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For people in the US, food emissions are almost a rounding error compared to other categories, such as transportation. Both cars and meat are huge cultural lig

For people in the US, food emissions are almost a rounding error compared to other categories, such as transportation. Both cars and meat are huge cultural lighting rods, and focusing on them for climate action has high risk, but focusing on meat as climate action is high risk with very few climate gains.

deepsun 1y ago
Any data to support it? I've heard cows emit methane, way more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. And there are a lot of cows, especially in India. But I don't know the numbers.
- epistasis 1y ago
  There are two types of climate inventories that account for emissions either at time of production or time of consumption. Production-based inventories are easier to measure, but consumption-based inventories can be more informative for individual consumers. I'm mostly familiar with California-centric inventories because I want to influence state and local policies. California State's inventory: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data There used to be really great consumption-based maps at this site, but I'm not finding them at the moment. Instead here is a per-city breakdown of estimates: https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/inventory https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/inventory One thing that takes a very long time to change is transportation. City planning is pretty ossified. Cars have multi-decade lifespans. So starting the change for transportation is a very very urgent need. Diet is far more flexible, and there are innovations such as specific types of algae added to cows' diets that drastically reduce methane emissions. Changing the diet of cows is a far faster change than replacing every consumer's vehicle with a clean one. The history of environmental action shows that it's very easy to regulate and bring business in line. It when it comes to consumers, it's far far trickier. Tackling meat, which is a quarter of the emissions of the diet of folks, may need to happen eventually but it will have far less impact than legalizing apartments in dense urban cores and allowing people to live without cars.
Maxatar 1y ago
Beef alone accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions with livestock in total accounting for 14.5%. That is not a rounding error by any means: https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492bb0b2-8b73-4e49-b188-8176b1d8c711/content https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492...
- lagniappe 1y ago
  Not interested pal, my family is going to eat meat. I'll be reasonable about other topics but this one's a non starter.
  - leecoursey 1y ago
    Some people have such strong emotional connections to meat eating that no rational argument is going to penetrate through and make a difference.
  - 000ooo000 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - tomhow 1y ago
      Please avoid personal swipes like this. This is covered in the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - chneu 1y ago
    What a good patriot you are. Consume more. You must keep consuming. Your power comes from over consuming and taking lives. You can only be strong and well respected if you consume as much meat as possible. /S Beef is a status symbol food. The propaganda around it is strong and constant in countries like the US, where we're blasted with Christian-Patriot conquerer messaging constantly. (god gave us the earth and all animals to exploit. As the conquerers it is our right to exploit all things.) Start looking at all the ways US culture still pushes the over consuming conquerer mentality. We all joke about how capitalism is bad and then we fall for the propaganda to eat more beef. Look at how primed people are and how constant the messaging is. You can't go 5 minutes with beef being thrown at you. Once one starts to look at the constant capitalist advertising and societal propaganda telling us to keep over consuming it becomes really obvious. A lot of Americans get deeply offended at the mere idea of eating less meat. The propaganda and advertising is strong. Be a good patriot. Eat more beef to be a strong man. /S (The sarcasm in this comment is meant to convey how stupid the beef mentality is in countries like the US. Phrasing it in a sarcastic way showcases how obvious it can be )
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

deepsun 1y ago

Any data to support it? I've heard cows emit methane, way more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2. And there are a lot of cows, especially in India. But I don't know the numbers.

epistasis 1y ago
There are two types of climate inventories that account for emissions either at time of production or time of consumption. Production-based inventories are easier to measure, but consumption-based inventories can be more informative for individual consumers. I'm mostly familiar with California-centric inventories because I want to influence state and local policies. California State's inventory: https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/ghg-inventory-data There used to be really great consumption-based maps at this site, but I'm not finding them at the moment. Instead here is a per-city breakdown of estimates: https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/inventory https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/inventory One thing that takes a very long time to change is transportation. City planning is pretty ossified. Cars have multi-decade lifespans. So starting the change for transportation is a very very urgent need. Diet is far more flexible, and there are innovations such as specific types of algae added to cows' diets that drastically reduce methane emissions. Changing the diet of cows is a far faster change than replacing every consumer's vehicle with a clean one. The history of environmental action shows that it's very easy to regulate and bring business in line. It when it comes to consumers, it's far far trickier. Tackling meat, which is a quarter of the emissions of the diet of folks, may need to happen eventually but it will have far less impact than legalizing apartments in dense urban cores and allowing people to live without cars.

Maxatar 1y ago

Beef alone accounts for 6% of greenhouse gas emissions with livestock in total accounting for 14.5%. That is not a rounding error by any means: https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492bb0b2-8b73-4e49-b188-8176b1d8c711/content https://openknowledge.fao.org/server/api/core/bitstreams/492...

lagniappe 1y ago
Not interested pal, my family is going to eat meat. I'll be reasonable about other topics but this one's a non starter.
- leecoursey 1y ago
  Some people have such strong emotional connections to meat eating that no rational argument is going to penetrate through and make a difference.
- 000ooo000 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - tomhow 1y ago
    Please avoid personal swipes like this. This is covered in the HN guidelines: Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community. Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- chneu 1y ago
  What a good patriot you are. Consume more. You must keep consuming. Your power comes from over consuming and taking lives. You can only be strong and well respected if you consume as much meat as possible. /S Beef is a status symbol food. The propaganda around it is strong and constant in countries like the US, where we're blasted with Christian-Patriot conquerer messaging constantly. (god gave us the earth and all animals to exploit. As the conquerers it is our right to exploit all things.) Start looking at all the ways US culture still pushes the over consuming conquerer mentality. We all joke about how capitalism is bad and then we fall for the propaganda to eat more beef. Look at how primed people are and how constant the messaging is. You can't go 5 minutes with beef being thrown at you. Once one starts to look at the constant capitalist advertising and societal propaganda telling us to keep over consuming it becomes really obvious. A lot of Americans get deeply offended at the mere idea of eating less meat. The propaganda and advertising is strong. Be a good patriot. Eat more beef to be a strong man. /S (The sarcasm in this comment is meant to convey how stupid the beef mentality is in countries like the US. Phrasing it in a sarcastic way showcases how obvious it can be )

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]