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Vegan diet has 30% of the environmental impact of high-meat diet, major study
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- farhanhubble 3y agoJust as electric cars have no environmental impact related to emissions until you think about the faraway coal fired power plant that produced the energy to charge the vehicles and the energy that got lost along the way during transmission.
- _joel 3y agoCurrently 33% of my power is coming from renewables, another 15% from nuclear. There's 0% coming in from coal.
- reducesuffering 3y agoOP’s domicile, Western Australia, is like 8% coal themselves. It would probably be a better use of their time attempting to get that number down rather than spreading FUD.
- farhanhubble 3y agoWell I used coal as an example of a source of energy that adversely affects the environment in well understood terms. The point was that looking at numbers in isolation paints a picture much rosier than it actually is.
- edmundsauto 3y agoThe alternative ICE also has those energy expenditures to get manufactured…
- marmakoide 3y agoIt depends, maybe ? I live in a country where energy come from 69% nuclear power, and about 10% hydro, 10% solar/wind, 10% gas. The nuclear plants are evenly spread over the populated area.
- Grimblewald 3y agoan EV has a near future potential for being fueled by green energy, especially since during peak power production for types such as solar, most of us are at work with cars potentially plugged in and ready to make use of that abundance. a fossil fuel ICE on the other hand is decades if not centuries away from workable green alternatives.
- afsgknoinionio 3y agoIt would be really useful if there were some way to take that into account. If an electric car is charged with a typical mix of electricity sources, how much gasoline would you have to burn to put out the same amount of CO2? Perhaps the EPA should put out some sort of miles per gallon gasoline equivalent, or MPGe for short.
- causality0 3y agoThat's more than I expected. Isn't the general rule that ten percent or less energy is conserved when moving from plant to animal?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- reducesuffering 3y agoTransportation and packaging overhead is fixed, maybe more due to less caloric density.
- 23B1 3y agoI think this is pretty obvious when you look at the simple caloric in/out of creating veg vs. meat. What isn't obvious *but should be* is that this isn't the way to save the environment; I'm all for encouraging behavior shifts, don't get me wrong – but food is as much a part of human culture as language or family is. You can't change that – and those who have tried are typically villains.
- myshpa 3y ago> What isn't obvious but should be is that this isn't the way to save the environment It is very probable that this is the most important thing we could do. There are possibly hundreds of studies proving that. Ask, and I shall provide. Animal agriculture is the leading driver of environmental destruction, eutrophication, deforestation, and biodiversity loss. As for villains...hmm... every year, over 92 billion land animals are killed, up to 3 trillion marine animals, 1 million species are facing extinction. Meat and dairy are not even a necessity, not in this day and age, not for the majority of people consuming most of it. And vegans and scientists are the villains? ;)
- 23B1 3y ago1. Plenty of animals get killed in the creation of vegan diets so that isn't an argument you want to make. 2. I think maybe you missed the point I'm making about dealing with reality as it comes. Food is as inexorably connected to human identity as religion; no top-down law, rule, or diktat will ever work – and anybody who tries it will be overthrown.
- myshpa 3y ago1. https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too https://yourveganfallacyis.com/en/vegans-kill-animals-too Crop fields do indeed disrupt the habitats of wild animals, and wild animals are also killed when harvesting plants. However, this point makes the case for a plant-based diet and not against it, since many more plants are required to produce a measure of animal flesh for food (often as high as 12:1) than are required to produce an equal measure of plants for food (which is obviously 1:1). Because of this, a plant-based diet causes less suffering and death than one that includes animals. 2. It's enough to remove massive subsidies for animal ag. - the market would take care of the rest. Subsidies make 90% of profits (IIRC) for meat corps. https://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavingThePlanetSustainableMeatAlternatives.pdf https://scet.berkeley.edu/wp-content/uploads/CopyofFINALSavi... The U.S government spends $38 billion each year to subsidize the meat and dairy industries, but only 0.04 percent of that (i.e., $17 million) each year to subsidize fruits and vegetables.
- TexanFeller 3y agoIt may not matter. I'd sooner give up heat, air conditioning, or having children than beef, and that's barely hyperbole. Pretty sure there's a large minority that feels similarly passionate about brisket and sausage.
- bobboies 3y agoHave you ever worked in a factory farm? Put another way, have you ever gotten your water tested? Did it come up with lead in it? If it did have lead in it, what would you do?
- TexanFeller 3y agoI've worked on traditional cattle ranches with open pasture grazing and am roughly aware of what goes on in the factory farms, feed lots, and dairies that were nearby us. Even traditional ranching has certain brutal aspects to it - dehorning and castration are quite painful even with some effort to minimize pain. But the cows suffer less and for a much shorter time than they would at the hands of a natural predator or their other natural ends such as starvation or exposure. I'm not sure what lead has to do with anything.
- yadingus 3y agoThe "suffering equation" is to me the weirdest rationalization. Whether that is true or not, I think it's more important to keep in mind that it's not our place to judge that, unless you hold some biblical belief that animals were put on earth by god to feed us. The cost of freedom must be taken into account too, it's a value not only relevant to humans. A lot of the suffering in the world comes about because humans have an inflated sense of moral agency over things outside their scope. We have the tools to affect many beings and many lands, but not the wisdom to see the immediate and long term effects. We just see our current behavior, and then employ all kinds of mental gymnastics in order to perpetuate it. We'll go to great trouble to change the world, just so we don't have to admit we need to change our selves.
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- DarkNova6 3y agojudging the headline: comparing two extremes of the spectrum is hardly useful for the average person. Or surprising. Edit: after reading the article I know exactly as much as before. there are some superficial talking point without any hint of how this study was conducted or which nuances have been considered. There is nothing of substance and smells like a pure opinion piece.
- myshpa 3y agoRead the study then.
- DarkNova6 3y agoI would have been inclined if the article even alluded a hint of thorough research. My time is too precious for that. Sell me a good paper and I will study it. I’m not gonna read anything just so I can say my first impression was right all alone. And for god’s sake don’t bury the link to the paper. Did they even post it? It should be way easier to get to the source too. Not a good sign either
- myshpa 3y ago> don’t bury the link to the paper. It should be way easier to get to the source too The link is in the second paragraph of the article, not burried at all.
- thomasfromcdnjs 3y agoI love when vegan studies always say that cows use X amount of water but their calculations never factor in that it rains. --- I'd prefer when seeing these articles that the author talks about which land mass or eco system they are talking about. Australia has hundreds of thousands of acres of land where the animals roam in self sustainable set ups. Ripping up these ecosystems to grow nuts and beans would be "worse" for the environment.
- Grimblewald 3y agoalso that methane from cow farts gets counted but if me pounding beans to produce protein at a fraction of a cows efficiency while farting up a storm is somehow carbon neutral?
- etrautmann 3y agoI would bet (and hope for your sake) that your farts are much less voluminous than most cows.
- etrautmann 3y agoRunning the numbers on this, it seems as though one cow produces as much methane as 7000 of you (500L per day vs .07 L methane if random internet sources are to be trusted)
- Grimblewald 3y agoNapkin math and unvetted reference warning but here goes: there is about 1B cows, there is about 8B humans. Fart composition matters as well, if we're counting methane as worse, more plant ingestion means higher fraction of methane. humans produce around 0.5g methane per day average beef cow of 500kg produces around 0.265g methane per day, average beef cow weighs ~1000kg, so lets say we're around on par for methane. So, if we get rid of cows and instead ingest plant matter directly, we would need to see a increase of methane production of no more than 11.11% to break even. however, if top google hits continue to be (if they ever were) reliable, we will see an increase of about 7 farts per day, from a 13-21 average for a male. This is an increase of about 33-54% so if in all the error that will exist arising from my franken-data and all the assumptions made along the way don't significant impact general accuracy, then we're not even close to breaking even.
- nerdjon 3y agoPossible Dupe? Just searching "vegan" I see this 4 times in the last few days. I am really curious what exactly "high meat" means. I am very curious since the difference between "low meat" and vegetarian is minimal at best and even between low and vegan is still not that drastic. I would also really like to see how the dietary enviromental impact relates to a persons entire environmental impact (as in, ok we see a 30% impact change based on dietary impact but how much of a change is that on a personal level really?) There are just a lot of information missing here that would paint much better (or not better depending on what you are trying to argue) picture. I am also curious how this changes based on where you live and how far your food has to travel to get to you within the same country. Like rural vs urban in the US.
- myshpa 3y ago> what exactly "high meat" means From the study: high meat-eaters (≥100 g total meat consumed per day) https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w > I am also curious how this changes based on where you live and how far your food has to travel to get to you within the same country. Like rural vs urban in the US. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local You want to reduce the carbon footprint of your food? Focus on what you eat, not whether your food is local ... the results of a study which looked at the footprint of diets across the EU. Food transport was responsible for only 6% of emissions, whilst dairy, meat and eggs accounted for 83%. Many of the foods ... are ... transported by boat – avocados and almonds are prime examples. Shipping one kilogram of avocados from Mexico to the United Kingdom would generate 0.21kg CO2eq in transport emissions. This is only around 8% of avocados’ total footprint. Even when shipped at great distances, its emissions are much less than locally-produced animal products. Transport is a small contributor to emissions. For most food products, it accounts for less than 10%, and it’s much smaller for the largest GHG emitters. In beef from beef herds, it’s 0.5%.
- jahewson 3y ago> Many of the foods ... are ... transported by boat – avocados and almonds are prime examples. Transatlantic fresh produce is generally air freight.
- weirdkid 3y agoBut with 600% more smug. This doesn’t even really need reporting when every rando-vegan out there is running up to people they don’t know to announce shit like this. Downvote me, but you know it’s true.
- roflyear 3y agoIn this thread, the only people who seem smug are those saying "i'll never give up meat!!!!"
- ipaddr 3y agoThe data shows fish have less of an impact over tomatoes. Meat is more than beef or lamb
- myshpa 3y agoNot according to this https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/tomato https://www.co2everything.com/co2e-of/tomato Fish ... 1,32 kg CO2e Tomato ... 0,32 kg CO2e Environmental impact of food production of tomatoes would depend on the method of production and the season. Growing tomatoes in the winter in non-insulated greenhouses heated by coal energy would be very bad, obviously. Importing tomatoes by ship could be better in that case (CO2 tranport budget is usually under 10%), obviously seasonal produce is best. Meat is not CO2 only, though. Other impacts of animal agriculture: - Greenhouse gas emissions - Deforestation (50% of pastures used to be forests) - Land degradation - Water pollution - Water overconsumption - Loss of biodiversity - Antibiotic resistance - Ocean dead zones - Inefficient land and resource use - Ethical concerns - Contribution to zoonotic diseases - Air pollution - Eutrophication - Soil erosion - High energy consumption - Chemical runoff from pesticides and fertilizers - Destruction of habitats and ecosystems - Inequality in global food distribution - Public health risks from foodborne illnesses - Nutrient pollution - Strain on waste management systems - Overfishing (40-70% of plankton gone, sharks 90% gone, fish almost gone in 2040's)
- roflyear 3y agoThat's not true, and fishing is not sustainable.
- stefantalpalaru 3y ago[dead]
- glimshe 3y agoThis isn't where we fix the problem. All love and respect for Vegans, but there is no chance we can save environment by making everybody else miserable like this. Most people would hate a Vegan diet, to the point of simply not complying and preferring Global Warming/Climate Change. Also, there is little point in adopting a Vegan diet while ignoring the much bigger opportunity of Nuclear Energy.
- analognoise 3y agoI love how some people think we wouldn't rather have war to thin out numbers than to all agree to eat vegan. Like obviously people would choose war. It's the same with "climate refugees": if we get to that stage there won't be razor wire and a fully deployed military who will shoot on sight. Same with "let's all get rid of our cars": the public would complain but we'd easily engage in all our warfare to maintain a standard of living. Its cool if individuals want to opt out, but most won't.
- ecf 3y agoI will never inconvenience myself in the name of fighting climate change. Anti-nuclear diehards can assume that responsibility if they want to keep hamstringing the only thing that is going to make a real difference.
- megaman821 3y agoWe have too many cows, but the answer isn't going vegan. Five hundred years ago the ecosystem supported 30-60 million bison in the U.S. Today we have over 90 million cows. Eating less meat and grazing less cows would restore balance to the ecosystem.
- paulus_magnus2 3y agoaverage Human uses 2000 kcal of food per day (~10MJ) which is 2,32 kWh, that's what an EV uses to drive 10km (6mi). Using a Diesel car that much energy will drive you 1km (0.8mi). I think we're not looking in the right direction if we want to reduce environmental impact of humanity.