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People care too much about food waste. Food waste is a result of food being cheap. If food stops being cheap then it stops getting wasted. (And when I mean chea
by mlindner 1y ago
People care too much about food waste. Food waste is a result of food being cheap. If food stops being cheap then it stops getting wasted. (And when I mean cheap I'm talking about the price its purchased at at a bulk level.)
And you're not going to convince people to cut back on meat.
I also edited my post that people are considering putting solar panels on cropland because food is so cheap.
This general line of thinking is just flawed. You don't fix global warming by reducing consumption (of any form), you do it by changing the root source of how consumption is performed while continuing to increase consumption. i.e. solar panels and wind, not coal. There is no such thing as an low per-capita energy consumption rich country. Energy efficiency begets more energy usage, not less.
The same goes for meat consumption. If meat shortages start happening people will switch to more types of meat consumption (or meat product consumption) that come from more "manufactured" sources. Plant-based meat and grown meat should be going after the areas where they can replace inputs by being a cheaper product. For example, almost no one uses leather now because leather substitutes are cheaper and good enough.
- riversflow 1y ago> If food stops being cheap then it stops getting wasted > If meat shortages start happening You really think the U.S populace would just be okay with this?
- mlindner 1y agoIf it happens gradually enough people won't notice.
- j_timberlake 1y agoIf food prices went to near zero, healthcare and housing would mysteriously get more expensive until people could barely afford them even with cheap-as-salt food. The opposite is probably true too: if food prices went up, all of a sudden health insurance companies and landlords can lower their prices just enough to keep their customers. I'm sure the voters would still freak the f out though.
- southernplaces7 1y ago>This general line of thinking is just flawed. You don't fix global warming by reducing consumption (of any form), you do it by changing the root source of how consumption is performed while continuing to increase consumption. i.e. solar panels and wind, not coal. There is no such thing as an low per-capita energy consumption rich country. Energy efficiency begets more energy usage, not less. This is one of those fundamental blindingly obvious points that persistently gets forgotten in debates about supposedly reducing greenhouse problems and perceived environmental waste. I've tried to explain similar in many debates and contexts, but a curiously irrational and very pervasive mentality of punitively people to go against essentially fundamental human acquisition instincts persists.