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This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but re

This is a small and positive win it seems, why do many disgruntled ? People get very passionate about our food source being the cause for climate change but really, what about the real ultimate more severe causes? Fracking, mining, burning coal and oil ? Nuclear and renewables makes these things obsolete, but we still need food. Edit: Want to add I’m fully onboard with the east less meat crowd and minimising deforestation, but I can’t help feel we should focus on the bigger, more high value targets first? Worrying about food production feels more like a distraction ?

jamil7 6y ago
My guess is our food choices are something we can more immediately control. > but I can’t help feel we should focus on the bigger, more high value targets first? I don't buy this line of thinking as it makes the assumption that a society can't tackle or talk about multiple issues at once.
- 7786655 6y ago
  >food choices are something we can more immediately control A great deal of evidence suggests otherwise.
  - jamil7 6y ago
    True. Maybe I should have said food choices feel like something we can control?
- bamboozled 6y ago
  If I don’t eat at least some meat, what do I eat ? I’ve tried living mostly off soybeans and I can tell you, it was a depressing and miserable existence, at least for me. I legitimately has no energy and felt depressed for a long time. Yes I also ate other legumes. It just didn’t really work well for me. Maybe I’ll try again someday. Even when I was vegetarian, I was freaking out about all the food that was imported and the emissions from that. You’re kind of screwed if you do and screwed if you don’t. Which is the inspiration for my original post I guess. I don’t truly feel I can stop climate change via my diet. I decided not to own a car and be more flexible with my diet instead...I’m much happier now.
  - three_legs 6y ago
    Why would you live mostly off of soy beans? That sounds depressing indeed. As a vegan I have an even more varied diet than before. I eat all kinds of fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, nuts and seeds. And I eat 0% soy. I also hate tofu/soy/etc.
shafyy 6y ago
It is the highest value target. Livestock agriculture is the leading driver of climate change AND biodiversity loss. It emits more GHG than all forms of transportation combined. Additionally, if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. Some recommended reading: https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-has-tiny-environmental-impact/ https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-has-tiny-environmen... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 Edit: This seaweed won't even start solving this problem.
- slothtrop 6y ago
  > This seaweed won't even start solving this problem. To the extent that the problem extends much further than level of consumption of cattle, that is true. But if widespread adoption of feed can effectively reduce methane emissions from cattle, as you said it targets one of the primary drivers - that's more than a start. This helps you visualize the impacts of various solutions, notice what happens when all other things held equal you drop methane - https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=45&p7=7&p10=-0.1&p16=-0.02&p30=-0.03&p39=90&p47=3.4&p50=1.3&p53=1.2&p55=2.4&p59=-85&p65=23&p67=55&v=2.7.29 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=45&... > if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. This is a moot point considering that trees and plant numbers could be increased in many other areas, particularly where they are felled in high numbers, and not all pasture land is appropriate for plant agriculture or otherwise. There is a short-term battle and a long-term one. We do need to curb emissions in the short-term substantially, which will require innovation and policy changes. Long-term, the fact is land encroachment and destruction scales with the population; we all have an environmental footprint, and slightly increasing its efficiency will never outpace and counteract the impact of perpetual population increase. It's projected to curb more in the future as more of the global population gets lifted out of poverty, and access to contraceptives is more universal - however, this could be accelerated. There's no reason we can't quash global poverty further right now.
triyambakam 6y ago
There's no need to focus on just one. However people are passionate about advocating for eating a plant based diet because it is so easy, relatively speaking. Getting fracking to stop at even just one site is a lot of work, but getting more and more people to stop eating animal products, because it's directly within their own control, is simple. Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?) and as long as it's based on whole foods, eating plant based comes with a lot of health benefits compared to how most people's diet is (in the West or Western influenced - e.g. a lot of Koreans and Chinese have hugely increased their animal product consumption and started including animal products they didn't previously eat like cow milk cheese). So again, we can work on more than one issue, but why there is strong passion behind diet is that it's a very direct action and comes with other positives.
- tassl 6y ago
  It is not as simple as you think, and there is quite a bit of people cannot be healthy with such diet. > Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?) Plenty of "sentient beings" are killed for crop farming. I am not even sure meat eaters cause more deaths than most vegans, specially if they are not pbd.
  - triyambakam 6y ago
    Crop deaths tho! Do you realize that /more/ animals die from crop harvesting for feeding animals? Because if you aren't raising animals for food, you don't need to harvest crops for them. The net amount of crop deaths goes down. Further, it's the fallacy of perfection - we can't stop all deaths, but we can do our best to get as many as possible unnecessary deaths to end. Veganism is about what is practicable - i.e. what can be done in practice, not perfection.
    - throwaway0756 6y ago

jamil7 6y ago

My guess is our food choices are something we can more immediately control. > but I can’t help feel we should focus on the bigger, more high value targets first? I don't buy this line of thinking as it makes the assumption that a society can't tackle or talk about multiple issues at once.

7786655 6y ago
>food choices are something we can more immediately control A great deal of evidence suggests otherwise.
- jamil7 6y ago
  True. Maybe I should have said food choices feel like something we can control?
bamboozled 6y ago
If I don’t eat at least some meat, what do I eat ? I’ve tried living mostly off soybeans and I can tell you, it was a depressing and miserable existence, at least for me. I legitimately has no energy and felt depressed for a long time. Yes I also ate other legumes. It just didn’t really work well for me. Maybe I’ll try again someday. Even when I was vegetarian, I was freaking out about all the food that was imported and the emissions from that. You’re kind of screwed if you do and screwed if you don’t. Which is the inspiration for my original post I guess. I don’t truly feel I can stop climate change via my diet. I decided not to own a car and be more flexible with my diet instead...I’m much happier now.
- three_legs 6y ago
  Why would you live mostly off of soy beans? That sounds depressing indeed. As a vegan I have an even more varied diet than before. I eat all kinds of fruits, vegetables, beans, grains, nuts and seeds. And I eat 0% soy. I also hate tofu/soy/etc.

shafyy 6y ago

It is the highest value target. Livestock agriculture is the leading driver of climate change AND biodiversity loss. It emits more GHG than all forms of transportation combined. Additionally, if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. Some recommended reading: https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-has-tiny-environmental-impact/ https://blog.yeticheese.com/eating-local-has-tiny-environmen... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-00603-4 https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 https://science.sciencemag.org/content/360/6392/987 Edit: This seaweed won't even start solving this problem.

slothtrop 6y ago
> This seaweed won't even start solving this problem. To the extent that the problem extends much further than level of consumption of cattle, that is true. But if widespread adoption of feed can effectively reduce methane emissions from cattle, as you said it targets one of the primary drivers - that's more than a start. This helps you visualize the impacts of various solutions, notice what happens when all other things held equal you drop methane - https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=45&p7=7&p10=-0.1&p16=-0.02&p30=-0.03&p39=90&p47=3.4&p50=1.3&p53=1.2&p55=2.4&p59=-85&p65=23&p67=55&v=2.7.29 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?p1=45&... > if we would let nature reclaim the land that's currently used for livestock agriculture, it has the potential to capture >100% of the CO2 emissions until 2050. This is a moot point considering that trees and plant numbers could be increased in many other areas, particularly where they are felled in high numbers, and not all pasture land is appropriate for plant agriculture or otherwise. There is a short-term battle and a long-term one. We do need to curb emissions in the short-term substantially, which will require innovation and policy changes. Long-term, the fact is land encroachment and destruction scales with the population; we all have an environmental footprint, and slightly increasing its efficiency will never outpace and counteract the impact of perpetual population increase. It's projected to curb more in the future as more of the global population gets lifted out of poverty, and access to contraceptives is more universal - however, this could be accelerated. There's no reason we can't quash global poverty further right now.

triyambakam 6y ago

There's no need to focus on just one. However people are passionate about advocating for eating a plant based diet because it is so easy, relatively speaking. Getting fracking to stop at even just one site is a lot of work, but getting more and more people to stop eating animal products, because it's directly within their own control, is simple. Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?) and as long as it's based on whole foods, eating plant based comes with a lot of health benefits compared to how most people's diet is (in the West or Western influenced - e.g. a lot of Koreans and Chinese have hugely increased their animal product consumption and started including animal products they didn't previously eat like cow milk cheese). So again, we can work on more than one issue, but why there is strong passion behind diet is that it's a very direct action and comes with other positives.

tassl 6y ago
It is not as simple as you think, and there is quite a bit of people cannot be healthy with such diet. > Many are also passionate about it because there are other benefits that come with it - no longer needing to kill sentient beings (you probably wouldn't eat your dog, so why eat a pig who is of equal awareness and intelligence?) Plenty of "sentient beings" are killed for crop farming. I am not even sure meat eaters cause more deaths than most vegans, specially if they are not pbd.
- triyambakam 6y ago
  Crop deaths tho! Do you realize that /more/ animals die from crop harvesting for feeding animals? Because if you aren't raising animals for food, you don't need to harvest crops for them. The net amount of crop deaths goes down. Further, it's the fallacy of perfection - we can't stop all deaths, but we can do our best to get as many as possible unnecessary deaths to end. Veganism is about what is practicable - i.e. what can be done in practice, not perfection.
  - throwaway0756 6y ago