Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It
Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It
As negotiations get underway at COP28, we compiled a list of the leading research documenting the connection between meat and greenhouse gas emissions.
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Greenhouse gas emissions from Agriculture has been well known for quite a while, though not as long as Fossil Fuels.
From this very article you can see it's the United Arab Emirates pushing hard for the Agriculture-angle on their COP - it's almost as if they have a vested in interest in moving the focus away from Fossil Fuels.
One has to wonder just how many years' worth of cow farts add up to the same greenhouse effect (over the long term, as methane is a stronger greenhouse gas but has a far lower half-life in the athmosphere than CO2) as more than 100k people flying over to COP28 (kudos to the genuine Environmentalists, who went by boat) or just a couple of hours of private-jet flight emissions.
Then there are all the moralists who are trying to use Climate Change as an angle to push their morals on others when it comes to using animals as food: the very same people who are usually (in my personal experience) unwilling to forego having a car or two and driving rather than cycling (from my observation, their "environmentalism" stops at chosing an electric car, which still polutes - micro-particles from tires, electricity generation emissions, manufacturing and end-of-life emissions - a lot more that my own personal choice of more than a decade of selling my car and walking and cycling instead) will blow out of all proportion the propagandist messaging put out by fossil-fuel fatcats and elites protecting their priviledge, distorting the reality and proportion of what is a genuine concern, because it helps force their own morals on others.
Changes in Agricultural practies - including reduction of meat consumptiom at the consumer level - are indeed things that need to be looked at, all of which is hard to do seriously and in a proper and proportionate way due to the subversion around the subject from an unholly alliance of people with a self-interest in pushing this angle: moralists, elites who want to keep their priviledges and fossil-fuel fatcats keep poluting the subject and destroying any chance at a serious, well-ballanced and proportionate approach at reballancing Agricultural emissions, because none of those actors have a genuine environmentalist objective.
Then there are all the moralists who are trying to use Climate Change as an angle to push their morals on others when it comes to using animals as food: the very same people who are usually (in my personal experience) unwilling to forego having a car or two and driving rather than cycling (from my observation, their "environmentalism" stops at chosing an electric car, which still polutes - micro-particles from tires, electricity generation emissions, manufacturing and end-of-life emissions - a lot more that my own personal choice of more than a decade of selling my car and walking and cycling instead) will blow out of all proportion the propagandist messaging put out by fossil-fuel fatcats and elites protecting their priviledge, distorting the reality and proportion of what is a genuine concern, because it helps force their own morals on others.
It’s funny how you criticize one group for moralizing and then do the same thing about cars.
The fact is, people emphasize the things that affect them the least. Vegans and vegetarians will tell you animal agriculture is the biggest issue. Those that don’t like driving/cyclists will tell you cars are the problem. Anti-capitalist will point the finger at corporations. Anti-consumerists will point the finger at people buying stuff. People that’s don’t like to travel will point at aviation. I’ll gladly point out that studies show the largest individual climate action is having one fewer child, but I admit it appeals to me because I don’t want children.
I really feel climate will never be solved because no one will make uncomfortable drastic changes.
I think you've got it backwards. I'm an anti capitalist (at least partially) BECAUSE of the damage capitalism is doing to the environment. I don't drive a car BECAUSE of the damage it does to the environment. I avoid planes and ordering stuff from China because of the impact etc etc. My agenda IS climate change. And I eat meat. I eat meat because animal agriculture won't make enough difference to the climate, and because I like to eat meat.
Making those other changes is highly uncomfortable, every single day.Thank god I'm not the only one. But then, I think there's more of us than people want to admit.
My local farm gives crop waste and fallow hay to my local ranch, who feeds it to cows and gives the manure to my local farm. When there was an illness and cow population needed to be culled, they burned the crop waste instead. But consistently I'm told I don't get to stay on the eco team because I eat meat and apparently burning corn is better than eating poor cute Bessie.
There's a lot of environmental protection degree-holders in my area thanks to several local colleges. There's also a lot of vegans. They're different people.
I would love for you to explain how cars by themselves, ex their polution, are a moral subject.
Is there some kind of "cars suffer" angle? Or is it about the "pain of roads"?
Yeah, Environmentalism can be a form of Moralism, in turn meaning that anything that polutes - cars, planes, factories - is by extention looked at in a moralist way, but there is no such thing as a belive in the inherent badness of using four wheeled vehicles.
Your entire "argument" starts with a massive False Equivalence and then goes on into a massive display of Projection - just because your "Environmentalism" is secondary to your convenience doesn't mean that everybody else's is - and missing the point - the problem never was vegans and vegetarians who are also Environamentalists, the problem is vegans and vegetarians willing to sacrifice positive Environmentalist outcomes to their need to preach their moral standpoint on meat-eating and even force others to obbey their morals on that, and hence they are not genuine Environmentalists (their hypocrisy often noticeable by their actual anti-Environmental choices in domains other than meat-eating).
If that is so hard to understand, imagine two types of Christians who claim to be Environmentalists: the first talk about Environmentalism by itself and evaluate ways to improve the Environment on their own merits, the others go on and on about how the Almighty created the Universe and how you should read the Bible and join the other "Followers of Our Lord Jesus" in "Protecting God's Creation".
It's pretty obvious that the second group are not genuine Environamentalists and are just leveraging Environmentalist concerns to preach their Morals to others and in doing so are even turning people away from Environamentalism.
However as I try to make clear in my alegory with the first group, it's perfectly possible to genuinelly be both, and people who are don't sacrifice Environmentalism to their need to preach their other Moral Beliefs.
There are people who oppose cars on moral grounds - they make cities noisy, they pollute, they kill people
Oh, wait, that's rational grounds.
So confident in your moral superiority. Guess what, you still pollute. And while I am definitely a meat eater, you have to be damn blind to not recognize that issues with animal agriculture goes beyond a mere moral issue. Heck, you even started your post with "Greenhouse gas emissions from Agriculture has been well known for quite a while."
Cars are transportation, and used to get to work and perform necessary errands. Not everyone can bike or walk long distances. Would you force some people to be homebound, unable to support themselves?
By not having children, my wife and I save 58.6 tonnes CO2-equivalent, compared to living car-free (2.4 tCO2e saved per year)..
I suggest you re-read my previous post.
My point can be sumarized by: don't let a need to preach your Morals on non-Environmental sides put aside more effective paths for better Environmental outcomes in favour of those paths which mainly serve your other Morals.
My personal standpoint on this specific subject is that we should be convincing people to eat less meat and aim for less enviromentally damaging meat (more poultry, less beef), and even try eating fully vegetarian meals once in a while, which IMHO is way more likelly to improve things Environmentally that trying to force people to switch to a "Meat Free" diet.
Pushing for the full "Meat Free" through legislation won't yield better Environmental outcomes, it will just generate lots of opposition, whilst an education "Eat less Meat" message will be much more broadly accepted and at the very least influence people away from damaging the Environment as much in this way.