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> How do we consider this okay? You’d be amazed at what we (as in people) can convince ourselves is OK. Everybody’s guilty of something — especially the peopl

> How do we consider this okay? You’d be amazed at what we (as in people) can convince ourselves is OK. Everybody’s guilty of something — especially the people most likely to be reading HN. Eating meat, living in big houses, ordering stuff from around the world, having a bunch of kids, driving a car everywhere, flying in a plane on vacation. We’re all guilty and we all want to think we’re not. “But I recycle…” “But I have to drive…” “But corporations are worse…” “But eating meat is natural…” “But a house with a yard is a better environment for kids to grow up in…” Some or all of these might be true. But it doesn’t change the fact that you’re responsible for your actions, whether you can justify them to yourself or not.

runnerup 4y ago
> We’re all guilty and we all want to think we’re not. I’ve completely accepted my guilt. I don’t try to convince myself that these things are the right way to live life. I just accept that the only way for me to make a difference is to be part of, or very closely adjacent to, the “ruling class” (politicians, corporate leadership) where I would be able to start taxing externalities and allocate those taxes to remediation. I know my eating meat is wrong and bad for the world. I just don’t believe that individually becoming virtuous will change anything about the world.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  > I know my eating meat is wrong and bad for the world. It's not if you're buying locally-sourced meat. It's better than growing stuff in Africa and shipping it across in refrigerated containers using as much fuel every day as about 20,000 cars would.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    What “stuff” are you talking about? Aren’t most of Africa’s agricultural exports things like cocoa, coffee, tea, tobacco, and cotton?
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Soya from all over Africa. Green beans from Kenya, literally in my local Asda right now. Baby corn, peppers, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes - all of that shipped from Africa. South America grows a lot of soya too, in unbelievably bad ecological conditions.
  - runnerup 4y ago
    I mean, we are running out of fresh water for crops and meat uses a lot more than plants. This doesn’t change if you grow it industrially or pastorally. > Pork, chicken, eggs, and dairy were all pretty similar, but beef was a different story. Compared to the average of the other four, beef required 28 times the area of land per calorie, 11 times the water for irrigation, six times the nitrogen fertilizer, and it resulted in five times the greenhouse gas emissions For reference, they calculated similar impacts for potatoes, wheat, and rice. Compared to the average of those, beef’s footprint ballooned to 160 times the land, eight times the water, 19 times the nitrogen fertilizer, and 11 times the greenhouse gas emissions. Per gram of protein, the story is largely the same except that potatoes, wheat, and rice have less of an advantage due to their lower protein content. The math listed in the article doesn't completely check out, e.g. they imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] require 160x (beef:plants) / 28x (beef:chicken) = 5.3x times (chicken:plants) as much land as [potatoes, wheat, rice], which makes sense, but also imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] 8x (beef:plants) / 11x (beef:chicken) = 0.72x times (chicken:plants) as much water as [potatoes, wheat, rice]. It's not thermodynamically possible for chickens to use less water per calorie than their feedstock. I never opened the actual study[1] though, I'm assuming they have reasonable results inside the study. I also think that analysis vs. protein is more relevant than vs. calories -- which is why I think they should be compared against high-protein plants like beans and legumes. 0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has-a-beefy-environmental-footprint/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has... 1: https://sci-hub.ru/10.1073/pnas.1402183111 https://sci-hub.ru/10.1073/pnas.1402183111
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      Right, but there's no shortage of water. It's a literally limitless resource, that just pours out of the sky day after day.
      - paulcole 4y ago
        UN in shambles punching the air rn https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity
      - 4y ago
Gordonjcp 4y ago
What's the alternative to driving a car? Walking 200 miles a day carrying 500kg of tools and equipment? What's the alternative to eating meat? Eating beans shipped from halfway round the world?
- paulcole 4y ago
  Most people don’t drive 200 miles a day carrying 1000 pounds of tools and equipment. So don’t pretend like that’s normal. And if that does apply to you, then you should be encouraging everyone to drive less - it means less traffic for you. As for the meat, it’s pretty clear that eating less meat (and reducing demand for meat), is a net environmental gain, regardless of how far you ship the beans. You can also eat less meat, although I’m pretty sure there’s a reason you can’t do that either. Or you’re right about all this and there is no alternative.
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Why do you think eating less meat would be good? Most of the world isn't rolling Iowa cornfield, and mixed agriculture is how we get food. You can't just decide "oh, no need to raise cattle on that, I'm going to start growing acai berries and soy beans" because real life isn't Farmville.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      > Why do you think eating less meat would be good? Just a hunch. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-meat-is-something-individuals-can-do-to-help-the-climate-crisis/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-ate-a-bit-less-meat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-at... https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/eating-less-meat-essential-to-curb-climate-change-says-report https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/eating-less-meat-essential-to-cu... https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/cutting-red-meat-for-a-longer-life https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/cutting-red-m... You know there are vegetables other than corn and they can be grown in quite a few places outside of Iowa right?
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
TexanFeller 4y ago
Ummmm eating meat IS natural and it’s been a part of human diets from before the start of recorded history. It’s such an enjoyable and important experience to me that I would literally rather impose limits on the number of humans allowed to be born than the amount of meat those humans are allowed to consume.
- paulcole 4y ago
  You can consume all the meat you want. I’m not talking about imposing limits. I’m talking about everyone acknowledging making choices that they know are awful for the planet today because it’s something they personally like doing or feel like they must do. We all do it. Nobody’s innocent here. It’s a key reason why the looming climate crisis is completely unavoidable.

runnerup 4y ago

> We’re all guilty and we all want to think we’re not. I’ve completely accepted my guilt. I don’t try to convince myself that these things are the right way to live life. I just accept that the only way for me to make a difference is to be part of, or very closely adjacent to, the “ruling class” (politicians, corporate leadership) where I would be able to start taxing externalities and allocate those taxes to remediation. I know my eating meat is wrong and bad for the world. I just don’t believe that individually becoming virtuous will change anything about the world.

Gordonjcp 4y ago
> I know my eating meat is wrong and bad for the world. It's not if you're buying locally-sourced meat. It's better than growing stuff in Africa and shipping it across in refrigerated containers using as much fuel every day as about 20,000 cars would.
- paulcole 4y ago
  What “stuff” are you talking about? Aren’t most of Africa’s agricultural exports things like cocoa, coffee, tea, tobacco, and cotton?
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Soya from all over Africa. Green beans from Kenya, literally in my local Asda right now. Baby corn, peppers, spinach, lettuce, tomatoes - all of that shipped from Africa. South America grows a lot of soya too, in unbelievably bad ecological conditions.
- runnerup 4y ago
  I mean, we are running out of fresh water for crops and meat uses a lot more than plants. This doesn’t change if you grow it industrially or pastorally. > Pork, chicken, eggs, and dairy were all pretty similar, but beef was a different story. Compared to the average of the other four, beef required 28 times the area of land per calorie, 11 times the water for irrigation, six times the nitrogen fertilizer, and it resulted in five times the greenhouse gas emissions For reference, they calculated similar impacts for potatoes, wheat, and rice. Compared to the average of those, beef’s footprint ballooned to 160 times the land, eight times the water, 19 times the nitrogen fertilizer, and 11 times the greenhouse gas emissions. Per gram of protein, the story is largely the same except that potatoes, wheat, and rice have less of an advantage due to their lower protein content. The math listed in the article doesn't completely check out, e.g. they imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] require 160x (beef:plants) / 28x (beef:chicken) = 5.3x times (chicken:plants) as much land as [potatoes, wheat, rice], which makes sense, but also imply that [pork, chicken, eggs, dairy] 8x (beef:plants) / 11x (beef:chicken) = 0.72x times (chicken:plants) as much water as [potatoes, wheat, rice]. It's not thermodynamically possible for chickens to use less water per calorie than their feedstock. I never opened the actual study[1] though, I'm assuming they have reasonable results inside the study. I also think that analysis vs. protein is more relevant than vs. calories -- which is why I think they should be compared against high-protein plants like beans and legumes. 0: https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has-a-beefy-environmental-footprint/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2014/07/among-meats-beef-has... 1: https://sci-hub.ru/10.1073/pnas.1402183111 https://sci-hub.ru/10.1073/pnas.1402183111
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    Right, but there's no shortage of water. It's a literally limitless resource, that just pours out of the sky day after day.
    - paulcole 4y ago
      UN in shambles punching the air rn https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity https://www.unwater.org/water-facts/water-scarcity
    - 4y ago

Gordonjcp 4y ago

What's the alternative to driving a car? Walking 200 miles a day carrying 500kg of tools and equipment? What's the alternative to eating meat? Eating beans shipped from halfway round the world?

paulcole 4y ago
Most people don’t drive 200 miles a day carrying 1000 pounds of tools and equipment. So don’t pretend like that’s normal. And if that does apply to you, then you should be encouraging everyone to drive less - it means less traffic for you. As for the meat, it’s pretty clear that eating less meat (and reducing demand for meat), is a net environmental gain, regardless of how far you ship the beans. You can also eat less meat, although I’m pretty sure there’s a reason you can’t do that either. Or you’re right about all this and there is no alternative.
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  Why do you think eating less meat would be good? Most of the world isn't rolling Iowa cornfield, and mixed agriculture is how we get food. You can't just decide "oh, no need to raise cattle on that, I'm going to start growing acai berries and soy beans" because real life isn't Farmville.
  - paulcole 4y ago
    > Why do you think eating less meat would be good? Just a hunch. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-meat-is-something-individuals-can-do-to-help-the-climate-crisis/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eating-less-red-m... https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-ate-a-bit-less-meat.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/21/climate/what-if-we-all-at... https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/eating-less-meat-essential-to-curb-climate-change-says-report https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/eating-less-meat-essential-to-cu... https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/cutting-red-meat-for-a-longer-life https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/cutting-red-m... You know there are vegetables other than corn and they can be grown in quite a few places outside of Iowa right?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

TexanFeller 4y ago

Ummmm eating meat IS natural and it’s been a part of human diets from before the start of recorded history. It’s such an enjoyable and important experience to me that I would literally rather impose limits on the number of humans allowed to be born than the amount of meat those humans are allowed to consume.

paulcole 4y ago
You can consume all the meat you want. I’m not talking about imposing limits. I’m talking about everyone acknowledging making choices that they know are awful for the planet today because it’s something they personally like doing or feel like they must do. We all do it. Nobody’s innocent here. It’s a key reason why the looming climate crisis is completely unavoidable.