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Eating meat creates four times more greenhouse gases than being vegan, landmark study finds
(www.independent.co.uk)
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this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
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OK, but what if instead of going vegan, I just don't have kids. Because adding more people to the world also creates more greenhouse gasses.
How bout both? :)
The problem is not the amount of people but how much each individual consumes. Getting meat out of your diet is a simple and a small sacrifice. Besides the health benefits there is also the fact that you don't contribute to the culling of 70 billion animals per year (of which 40% is probably not eaten and thrown in the trash). Not only that but you don't contribute to the greatest cause of deforestation, antibiotics resistance, decline of biodiversity, water waste, ...
Besides the global population is steadily stagnating (Africa is still booming) as a lot of countries see population decline (less than 2 children per woman).
You don't even need to cut it out entirely. Just not eat such a ridiculous amount of meat.
Stuff like this isn't helping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH9VLihKm2g
Couldn't we just stop food waste? Most food is discarded before even making it to the store. Seems to me being more efficient with how we distribute food is more realistic that trying to convince everyone to go vegan.
Because I'm not going to stop eating meat and the amount of ppl like me is larger than you think
Many people will also not reduce food waste, for exactly same reasons you won't stop eating meat. Convenience, habit, cost, time investment.
What if you don't have kids and just make an effort to reduce intake of animal products knowing it contributes to global collapse and also represents a modern holocaust.
Animal products don't have to be as all or nothing as having kids.
That moment when your veganism goes so hard you commit a hate crime on the internet implicitly comparing Jews to cattle
Edit: I'm from Poland, the country where most of the Holocaust happened - this is where the Jewish population was the highest and where Germans build their death camps. We read about it extensively at school, including eyewitness accounts describing the atrocities involved in this horrific campaign of human extermination, from the home of the Jew, to the ghetto, to the transport train, to the camp, to the gas chamber and to the furnace. Many of us heard those stories from our grandparents, of their neighbors being humiliated and taken away, ghettos liquidated, and public executions. I don't know what kind of deplorable scumbag one has to be to equate factory farming with the Holocaust.
Yes, it's a tasteless comparison. I'm a German. Hello neighbor, nice to live in peace.
The comparison also falls flat because while the Holocaust was a genocide, meant to eradicate, factory farming is the polar opposite.
The population size of factory farmed animals is usually way above natural levels, because we farm them. A philosopher even called it an evolutionary win for the farmed species (which does not justify any harm done to individuals).
There are more ways to express 'very bad' than comparing to the Holocaust, and many reasons not to, if you understand it.
holocaust
hŏl′ə-kôst″, hō′lə-
noun
This is just dishonest. The comparison is made specifically because of #2. It's the attempt to connect emotions and judgements people have about Nazi atrocities with animal slaughter. That's also why you quoted a Shoa survivor in defense of this wreck of a comparison.
May I invite you to watch this video of Alex Hershaft. He is probably one of the first, if not the first, persons who made the connection between the Jewish holocaust and what he himself calls the animal holocaust. In this talk he talks about his experience in the Warschau ghetto, his family in Treblinka and his later experience with slaughterhouses. Drawing quite a few parallels between the two.
Holocaust survivor likens treatment of farm animals to modern-day Shoah
You can find any representative of any group with any belief. It proves nothing - it's just one guy, and plenty of Jews eat meat everyday and would consider his words insulting, the majority of Holocaust survivors included.
*implicitly comparing the treatment of Jews during the holocaust to the treatment of cattle today
also, you can compare two things without equating them
I think if you actually cared about the words you wrote, you wouldn't have used them as the basis of a lazy strawman to win an argument on the internet against veganism
The problem is agribusiness. They treat animals with no respect in a terrible a terrible manner, unlike most small-scale farms where the farmers often have a personal relationship with their livestock.
Factory farms whether it be chicken, hog or cattle often end up putting the animals on a feedlot or in a high density chicken farm with literally millions of birds under one roof. This leads to a slaughterhouse that is a horror show. It was a book written a hundred years ago called The jungle, look it up. It's been an issue for a long time and it is inhumane.
It's not to say that killing animals is pretty, but it can be done in a more humane fashion starting by respecting the lives of the animals while they are alive.
The flip side is that if we were to actually close down all of the farms and raise no livestock for me, there's a good chance that these species will functionally go extinct.
Small-scale farms still needlessly kill animals for profit.
We can just eat plants.
I don't care about arguing about veganism. Just stop bringing up stuff like this. Also, do you think calling something a "modern holocaust" is not a comparison in terms of scale of harm? As opposed to every other time those words are used?
Edit: If you want to argue for veganism, stop bringing up Shoah. It's disgusting, downplaying the severity of the genocide, and earns you no favors with the general population. It has negative convincing power.
It's 90 billion every year. If their suffering is 15000 less significant, that's one holocaust a year, every year, since many years. Why are you using Shoah, if holocaust is so obviously only one thing? And why are the voices of holocaust victims/survivors/relatives totally fine to silence? Many have made that comparison, shouldn't they know best whether it's comparable???
You are correct however that this argument is utterly stupid and useless to make, esp. online, where there is zero context.
Here are some quotes for you. From holocaust survivors and their relatives.
-Susan Kalev, who lost her father and her sister in the Holocaust
-“Hacker,” Animal Liberation Front member & Holocaust survivor
-Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish author, Nobel Laureate, & Holocaust survivor
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
-Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
-Marc Berkowitz, Animal activist & survivor of Josef Mengele’s “twin experiments”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
-Gary Yourosky
100 corporations contribute 71% of all emissions, and I'm supposed to stop eating the pork I bought from a local farmer? Fuck that noise!
Those 100 corporations make materials that everyone else uses (mostly O&G) and the consumption and use of those materials (by we the consumers) is responsible for 71% of GHG emissions.It's not just 100 companies burning coal for funsies
https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food?insight=food-emissions-climate-targets#key-insights-on-the-environmental-impacts-of-food
Vegans try not to compare agriculture to genocide challenge +don't compare poc to animals bonus round (IMPOSSIBLE)
Holocaust survivor likens treatment of farm animals to modern-day Shoah
Cherrypicking examples doesn't prove your point. I can find trans terfs people who think protecting trans kids makes you a groomer, that doesn't make it any less awful of a take. Stop being an obnoxious racist vegan on the internet pls
Ok but try actually reading the arguments before you dismiss them? It's not bad takes.
Comparing two bad things doesn't take anything away from either, it's just a comparison.
So it's fine to say your comparison is like Trump spewing nonsense on social media? Since I didn't take anything away from either, it’s just a comparison.
While technically you are correct, I think it is important to notice and respect meaningful differences. Good comparisons have similarities in prominent attributes. Comparisons with dissimilarities in key aspects show something in between thoughtlessness and dishonesty, depending on the degree of awareness.
Sure you can make that comparison, it seems a bit nonsensical to me tho.
There are similarities, that's the point, try reading the article.
Kindly fuck off with your spammy “relevant” links and your sanctimonious “oh you’re almost there, sweetie” attitude.
We get it, you’re vegan and you think everyone should be. Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen, but what can happen is that people reduce the amount of animal products they consume, which would have a MASSIVE impact relative to how things are now.
That said, your attitude is actively harming the cause that you espouse. Nobody’s gonna want to go vegan if this is how you act about it, jfc.
Why are you so angry at someone simply providing sources and advocating that we stop harming animals?
You make it sound like I've been rude and condescending but I haven't.
You’ve absolutely been self-righteous about it. I think this comment is a good example, as is spam posting the same links without really saying anything other than “or…you could go vegan :) tee hee!”
It’s not productive, and actively turns people off in a time when many of those same people are, for the first time, reconsidering their dietary balance.
It’s like criticizing an out-of-shape person at the gym. Maybe they’re not doing it the way you think it should be ideally done, but they’re at least trying and doing something rather than giving up entirely.
I don't see what's self-righteous about that comment.
The links provide context to the discussion, giving people the data so they can verify is a good thing.
It seems like you feel attacked, I haven't attacked you.
Right there with ya
Instead of going vegan or not having kids, I died when I was 5. Because living also creates more greenhouse gasses.
In fact, having a small footprint is just a matter of choosing how miserable you're willing to make your life.
Unfortunately the Earth cannot sustainably support so many people living COMFORTABLY, and eating WHATEVER WE LIKE. The more people, the more miserable is the globally sustainable way of life.
Curbing population growth - not Thanos-like, but through education and availability of contraceptive methods - is the only way we can all have the cake (and the meat) and eat it.
Many wealthy countries have their population declining. Maybe if we get to the same level of wealthiness everywhere, less people would engage in procreation.
In any case, if we just do nothing and the doomsday evangelists are even nearly right, extreme weather, plage and famine caused by climate change will indeed curb the population. Eventually it reaches equilibrium.
In this case, the faster we get to the edge of the abyss, the quicker the situation will solve itself.
Be careful, you're wandering awfully close to eco-facist talking points
In many areas yes, but not when it comes to food. A plant based diet is in no way miserable. There are still too many places with bad kitchens making it seem that way, but that's just a lack of skill on their part.
I'd say my food experience rather became less miserable when I stopped eating meat, and my footprint decreased by a lot.
If you open the window to ventilate for 20 minutes that's different from replacing the air in your room in 2 nanoseconds. The violent shockwave of the latter will probably damage your stuff and harm your health.
Similarly, the speed of climate change matters a lot. It is required for plants and animals to migrate and adapt, for people to migrate and adapt, for infrastructure to be built. It makes all the difference between a devastating blow and adaptation, while the reached equilibrium is the same in both cases.
Exactly. Not having kids covers my any excess from meat and driving easily.
We’ve been eating meat for millennia, while climate change has only been an issue for a century, yet somehow meat eating is the problem, not the billions of people we have added.
Fossil fuels are the problem, but not eating meat is a juicy, very low hanging fruit.
There is no other way to prevent that much emissions for basically not changing anything. You will still eat 3 meals a day for a similar price.
Not having kids prevents far more emissions than not eating meat, and changes my life even less then a diet change.
It’s not nothing to me. Eating isn’t a mere chore, I eat because it is enjoyable. Vegan entrees just are not consistently palatable to me. Take away meat and I’m sorry, but my list of reasons to live will dwindle.
And besides, I’d argue not having kids is an even lower hanging fruit by your reasoning. That even saves money. A lot of money.
Seems you haven't had a good veggie dish yet. I totally get how enjoyable food is central for a happy life, but you don't enjoy it because it was killed instead of harvested. I'm pretty sure you have a few veggie foods you enjoy, maybe without realizing they don't contain meat.
As said in a nearby comment: Only if you didn’t want to have kids anyways. In which case it should not be counted as a saving.
If you want to have kids but don’t because of climate, that’s probably tougher to stomach than a slight composition change on your plate.
Or maybe I have different tastes than you.
I really hate that attitude that because it isn’t much of a sacrifice for you, it isn’t for anyone else. People are different.
Heck, even if I found your one magical dish, I’m not going to eat it for the rest of my life. Even with meat, I choose variety.
Oh, so personal preference suddenly matters? Seems you haven’t found the right hobby yet. I totally get how kids are central for a happy life, but you don't enjoy them because they are your kids instead of pets. I'm pretty sure you have a few activities you enjoy, maybe without realizing they don't contain kids.
See how you sound?
How about this, you don’t eat meat, I’ll not have kids? We’ll see in 100 years who had a more meaningful impact on climate change.
Because if we don't have children then who are we saving the planet for? There are very clear and achievable ways to massively reduce our individual and collective emissions which we can pass onto our descendents for a sustainable future.
Because someone else will have children. Not every human needs to procreate to keep our species alive. We're at 8 Billion and going strong.
So if you're not going to have children anyway then it's irrelevant and why not go vegan?
So someone should only care about their progeny, everyone else is 'irrelevant'. That's certainly a take.
While that reduces greenhouse gasses, it's not sustainable.
God forbit we actually end up in something.