The options are greatly expanded now, because new reactors don’t need a water source for cooling. They can be built in remote places. For those willing to work with China, that is.
This is exactly what the author of the article is trying to distract you from - corporations who caused the problem in the first place want to place the blame on individuals while companies like Exxon got rich making climate change worse even after they knew it was a problem way back in 1971.
Just completely switching to only eating chicken or a vegetarian diet gets you nearly there. No need to go completely vegan and far easier to do for someone who regularly eats beef.
Exxon knew about climate change since 1971. They continue to make the problem worse to this day. Do you really think if people stop eating meat Exxon is suddenly going to do the right thing and fire everyone? Corporations are going to continue fucking over the environment for their own profit and energy companies (like Exxon) contribute much more CO2 and pollution than eating meat. These rich mult-national corporations are putting out articles to try to get people to place the burden on themselves to distract from their own wrongdoing.
Not in the slightest; I completely agree. Climate change cannot be solved by asking individuals to change their diets or make any other different individual decision. We have one option: revolution. The logic of infinite growth offers no way out of a problem caused by that same logic.
Luckily, revolution, the real movement to abolish the present state of things, is already underway. The start of the tipping point could be exactly one month from today, when BRICS+ plans a radical shift away from the dollar on 22 August.
The question for westerners, as unipolarity falls apart, is what measures they are willing to organise to implement when the opportunity to tackle climate change presents itself. A dietary change is one piece of the puzzle.
Brics are too incompetent to accomplish de-dollarization (or much of anything else). Lately Russia has only been making the dollar stronger. Nice fantasy though.
That’s a very strange thing to say. [Edit: especially considering that we started off with me clarifying that I completely agree with you about the contribution of corporations. Unless you’re just being contrarian.]
Remember the context of all this is what people everywhere need to do to save the plan[e]t and human society. I’m not gleeful that the end of dollar hegemony will plunge the west into recession and devastate living standards.
I’m just stating that it’s happening. Either climate change destroys life as we know it or the planet transitions to a sustainable political economy—currently, BRICS is making moves to bring that possiblity a step closer.
But I’m not necessarily a third worldist; I’m not saying that actions taken in the third world will automatically usher in a new world order. I’m saying it’s one (albeit significant) aspect in the real movement to abolish the present state of things, i.e. the definition of revolution.
You believe that BRICs will succeed in usurping the dollar, but you’re not willing to move to one of those countries? You don’t even believe what you’re saying.
You’re sitting on a computer in a western country writing up fantasies about countries you don’t live in, don’t want to live in, and don’t actually believe will bring about positive change. Your actions show that you’re not quite dumb enough to believe the garbage coming out of your mouth.
“I’m not going to change my money to a BRICs currency and move to one of their countries!”
Glad I could show you the blatant flaws in your logic. Feel free to continue enjoying all the liberties of living a western country while whining about it.
Cool, but no thank you. I have moved to getting my meat from local farms and co-ops, I have cut back on my meat consumption, but I’m not gonna give up meat. That’s my choice, just as yours is yours.
People aren’t going to care enough unless its significantly cheaper than meat and equally as much effort for the consumer but a lot of vegan alternatives to meat aren’t. It should be cheaper for all of the same reasons that it’s more environmentally friendly. Plus why full vegan? It’s more likely that people will move in small steps vegetarianism is still an option. We lose so much with the all or nothing approach.
That’s kind of the direction I started going in, veganism for environmental reasons, rather than health or moral/ethical reasons. I’ve gone about it somewhat slowly, picking different food items to restrict from my diet and looking for non-meat/non-dairy equivalents, mostly just trying to remove any beef or dairy milk from my diet. It seems to have gotten easier in the past few years as other options have opened up.
Yeah thats a problem I have. I like some plant based meat/dairy alternatives but can’t justify paying so much. Meat and dairy should be quite a bit more expensive compared to plant based.
A vegan (or low-meat diet, for that matter) does not equate to substituting meat to processed meat alternatives. Other recipes that do without any fake meat exist.
Having tried both, I found it better to do without the meat alternatives and see what tasty delights are possible without them. Replacing meat with meat replacements won’t quite scratch the itch at first because the palette remembers.
Experimenting with just vegetables and plants will lead to a lot more variety than chips and plant burgers. I think that experimentation makes it much more sustainable because you realise just how many flavour combinations are possible when meat isn’t dominating everything.
What’s your favourite meat- and meat-replacement free recipe?
The problem is that, as an overall percentage of annual emissions, agriculture as a whole is only about 11%* of the total, with meat contributing to part of that amount. Similar to individual contributions, while this is an important part of the problem, it’s not a big enough part that we should prioritize tackling it compared to other, significantly worse parts.
The bulk of resources should be dedicated to massively lowering energy contributions, which are a whopping 72%* of total emissions, with electricity and heat being ~31% of that amount.
Corporations that have been distracting from their wrongdoing for years, getting rich off destroying the planet, and continue to do so: Hey maybe individuals should switch to vegan diets!
it’s not a big enough part that we should prioritize tackling it compared to other, significantly worse parts.
The bulk of resources should be dedicated to massively lowering energy contributions
Yes, but reducing animal products in diets does not require any investments or resources. On large scales, it even frees up resources.
It’s a decision everyone makes three times a day. You can decide against animal products on your plate and still eat a comparably tasty, healthy, affordable meal. No other way to reduce emissions is that easy. Most require upfront investments, construction work, dedication and long term commitment.
It’s big enough to make us miss climate targets on its own. We have to both reduce fossil fuels and meat consumption
To have any hope of meeting the central goal of the Paris Agreement, which is to limit global warming to 2°C or less, our carbon emissions must be reduced considerably, including those coming from agriculture. Clark et al. show that even if fossil fuel emissions were eliminated immediately, emissions from the global food system alone would make it impossible to limit warming to 1.5°C and difficult even to realize the 2°C target. Thus, major changes in how food is produced are needed if we want to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement.
For real, I fucking love meat but I only eat it once a week now and it’s not like I’m fucking dying. And it’s not like what I’m eating now tastes bad or anything - lots of rice and beans (Brazilian style, fucking divine), potatoes and other veggies, sometimes a little tofu. It’s fine.
The world is literally dying and people are whining about hamburgers or whatever. Fucking insane man.
Business as usual. Climate crisis is everyone’s problem but me ! Everyone must make an effort, but not me !
It’s the triangle of inaction. Corporations, government and people blame the two others and use it as an excuse for inaction.
I can understand it in some cases, but meat consumption ? There is no excuse to not stop or at least reduce meat consumption. It’s easy to do, it’s cheaper, … And the impact of everyone not buying meat is insanely positive.
Meat is for me one of the easiest source of protein, and people in general consume already less protein than recommended. :( Many vegan option and/ or protein supplements are expensive. Vegetarian options are okay (eggs, for example) but going 100 percent vegan is difficult.
This type of rhetoric is just relieving big industries of their sole responsibility and enabling them. “It’s not my fault that I’m producing it, it’s your fault that you’re buying it” my ass. I won’t do a single shit unless the people that are actually causing this crisis do something.
Ive got a question, would you be cheering if the meat industry took you up on your offer and immediately ceased all production? Or if oil companies stopped providing gasoline? The shipping industry comes to a standstill to avoid exhaust emissions, no more metal mining, natural gas plants are shut down. Does that go well for you?
So I don't know what third option you've got in mind. Either the consumer, you, are responsible for the environmental damage caused by these industries by inducing demand. Or, as you seem to be explicitly saying, the industries themselves are responsible. How the hell do you think they're gonna take responsibility in stopping the damage they're doing to the environment?
There is no option where you get to keep eating meat daily and drive a gas car, and the environment gets to recover. Either you take responsibility in stopping on your own, or the industries themselves no longer provide it to you in the first place.
To be fair, it’s corporations, lobbyists and governments that made us believe that we needed these things to be successful. Entire generations morals were bought with new technology that we were convinced we needed. And then the government’s created places to revolve and evolve around these technologies and put us all in a position where we’d have to give up everything in order to be able have a chance at a future. Commuters have been put in a position where they need their gas guzzlers, we can’t get jobs without consistent access to a mobile phone and internet- some won’t even hire you if you aren’t on socials.
Sure we can take steps to combat the problem, but the problem is still being shoved down our throats under the guise of success and happiness so most don’t even have a clear idea of what the problem is. The industries themselves are responsible, they created this problem and they pay off governments for the ability to continue this problem. We as consumers can have a small impact on this, but without rallying 8 billion people against it, it is useless- the industries only have to convince a handful of people that their way is the right way.
You make it sound as though personal responsibility and discipline will show us the way out of the darkness, but that is disingenuous at best.
Are we going to ignore things like the massive meat subsidies and the way that eating meat is actively encouraged? There are people that can’t afford a high caloric alternative outside of meat. Or what about the fact that most in the west were raised on heavy meat diets and don’t know how to swap at the drop of a hat?
To act like there are no outside influences when it comes to eating meat is utterly ignorant. Of course the meat industry has to be massively overhauled. But maybe blame the people/industry that have been actively perpetuating it rather than those that just figured out there needs to be a change.
There are people that can’t afford a high caloric alternative outside of meat.
please, learn about foods and prices. Learn about being poor. There are a lot of people where meat is a luxury item. Rice, beans, pasta, potatoes, corn, oil, flour, sugar. You dont know what not affording foods is like.
Or what about the fact that most in the west were raised on heavy meat diets
and which corporation, lobbyist, or governing body was your parent? Did you forget who you were blaming?
weird how we're in a thread about a solution, and I am giving more solutions to your concerns that there's no affordable alternatives for meat. But that requires you to be a lessy picky eater so you're gonna throw a fit instead.
More like ignoring all of my points while being so smug it’s palpable through my screen. I imagine you’re just as insufferable in real life.
But sure, pretend like some people not eating meat will automatically make wide systemic changes to industrial meat production. Keep sucking your own dick while ignoring that there’s an even larger issue at play here that goes outside of 'just don’t eat meat".
Feel free to waft your own farts while I ask about affordable alternatives to meat in countries where it is heavily subsidized. Saying 'potatoes, beans, rice" doesn’t answer that question because it doesn’t account for the protein deficiencies without the knowledge to supplement that into a person’s diet. Something the average person does not know and is not educated on. Nor does it make up for the cost difference in said dishes.m at least in the country I’m from. Things like vegetables tend to cost more for less when compared calorically to meat. And there are a lot of places where you could get a pound of meat for $3 where I’m from.
And what was that you asked about what “lobbying body, governing group” parented me on how to eat meat? The US education department. You want to say it gave me a shitty education, get in line. You can act like a smug asshole all you want, but don’t pretend like you’ve addressed anything here.
It’s like I’m taking to a toddler that doesn’t know anything besides “nuh-uh”. You are the very reason no one listens when people try to start talking about eating less meat.
No, I directly addressed your points, you just dont like the answer.
You keep talking about meat subsidies, so I assume you're in the US. Im also in the US, everything Im telling you I tell you within the context of food nutrition and prices within the US. Let me know if you're somewhere else and Ill do some extra research to show you what I am telling you is still the case for you because meat just gets more expensive in places outside the US.
Im also assuming you're in the US from your assumption that only meat has appropriate protein for diets. You dont know food. You might know beans have some protein in them, it's quite a good amount actually. But you probably dont think potatoes have a single protein, or corn, or rice, or pasta, or flour. They've all got protein in them, they are staple foods in other parts of the world for a reason, they meet nutritional needs.
Things like vegetables
no no no, this is a strawman, I didnt say vegetables. I was specific. What I gave you was a list of foods that are cheaper per calorie. As a bonus, most nuts are pretty expensive so I wasnt mentioning them, but peanut butter is another high calorie, high protein food that's often near the top of charts of calorie per dollar ranking.
Not the guy you were asking, but sure, I’m down. We’d be trading some real hard years now to avoid many more much harder years later. It’s a good deal.
I won’t do a single shit unless the people that are actually causing this crisis do something.
Companies wouldn’t produce stuff but for people buying it. Naturally people who aren’t willing to stop buying the product aren’t going to do stuff like support legislature that makes it become a lot more expensive and/or difficult to acquire, or even forbidden entirely.
So it’s political suicide for a politician to do something like that: they’ll just get voted out. Without regulations forcing companies to adhere to those restrictions, it’s basically business suicide to just do something that hamstrings the company’s ability to produce whatever product. Their competitors will just eat them.
I’m not saying companies/the rich don’t have responsibility, they absolutely do. I really think that change, for the most part, has to start with the population in general though. I definitely strongly disagree with anyone saying that consumers don’t have at least equal responsibility.
Yeah exactly - just look at the protests when fuel prices had a (relatively insignificant to what would be needed) rise in recent years
A lot of people seem to think that they are free of any responsibility whatsoever and can continue living as if they are not influenced by climate change…
In many cases yes, but in this case animal feed simply take up a lot of land and there’s no way around it. The only way to free up that land to rehabilitate the environment is it reduce production and that means consuming it less.
In situations where the harm is caused by the industry’s approach, I’d agree. But animal products’ harm is pretty inextricable, and its production is caused by consumer demand.
But, the harm IS caused by the industry’s approach. People will always demand high caloric and tasty food, there is a way to respond to that ethically and environmentally friendly, and there is shoving thousands of cows in a tiny building, pumping antibiotics and whatever they are doing for the sake of pure profit
There are high caloric tasty vegan foods available, and when they are not it’s usually because they aren’t in high demand. How is the onus not on the consumer for picking animal products over those?
I’m all for vilifying the Animal Agriculture industry, they do some terrible stuff that goes way beyond the harm intrinsic to factory farms. But how exactly would they meet demand without factory farming, a brutally efficient way of producing animal products?
Governments should cease subsidizing animal products (maybe help their producers transition to other production), subsidize other foods more, and enact many other policy changes besides. But in most places it can be cheap and delicious to be vegan now. I don’t see how you get around personal choice being the main driver.
One father can aupport 5 sons, 5 sons can not support one father.
Demanding that we all making good decisions consistently does not work. If we want change it has to be via the government. We can pass regulations that results in less animal harm and less CO2 output.
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