4 ms·

> 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

> 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
    - runnerup 4y ago
      I would encourage you to google “ogallala depletion” and “water shortage in India”. Not enough rain falls for us to maintain our current level of agriculture so we “mine” reserves of water that were stored in the ground over thousands of years. This is called “groundwater” (you may be unaware of this term), and it renews at a rate far too slow to support the level of agriculture we are accustomed to. You may also google “western USA water shortage”.
      - Gordonjcp 4y ago
        dang 4y ago
        Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Man living in peat bog thinks entire world is Scotland

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
  - runnerup 4y ago
    I would encourage you to google “ogallala depletion” and “water shortage in India”. Not enough rain falls for us to maintain our current level of agriculture so we “mine” reserves of water that were stored in the ground over thousands of years. This is called “groundwater” (you may be unaware of this term), and it renews at a rate far too slow to support the level of agriculture we are accustomed to. You may also google “western USA water shortage”.
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      - dang 4y ago
        Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Man living in peat bog thinks entire world is Scotland