4 ms·

Sadly, this being Hacker News, it won't catch much attention and will be quickly flagged by people who have too much karma. But I think we are making progress,

by plaguna 2mo ago

Sadly, this being Hacker News, it won't catch much attention and will be quickly flagged by people who have too much karma. But I think we are making progress, slowly, sadly too slowly, with the current summer we are having in Europe, of the impact of our past actions in the weather. And make no mistake, eating so much meat and drinking so much milk, is a huge impact we are inflicting on our planet. Please do not comment with "I do X" or "In our house, we avoid doing Y" - it is not about you and me, it is about society. I am convinced, you are convinced, we need everyone to be convinced.

Yizahi 2mo ago
It will be flagged because of the manipulative headline.
hdgvhicv 2mo ago
Everyone apart from a few stragglers agree the climate is changing. Most people agree the world won’t change its behaviour on its own to stop that. So we can thus incentivise change (things like renewables being far cheaper than fossil fuel) globally, and adapt to reality. There are a vocal minority whining about how we need to stop eating beef or milk annd stop using energy and there are those who make beef and milk more sustainable and make generating energy sustainable. I have time for the latter. The former can go hand out with the coal rollers.
- jcattle 2mo ago
  How do you make beef and milk more sustainable? I'm honestly wondering. To me it seems similar to saying: we can make coal power plants more efficient. Equivalent to more "efficient" (however you want to define that) forms of animal husbandry. It doesn't change the fact that you're still burning coal, while you could be putting up solar.
  - hdgvhicv 2mo ago
    The goal isn’t to burn coal, it’s to generate electricity or heat, so make the alternative ways better and you win. Your force people to stop heating their homes they’ll revolt. You give them a better alternative they’ll take it. > How do you make beef and milk more sustainable? This is the right question. And is being answered, along with other improvements in farming. I have no idea about the specifics, as I’m not a farmer. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030225007234 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002203022... https://discoverwildscience.com/the-dutch-are-growing-floating-farms-and-the-cows-dont-seem-bothered-4-317451/ https://discoverwildscience.com/the-dutch-are-growing-floati... Far too many so-called environmentalists are far more concerned with stopping life rather than practical methods to reduce and eliminate harm, and they get ignored - and worse fought back against. “If you build a solar farm generating 100MWh rather than an ethanol farm generating 50MWh that’s bad because the it’s a supper slope to banning beefburgers”
    - jcattle 2mo ago
      You are not stopping people from taking in calories. In your analogy it would be the same as saying: you are not allowed to heat your home with a coal burner. Same as saying you are not allowed to eat beef. You can still eat lots of other stuff, just not beef. The goal isn’t to eat beef, it’s calorie intake. Now I am not saying that we should ban cattle farming or beef and dairy consumption. In the end I see this as a problem of our current system not being able to effectively reflect environmental impact in price. Cattle farming has an environmental cost which is higher than other alternatives (chicken, soy etc.). This environmental cost is not directly passed on to the consumer. All of the alternatives you listed will not succeed in our current system because the environmental savings they might have can not be passed on to the customer. On the contrary: usually lower environmental impact has a monetary cost associated, making prices higher for products from these initiatives.
- Aefiam 2mo ago
  It is not just a few stragglers, 30% of americans believe climate change isnt real, the us president is one of them. Fighting climate change is not going to be successful without sacrifice, we tried that for the last decades and fossil fuel consumption has only risen. Of course people dont want to do that and so instead deny it happening or that it will be magically fixed in the future.
hackernud3s 2mo ago
Beef specifically. If everybody switched to pork, chicken and fish that would mitigate most of this and it's a much more realistic ask.
simianwords 2mo ago
I would much rather have Europe install ACs instead. Stopping meat, not installing ACs, degrowth all look like masochistic ways to show that we are repenting.
- Aefiam 2mo ago
  ACs are not going to stop storms, floods, droughts and the rising sea level. Fighting climate change requires sacrifice of current comforts for an easier life of future generations. So of course we are not going to do anything about it, when it is much easier to deny it exists or pretend that it is going to magically fix itself in the future.
  - simianwords 2mo ago
    The deaths due to lack of ac is more than predicted deaths due to storms or droughts
throwawayffffas 2mo ago
Okay lets get this straight, animals do not contribute to global warming. The co2 they emit has been taken from the atmosphere from plants. Methane breaks down to Co2 in the atmosphere on average in 9.6 years. Animal rearing does not permanently affect the climate. Increasing stock sizes does increase the methane level equilibrium but there are mitigations to this, there are additives to feed that can reduce methane emissions to 1%. Last I checked a few years ago, there were pilot programs to determine effects on animal welfare and product quality. The problem we should be focusing on is fossil fuels.
- pcrh 2mo ago
  Animal-emitted CO2 isn't the problem, but methane. The CO2 captured by plants and eaten by livestock gets converted in part to methane, a more more potent greenhouse gas. This does eventually degrade back to the original CO2, but on a scale of decades, it's currently too slow to prevent accumulation of methane.
- ben_w 2mo ago
  > Methane breaks down to Co2 in the atmosphere on average in 9.6 years. Despite which, over a 100 year period it has 25 times the warming impact as the CO2 it turns into. > The problem we should be focusing on is fossil fuels. Everyone should focus on whatever they know how to make a dent with, the "sustainable" emissions rate is 0.1% of the current rate which is essentially "we need to fix everything everywhere except for pick one of grassland or North Korea". https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
paweladamczuk 2mo ago
FWIW, no matter the issue, this kind of tone makes me close up for any rational arguments. I wish I could look past it, but I just can't.
- pastage 2mo ago
  It's probably not the tone. You only choose to hear that tone and close up. (From my experience) I hold some fringe ideas, e.g. helmets are bad. So I have lots of experience with handling discussion where people close up for any rational argument. Because I am just wrong by definition. That really lets you explore how people react to ideas they do not support.
  - paweladamczuk 2mo ago
    Yeah, straight out denial of somebody's experience is another debate killer.
    - pastage 2mo ago
      My point is that some issues, especially meat, makes people blame tone really fast. This is my view after experimenting with it for many years. I obviously care about your view otherwise I would not have commented, you see an attack/denial where there is not ment to be one.

by plaguna 2mo ago

Yizahi 2mo ago

It will be flagged because of the manipulative headline.

hdgvhicv 2mo ago

Everyone apart from a few stragglers agree the climate is changing. Most people agree the world won’t change its behaviour on its own to stop that. So we can thus incentivise change (things like renewables being far cheaper than fossil fuel) globally, and adapt to reality. There are a vocal minority whining about how we need to stop eating beef or milk annd stop using energy and there are those who make beef and milk more sustainable and make generating energy sustainable. I have time for the latter. The former can go hand out with the coal rollers.

jcattle 2mo ago
How do you make beef and milk more sustainable? I'm honestly wondering. To me it seems similar to saying: we can make coal power plants more efficient. Equivalent to more "efficient" (however you want to define that) forms of animal husbandry. It doesn't change the fact that you're still burning coal, while you could be putting up solar.
- hdgvhicv 2mo ago
  The goal isn’t to burn coal, it’s to generate electricity or heat, so make the alternative ways better and you win. Your force people to stop heating their homes they’ll revolt. You give them a better alternative they’ll take it. > How do you make beef and milk more sustainable? This is the right question. And is being answered, along with other improvements in farming. I have no idea about the specifics, as I’m not a farmer. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022030225007234 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002203022... https://discoverwildscience.com/the-dutch-are-growing-floating-farms-and-the-cows-dont-seem-bothered-4-317451/ https://discoverwildscience.com/the-dutch-are-growing-floati... Far too many so-called environmentalists are far more concerned with stopping life rather than practical methods to reduce and eliminate harm, and they get ignored - and worse fought back against. “If you build a solar farm generating 100MWh rather than an ethanol farm generating 50MWh that’s bad because the it’s a supper slope to banning beefburgers”
  - jcattle 2mo ago
    You are not stopping people from taking in calories. In your analogy it would be the same as saying: you are not allowed to heat your home with a coal burner. Same as saying you are not allowed to eat beef. You can still eat lots of other stuff, just not beef. The goal isn’t to eat beef, it’s calorie intake. Now I am not saying that we should ban cattle farming or beef and dairy consumption. In the end I see this as a problem of our current system not being able to effectively reflect environmental impact in price. Cattle farming has an environmental cost which is higher than other alternatives (chicken, soy etc.). This environmental cost is not directly passed on to the consumer. All of the alternatives you listed will not succeed in our current system because the environmental savings they might have can not be passed on to the customer. On the contrary: usually lower environmental impact has a monetary cost associated, making prices higher for products from these initiatives.
Aefiam 2mo ago
It is not just a few stragglers, 30% of americans believe climate change isnt real, the us president is one of them. Fighting climate change is not going to be successful without sacrifice, we tried that for the last decades and fossil fuel consumption has only risen. Of course people dont want to do that and so instead deny it happening or that it will be magically fixed in the future.

hackernud3s 2mo ago

Beef specifically. If everybody switched to pork, chicken and fish that would mitigate most of this and it's a much more realistic ask.

simianwords 2mo ago

I would much rather have Europe install ACs instead. Stopping meat, not installing ACs, degrowth all look like masochistic ways to show that we are repenting.

Aefiam 2mo ago
ACs are not going to stop storms, floods, droughts and the rising sea level. Fighting climate change requires sacrifice of current comforts for an easier life of future generations. So of course we are not going to do anything about it, when it is much easier to deny it exists or pretend that it is going to magically fix itself in the future.
- simianwords 2mo ago
  The deaths due to lack of ac is more than predicted deaths due to storms or droughts

throwawayffffas 2mo ago

Okay lets get this straight, animals do not contribute to global warming. The co2 they emit has been taken from the atmosphere from plants. Methane breaks down to Co2 in the atmosphere on average in 9.6 years. Animal rearing does not permanently affect the climate. Increasing stock sizes does increase the methane level equilibrium but there are mitigations to this, there are additives to feed that can reduce methane emissions to 1%. Last I checked a few years ago, there were pilot programs to determine effects on animal welfare and product quality. The problem we should be focusing on is fossil fuels.

pcrh 2mo ago
Animal-emitted CO2 isn't the problem, but methane. The CO2 captured by plants and eaten by livestock gets converted in part to methane, a more more potent greenhouse gas. This does eventually degrade back to the original CO2, but on a scale of decades, it's currently too slow to prevent accumulation of methane.
ben_w 2mo ago
> Methane breaks down to Co2 in the atmosphere on average in 9.6 years. Despite which, over a 100 year period it has 25 times the warming impact as the CO2 it turns into. > The problem we should be focusing on is fossil fuels. Everyone should focus on whatever they know how to make a dent with, the "sustainable" emissions rate is 0.1% of the current rate which is essentially "we need to fix everything everywhere except for pick one of grassland or North Korea". https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

paweladamczuk 2mo ago

FWIW, no matter the issue, this kind of tone makes me close up for any rational arguments. I wish I could look past it, but I just can't.

pastage 2mo ago
It's probably not the tone. You only choose to hear that tone and close up. (From my experience) I hold some fringe ideas, e.g. helmets are bad. So I have lots of experience with handling discussion where people close up for any rational argument. Because I am just wrong by definition. That really lets you explore how people react to ideas they do not support.
- paweladamczuk 2mo ago
  Yeah, straight out denial of somebody's experience is another debate killer.
  - pastage 2mo ago
    My point is that some issues, especially meat, makes people blame tone really fast. This is my view after experimenting with it for many years. I obviously care about your view otherwise I would not have commented, you see an attack/denial where there is not ment to be one.