meat is often cheaper than vegetables, which is insane. Subsidies are to blame. Get rid of those and see what happens.
blunte 6y ago
> people indoctrinated Marketing (and industry/capitalism behind it) created the demand which is now used as an excuse for producers to use more and more animals (which as we know creates more pollution and land/ecosystem destruction). Even if they fix the gas emissions, there's still the manure problem. For example, in this tiny country of the Netherlands, in 2019 "the Dutch dairy farming sector produced 280.6 million kg of nitrogen excretions" [1]. That's _just_ the dairy sector, and _just_ the nitrogen component of the manure. We can apply human ingenuity for decades to remedy symptoms, or we can instead decide that we have been moving in a fundamentally wrong direction in terms of using animals as consumable resources. That's not to say that humans cannot get benefits from animals (such as free roaming chickens aerating and fertilizing land, goats grazing and clearing brush, etc.).
- viraptor 6y ago
  Unless someone's got an amazing idea how to change the mind of majority of population, deal with market changes of whole industry disappearing, deal with changes in the international markets, etc. ... I'm cool with spending some time managing the symptoms. The global change in food consumption and managing the pollution are not incompatible with each other. We can do one whole working on the other.
  - czottmann 6y ago
    We could start by removing subsidies so the actual prices become clear. When the actual price of meat has to be paid in the stores there'd be a shift, I guess. Edit: grammar ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
    - giantg2 6y ago
      We could do that with all food too. If you look at the subsidies, they are typically in grants/payments to farmers. When the produce is exported, we are essentially subsidizing a foreign country with our tax money.
      - thesimon 6y ago
giantg2 6y ago
"... the problem is too many people indoctrinated with the idea of eating all the animals, all the time." The problem is there are too many people. Even if a person isn't eating meat, they still use a vast amount of other resources, especially if they adhere to a modern lifestyle.
- kickling 6y ago
  I disagree, it depends on the lifestyle of the person. The richest 10% are responsible for 52% of carbon emissions[1]. If the only way to have a good life is to live like the richest 10% (or 50%) one could say we are too many people, but that does not have to be true, especially not in the future. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-r...
  - giantg2 6y ago
    As societies become developed the resource consumption will increase. That metric of richest 10% includes the global population making over $35k - generally people living a modern lifestyle. Other countries are moving toward this modern lifestyle too. Look at India's and China's development over the past few decades - electronics, vehicles, air conditioning, etc. I don't see people willingly giving up those things. The concern over CO2 is only a small part of the issue. You have the mining, refining, manufacturing, trash, housing, etc. Arable land is shrinking, trash output is high and takes up land, water scarcity is expected to be a major issue in the next 30 year - especially for agricultural areas like the western and middle of the US that use groundwater faster than it replenishes.
    - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
      >As societies become developed the resource consumption will increase. That was true for a long time, but not anymore, because resource consumption turned into over-consumption. We've been hitting limits pretty hard for quite some time (cf https://ipbes.net/global-assessment https://ipbes.net/global-assessment) Development can't be becoming more unsustainable in an increasingly unsustainable world (like drug use does not extend beyond overdose). Either societies will find ways to develop themselves differently, or they'll stop developing at all.
slothtrop 6y ago
> the problem is too many people Fixed it for you. Even without cattle we arguably rely on an "unreasonable" amount of resources. It's a moot and subjective point, more people means more encroachment and destruction of land, more resource extraction and more emissions. We all have an environmental footprint, one which is larger in the West; now multiply it.

tchalla 6y ago

What's the process to come up with the number for the right amount of animal eating?

lm28469 6y ago
idk but when I see the quality of the meat served at the cafeteria of my company I can clearly tell there is an issue, it's vile, I would probably not even give that to my dog. Somehow people prefer eating the most disgusting piece of chicken/beef I've ever seen every single day of their week rather than go for the totally fine salad bar, which is cheaper and has a variety of cheese, nuts, salad, &c. or the vegetarian dish of the day
prox 6y ago
You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week. Especially if your job isn’t that physically demanding. You reduce meat consumption to 1/7 if you do so. If most of us did that a lot of problems would be moot.
- kolinko 6y ago
  You assume that the only reason people eat meat is either sociological or physical workout. You have multiple subsets of population that may find it more difficult to quit meat than the others. For women (especially pregnant), meat is a source of Iron. For people with adhd, there is a correlation with meat eating (and we can assume causation as well, since adhd is genetic). Meat is a source of vitamins that have been proven to help with adhd symptoms, and of course protein which helps with brain functioning in those cases. Personally, I don’t do much sport, but I get occasional cravings so high that I could kill anyone who would want to prevent me from eating meat. Trying to figure out what is responsible, and which supplements can help, but still haven’t figured out. With all the sympathy for animal suffering (my gf is a vegan fighter), just because you and some other people have it easy to quit meat doesn’t mean that it’s easy for all the rest.
  - Spacemolte 6y ago
    Eating less != quitting
  - callmemclovin 6y ago
    > just because you and some other people have it easy to quit meat doesn’t mean that it’s easy for all the rest. Yeah but... so what? What's the point in only pursuing easy goals? Do you think we should have cancelled the Apollo program just because it wasn't easy? Abandoning meat will be another milestone for mankind - even if it's just for our own long-term survival on this planet.
  - kortex 6y ago
    > For people with adhd, there is a correlation with meat eating > I get occasional cravings so high that I could kill anyone who would want to prevent me from eating meat. lightbulb moment I would love to cut down on meat consumption for ethics/sustainability/health, but it's almost like my body knows it runs better on it. I get extra cranky, foggy, and tired if I don't have a pretty dense protein meal early in the day, ideally red meat. Can't do legumes due to allergies. Even like whey protein isn't the same as meat. My iron levels are fine. Maybe it's one of the amino-adjacent compounds, like creatine?
    - dunefox 6y ago
      > I get extra cranky, foggy, and tired if I don't have a pretty dense protein meal early in the day Imagination is a powerful thing. You're just used to it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 6y ago
    I became a vegetarian over a decade ago and while it wasn't exactly easy, it certainly wasn't all that difficult compared to most of the other hard things I've done in my life. For instance, losing half my body weight (which occurred many years later because ice cream is vegetarian yo) was at least 2 orders of magnitude harder and maintaining that loss is a never ending battle. By comparison, getting out of bed to go to work is harder than maintaining my vegetarianism. Cutting back meat consumption to a mere 1 or 2 meals a week cannot be that difficult. I also think all the talk of missing protein, iron, and vitamins is significantly overblown. Every blood panel I've ever had has been normal with iron on the high end and I can maintain an active lifestyle quite easily.
- chii 6y ago
  > You can perfectly live on eating meat once or twice a week but it wouldn't produce as much pleasure as eating meat every day. I dont think depending on people to be altruistic (and give up what pleasure they can get) is a good way forward.
  - czottmann 6y ago
    That's a highly subjective statement. I eat well, and enjoy my meals, and I only eat animals about once per week, if any. I'm not missing anything. (I'm not a full-on vegetarian, and certainly not vegan.) _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset.
    - easytiger 6y ago
      > _"Meat is delicious"_ is a mindset. _"It's not a full meal unless there's meat"_ is an arguably marketing-induced mindset If by marketing you mean centuries of behaviour, then ok. Certainly in my region of the world the basic diet has always been meat focused.
    - chii 6y ago
      > That's a highly subjective statement ... I'm not missing anything. exactly. You can do it. But based on empirical observation of what is happening in the world, there are more people who choose to eat meat rather than the existing substitutes.
      - czottmann 6y ago
        Here in Germany meat is often cheaper than vegetables, which is insane. Subsidies are to blame. Get rid of those and see what happens.

blunte 6y ago

> people indoctrinated Marketing (and industry/capitalism behind it) created the demand which is now used as an excuse for producers to use more and more animals (which as we know creates more pollution and land/ecosystem destruction). Even if they fix the gas emissions, there's still the manure problem. For example, in this tiny country of the Netherlands, in 2019 "the Dutch dairy farming sector produced 280.6 million kg of nitrogen excretions" [1]. That's _just_ the dairy sector, and _just_ the nitrogen component of the manure. We can apply human ingenuity for decades to remedy symptoms, or we can instead decide that we have been moving in a fundamentally wrong direction in terms of using animals as consumable resources. That's not to say that humans cannot get benefits from animals (such as free roaming chickens aerating and fertilizing land, goats grazing and clearing brush, etc.).

viraptor 6y ago
Unless someone's got an amazing idea how to change the mind of majority of population, deal with market changes of whole industry disappearing, deal with changes in the international markets, etc. ... I'm cool with spending some time managing the symptoms. The global change in food consumption and managing the pollution are not incompatible with each other. We can do one whole working on the other.
- czottmann 6y ago
  We could start by removing subsidies so the actual prices become clear. When the actual price of meat has to be paid in the stores there'd be a shift, I guess. Edit: grammar ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  - giantg2 6y ago
    We could do that with all food too. If you look at the subsidies, they are typically in grants/payments to farmers. When the produce is exported, we are essentially subsidizing a foreign country with our tax money.
    - thesimon 6y ago

giantg2 6y ago

"... the problem is too many people indoctrinated with the idea of eating all the animals, all the time." The problem is there are too many people. Even if a person isn't eating meat, they still use a vast amount of other resources, especially if they adhere to a modern lifestyle.

kickling 6y ago
I disagree, it depends on the lifestyle of the person. The richest 10% are responsible for 52% of carbon emissions[1]. If the only way to have a good life is to live like the richest 10% (or 50%) one could say we are too many people, but that does not have to be true, especially not in the future. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-richest-1-cause-double-co2-emissions-of-poorest-50-says-oxfam https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/sep/21/worlds-r...
- giantg2 6y ago
  As societies become developed the resource consumption will increase. That metric of richest 10% includes the global population making over $35k - generally people living a modern lifestyle. Other countries are moving toward this modern lifestyle too. Look at India's and China's development over the past few decades - electronics, vehicles, air conditioning, etc. I don't see people willingly giving up those things. The concern over CO2 is only a small part of the issue. You have the mining, refining, manufacturing, trash, housing, etc. Arable land is shrinking, trash output is high and takes up land, water scarcity is expected to be a major issue in the next 30 year - especially for agricultural areas like the western and middle of the US that use groundwater faster than it replenishes.
  - rcMgD2BwE72F 6y ago
    >As societies become developed the resource consumption will increase. That was true for a long time, but not anymore, because resource consumption turned into over-consumption. We've been hitting limits pretty hard for quite some time (cf https://ipbes.net/global-assessment https://ipbes.net/global-assessment) Development can't be becoming more unsustainable in an increasingly unsustainable world (like drug use does not extend beyond overdose). Either societies will find ways to develop themselves differently, or they'll stop developing at all.

slothtrop 6y ago

> the problem is too many people Fixed it for you. Even without cattle we arguably rely on an "unreasonable" amount of resources. It's a moot and subjective point, more people means more encroachment and destruction of land, more resource extraction and more emissions. We all have an environmental footprint, one which is larger in the West; now multiply it.