this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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The memes of the climate
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I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, nor do i propose a mandatory switch to such diets. I also don't mind people who primarily eat meat, as they are still traditional herders or hunters like in Central Asia or parts of Africa. But you know what these people don't do? Fly on vacation twice a year, go on cruises, drive 20.000 km or more a year, consume 5 MWh of electricity per person and year...
The current way of animal farming with the current meat consumption results in about 10-17% of global GHG emissions. That is about the same emissions like all road traffic.
And unlike cars, where you could reduce the emissions effectively by using EVs, you simply cannot change a cow from emititting substantial amounts of methane, and the effects of the land conversion necessary for it's feed.
Finally the argument, that X source of emission would be irrelevant to target since it is so small on the global scale is the prime whataboutism argument to not adress any emissions. "Oh our country is only making 1% of global emissions, we don't have to change." "Oh our industry could cut emissions in half in three years, but what about the other industry?"
People in western countries eat way too much meat. Any reduction to that is good, be it by reducing your meat consumption significantly or by switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Vehicle emissions are closer to 25-30% of the total emissions. The mass majority of it is in passenger/truck vehicles. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions
I want to point out that cruises are not the problem. While it is a problem, it's not significant enough to warrant mentioning.
Aviation contributes around 2.7%. Again, it's a problem. I get it. But we need to focus the biggest polluters here first. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport.
That is energy production. Its literally the primary problem. It's 79% of the world's pollution. Everything starts here. Focus your anger here. Talk to your local representatives about this core problem. We need cleaner energy production, like nuclear, solar, wind or whatever magic shit smart inventors comes up with. We also need better battery technology to store said energy. We needed that yesterday. https://www.wri.org/insights/interactive-chart-shows-changes-worlds-top-10-emitters
If today we banned all fossil fuels, it would *instantly *fix climate change. While changing nothing else.
Can't be said about meat production. Your effort quite literally does nothing for our climate. It's the fossil fuel industry switching the blame from them to us, the people. We are not the problem. Our diet is not the problem.
Your rhetoric only divides us. Focus on banning fossil fuels.
I am absolutely not against getting away from fossil fuels. If it was for me, we would put 5% of every countries GDP towards building renewables and updating the grid to handle them.
But while this is something that has to be done on a larger and organized scale, and while your alternatives for mobility might be limited, an easy choice for people is to eat less meat. Or at least substitute beef with lamb or chicken.
One of the difficulties of climate change is that it os a complex problem requiring many approaches at the same time. But we can and should take the approaches within our reach and demand politics to take the approaches that have to he taken on a societal level.
Food spans social, religion, race, culture, countries, regions and a ton of other things I can't think of. In your little American bubble, you probably can survive perfectly fine if you choose to be a vegan. I live in Taiwan and don't eat sugars/carbs. It's so difficult to survive here with this simple restriction and I live in a 1st world country. China is the highest producer of emissions, and they are a 3rd world country.
Sometimes it's not a simple choice to eat less meat. Maybe it's your culture to mostly consume meat. Again, even if you made everyone in the world to stop eating meat, nothing happens.
It's a complex problem. We need complex solutions. Stop focusing your efforts on non-needle moving strategies that might work in an extremely narrow use case. It will only divide us since it shifts the blame from fossil fuels to the people.
I'm not american, what are you talking about?
And quite frankly it would have tremendous impact if everyone would stop eating meat, because that accounts for about 10-20% of global ghg emissions.
I'm sorry, but it is apparent that you are not arguing in good faith, if you are so hellbend on ignoring one major source of ghg emissions. It is scientifically well established, that changes to food consumption are one of the lowest hanging fruits and the meat overconsumption in the western countries does not only harm the climate but also is detrimental to peoples health. Restricting carbs is also not a "simple restriction". It eliminates most plant based foods and then of course i understand why you are irrationally defensive against a simple statement of reducing meat consumption, since that must be your main source of nutritions.
Finally, i don't want to get too much into your beef about the one true China, but claiming China to be a third world country is not only historically incorrect as China was part of the "second world" as it is in economic terms today, since China is one of the strongest global economies and not at all comparable with countries in Subsaharan Africa or South America, that are considered "third world countries".