678
Eating meat creates four times more greenhouse gases than being vegan, landmark study finds
(www.independent.co.uk)
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
this post was submitted on 20 Jul 2023
678 points (78.0% liked)
World News
39041 readers
2356 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
Yeah 4 times 0.0000000000000000000000001% of what the largest companies produce.
A single individual? Sure, but that is a bad comparison. World wide food production is responsible for over a third of all carbon emissions. That isn't inconsequential.
But one person stopping eating meat compared to one company making a change. Heck one company adding solar panels to one office building is still probably going to make a bigger difference than one person going vegan.
Can you get companies to install solar panels? Few of us can, but (almost) anyone can go vegan. And even if you can influence corporations to reduce emissions, you can still go vegan! It's not either/or
It's not an all or none thing, either. You don't need to sell your car and swear off animal products - even small changes help. Pick one place you normally drive to and try biking there or taking public transportation instead. Give up beef but keep eating chicken etc. You can make a difference without doing a total 180 - and you might even feel healthier for your trouble.
But the impact of convincing 7 billion people to change their eating habits will never be as high as convincing 500 CEOs to change the direction of their companies to use cheaper, green energy and reduce their energy usage. Plus they'd save money in the long term where as individuals will lose money. Seems like a much easier task to undertake for a government.
I'm not so sure which one would have larger impact, do you happen to have any info about that? Of course the best option would be if both of these happened.
What I'm trying to get to, is that just because our own impact is small, it isn't a reason to do nothing. There is no need to feel existencial threat from eating a steak or flying, but it's best to remember that every little thing helps.
There is also the social effect: the more people make climate conscious decisions, the easier it becomes for others to make those same decisions! We are scial creatures after all.
Also vegan diet is generally cheaper, as long as you don't eat only things like fake meat. After all, lentils and beans are much cheaper than meat.
But changing society takes waiting a generation at least. We don't have that kind of time. People are already dying.
And yes when produced in bulk, a vegan diet can be cheaper but the meat industry is powerful and gets lots of subsidies. Plus animal products are used in lots of products other than food, so all of the industries have to change and subsidies moved to realize that savings. Right now it's definitely cheaper to buy animal products if you do a calorie to cost comparison which is what's important to the majority of the world. It's only wealthy places that are concerned with low calorie foods.
So again. What's easier/faster. Educate the young, wait for the old to die off, slowly change the industries as demand changes... Or incentivize the companies, that produce by far the majority of greenhouse gasses, to stop doing it now with their money and power to make quick changes. I mean even Walmart has shifted significantly to green energy. And not because of public opinion, because they obviously don't care about that, it's because it saves money.