6 ms·

You are correct. RCP8.5 is such a nightmare scenario, it was always quite unlikely to happen even if we were tracking it for a while. So its not a real surprise

by Lutger 3y ago

You are correct. RCP8.5 is such a nightmare scenario, it was always quite unlikely to happen even if we were tracking it for a while. So its not a real surprise nor consolation we are not tracking that path anymore. The best possible take on this article is that change is in fact possible, that it always matters, and we need more of it. Because, like you said, we do need to step up our game. The middle of the road is not good enough. We must resist both the naivety of the techno-optimists as well as the doomist fatalism. Any perspective that leads to inaction is wrong.

colordrops 3y ago
One of the top things that could be done to help the climate is to remove the stigma around veganism and its promotion. It would have a tremendous impact if a significant proportion of the population stopped using animal products.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  Vegetarianism, yes. Veganism, no. The CO2 emissions from a world full of vegetarians vs a world full of vegans are pretty close to indistinguishable.
  - colordrops 3y ago
    Do you have data on this? My understanding is that dairy cows are pretty resource intensive, taking a lot more water and crops than equivalent plant based alternatives.
- colinsane 3y ago
  what do vegans feel stigmatized in doing these days? gotta say i see the challenges between animal-free and car-free life as much the same: most people around me generally agree we’d be better off with both these lifestyles, but the issue is practicality. best way to promote veganism around me in the past couple years has literally been to cook vegan meals with friends. if the stigma you’re talking about is “vegan food stinks” or “vegan food’s hard to prepare”, then that’s an easy way to address those two.
  - colordrops 3y ago
    My experience is that people virulently and irrationally fight against the idea, to the point of misrepresenting facts. It's difficult to bring up, at least online, without raising a lot of hackles. Over 95% of the population uses animal products, and are accustomed to them, so it's considered an afront to say that their behavior is suboptimal in one way or another.
    - best_one_there 3y ago
      I can't speak for others, but at least for me, an omnivorous diet is not suboptimal. It may have higher emissions, but that's not the sole metric I use when deciding what to do. I think that would result in clinical depression, because I could always ratchet down my emissions by, for example, buying fewer board games, until I just don't really do anything. Can't even go camping with a gas stove! In everyday life I don't generally discuss my diet beyond small talk. So you'd probably lump me in with that 95% of irrationals, because in person, I'd just try to change the subject.
      - colordrops 3y ago
        You are correct, you are entrenched in your beliefs about animal products, and you even admit to being unwilling to discuss them, wanting to change the subject, and (likely unintentionally) misrepresenting facts by comparing animal agriculture to camping and board games. The fact is though that board games and gas stoves are nothing in comparison to animal husbandry. "Animal agriculture produces 65% of the world's nitrous oxide emissions which has a global warming impact 296 times greater than carbon dioxide. Raising livestock for human consumption generates nearly 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, which is greater than all the transportation emissions combined. It also uses nearly 70% of agricultural land which leads to being the major contributor to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution. Ending our meat and dairy production could pause the growth of greenhouse gas emissions for 30 years, new study suggests." https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomfortable-we-need-talk-about-it-animal-agriculture-industry-and-zero-waste https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf...
- belorn 3y ago
  Veganism is not the same as low emission. There are plenty of vegan food that has unsustainable levels of emissions if all of earth was to eat it. The top thing is for people to consider emissions and allow emissions to become part of the decision process. In terms of diet that could be to introduce and consider food outside of the cultural limits, like shell fish and sea weed. A related issue are that a large number (majority?) of Europe and northern American lakes has major issues with eutrophication with mostly fish that people refuse to eat because of culture. Eating those kind of fish would solve two problems at the same time, feeding people and removing uncontrolled overgrowth caused by artificial fertilizers. Right now it is also cheaper to operate heavy machinery that run on fossil fuels to control plant growth in nature reservation and around power lines, rather than raising animals that would do the same job and create food. Same thing with Lawn mowers. One of the most ecological method to keep grass cut is (real) free range hobby scale chickens. Produce food, cuts grass and keeps pests away. As with everything else, everything change if people allow emissions to be part of the decision process.
  - ReactiveJelly 3y ago
    > allow emissions to become part of the decision process. A carbon tax would do so. Unfortunately it's hard to get anything done nationally, much less globally
  - colordrops 3y ago
    I tend to agree, in that it would be wonderful if, say, food packaging had resource usage and emissions printed on the label. In lieu of that, despite variance in environmental impact across foods, on the whole, the average vegan diet is almost certainly going to be far better for the environment than a non-vegan diet. And this is not even getting into other positive elements such as health and animal welfare, but those are unrelated topics likely to spark additional argument, so I won't go further.
    - belorn 3y ago
      The average right now is terrible for pretty much everything in the world. Fishermen in Greenland can send their fish to china to have it gutted, then sent to Norway to have it packaged, and then sent to USA to be sold. An avocado can have a piece of rain forest burned up, grown using fertilizers produced in Germany, which in turn is using natural gas mined in Russia. The avocado then get shipped to be packaged in the Netherlands, and then shipped again to be consumed in Norway. Emissions are not a significant consideration in this global economy. The key factor that everyone cares about is cost.
- best_one_there 3y ago
  Does veganism have a stigma? It certainly doesn't in my circles, it's super common and every restaurant in most major cities has vegan options now. I was vegan for a year and had no problems with it. If you're talking about "convincing people to go vegan", most people don't like being preached to regardless of the topic, that's not a stigma. For example, drinking alcohol has its' negatives, but if I'm in the pub with friends and some teetotaler decides to go off on a mission to convert me, my response is going to vary from smiling and nodding to telling them to piss off depending on the mood I'm in that day.
  - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
    They have the stigma of bringing up veganism out of the blue and proselytizing people about it when it isn’t the subject being discussed. Like, uh, the comment you replied to.
    - best_one_there 3y ago
      Gotcha. Maybe there's a way to fix this with language? If someone says that they use the metro or cycle to work, I'm like, cool man, trains are sick, let's chat. If someone says they "support a car-free lifestyle", I'm probably already starting to think about something else and glazing over.
    - colordrops 3y ago
      See, there is irony in your comment, because I didn't bring it up out of the blue. It's very related to the subject being discussed.
      - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
        Yes, to a vegan, veganism is relevant to every discussion. That’s what I said.
        colordrops 3y ago
        Thanks for providing more evidence for my original point. Animal agriculture are one of the top emitters of greenhouse gases, even more than all transportation combined, so to imply that it's irrelevant is ignorant at best.

by Lutger 3y ago

colordrops 3y ago

One of the top things that could be done to help the climate is to remove the stigma around veganism and its promotion. It would have a tremendous impact if a significant proportion of the population stopped using animal products.

NotYourLawyer 3y ago
Vegetarianism, yes. Veganism, no. The CO2 emissions from a world full of vegetarians vs a world full of vegans are pretty close to indistinguishable.
- colordrops 3y ago
  Do you have data on this? My understanding is that dairy cows are pretty resource intensive, taking a lot more water and crops than equivalent plant based alternatives.
colinsane 3y ago
what do vegans feel stigmatized in doing these days? gotta say i see the challenges between animal-free and car-free life as much the same: most people around me generally agree we’d be better off with both these lifestyles, but the issue is practicality. best way to promote veganism around me in the past couple years has literally been to cook vegan meals with friends. if the stigma you’re talking about is “vegan food stinks” or “vegan food’s hard to prepare”, then that’s an easy way to address those two.
- colordrops 3y ago
  My experience is that people virulently and irrationally fight against the idea, to the point of misrepresenting facts. It's difficult to bring up, at least online, without raising a lot of hackles. Over 95% of the population uses animal products, and are accustomed to them, so it's considered an afront to say that their behavior is suboptimal in one way or another.
  - best_one_there 3y ago
    I can't speak for others, but at least for me, an omnivorous diet is not suboptimal. It may have higher emissions, but that's not the sole metric I use when deciding what to do. I think that would result in clinical depression, because I could always ratchet down my emissions by, for example, buying fewer board games, until I just don't really do anything. Can't even go camping with a gas stove! In everyday life I don't generally discuss my diet beyond small talk. So you'd probably lump me in with that 95% of irrationals, because in person, I'd just try to change the subject.
    - colordrops 3y ago
      You are correct, you are entrenched in your beliefs about animal products, and you even admit to being unwilling to discuss them, wanting to change the subject, and (likely unintentionally) misrepresenting facts by comparing animal agriculture to camping and board games. The fact is though that board games and gas stoves are nothing in comparison to animal husbandry. "Animal agriculture produces 65% of the world's nitrous oxide emissions which has a global warming impact 296 times greater than carbon dioxide. Raising livestock for human consumption generates nearly 15% of total global greenhouse gas emissions, which is greater than all the transportation emissions combined. It also uses nearly 70% of agricultural land which leads to being the major contributor to deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution. Ending our meat and dairy production could pause the growth of greenhouse gas emissions for 30 years, new study suggests." https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomfortable-we-need-talk-about-it-animal-agriculture-industry-and-zero-waste https://www.colorado.edu/ecenter/2022/03/15/it-may-be-uncomf...
belorn 3y ago
Veganism is not the same as low emission. There are plenty of vegan food that has unsustainable levels of emissions if all of earth was to eat it. The top thing is for people to consider emissions and allow emissions to become part of the decision process. In terms of diet that could be to introduce and consider food outside of the cultural limits, like shell fish and sea weed. A related issue are that a large number (majority?) of Europe and northern American lakes has major issues with eutrophication with mostly fish that people refuse to eat because of culture. Eating those kind of fish would solve two problems at the same time, feeding people and removing uncontrolled overgrowth caused by artificial fertilizers. Right now it is also cheaper to operate heavy machinery that run on fossil fuels to control plant growth in nature reservation and around power lines, rather than raising animals that would do the same job and create food. Same thing with Lawn mowers. One of the most ecological method to keep grass cut is (real) free range hobby scale chickens. Produce food, cuts grass and keeps pests away. As with everything else, everything change if people allow emissions to be part of the decision process.
- ReactiveJelly 3y ago
  > allow emissions to become part of the decision process. A carbon tax would do so. Unfortunately it's hard to get anything done nationally, much less globally
- colordrops 3y ago
  I tend to agree, in that it would be wonderful if, say, food packaging had resource usage and emissions printed on the label. In lieu of that, despite variance in environmental impact across foods, on the whole, the average vegan diet is almost certainly going to be far better for the environment than a non-vegan diet. And this is not even getting into other positive elements such as health and animal welfare, but those are unrelated topics likely to spark additional argument, so I won't go further.
  - belorn 3y ago
    The average right now is terrible for pretty much everything in the world. Fishermen in Greenland can send their fish to china to have it gutted, then sent to Norway to have it packaged, and then sent to USA to be sold. An avocado can have a piece of rain forest burned up, grown using fertilizers produced in Germany, which in turn is using natural gas mined in Russia. The avocado then get shipped to be packaged in the Netherlands, and then shipped again to be consumed in Norway. Emissions are not a significant consideration in this global economy. The key factor that everyone cares about is cost.
best_one_there 3y ago
Does veganism have a stigma? It certainly doesn't in my circles, it's super common and every restaurant in most major cities has vegan options now. I was vegan for a year and had no problems with it. If you're talking about "convincing people to go vegan", most people don't like being preached to regardless of the topic, that's not a stigma. For example, drinking alcohol has its' negatives, but if I'm in the pub with friends and some teetotaler decides to go off on a mission to convert me, my response is going to vary from smiling and nodding to telling them to piss off depending on the mood I'm in that day.
- NotYourLawyer 3y ago
  They have the stigma of bringing up veganism out of the blue and proselytizing people about it when it isn’t the subject being discussed. Like, uh, the comment you replied to.
  - best_one_there 3y ago
    Gotcha. Maybe there's a way to fix this with language? If someone says that they use the metro or cycle to work, I'm like, cool man, trains are sick, let's chat. If someone says they "support a car-free lifestyle", I'm probably already starting to think about something else and glazing over.
  - colordrops 3y ago
    See, there is irony in your comment, because I didn't bring it up out of the blue. It's very related to the subject being discussed.
    - NotYourLawyer 3y ago
      Yes, to a vegan, veganism is relevant to every discussion. That’s what I said.
      - colordrops 3y ago
        Thanks for providing more evidence for my original point. Animal agriculture are one of the top emitters of greenhouse gases, even more than all transportation combined, so to imply that it's irrelevant is ignorant at best.