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abraxas

@ abraxas @sh.itjust.works

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3 yr. ago

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • If you want to discuss this you’re going to have to get more specific

    Which part of this? Marginal land? That's a very specific topic. Why should we bring in 100 different variables unless you can show those variables matter to marginal land.

    Or are you sayign there's some prima facie point I'm missing where "nothing but wild animals on marginal land" will produce more sustainable food than "cattle on marginal land"?

    Or are you just trying to get me to provide enough information to overspecialize my rebuttal so that your side need only say "ok, everything but that"?

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • A lot of the vegans here are pushing for the end of all meat-eating, so a lot of the non-vegans here (like the guy you responded to about "eating that shit") feel like "nobody should be eating meat anymore" means "you shouldn't eat meat anymore".

    Whether "you" is part of "nobody" is a challenging question. I've met plenty of vegans who push for meat bans, and plenty of vegans who otherwise somehow think "since veg tastes good and the only people who eat meat do so feeling guilty, we'll eventually all be vegan anyway". The former are a threat (sorry, they are), and the latter are not worth treating like one.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • First of all that’s not likely correct info. I can’t see the uncited chart you posted but it certainly sounds untrustworthy

    Because its results disagree with your opinion? I'm not sure what constructive can come in any discussion after a line like that.

    I’ve seen several charts in documentaries and research papers and they generally show roughly the same pattern, comparable to this chart.

    So evidence that concludes anything other than "everyone has to stop eating meat now" is immediately untrustworthy. Understood.

    But let’s say someone managed to convincingly cherry-pick some corner-case legumes that are bizarre outliers to the overall pattern

    Let's say someone made the brash presupposition that the only way to show eating meat isn't destroying the environment is cherry-picking corner cases.

    Not a fan of Ronald Regan but there is a useful quote by him:

    “if you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

    IOW, you’ve added counter-productive complexity to the equation

    I agree with your statement about as much as I agree with Ronald Reagan. Like many Republicans, he was a fan of the tactic of oversimplifying an issue until it was easy enough to pretend to fix it with a trivial solution. Economy? Trickle-down! Anything more than saying "trickle-down" is adding counter-productive completixy to the equation.

    The problem here, specifically, is that there are more farmers in the US than vegans in the US. You might have a point in that many farmers are already working towards improving the environment and most vegans tend to have such a shallow view of the issue that you need to reconcile veganism with the environment to get them to help the environment. But in the process you're losing environmentally conscious educated people who are in a position to take action, which most vegans are not.

    This is not an environmental activist move. It’s the move of a falsely positioned meat-eating climate denier strategically posturing.

    And here is the problem. You just did it. You just told me I'm not allwoed to be an environmental activist because I support ethical meat-eating. Another guy (well I assume it's someone else) was attacking UC Davis, a reputable college.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • Everyone knows that vegan who ended up in the hospital from malnutrition. In my case, 2 of "that vegan" were family members, and one was a friend. I'll be the first to admit that we non-vegans have to stop and remember that just because the unnecessary malnutrition rate is much higher in vegans, that doesn't mean many of you don't find ways to eat delicious and healthy.

    There's some delicious vegan foods out there. It just takes a lot more work and can often be more expensive to hit the same tier of deliciousness of (for example) a perfectly cooked steak.

    Perhaps you'll agree, though, that "fake-foods" are terrible? Like, a vegan burger is nothing compared to a nice angus (or venison!) patty with real aged cheddar. Or a carbonara with egg substitute vs the real thing.

    I have had some incredible vegan foods (especially Indian or Lebanese) but an Impossible burger belongs in the trash IMO.

    That I mean to say is, if someone really wants a Carbonara, there's nothing that can compare without using egg and some smoked meat. And if their diet has a lot of meals with those flavor profiles, it's easy for them to see vegan food as problematic. A meat-eater can have all the falafal they want.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • I've never tried horse meat. I've heard bad things about it being incredibly muscly and gamey, as well as expensive. Are there any upsides for me to consider it?

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • My one rule on this topic is never getting into a gishgallop. Vegan advocates love to play the roulette of swapping topics every time they lose ground on one, until they manage to win the argument having lost every piece of it by just tiring the other side out. You pick one of those topics, and I will field that topic only with you. It might surprise you, I will agree with you on some of them (like saving the Amazon).

    But if you make me choose, I will choose land use because it's a slam-dunk. 2/3 of agriculture uses marginal land that cannot (and I believe should not) be made arable. If resources were spent changing that instead of vegans fighting with farmers, that number could approach 100%. There's important asterisks about that (both crops and livestock become more environmentally friendly if done close to each other due to their symbiotic relationship) that need to be kept up. But reducing livestock population directly WRT marginal land is wasteful.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • As I said to the other guy, accusing the large percent of studies that disagree with you of being false is bad-faith far-right bullshit, and we had enough of that in 2020 with the anti-vaxxers. I have sworn off EVER giving that style of bullshit any more respect than it deserves.

    Do you also give BP the same benefit of the doubt too?

    I never said "benefit of the doubt". You're the one picking research based on whether you like its results. I'm the one reading the articles and studies on both sides.

    Actually, let me use your reference to show my point. Do you know who the BIGGEST opponent of farm subsidies is? FARMERS.

    You tell me why, and we'll continue this discussion. Otherwise, you just showed your hand, and it's a 2-7 off-suit high card.

    The obvious answer is to stop breeding them

    Till when? In my country, the total methane impact from agriculture is only 20% higher than pre-colonial ecostasis. We will reach those numbers in 10 years. Are you saying my country needs to have LOWER methane emissions than it had 500 years ago all so we can support BP continuing to do whatever the fuck they want and still have a global temperature continue to rise? Because if the worst GHG footprint was my home country's agricultural industry, global warming wouldn't be a problem.

    Which one of us is giving BP the benefit of the doubt, now? What percent of environmental spending are you really willing to do to reduce GHG emissions <5%?

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • cool wall of text bro

    Google Translate: I'm going to pretend that you said nothing real because I just realized I have nothing.

    facts are facts

    Hasn't Ben Shapiro trademarked that line? Oh no, it was "Facts don't care about your feelings". Same thing. Do you think blindly disrespecting the facts on the other side because they don't fit your narrative will get you anywhere?

    Well, I mean, it will. It's a great way to get stupid people to follow you. Ben Shapiro taught us that . But is that what you're really looking for?

    ... That's handy, I guess.

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  • You understand the problem with "studies that agree with me are right, and studies that disagree with me are wrong", do you not? The OP who wrote the article is a vegan advocate.

    And your NY Times article is interesting. But I come from the scientific world, and attacking scientific rigor of a reputable institution requires more than an NY Times article for me. Worse, you're only showing an argument targeting one university, one that (as far as I can tell dodging their damn paywall) isn't making any formal accusations of dishonesty or citing any bad research. If you're going to try to convince the educated world of a grand collegiate conspiracy to create junk science, you might as well be selling flat earth. Sorry.

    This angle feels a lot like far-right rhetoric to me now. I'm not sure if you saw that. Of course there would be farming businesses funding a department of agricultural sustainability. Who do you think reaps the benefit of cheap and sustainable farming practices? Oh yeah, the farmers.

    Here is UC Davis ASI's Funding year by year. They publish it. They're PROUD of it. Their largest private donor is a climate foundation. Most of their donor money comes in those who would represent sustainability as much (or more than) anything that would make them a giant shadow conspiracy like Marlboro of the 1950's.

    But taking a step back. It's best to ask colleges and researchers. How reputable is UC Davis ASI? Can you find me a few that will put their reputation on the line to levy the implied accusation in that NY Times article? I have only met the opposite. This reeks of "antivax movement" to me.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • do you even know better than this article you are posting under?

    I don't know whether I know more or less than Björn Ólafsson, but I know he wrote that article with an anti-meat agenda. You can see it as early as his complaints that "93 percent of climate coverage did not mention the meat-climate connection". Of course they don't. It's one of the smallest and most contentious line-items in the climate change battle, and is one that never needs to be discussed in a successful resolution to the climate crisis. As such, if he were honestly analyzing the question as something other than a vegan advocate, he would more critically analyze the resources and effort being spent on the least efficient environmental improvements. Whether he is ignorant of that or simply biased, I neither know nor care.

    Sounds like you are a really smart guy.

    I wouldn't go that far. I grew up in and around farming communities in a high-education state, with two of the biggest agricultural universities in the country near me. I'm not a specialist in those and will admit it. I got into software engineering (shocker, since I'm on lemmy). But I have multiple family members who got advanced degrees through their programs, and multiple friends who have environmental engineering or environmental protection degrees. Does that make me "a really smart guy"? Not really. But I know how to critically analyze this particular topic more than most vegans I've met because firsthand knowledge and actually discussing environmental essays with the experts who wrote them tends to be more reliable than really really loving animals or watching Dominion or Poisoned.

    created an easy life for yourself. you can virtue signal about being a decent person while also shoving meat into your grief hole.

    You nailed it. By becoming educated, I actually can do something that's harmless for the environment without feeling bad about it.

    You know, when I was younger, people had the same attitude about masturbation. Are you on some other sub (sorry, from the tone of this discussion I thought I was on reddit) attacking people for masturbating while virtue signaling? Or do you just hate educated people who happen to eat meat?

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • but it’s just not legal

    You're right that it's not. I'm not sure how I feel on food bans, personally. Probably very negative.

    how are you able to survive while laws and social norms stop you eating absolutely anything?

    I'm not sure what you're asking here. Social norms don't stop anything except someone's consented will. My wife won't eat rabbit, but it has nothing to do with being forced against it.

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  • Let’s not drive a wedge between the eco-vegans and the animal welfare vegans

    Why not? If the right eco answer is to eat more of a certain kind of meat instead of quitting meat, then eco-vegans aren't eco at all (and should admit it to themselves) if they can't embrace that fact. The willful oversimplification of the environmental impacts of meat-eating is a Tell that a given vegan couldn't care less about the environment.

    Dividing an already tiny population of much needed activists is not how you get progressive change

    I'm an environmental activist that the vegans try to burn because I'm also an advocate for small aggriculture and local rancher protections. How is that not "dividing an already tiny population"? You should let the eco-vegans join our team for a while, too, if the environmental side matters to you.

    You know who the eco-vegans would have marching side-by-side with them if they focused on the environmental impact instead of the animal rights side? BLOODY FREAKING RANCHERS . There'd be 10x the people fighting for the environment. Get us all hugging fluffy bunnies after we save the world. Seems reasonable enough for me.

    EDIT: Whoops. Double-post unintended. Just ignore one or both or reply to both or whatever.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • Zero responsibility for doing my research and coming up to a different conclusion than you? Oh hell no. I take 100% responsibility for it. I live it. I breathe it. I know more about the environmental impact of meat than 9 out of every 10 vegans I end up dealing with on the internet.

    The 10th is either not a jerk to me, or is clearly a zealot. I allow for zealotry (not happily). I'm not a fan of willful ignorance.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • If you want to. I'm not sure why you would. It doesn't taste that good, as most dog breeds were bred for work and not flavor.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • To summarize his infographic. Pork, Chicken, and farmed seafood are better than some plant-based options, and worse than some other plant-based options. The graph seems to leave off some of the famous outliers (like wild-caught seafood).

    Unfortunately the graph leaves out a lot of important variables, like the usability of the land (whether growing corn on an acre that can support a forest is better or worse than having pork on an acre that cannot support much plantlife). It also uses global averages, which leaves out situations where many regions may be looking at entirely different calculations.

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  • This is sometimes true, sometimes false. In areas where forests are cut down for cattle, the carbon offset of the forest "just wins".

    But in marginal land, the cattle are arguably a net gain in greenhouse gasses over leaving the land untouched

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  • I'll double down. In reality, beef in Africa, India, and China are the problem (except agriculture isn't a significant enough problem to call "the problem"). In most countries, the climate impact of beef is low for the number of people fed by it.

    And even in a full vacuum, plant-based food STILL accounts for 29% of greenhouse gas emissions caused by agriculture/horticulture.

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • ITT people do all sorts of gymnastics instead of saying “I know but I just don’t care enough”

    Because the reality is that there's more than two people in the world. Most people are neither vegans nor assholes who don't care enough. There's those of us who think vegans are wrong. It's funny how many environmental scientists are not in support of a world exodus towards veganism and yet my choice are "stop eating meat or admit you just don't care"

    How about "having spent my life around cattle farms, I know more than the person talking to me on this topic so they can go fly a kite"? Or "I have cattle specialists with advanced degrees in my family and after long discussion with them, I see all the gaps that these half-ass arguments online are missing"

    ...no, you're right. We just don't care enough. Oh look, I just found a study that shows that eating vegetables might be bad for the climate. Stop eating vegetables too, or you "just don't care enough"

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    Eating Meat Is Bad for Climate Change, and Here Are All the Studies That Prove It

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  • No, I think he's implying that he thinks people are doing things that DON'T help to feel good while failing to make changes that DO help.

    Gasoline isn't getting more environmentally friendly, but meat in many areas is already fairly environmentally friendly, and constantly improving.