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Or we could switch to eating plants now. We already get 82% calories and 63% proteins from plants. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use https://ourworldindata.o

• blitz_skull 3y ago
  Good luck enforcing a world-wide “plant-only” diet. I know people who would go to war just over that.
  • Detrytus 3y ago
    I wouldn't. Instead I would simply switch to cannibalism, and start eating vegetarians :)
  • regisg 3y ago
    They are already at war against nature
  • chrisbolt 3y ago
    Why does everything have to be all-or-nothing? Start by stop subsidizing meat.
    • TrispusAttucks 3y ago
      Corn would like to have a talk with your meat subsidizes.
      • vegetablepotpie 3y ago
        Corn subsidies provide animal ag with cheap feed. Cut the corn subsidies and prices for meat will better reflect the cost of producing it.
        • baremetal 3y ago
          Corn subsidies also go to producing ethanol. Which is arguable a gigantic waste when compared to using it for animal feed. Roughly 40% of corn is used to produce ethanol[1] [1]https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-c...
          • deleted 3y ago
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      • 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
        If lab grown meat produces far more CO2 than conventional and we cut corn subsidies I could see it backfiring and pushing more meat to be lab grown causing total CO2 to actually increase.
      • myshpa 3y ago
        40 percent of U.S. corn is used for ethanol 36 percent of U.S. corn, plus distillers grains left over from ethanol production, is fed to cattle, pigs and chickens Much of the rest is exported. Only a tiny fraction of the national corn crop is directly used for food for Americans, much of that for high-fructose corn syrup. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-corn/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/time-to-rethink-c...
    • DennisP 3y ago
      Every climate solution I've seen that started with the word "just" has been woefully inadequate, and modestly raising the price of meat is no exception. People would still eat plenty of it.
      • chrisbolt 3y ago
        You're right, changed "just" to "start by". Part of my point is that so many solutions go straight into forcing people to drastic immediate change, which is bound to be unpopular and only increases division and resistance.
  • thisGuyFlicks 3y ago
    Why do you go directly to the extreme implementation? No one said anything about "enforcement". There are ways to push society towards a better paradigm without enforcement. We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society. People that "would go to war" over the fact that they should eat less red meat are not exactly of sound mind.
    • NoMoreNicksLeft 3y ago
      So your answer is "we'll just manipulate people without them noticing"? How will that not backfire? > People that "would go to war" over the fact that they should eat less red meat are not exactly of sound mind. I see nothing in their position that indicates they aren't of sound mind. They're inconvenient to your own position, and you're willing to manipulate them if you can manage the trick. Maybe you're worried that they will choose to "go to war" as manipulated people do so often once aware of the ruse?
      • thisGuyFlicks 3y ago
        Who said anything about "manipulation"? Do you know that influence is not tantamount to manipulation? Do you know that many of your own behaviors are most likely subsidized by government and therefore you are being economically influenced (or in your perspective "manipulated")? Have you ever heard of a Sin Tax? Have you ever realized that Expansionary Policy is often put into place in order to influence (your perspective is "Manipulate"). I would encourage you to learn a little about economics before trying to hypothesize why and what makes people go to war.
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      >Why do you go directly to the extreme implementation > We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society. I guess it's human nature, I don't know.
    • thebigwinning 3y ago
      > We also shouldn't let the lowest common denominator have a say in the direction of society. Interesting. Do you see this as defending democracy?
  • prox 3y ago
    Black-and-white thinking, think in gradients! You eat meat X times a week? Try X -1 or more. Even a little bit helps tremendously. Everyone reading this who eat meat every day, try cutting down even one day, it will help.
    • johnnyanmac 3y ago
      I will not, thank you for your input.
    • skrowl 3y ago
      [dead]
    • myshpa 3y ago
      Instead of beating your wife seven times a week, consider implementing "Beat-less Mondays" as a compassionate alternative.
  • Eumenes 3y ago
    I'd go to war over that, but first, I'd start with a peaceful protest, like throwing plant based garbage into the harbor dressed as Ronald Mcdonald and fast food mascots
• Tade0 3y ago
  Or we could just ditch beef and get more than half the benefit with little compromise: https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#distribution-of-land-use-for-foods https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food#dis... Where I'm from most domestically consumed beef comes from diary cows. It's sort of chewy, but at least all this meat didn't go to waste. No need for extreme measures.
• scotty79 3y ago
  > If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares The only way I can even remotely believe that is that 'agricultural' includes pastures which are useless to humans for any other purpose. Land used for plants intended for human consumption would need to be expanded along with everything bad they require. I also wonder how high would be the health cost of inappropriate diet because eating meat is brain-dead way of supplying yourself with some very crucial substances. And I don't believe that switching to plant diet would automatically make everybody eat smart.
  • 100721 3y ago
    > The only way I can even remotely believe that is that 'agricultural' includes pastures which are useless to humans for any other purpose. This is really interesting! I didn't know that pastures cannot support crops and/or buildings. Why are pastures so limited in their usability?
    • ben_w 3y ago
      Historically speaking, hillsides and mountains are awkward for both homes and combine harvesters. Such land is currently where pasturing is most common. But such things are always conditional and depend on the tech. If Boston Dynamics robots start building the houses, or picking fruit and herbs on hillside orchards, such concerns probably stops mattering.
    • scotty79 3y ago
      I think that it's mostly combination of location, soil and terrain shape. Letting cows graze on a plot of land isn't worth much. If you let the cows graze somewhere that's because you have no way of getting anything more from that piece of land. Lumping pastures with high class, farming suitable land is a bit dishonest.
• dbingham 3y ago
  Many of the statistics quoted in your last paragraph are wrong. They are based on the premise that rewilding this land will naturally sequester carbon. That premise is completely contradicted by a study found two links down in the relevant links: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-023-00349-8 "Comparable GHG emissions from animals in wildlife and livestock-dominated savannas" > Pastoralism in Old World savannas is known to emit a significant share of global livestock-sourced greenhouse gases (GHG). Here, we compare calculated emissions from animals in a wildlife-dominated savanna (14.3 Mg km−2), to those in an adjacent land with similar ecological characteristics but under pastoralism (12.8 Mg km−2). The similar estimates for both, wildlife and pastoralism (76.2 vs 76.5 Mg CO2-eq km−2), point out an intrinsic association of emissions with herbivore ecological niches. Considering natural baseline or natural background emissions in grazing systems has important implications in the analysis of global food systems. In other words, wild animals living in a natural savanna ecosystems emit an equivalent amount of greenhouse gasses to domestic animals being grazed. Much of the land currently under agricultural use for animal agriculture would revert to savanna and grassland, with wild grazers replacing the domestic grazers. Don't even get me started on the degree to which these arguments ignore key issues in plant agriculture. Things like the fertilizer necessary to achieve its outputs is all fossil fuel based and carbon emitting for conventional or by products of animal agriculture for organic. We have to get to net zero - you can't reach net zero in plant agriculture any more than in animal agriculture. I've seen these sort of thing again and again and again in the push to drop animal agriculture in an attempt to decarbonize our agriculture. This failure to take a systems approach leading to the wrong conclusions. My read of the situation is that the push to drop animal agriculture did not originate with decarbonization, but rather originated with people who want to drop animal agriculture for ethical reasons (animal rights) who are then running studies attempting to show that dropping animal agriculture also has carbon benefits, or economic benefits, or wildlife rehabilitation benefits, or what have you. The problem with doing this - of course - is that they have a predetermined outcome that they want to find (animal agriculture bad) so naturally, they make omissions that lead them to that outcome. Abandoning animal agriculture is not a silver bullet for decarbonizing our agriculture. Its advocates really need to get off their horses and start taking a systems view if we want to come up with solutions that could actually decarbonize our agriculture in a realistic way. The systems that seem most promising for reaching a truly sustainable agriculture are agroecological systems. These systems often combine animal and plant agriculture in ways that mimic real ecosystems. And they often provide ecosystem services very similar to those of natural ecosystems. They can potentially interweave with natural habitat in a way that current agriculture systems - either plant or animal - cannot. And again, they depend on the animal portions of them to be productive. They still need a lot of research, but they show the most promise in terms of an agriculture that gets us to true sustainability.
• asciimov 3y ago
  Even plant farming isn't without issues. Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil, and then they end up having to use lots of man made chemicals to "fix" the problem. We have to find a way to be more sustainable in our agriculture.
  • xnx 3y ago
    Absolutely. A great way to reduce the impact of plant farming is to do less of it. Something like 1/3 of farmland is used to grow crops that are fed to animals. https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture
    • asciimov 3y ago
      How many more things will we have to plant to offset the meat eating?
      • myshpa 3y ago
        If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets We could double forest area, stop biodiversity loss and store whole 1.5C carbon budget with subsequent reforestation effort. Studies confirming this exist. It's the easiest and surest way how to stop climate change.
  • ben_w 3y ago
    > Plant farming eventually strips the nutrients from the soil Crop rotation predates the wheel by about two millennia. We're using the synthetic alternative because it's really amazing not because we don't have alternatives.
    • ethanbond 3y ago
      > because it's really amazing on the timeframes and liability frameworks that govern industrial decision-making Small but critical detail.
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 3y ago
  The solutions of "everyone just needs to do <x>" are a dime a dozen. We could solve war if everyone just stopped fighting. It's better to fix incentives such as making meat more expensive through taxes or fewer subsidies on meat or feed grains (corn). Or making vegetables cheaper. I could see a serious PR campaign to support farmers/small business (conservative hook) and eat local planet variety combined with fulfilling recipes or even tax breaks for fast food items that are vegetarian. To make things work at society scale you need incentives, let the free market work for you.
  • haswell 3y ago
    This isn’t an either/or proposition. Long term goals (“everyone just needs to do <x>”) can (must) coexist alongside shorter term incentives and PR campaigns. To your point, hyper fixation on the long term goal makes it seem unachievable. But conversely, short term incentives must necessarily be informed by long term goals if there’s hope of establishing a useful incentive structure. Success will require focus on both ends of the spectrum. Ultimately what we’re talking about is society-scale habit change, and habit change relies on both a belief in a long term outcome and a commitment to daily progress towards it.
    • robinson7d 3y ago
      The comment they were replying to didn’t sound long term. It specified “now” in the first sentence, so at best short-medium term. The “everyone just needs to do <x>” part wasn’t a reference to a long term idea, it was them replying to somebody expecting that immediately (or, with a more forgiving reading, in a shorter term)
      • haswell 3y ago
        Both comments were essentially endorsing a binary position. My point was that reality must be some combination of both. I’d read my comment as addressed to both parent comments.
    • idopmstuff 3y ago
      > To your point, hyper fixation on the long term goal makes it seem unachievable. It's not even a feasible long term goal, though. There are plenty of places where steady progress will lead to achievements in the long term that seem unbelievable now - science may yet reverse climate change, achieve nuclear fusion at scale, cure cancer (and aging), etc. This isn't one of those things, though. There's no path from where we are now to nobody eating animals that involves us just making incremental progress, a bit at a time. Long-term goals are great, but long-term goals that can't plausibly be achieved are bad.
• belorn 3y ago
  If we are going to impose a cultural change on the world population, adding sea weed and shellfish would be better from an ecological perspective with lower footprint. Rather than using 75% of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers, aqua farming is closer to 0%. It also dont contribute to killing the oceans like argiculture does. If we want to scale up food production on earth leaving as much land as possible for nature and humans, the ocean offer plenty of space for food production.
• idopmstuff 3y ago
  And if we just master nuclear fusion, we can solve pretty much all of our problems! The issue, of course, is that we're not going to master nuclear fusion in the near future, just as we're not going to all switch to eating plants now. (And I say this as someone who's gone from eating beef as my main source of protein to something like 50% fish/20% chicken/30% veggie meals.) Arguments that take the form of "If we just do <thing that there is no plausible chance that we will do>, that would solve the problem!" aren't helpful. Inasmuch as they discourage people from researching plausible but less extreme solutions, they're harmful. People are going to keep eating meat, so it's a good idea to research ways to reduce the carbon footprint of raising it and getting it to them.
• thebigwinning 3y ago
  Every activity and product has a cost and contributes to waste. If I enjoy that food and pay for the cost then whats the problem? Are we suggesting it's virtuous for its own sake to have a lower standard of living?
  • abeppu 3y ago
    But you don't pay for the cost. Our continual struggle with environmental issues are substantially that (a) very meaningful externalities mean that costs are foisted onto others, either the public at large or specific unlucky communities and (b) industrial lobbyists get public policy to actively subsidize their behavior, so again, everyone pays to support destructive behavior. In the case of meat production, apart from the direct agriculture subsidies, and the large carbon footprint, feedlots are a source of pollution that communities have to deal with, antibiotic resistance contributes to (costly) health risks for everyone, the Gulf of Mexico has that giant dead-zone, etc, etc.
    • thebigwinning 3y ago
      It sounds like your issue is with our resources allocation system and meat is just a proxy for it that you don't care for.
      • abeppu 3y ago
        ... did you just call someone a communist for daring to disagree with you? My problem is unnecessarily destructive practices which are causing giant and totally avoidable crises. If we were running the same meat production system in a centrally planned economy under some "the proletariat deserves meat" party plan with the same concentrated waste from feedlots, reckless use of antibiotics, clearing of the Amazon for ranch land, feeding a large portion of crops like corn and soy to animals that we then slaughter, the resource allocation system would be different but the destruction would be the same, and my objections would be unchanged. But the "I paid for it and I enjoy it so what's wrong" response seems in bad faith and will not die. Suppose I enjoy the aesthetic experience of seeing oil on ocean waves; it catches the light in such a unique way. On weekends, I buy a barrel of crude, head out in a boat and dump my barrel and just spend the day watching the sun glisten on struggling seabirds. I think most people would not accept the "I paid for the oil; what's the problem" response, because _obviously_ the problem is I'm wreaking unnecessary destruction, and while I owned the oil, I don't own the ocean, the sea-life etc. You might like meat, and you might exchange money for meat, but that doesn't mean you're paying for the problems that meat production is creating.
• golemotron 3y ago
  > If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-diets All of this is `fighting the last war'. World population is going to fall precipitously by the end of the century. The scarcity thinking everyone is parroting is a relic of the 20th century and it gets in our way. It keeps us from thinking about creating abundance.
  • myshpa 3y ago
    > World population is going to fall precipitously by the end of the century. That would be too late. Are you aware about the amount the destruction we cause? Without functioning ecosystems our civilization will perish, 100%. Some think we have 50 years, some are expecting the collapse any day now. UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/ https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/natur... Report Warns 1 in 8 Bird Species Now Facing Extinction https://www.birdlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SOWB2022_EN_compressed.pdf https://www.birdlife.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/SOWB2022... Climate change: Six tipping points ‘likely’ to be crossed https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62838627 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-62838627 As many as one in six U.S. tree species is threatened with extinction https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/23/extinct-tree-species-sequoias/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2022/08/2... Animal populations experience average decline of almost 70% since 1970, report reveals https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-70-of-animal-populations-wiped-out-since-1970-report-reveals-aoe https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2022/oct/13/almost-7... WTF is Happening? An Overview https://climatecasino.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NA_SST-1024x708.jpg https://climatecasino.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/NA_SST-... https://climatecasino.net/2023/06/wtf-is-happening-an-overview/ https://climatecasino.net/2023/06/wtf-is-happening-an-overvi...
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• jcarrano 3y ago
  What's the ultimate purpose? To subsist using the minimal amount of resources? Have you considered that people may want to eat animals? Every human activity consumes resources. We cannot make the reduction of consumption as a goal in itself. At the end of the road, what that line of thinking leads to is just existing for the mere fact of existing while occupying the minimal space and feeding ourselves enough to meet our required daily values. I do not think that is an existence that makes sense. Going back to "agricultural land use". Much of the land use for raising animals would not become a lush forest if left alone. There's a reason it is being used for animals and not crops.
  • dmbche 3y ago
    Do you think you might be onto a slippery slope here? Eating animals is not a cornerstone of modern society, and none of the experience/ benefits of eating animals cannot be reproduced. Just like using lead in the gas, at some point as a society we might decide that the costs overweight the benefits. I think we're waaaaaaay past the discussion - it's self evident that animal exploitation is a blight on the earth and on the animals, and the benefits are unclear (for 95% of the world). So why keep going? Because "i want to"? What would you think if people wanted to use leaded gas, or use DDT on their lawn? See the similarity?
    • baremetal 3y ago
      I bought farmland and raise my own beef because of this type of thinking. Absolutely, _no one_ is gonna control whether I eat beef or not.
      • dmbche 3y ago
        See what I mean? " No one is gonna stop me from spraying DDT" no one is gonna stop me from dumping this chemical waste in this river" "No one will stop me from doing what I want to sentient animals" Anyway. Enjoy the highest level of depression in any industry and the shit smell all around your house.
        • 3y ago
• kolinko 3y ago
  I noticed that many people who propose this are not aware of a plethora of health issues that people have that make eating plant-based foods extremely difficult. For many people eating plants only is extremely difficult - e.g. for me personally, with a plethora of food allergies (soy, almonds, various kinds of nuts, apples, peaches and other fruits) and intestine issues causing irritation when consuming multiple other things. Ditto people that require a low/slow carb diet - there is a limit of how much nuts you can eat a week without getting sick ;)
  • dmbche 3y ago
    Just for fun, what percentage of the population is in your situation? Meaning cannot eat plant based because of allergies - I can't imagine it's much more than 1% ( I might be wrong!) If that's the case, wouldn't a world where you get lab grown meat and everyone else eats plants make more sense? Since it's a medical issue you get special treatment, it seems to make more sense than supporting an entire industry just for you!
  • hombre_fatal 3y ago
    I don't see how it matters just like if the only meat you could digest was human meat. You would have to find some other permutation of an elimination diet that works for you just like Jeffrey Dahmer would have to find some human meat alternative.
  • myshpa 3y ago
    It is the position of the American Dietetic Association that appropriately planned vegetarian diets, including total vegetarian or vegan diets, are healthful, nutritionally adequate, and may provide health benefits in the prevention and treatment of certain diseases. Well-planned vegetarian diets are appropriate for individuals during all stages of the life cycle, including pregnancy, lactation, infancy, childhood, and adolescence, and for athletes. - American Dietetic Association A vegetarian or vegan diet can be suitable for everyone, regardless of their age. - NHS UK It is possible to follow a well-planned, plant-based, vegan friendly diet that supports healthy living in people of all ages, and during pregnancy and breastfeeding. - British Dietetic Association. For adults, protein from two or more plant groups daily is like to be adequate. - WHO
• melling 3y ago
  Yeah, I blogged about that 4 years ago and classified that under “stupid ideas” Have we made any progress on the coal problem? https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-climate-change/ https://h4labs.org/ive-got-another-stupid-idea-to-deal-with-... Nope. Maybe we can limit these silly discussions to one day a year to avoid these “Groundhog Day” discussions. In other news, 1.5C is guaranteed within a decade. To keep it interesting, Let’s come up with a few more miracles that won’t work.
  • baremetal 3y ago
    China is permitting 2 new coal plants a week[1]. Yet it's cow flatulence that is the problem. How people get convinced to act against their own self interest I'll never understand. [1] https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-new-coal-power-plants-per-week-in-2022/ https://energyandcleanair.org/publication/china-permits-two-...
    • mrguyorama 3y ago
      Why is china being a bad actor mean we should ignore the real damage climate change is already causing? How are we supposed to stop china from building coal plants? They were leading the way with cheap renewable energy until recent economic contractions. "Someone else is lighting a fire in the building so we shouldn't try putting out this grease fire we have here" is a stupid, accelerationist take that doesn't even make sense on it's face.
      • melling 3y ago
        We were warned about the coal problem in China/India 40 years ago. https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI https://youtu.be/Wp-WiNXH6hI We were also warned that even if the United States solved the problem that it wasn’t enough. People think they can convince several billion people to give up meat but replacing several thousand coal power plants is too hard… “Local governments in China approved more new coal power in the first three months of 2023 than in the whole of 2021, according to official documents” https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/china-ramps-up-coal-power-despite-carbon-neutral-pledges https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/24/china-ramps-up...
• mtalantikite 3y ago
  Anytime you mention to people that maybe we shouldn't eat as many animals as we do you're going to get down-voted or politely scolded or yelled at. It's like any addiction, people won't admit there's a problem until they have some sort of break through of clarity.
  • TrispusAttucks 3y ago
    It's not an addiction it's a matter of human biology. We are meat eaters. Shall we regulate the CO2 we exhale?
• TrispusAttucks 3y ago
  Monoculture agriculture is terrible for wildlife. Going plant based doesn't save the planet.