Since WW2 the developed nations have been systematically throwing away sustainable approaches to literally everything. Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat. Even paper often comes in a plastic pack.
If all humanity were to approach a developed Western lifestyle the planet simply couldn't cope with the current global population. We need an entirely different approach.
This isn't the case across the globe. Japan's recycling and Singapore's trash policies come to mind immediately but there are sure to be better.
Probably the most common though. Will certainly require a shift in culture for most people on this planet.
> Where once the shopkeeper measured out your purchase now we get single use coffee pods and single use plastic around 4 slices of meat.
The EU has recently voted to remove the use of single use plastics. I do wonder what the overall effect will be but I think policy could change this as well as affect behavior around it.
And that's the issue we run into with human behavior. Developed nations have adapted to a convenience mentality, and tend to use more because they consume more. Changing behavior takes more than awareness, it takes some sort of proxy for force or compulsion. With Singapore for example, they have heavy fines for littering and improper trash disposal. They have achieved cleanliness by mandating it upon their citizens.
Western nations aren't always as amenable to that form of governance as it impedes on someone's impression of their own free will to do as they please. In the case of American politics, I bet we will encounter "I don't want to go through the effort to recycle, and nobody can make me." This is why cultural attitudes and shifts take so damn long to change. Getting everybody on board is a hell of a lot harder than saying "This is what we are doing now because it is good for the planet even though it adds a bit more inconvenience to your life." People go apeshit when the government tells them what to do, even if it's something positive. There's just that much resentment to change that people will choose irrational, illogical action over changing behavior even slightly that would benefit them in the long-run. Only when shit hits the fan do people look around and wonder "So what do we do now?". There are things that must be done, even when the desire to do them is not that high. It's like people have a basic understanding that they could be doing something good, but they still don't do it, because they don't have to.
* We set up consumption targets.
* We set up laws that define the following rule:
If consumption targets are exceeded, any non-first child is taxed at $1000/month until the consumption targets are met again.
It makes more sense to tax things that are polluting (eg. plastic packaging).
Sorry, but the idea that everything can be fixed by draconian regulations imposing arbitrary limits is simply evil. And if implemented (China's one child policy comes to mind), produces more unintended than intended effects. The obvious side effect of your ridiculous idea is that only poor people will have more than one child, because you cannot tax what isn't there.
The possible solution might not be the pleasant one.
And that's a lot more passable than killing a bunch of people.
For one, beef's not that much of a problem: https://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-envi...
But second, all kinds of systems we have have been premised on economic growth year after year. When we hit some harder limits, we'll hit them hard.
(Sources: https://sites.google.com/view/kgssourcesmeat/startseite)
So even if FAO got it wrong, I just don't see beef not being a problem.
The "sources" in the link either reference to mistaken FAO stats, or give some numbers out of context and with no argument (e.g. "One kilogram of steak needs up to 25 kilos of grain and 15,000 liters of water" -- ok, but what's that compared to other consumers of such resources? Or "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat", ok so?)
The argument is that in order to produce 1000 calories worth of meat, more resources (e.g. land, water, greenhouse emissions) are needed than to produce 1000 calories worth of plant-based food.
> "Meat just makes up 18% of our calories humans eat"
Same argument: even though meat makes up only 18% of calories in our diets, it produces 58% of agriculture-produced greenhouse gases and takes up a whopping 83% of currently farmed land, compared to overall agriculture [1][2]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p... [2] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...
Sure, but either quantity might not be the real issue on the grand scheme of things, if it's just eg. 5% of resource use or pollution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/02/un-repor...
Note that the year of publication is 2010.
Here's a list of problems with 105 sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...
At this point, denial is willful ignorance of evidence... falling in the same vein as antivaxxers and climate change denialists.
I'm not sure in what sense you mean this. It sure seems 'inherently bad' in just about every sense you could mean, to me. I think often it doesn't seem 'bad' to humans, mainly because we're humans and animals aren't. As if only human life has any value whatever. The very word meat sounds grotesque to me - imagine if some other species had a nondescript word for human meat.
I mean it in the most fundamental sense: there are sustainable levels of meat consumption that do not negatively impact the diversity and longevity of our biome.
> I think often it doesn't seem 'bad' to humans, mainly because we're humans and animals aren't. As if only human life has any value whatever.
Don't fool yourself mate, we're all just organisms - existing to feed and breed. What's wrong with bears eating fish? What's wrong with men eating fish? Why is commercial chicken "worse" than commercialized corn? What form of value does any life take?
"Fooling myself" meaning not agreeing with your opinions? That's not a nice or useful way to talk to people. "We're all just organisms" - I hear that and I think "ah, next comes the faulty argument that was a premise of".
What's wrong with men eating fish. Ah, good question. I don't think you're really asking it, it's rhetorical. But there's a serious vegan/vegetarian literature (I mean, in ethics, written by philosophers) if you really want to learn about the subject. I don't think me talking about that here will be any use to anyone, human or fish.
Ethics is completely subjective. Slaughter isn't for me, but there are other ethical axioms that lead to rational support of the practice. It is not inherently bad.
You cannot sway people's opinions by starting with complete disregard for their opinions, or without a thorough understanding of your own rationale.
I don't agree at all that Ethics is completely subjective. You say that like it's an uncontroversial fact. Just restating It is not inherently bad doesn't add anything, unless you're trying to say Nothing is inherently bad. Whatever inherently means in that sense. I think your last sentence is saying I have complete disregard for your opinions? I don't think anyone has a 'thorough understanding' of their 'rationale', whatever that means exactly.
I get a very strong passive/aggressive vibe from you, like you have no idea how hostile you sound. I really don't like engaging with it, so I'll stop now. Good luck.
Not only that, but methane emissions from cattle contribute to climate change. About a third of anthropogenic methane emissions in the US are from livestock.
Not saying we need to stop eating beef completely, but if diets shifted away from beef it would have a number of positive environmental impacts.
A brief glance at what most vegetarians and vegans are eating leads me to believe that their diets are probably not that much more environmentally friendly than your average meat eater. The real key is shifting toward inexpensive cheeses, milk, and oils for protein and fats and then consuming a lot more carbohydrates in the form of potatoes and grains.
And, really, the biggest impact environmental impact that most people can effect with their diet is not eating out as much.
I recognize that some vegetables are far more resource intensive than others, which is why I stated 'the average' vegetable. If we wanted to shift diets towards being more environmentally friendly, we'd have to be selective and deliberate about how we do it.
I would argue that shifting diets rather than trying to get everyone to become vegetarians (that don't eat lettuce) is the most sensible path. It would be hard to convince everyone never to eat a steak again, but if you can get people to go from eating 50 lbs of beef a year to 30 or 40 lbs and shifting to chicken and legumes it could make a sizable difference. Would be even better if the developing world went straight to sustainable diets rather than roaring towards beef-heavy diets.
I'm starting to believe that you aren't arguing in good faith, in part because your statements are just thrown out there without any evidence or citation. Sure, a pound of beef or chicken contains more protein or calories than a pound of vegetables. But that's a nonsensical and misleading claim - many more pounds of vegetables went into producing that pound of beef and chicken. Many of those calories, by the way, were exhausted by the metabolic processes of those animals too. A much more efficient utilization of resources would involve just using those vegetable calories directly.
[1] http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/194008291300600...
for the car : just stop using a car, that'll be better for the environment.
It also tastes several times greater, and in exchange is several times more expensive.
> Not saying we need to stop eating beef completely, but...
Funny, every time an activist says "we", I understand "everybody else". Pro tip: you do not make friends by telling people how to live their lives.
"[…] the current pastureland grass resource can support only 27% of the current beef supply" [1]
Rather, they are kept on feed imported most likely from South America, and "Agriculture is the direct driver for worldwide deforestation" [2].
So how does attempting to minimize deforestation not address the issue?
[1] http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aad401 [2] https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/09/120925091608.h...
And just as a note of interest, your first link is quite incorrect. It uses the lowest production pasture figure for its math rather than the average, it does not consider the idea that grass fed beef becoming a major industry might involve people switching to more productive grazing systems which we know produce at least double the calories per acre. It ignores the huge quantity of idle grassland we currently have which could be used for cattle production. And it neglects to factor in the millions of acres of corn and soy fields that would no longer be needed for cattle feed and can be converted to pasture.
https://bovinepracticum.blogspot.com/2018/03/another-land-us...
...and chicken shit, feathers etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poultry_litter#Use_as_cattle_f...
Exactly, environmental destruction caused by the beef industry, an incredibly inefficient process if you compare the land and water requirements vs other types of protein.
> There is no environmental destruction happening here for beef production.
This is a huge blanket statement to make as well as being factually inaccurate.
I'm always stunned by the idea that somehow raising millions of cattle is destroying the planet, yet the millions of buffalo that roamed the prairie before we arrived were natural and therefor good.
What? There's literally hundreds of scientific articles out there that establish the opposite, e.g. [1]
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding...
Edit: Where do you think the protein in cattle comes from? Isn't it… plants? That the cattle eat? Once eaten, the cattle expend some energy to live and then we kill them for meat.
By not eating animals, you cut out the middleman and waste less energy.
Edit: I can't reply to child anymore, max comment depth reached. Anyway, I think my work here is done :) I am not demanding we stop growing lettuce, I am demanding we stop raising cattle for proteins. We can keep growing lettuce for vitamins / minerals. As for the so-called "absurd fake figure" for protein/meat land utilization, that figure is from 1970's. I'm willing to concede that number may have risen slightly with the use of antibiotics as growth stimulator ;)
P.S.: Legumes are a whole family of plants, divided into 11 major types.
This is a fair point but unfortunately intensive animal agriculture (in feedlots) dominates US and world beef production which requires the growing of corn and other grains to feed entirely or supplement grass-fed beef, introducing further environmental impacts.
Not in Canada or the US. We have vast prairies that used to be inhabited by millions of bison. Now a fraction of it is inhabited by cattle instead.
>water requirements vs other types of protein.
How is temporarily using local water in the US, which is returned to the natural water cycle, causing deforestation in South America or Africa or Asia?
>This is a huge blanket statement to make as well as being factually inaccurate.
Then provide contradictory evidence. I can not exhaustively prove every single ranch in the US isn't clear cutting forests. You only need to provide a single example to disprove me. Please do.
No one single ranch is necessarily causing problems. It's a collective issue. No single person needs to withdraw enough water from the well to run it dry, a town can do it one cup at a time without anyone intending to cause his neighbor to go thirsty.
Compare the US of today with that of 50 - 100 years ago. The tree cover is almost back to pre-contact levels, lakes & rivers are potable, smog doesn't kill 10's of thousands of people per year, et cetera.
IOW, local environmental problems have been solved. And we know how to solve them elsewhere in the world: economic growth. Once people have their basic needs secure, they start caring about this stuff. Internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out.
The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons. The solution here is similar: internalize the externalities and let the market sort it out. A global carbon tax, for example.
We used to be able to do this stuff. We banned CFC's world-wide, for example.
Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population, and the instability they created actually increased birth rates. Mao had an impact with the one child policy, but...
The number of trees is not the issue. The ecosystem is. Huge plantations of SPF in rows that are all the same age and size does not make a natural ecosystem, and biodiversity is very low.
>lakes & rivers are potable
Public drinking water isn't even potable in many places, nevermind lakes and rivers. This is pure fantasy talk.
>IOW, local environmental problems have been solved
No, they have been relocated overseas so they are out of sight and out of mind.
>The challenge is global problems; climate change is a fairly classic tragedy of the commons.
Yes, I am sure the animals going extinct really just wish we could come together and tax people for breathing. Of course they don't care about their ecosystem being destroyed to grow corn for 5 years before exhausting the land and burning down another 1000 acres of forest for another 5 years of corn.
>Our track record in culling is much worse. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot only managed to kill about 1% of the population
None of them were trying to lower the population. Funny how you want to equate "lowering global population" with "mass murder" even though you clearly are aware that limiting births is the actual strategy, which actually works.
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/09/1409030-ani...
All the hit is coming in developing nations.
The populations Hitler targeted lost about 50%; if he won the war they'd have done much worse.
Pol Pot killed 25% of Cambodians, not 1%.
Stalin also had a greater impact on his targets. When he created the Holodomor in Ukraine, he killed 10 million, which is much more than 1% of that population.
I think, without the right economic incentives, people do not change their behaviours substantially. I think the GP comment is right about political engagement being necessary. However, I don't think electoral politics will cut it since it is so corrupt. The best chance is for mass collective action in the form of worker strikes and other acts of civil disobedience to force the governments of the world to act in our favour, rather than in the favour of the elites.
I've started a meetup group for the purpose of discussing how a grassroots effort could shift some of the resources of the growth-economy to a steady-state economy while the former is still in place, but interest has been miniscule in my midsized college town.
Behavior can improve by orders of magnitude and even reverse polarity amicably and rapidly, through culture, inspiration, technological potential, historic renaissance - this is the solution to envisage - not come on... you know... people ~reductions.