6 ms·

Right, 100 companies responsible for 70% of global emissions and yet we fight farms and plastic straws and farting animals.

enkid 5y ago
According to the EPA [0], Agriculture, forestry, and other land uses make up 24% of global emissions, second only to electricity and heat production, suggesting trying to reduce emissions is going to take more than a single approach. [0] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...
- nightski 5y ago
  Globally yes. If you look at the United States it is 10%, of which less than half is animal related. You could solve this without reducing consumption as well. Food additives exist which bring down methane emissions to practically nothing.
- cheese_goddess 5y ago
  In the data you linked to, 24% of (all) greenhouse gas emissions come from what's known as "land-use change", which is what it sounds like, changes to land use from forests to cropland. The emissions of the remaining categories in the pie chart (namely: Industry, Transportation, Buildings, Electricity and Heat Production and Other Energy) are primarily the byproduct of burning fossil fuels (and to a lesser extent from cement production). If you take each of those categories on its own, you can compare them almost favorably to land use changes. But if you take them all together, they add up to 76%. That is the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels is the major contributor to anthropogenic climate change, in fact is is the cause of anthropogenic climate change. Again: 76% of all emissions (only a small part of that is from cement production). Note also that the economist article makes it clear that land use change would be only minimally reduced, at best, from everyone going vegan because the majority of reduction would be in the use of pasture, much of which is not possible to cultivate anyway. So we'd still have to use the same land for cultivating food for humans that we do now to grow feed for animals. The conclusion to draw is that even if everyone on the planet went vegan, but we continued to burn fossil fuels the same as before, we would still not have done anything to stop climate change and we would only slow it down a little. To eliminate climate change we must radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
  - enkid 5y ago
    I was responding to the above poster strictly on the idea that the majority of emissions is caused by 100 companies. That's strictly not true and equally irrelevant to the article. But, to directly respond to your argument. Yes, eating less meat helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[0] Until you can find a reliable source that says that it doesn't, we can stop talking about your baseless speculation that it doesn't. To your other argument that it's useless to go vegetarian or vegan because it's not the primary source of emissions, that's just an excuse not to do anything. If you want to look at any of the causes of emissions in isolation they all look like the minority and your argument works equally well. "We shouldn't focus on solar because power production is only 25% of emissions." "We shouldn't look at industrial emissions because they are smaller than electric and agriculture." "We shouldn't look at concrete because it's really only a small percentage." "We shouldn't look at vehicular emissions because they are dwarfed by electric emissions." If we can't act on any problem because it's a small subset of the issue, then we can't look at any of the sources of emissions. [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926/htm#:~:text=The%2019%20studies%20that%20looked,relative%20to%20comparable%20omnivore%20scenarios https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926/htm#:~:text=The%20....
    - cheese_goddess 5y ago
      > Yes, eating less meat helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[0] Until you can find a reliable source that says that it doesn't, we can stop talking about your baseless speculation that it doesn't. Can you show me where in my comment I made this baseless speculation?
      - enkid 5y ago
        Here you go: > The conclusion to draw is that even if everyone on the planet went vegan, but we continued to burn fossil fuels the same as before, we would still not have done anything to stop climate change Strictly speaking, eating less meat does something for climate change because it lowers greenhouse gas emissions. It can't be the only thing we do, but it does do something.
lghh 5y ago
I could be wrong, but some of those companies are probably agriculture companies. Those 100 companies produce those emissions in response to demand. No demand for coal? No coal emissions. No demand for farting cows? No fart emissions. I know that's a _little_ simplistic, but it's not so simplistic as to be useless.
bigyellow 5y ago
- sAbakumoff 5y ago
  >> absolutely dwarfing the transportation and fossil fuel industries combined. Do you have any numbers to back this dubious statement?
- PretzelPirate 5y ago
  Let’s not forget that animal agriculture is also the leading cause of habitat loss and a driver of health issues in and around pig farms.
danm 5y ago
Just a friendly reminder that this figure is only true if you attribute the emissions from those companies customers back to those companies. It doesn’t make sense to me that my emissions should be attributed to Shell or Exxon, but to each their own.
steelstraw 5y ago
I agree the straw thing is silly and arguably even counterproductive. It makes people feel like they are doing something when in reality it makes very little material difference. "I sacrificed with a paper straw. Now excuse me as I go buy some clothes I'll only wear once". But you almost certainly use things from those 100 companies. Which of their services and products should we deem worthy or not? Maybe a carbon tax is the way to go. But then which things should be more expensive (rarer, less available to the poor) and which ones should be cheap (common, available to the poor)? It's all tradeoffs and it's complex.
grardb 5y ago
This is such a tired argument. First, emissions are not the only issue related to climate change. Second (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), the common article[1] that people cite for this statistic indicates that this is "industrial" greenhouse gas emissions, which I am pretty sure does not include all emissions. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...

enkid 5y ago

According to the EPA [0], Agriculture, forestry, and other land uses make up 24% of global emissions, second only to electricity and heat production, suggesting trying to reduce emissions is going to take more than a single approach. [0] https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emiss...

nightski 5y ago
Globally yes. If you look at the United States it is 10%, of which less than half is animal related. You could solve this without reducing consumption as well. Food additives exist which bring down methane emissions to practically nothing.
cheese_goddess 5y ago
In the data you linked to, 24% of (all) greenhouse gas emissions come from what's known as "land-use change", which is what it sounds like, changes to land use from forests to cropland. The emissions of the remaining categories in the pie chart (namely: Industry, Transportation, Buildings, Electricity and Heat Production and Other Energy) are primarily the byproduct of burning fossil fuels (and to a lesser extent from cement production). If you take each of those categories on its own, you can compare them almost favorably to land use changes. But if you take them all together, they add up to 76%. That is the percentage of greenhouse gas emissions that come from burning fossil fuels. Burning fossil fuels is the major contributor to anthropogenic climate change, in fact is is the cause of anthropogenic climate change. Again: 76% of all emissions (only a small part of that is from cement production). Note also that the economist article makes it clear that land use change would be only minimally reduced, at best, from everyone going vegan because the majority of reduction would be in the use of pasture, much of which is not possible to cultivate anyway. So we'd still have to use the same land for cultivating food for humans that we do now to grow feed for animals. The conclusion to draw is that even if everyone on the planet went vegan, but we continued to burn fossil fuels the same as before, we would still not have done anything to stop climate change and we would only slow it down a little. To eliminate climate change we must radically reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels.
- enkid 5y ago
  I was responding to the above poster strictly on the idea that the majority of emissions is caused by 100 companies. That's strictly not true and equally irrelevant to the article. But, to directly respond to your argument. Yes, eating less meat helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[0] Until you can find a reliable source that says that it doesn't, we can stop talking about your baseless speculation that it doesn't. To your other argument that it's useless to go vegetarian or vegan because it's not the primary source of emissions, that's just an excuse not to do anything. If you want to look at any of the causes of emissions in isolation they all look like the minority and your argument works equally well. "We shouldn't focus on solar because power production is only 25% of emissions." "We shouldn't look at industrial emissions because they are smaller than electric and agriculture." "We shouldn't look at concrete because it's really only a small percentage." "We shouldn't look at vehicular emissions because they are dwarfed by electric emissions." If we can't act on any problem because it's a small subset of the issue, then we can't look at any of the sources of emissions. [0] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926/htm#:~:text=The%2019%20studies%20that%20looked,relative%20to%20comparable%20omnivore%20scenarios https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/17/9926/htm#:~:text=The%20....
  - cheese_goddess 5y ago
    > Yes, eating less meat helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.[0] Until you can find a reliable source that says that it doesn't, we can stop talking about your baseless speculation that it doesn't. Can you show me where in my comment I made this baseless speculation?
    - enkid 5y ago
      Here you go: > The conclusion to draw is that even if everyone on the planet went vegan, but we continued to burn fossil fuels the same as before, we would still not have done anything to stop climate change Strictly speaking, eating less meat does something for climate change because it lowers greenhouse gas emissions. It can't be the only thing we do, but it does do something.

lghh 5y ago

I could be wrong, but some of those companies are probably agriculture companies. Those 100 companies produce those emissions in response to demand. No demand for coal? No coal emissions. No demand for farting cows? No fart emissions. I know that's a _little_ simplistic, but it's not so simplistic as to be useless.

bigyellow 5y ago

sAbakumoff 5y ago
>> absolutely dwarfing the transportation and fossil fuel industries combined. Do you have any numbers to back this dubious statement?
PretzelPirate 5y ago
Let’s not forget that animal agriculture is also the leading cause of habitat loss and a driver of health issues in and around pig farms.

danm 5y ago

Just a friendly reminder that this figure is only true if you attribute the emissions from those companies customers back to those companies. It doesn’t make sense to me that my emissions should be attributed to Shell or Exxon, but to each their own.

steelstraw 5y ago

I agree the straw thing is silly and arguably even counterproductive. It makes people feel like they are doing something when in reality it makes very little material difference. "I sacrificed with a paper straw. Now excuse me as I go buy some clothes I'll only wear once". But you almost certainly use things from those 100 companies. Which of their services and products should we deem worthy or not? Maybe a carbon tax is the way to go. But then which things should be more expensive (rarer, less available to the poor) and which ones should be cheap (common, available to the poor)? It's all tradeoffs and it's complex.

grardb 5y ago

This is such a tired argument. First, emissions are not the only issue related to climate change. Second (and someone please correct me if I'm wrong), the common article[1] that people cite for this statistic indicates that this is "industrial" greenhouse gas emissions, which I am pretty sure does not include all emissions. [1] https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10/100-fossil-fuel-companies-investors-responsible-71-global-emissions-cdp-study-climate-change https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2017/jul/10...