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It's said because meat consumption is a blip compared to all the things people do, most of those vegans and vegetarians included. It's also difficult for anythi

It's said because meat consumption is a blip compared to all the things people do, most of those vegans and vegetarians included. It's also difficult for anything lacto-ovo vegetarian to get all they need without relying on imports way away from their home country. You'd arguably do more staying flexitarian but getting your produce as local and seasonal as possible to cut out the emissions caused by transport. And maybe not taking that second transatlantic flight. Notice how neither of those are pushed half as hard as "go vegan and save the planet".

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
virgildotcodes 4y ago
>It's said because meat consumption is a blip compared to all the things people do, most of those vegans and vegetarians included. I mean, animal agriculture accounts for 14.5% of GHG emissions, roughly more than all global transport according to the IPCC.[1] Few of us have the ability to unilaterally shut down a coal plant or an oil company, but a large number of us do have the ability to change our consumption habits to be less destructive. >It's also difficult for anything lacto-ovo vegetarian to get all they need without relying on imports way away from their home country. >You'd arguably do more staying flexitarian but getting your produce as local and seasonal as possible to cut out the emissions caused by transport. Just to address the notion about food transport GHG emissions, you'd actually have a bigger impact on your emissions by eating vegan once a week than if all your food was entirely locally grown for the entire week.[2] Food miles are a very small fraction of the emissions of food production, especially that of animal products. Finally, it doesn't have to be either or. People can ride their bicycles, eat local, take fewer flights, as well as reduce their meat consumption. [1]https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf [2]https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
- BlargMcLarg 4y ago
  >[2] One source doesn't equate consensus. Given the myriads of criticisms among diets, food production and emissions, I'd ask you to remain skeptical of anything advocating for more open loops. Plenty of sources put transport far higher than agriculture, and many of the differences are based on methodology. No, this doesn't mean the critics are right. >Finally, it doesn't have to be either or. Not the point. One of these is pushed aggressively. The others aren't. That alone should warrant enough skepticism regarding the entire thing. Even if we don't agree on what is the worst, it's ridiculous to push one but not the other. That's how you create political friction. >Few of us have the ability to unilaterally shut down a coal plant or an oil company, but a large number of us do have the ability to change our consumption habits to be less destructive. You can't keep compensating for a few unwilling individuals taking advantage of the breathing room opened up. Playing a game prisoner's dilemma should be the first thing to get your head closer on the wanted list. How this is even negotiable in the face of a global threat is beyond me.
  - virgildotcodes 4y ago
    > One source doesn't equate consensus. I've attached a few more sources to this post, but it does seem to be the general consensus as far as I've seen. Do you have any sources that contradict this? It's pretty wild, but the emissions from transportation just so happen to be completely dwarfed by the emissions from the actual food production itself, especially when it comes to animal products. "We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. [...] Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."[1] >Even if we don't agree on what is the worst, it's ridiculous to push one but not the other. I mean, what is the solution? People are supposed to always talk about everything, instead of a specific thing, every single time they talk about mitigating climate change? I don't think that's an effective communication strategy. As for the validity of talking so much about reducing meat consumption, study[2] after study[4] shows that "Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet."[3] and "“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”[5] It makes sense to talk about it as it's also one of the easiest, highest impact, most tangible changes to make. >You can't keep compensating for a few unwilling individuals taking advantage of the breathing room opened up. Playing a game prisoner's dilemma should be the first thing to get your head closer on the wanted list. How this is even negotiable in the face of a global threat is beyond me. Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here. Sources - [1]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f [2]https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Acc... [3]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth?CMP=fb_gu https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... [4]https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ [5]https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.h...
- OrvalWintermute 4y ago
  > I mean, animal agriculture accounts for 14.5% of GHG emissions, roughly more than all global transport according to the IPCC.[1] If you are doing full accounting though, that iceberg lettuce that required cold shipping, and extensive plastic packaging, moved 500 miles from growth to consumption point, is not any more or less "green". That is the whole point of being a locavore - consuming foods grown closest to you so we are not spending huge amounts on shipping, but then greenwashing it when it goes into the supermarket refrigerator.
  - virgildotcodes 4y ago
    So the thing is that that iceberg lettuce, even if traveling 5,000 miles, with all that plastic packaging etc etc... actually is more green in that it results in fewer emissions than locally sourced animal products. It's pretty wild, but the emissions from transportation just so happen to be completely dwarfed by the emissions from the actual food production itself, especially when it comes to animal products. "We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. [...] Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."[1] [1]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f Here's a few more sources if you're interested, in addition to the pretty accessible source in the comment you responded to: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.h...
    - OrvalWintermute 4y ago
      Basically you are counting GHG emissions as anything emitting, but, you are actually discounting the fossil fuel perspective which is heavily utilized for one, but not the other. This data is also being based on comparing conventional produce raising vice feedlot style farming > to put these figures into perspective, when combined with the fact that the average household consumes around 5 kg of food per day (29), average final delivery of food is 1640 km (1020 mi), and the total supply chain requires movement of 6760 km (4200 mi). Food groups vary in these average distances from a low of beverages (330 km delivery, 1200 km total) to a high of red meat (1800 km delivery, 20 400 km total). and is heavily biased based on over-generalization which does not apply to many types of food production, as this assumes heavy fertilization, grain-feeding, etc. > We estimate the average household’s climate impacts related to food to be around 8.1 t CO2e/yr, with delivery “food-miles” accounting for around 0.4 te CO2e/yr and total freight accounting for 0.9 t CO2e/yr. To put these figures into perspective, driving a 25 mi/gal (9.4 L/100 km) automobile 12 000 miles/yr (19 000 km/yr) produces around 4.4 t CO2/yr. Expressed in this manner, a totally “localized” diet reduces GHG emissions per household equivalent to 1000 miles/yr (1600 km/yr) driven, while shifting just one day per week’s calories from red meat and dairy to chicken/fish/eggs or a vegetable-based diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 760 miles/yr (1230 km/yr) or 1160 miles/yr (1860 km/yr), respectively. Shifting totally away from red meat and dairy toward chicken/fish/eggs or a vegetable-based diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 5340 mi/yr (8590 km/yr) or 8100 mi/yr (13 000 km/yr), respectively. Which of these options is easier or more effective for each climate-concerned household depends on a variety of factors, though given the difficulty in sourcing all food locally, shifting diet for less than one day per week may be more feasible. > Within food production, which totaled 6.8 t CO2e/household-yr, 3.0 t CO2e(44%) were due to CO2 emissions, with 1.6 t (23%) due to methane, 2.1 t (32%) due to nitrous oxide, and 0.1 t (1%) due to HFCs and other industrial gases. Thus, a majority of food’s climate impact is due to non-CO2 greenhouse gases. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, mainly due to nitrogen fertilizer application, other soil management techniques, and manure management, are prevalent in all food groups but especially in animal-based groups due to the inefficient transformation of plant energy into animal-based energy. Methane (CH4) emissions are mainly due to enteric fermentation in ruminant animals (cattle, sheep, goats) and manure management, and are thus concentrated in the red meat and dairy categories. Similarly, other of these are all about dense feedlot operations >We obtain animal feed requirements using the database from Herrero et al. (2013). This data set provides feed requirements for 30 world regions, which are mapped to the country level. Aggregated feed concentrate requirements per animal production system are distributed into individual crops, such as oil crops to rapeseed and others, based on feed crop consumption statistics (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO, 2017). For consistency, feed use numbers from Herrero et al. (2013) are rescaled to match country-level feed use totals in FAOSTAT 2009–2011 (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO, 2017). Feed crop emissions are then added to the consumption emissions of animal products. As I have worked on a ranch like this that did not regularly use fuel, did not fertilize, basically grass pastured cattle, I found this material to be incredibly skewed. Maybe it is accurate talking about feedlot commercial cattle production. Maybe. For smaller organic pastured husbandry that is not fuel intensive, and not grain fed, I don't find this to be true. I do know the source of much of the cattle I consume. Given my location, I can also tell you that much of the produce where I shop is from at least >~2300 miles distant Consequently, I call into question much of the data you provided, as an example of over generalization and data skew. I doubt this was intentional, since the articles didn't even suggest it was possible to eat anything meat based in a green manner. What Chutzpah!
timeon 4y ago
> without relying on imports way away from their home country Not really. As first thing, you can try beans. We can go from there...

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

virgildotcodes 4y ago

>It's said because meat consumption is a blip compared to all the things people do, most of those vegans and vegetarians included. I mean, animal agriculture accounts for 14.5% of GHG emissions, roughly more than all global transport according to the IPCC.[1] Few of us have the ability to unilaterally shut down a coal plant or an oil company, but a large number of us do have the ability to change our consumption habits to be less destructive. >It's also difficult for anything lacto-ovo vegetarian to get all they need without relying on imports way away from their home country. >You'd arguably do more staying flexitarian but getting your produce as local and seasonal as possible to cut out the emissions caused by transport. Just to address the notion about food transport GHG emissions, you'd actually have a bigger impact on your emissions by eating vegan once a week than if all your food was entirely locally grown for the entire week.[2] Food miles are a very small fraction of the emissions of food production, especially that of animal products. Finally, it doesn't have to be either or. People can ride their bicycles, eat local, take fewer flights, as well as reduce their meat consumption. [1]https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf https://www.fao.org/3/i3437e/i3437e.pdf [2]https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local

BlargMcLarg 4y ago
>[2] One source doesn't equate consensus. Given the myriads of criticisms among diets, food production and emissions, I'd ask you to remain skeptical of anything advocating for more open loops. Plenty of sources put transport far higher than agriculture, and many of the differences are based on methodology. No, this doesn't mean the critics are right. >Finally, it doesn't have to be either or. Not the point. One of these is pushed aggressively. The others aren't. That alone should warrant enough skepticism regarding the entire thing. Even if we don't agree on what is the worst, it's ridiculous to push one but not the other. That's how you create political friction. >Few of us have the ability to unilaterally shut down a coal plant or an oil company, but a large number of us do have the ability to change our consumption habits to be less destructive. You can't keep compensating for a few unwilling individuals taking advantage of the breathing room opened up. Playing a game prisoner's dilemma should be the first thing to get your head closer on the wanted list. How this is even negotiable in the face of a global threat is beyond me.
- virgildotcodes 4y ago
  > One source doesn't equate consensus. I've attached a few more sources to this post, but it does seem to be the general consensus as far as I've seen. Do you have any sources that contradict this? It's pretty wild, but the emissions from transportation just so happen to be completely dwarfed by the emissions from the actual food production itself, especially when it comes to animal products. "We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. [...] Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."[1] >Even if we don't agree on what is the worst, it's ridiculous to push one but not the other. I mean, what is the solution? People are supposed to always talk about everything, instead of a specific thing, every single time they talk about mitigating climate change? I don't think that's an effective communication strategy. As for the validity of talking so much about reducing meat consumption, study[2] after study[4] shows that "Avoiding meat and dairy products is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact on the planet, according to the scientists behind the most comprehensive analysis to date of the damage farming does to the planet."[3] and "“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”[5] It makes sense to talk about it as it's also one of the easiest, highest impact, most tangible changes to make. >You can't keep compensating for a few unwilling individuals taking advantage of the breathing room opened up. Playing a game prisoner's dilemma should be the first thing to get your head closer on the wanted list. How this is even negotiable in the face of a global threat is beyond me. Sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here. Sources - [1]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f [2]https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Acc... [3]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy-is-single-biggest-way-to-reduce-your-impact-on-earth?CMP=fb_gu https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding... [4]https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/ [5]https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat https://unfccc.int/blog/we-need-to-talk-about-meat https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.h...
OrvalWintermute 4y ago
> I mean, animal agriculture accounts for 14.5% of GHG emissions, roughly more than all global transport according to the IPCC.[1] If you are doing full accounting though, that iceberg lettuce that required cold shipping, and extensive plastic packaging, moved 500 miles from growth to consumption point, is not any more or less "green". That is the whole point of being a locavore - consuming foods grown closest to you so we are not spending huge amounts on shipping, but then greenwashing it when it goes into the supermarket refrigerator.
- virgildotcodes 4y ago
  So the thing is that that iceberg lettuce, even if traveling 5,000 miles, with all that plastic packaging etc etc... actually is more green in that it results in fewer emissions than locally sourced animal products. It's pretty wild, but the emissions from transportation just so happen to be completely dwarfed by the emissions from the actual food production itself, especially when it comes to animal products. "We find that although food is transported long distances in general (1640 km delivery and 6760 km life-cycle supply chain on average) the GHG emissions associated with food are dominated by the production phase, contributing 83% of the average U.S. household’s 8.1 t CO2e/yr footprint for food consumption. Transportation as a whole represents only 11% of life-cycle GHG emissions, and final delivery from producer to retail contributes only 4%. [...] Thus, we suggest that dietary shift can be a more effective means of lowering an average household’s food-related climate footprint than “buying local.” Shifting less than one day per week’s worth of calories from red meat and dairy products to chicken, fish, eggs, or a vegetable-based diet achieves more GHG reduction than buying all locally sourced food."[1] [1]https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/es702969f Here's a few more sources if you're interested, in addition to the pretty accessible source in the comment you responded to: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2211912418300361?via%3Dihub https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221191241... https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/10/181023110627.h...
  - OrvalWintermute 4y ago
    Basically you are counting GHG emissions as anything emitting, but, you are actually discounting the fossil fuel perspective which is heavily utilized for one, but not the other. This data is also being based on comparing conventional produce raising vice feedlot style farming > to put these figures into perspective, when combined with the fact that the average household consumes around 5 kg of food per day (29), average final delivery of food is 1640 km (1020 mi), and the total supply chain requires movement of 6760 km (4200 mi). Food groups vary in these average distances from a low of beverages (330 km delivery, 1200 km total) to a high of red meat (1800 km delivery, 20 400 km total). and is heavily biased based on over-generalization which does not apply to many types of food production, as this assumes heavy fertilization, grain-feeding, etc. > We estimate the average household’s climate impacts related to food to be around 8.1 t CO2e/yr, with delivery “food-miles” accounting for around 0.4 te CO2e/yr and total freight accounting for 0.9 t CO2e/yr. To put these figures into perspective, driving a 25 mi/gal (9.4 L/100 km) automobile 12 000 miles/yr (19 000 km/yr) produces around 4.4 t CO2/yr. Expressed in this manner, a totally “localized” diet reduces GHG emissions per household equivalent to 1000 miles/yr (1600 km/yr) driven, while shifting just one day per week’s calories from red meat and dairy to chicken/fish/eggs or a vegetable-based diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 760 miles/yr (1230 km/yr) or 1160 miles/yr (1860 km/yr), respectively. Shifting totally away from red meat and dairy toward chicken/fish/eggs or a vegetable-based diet reduces GHG emissions equivalent to 5340 mi/yr (8590 km/yr) or 8100 mi/yr (13 000 km/yr), respectively. Which of these options is easier or more effective for each climate-concerned household depends on a variety of factors, though given the difficulty in sourcing all food locally, shifting diet for less than one day per week may be more feasible. > Within food production, which totaled 6.8 t CO2e/household-yr, 3.0 t CO2e(44%) were due to CO2 emissions, with 1.6 t (23%) due to methane, 2.1 t (32%) due to nitrous oxide, and 0.1 t (1%) due to HFCs and other industrial gases. Thus, a majority of food’s climate impact is due to non-CO2 greenhouse gases. Nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions, mainly due to nitrogen fertilizer application, other soil management techniques, and manure management, are prevalent in all food groups but especially in animal-based groups due to the inefficient transformation of plant energy into animal-based energy. Methane (CH4) emissions are mainly due to enteric fermentation in ruminant animals (cattle, sheep, goats) and manure management, and are thus concentrated in the red meat and dairy categories. Similarly, other of these are all about dense feedlot operations >We obtain animal feed requirements using the database from Herrero et al. (2013). This data set provides feed requirements for 30 world regions, which are mapped to the country level. Aggregated feed concentrate requirements per animal production system are distributed into individual crops, such as oil crops to rapeseed and others, based on feed crop consumption statistics (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO, 2017). For consistency, feed use numbers from Herrero et al. (2013) are rescaled to match country-level feed use totals in FAOSTAT 2009–2011 (Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations FAO, 2017). Feed crop emissions are then added to the consumption emissions of animal products. As I have worked on a ranch like this that did not regularly use fuel, did not fertilize, basically grass pastured cattle, I found this material to be incredibly skewed. Maybe it is accurate talking about feedlot commercial cattle production. Maybe. For smaller organic pastured husbandry that is not fuel intensive, and not grain fed, I don't find this to be true. I do know the source of much of the cattle I consume. Given my location, I can also tell you that much of the produce where I shop is from at least >~2300 miles distant Consequently, I call into question much of the data you provided, as an example of over generalization and data skew. I doubt this was intentional, since the articles didn't even suggest it was possible to eat anything meat based in a green manner. What Chutzpah!

timeon 4y ago

> without relying on imports way away from their home country Not really. As first thing, you can try beans. We can go from there...