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Eating less meat ‘like taking 8m cars off road’
(www.bbc.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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"I want to help save the earth!"
"Great! Eat less meat."
" . . . . No."
I mean, I’m 90% veg for environmental reasons mostly. But every time we share this narrative that the effort needs to be on us while the true culprits are literally upping their consumption is fucking sick. Don’t guilt people for not doing 1% of what is needed while the people/corpos doing the other 99% are pushing this “personal responsibility” narrative and literally created the language to deflect blame. We should be way more upset and spend 20000x the effort shaming and shutting down those organizations.
It doesn't matter if you put 2000x your effort into something if it has no effect. If you spend all your day shaming these corporations on lemmy that won't do anything. So the question should be what actions can make an effect?
Protests don't really do much. Electoral politics, at least here in the u.s. , are completely captured by these corporations and will never truly challenge them. I doubt what just happened in NYC is a valid tactic either. A revolution or even just a general strike is pretty much out of the picture right now.
The best and only way to get at the mega corporations causing all the climate change is to boycott them. The meat industry is burning the Amazon and emitting tons of methane, boycott them and eat less / no meat. The fossil fuel industry is lobbying congress to deny climate change while increasing production and emitting more every year, boycott them and buy less gas by driving less or taking public transit.
In this capitalist hellscape the only real choice we have is of consumption, and choosing what to consume and more importantly what not to consume is the only real way we can effect the system.
Sorry to say this, but these boycotts rarely do anything. If enough people would boycott some company, or business practice to matter only a little bit, then there also would be enough people to effect politics to try to get better regulation in place, via electoralism, direct action of just getting actively involved in politics.
" If enough people boycott the meat industry, then it's enough to cause political change." I'm not seeing a downside here to doing something versus not doing something.
I wouldn't worry much about the "I'm doing X more to offset you doing Y!" crowd. Probably a few act like that but firstly they'll say it to everyone they don't like (and one meat eater eating 2x meat can't feasibly offset more than one vegan, so their impact is limited) and secondly most of them are just ragebaiting.
The same people post shit like "omg getting a Starbucks!!!!" under videos calling for boycotts due to Gaza.
I’m definitely not worried about the people saying they’ll spite-eat more meat. I’m talking about us putting so much effort into shaming people for not going veg—so I’m talking about the opposite.
The blame isn’t at our feet. It’s not on us. That’s the companies literally pitting us against each other, baiting us into shaming other .00002% contributors to climate change while they, the true 99.99998% culprits, increase their output and greenwash their literal mass murder crimes.
Your numbers are way off here. (https://www.sei.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/research-report-carbon-inequality-era.pdf ) in 2025, the top 1% only accounted for 15% of global emissions. The rest are still generated by the general public. Sure, per person, the richest 1% have a disproportionally higher impact, but on a large scale, they dont matter that much.
Pushing this narrative takes the incentive of reducing your own impact away.
That study doesn’t account for what their money and influence does. These people use their money to, sure, fly private jets and heat massive houses and drive big luxury cars and eat exotic foods. But they also use it to prop up massive businesses, push for outsourcing, drill, mine. We don’t. That’s what I’m talking about.
That is what needs to change. And that isn’t quantified. It can’t be. But that is insurmountable.
But then you look at things like this and we can start to understand how massive the imbalance is.
They dont drill and mine for fun. They do it because people consume their products. Sure, they do a lot of manipulating and lobbying to ensure that doesnt change, but the decision stilllies with the consumer.
'I wont change my behaviour because the rich manipulate us not to change our behaviour so the system has to change' will never bring any change.
Politics does not know what inside the populations heads. They wouldnt know if 90% of the population wants automobile companies banned when everyone is still using cars. Sure, there are questionnaires and statistics but thats not what drives politics. Its where the moneys at.
I think you missed the part where I said I have changed my behavior to be kinder to the environment. I don’t drive, I ride my bike most places or use PT, I rarely eat meat, I don’t order things online, especially from Amazon and major retailers like that. Doing what we can is always great.
My entire point is that we are responsible for 20% of emissions and massive corporations are responsible for 80%. And then when you factor in the fact that the richest 1% account for an inordinate amount of individual emissions—I mean, it feels like you’re going way out of your way to throw yourself over the puddle of blame so the poor, poor wealthy elite don’t get their farragamo loafers a little damp.
No shit companies need customers, but that just feels so incredibly disingenuous of an excuse when you factor in the decades—centuries of lobbying, covering scientific reports on the subject, recklessness with environmental safety to save a few thousand dollars, the endless outsourcing to bring profits up, the endless greenwashing.
It’s pretty goddamn tough to shield your eyes from the truth that the wealthiest among us are largely responsible for the current climate catastrophe, but you’re somehow finding a way and don’t see how ridiculous it is to throw yourself between the truth and them.
I absolutely agree with you. Meat is something that has a big impact on the climate and this is something that we as the consumers actively can control. If society decides to buy less and instead higher quality meat the demand will go down and therefore the CO2 footprint. However, this is nothing that is possible without the government supporting this change.
this isn't causal
I may have articulated myself badly. What I mean is the following: If I decide to instead eat e. G. 1kg of low quality meat every week I am responsible (by eating meat) for an amount x of CO2 emissions. If I now switch to only 500g of higher quality meat the amount of CO2 emissions goes down to about 1/2x(I know this isn't exactly true, due to the lost efficiency, but for bigger reductions its absolutely true, that the amount if CO2 you emitted goes down).
I don't think that's true. those emissions happen regardless of whether you eat it. they happen regardless of whether you buy it.
Source please.
Your analysis undermines genuine science by disregarding the reduction in demand which reduces the supply and forming a data set with a sample of 1.
this isn't causal
it's obvious that the emissions happen before you decide whether to purchase a product. that's how linear time works.
didn't you try that?
Sure, it's more than just encouraging people to drop meat and dairy. It's also voting for people who will make it financially impossible for those industries to continue.
Relatable
I ain't gonna stop eating meat to save 100g of CO2 a year while Taylor Swift takes her jet when she needs to tinkle.
Why is your moral compass calibrated according to the worst people? Is not being the worst possible human being good enough?
Also, as long the general public doesnt change whats acceptable and what not through their actions, why would the rich change anything? Theyre not the ones who will suffer from climate change and they dont care.
It's about efficiency.
What's better? Forcing 1000000 people to eat bugs and beans, or summarily executing one Elon Musk?
You dont need to force anyone. People make their own decisions.
By the same reasoning, would you abolish elections because letting a single person decide is more efficient?
In theory, I agree with you, it is way more efficient to just ban cars, ban billionaires, distribute their money and end world hunger. But thats not realistic. There is absolutely no indication that any politician will even consider any of that, as long as the population still keeps driving around in massive SUVs, eating mass produced meat and buying everything from Amazon.
Man you guys sure love to jump to absurd conclusions using apples to oranges comparisons... First the guy comparing eating beans to child abuse, now you... It's almost as if trying to force your lame lifestyle on billions of people requires leaps of logic only a protein deprived brain can achieve.
First off, you can't measure the efficiency of one person deciding vs multiple.
You can, however, determine how much co2 one person emits.
There's also no indication that politicians will ever consider banning meat and yet here you are trying to make people eat beans on toast every meal.
Look, all I'm saying, if you truly care about the planet, instead of trying to force lifestyle changes on 99% of the population, there's 1% of them that emits 15% of CO2 without really contributing anything useful to society.
There's a quick ROI. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Or you could eat beans I guess.
You are strawmanning and coping so hard I dont have enough time to address all of that, so ill just pick a few.
Im not trying to force lifestyle changes on anyone and I dont know why youre claiming that. I am simply arguing which life choices can make a difference and which cant.
What exactly do you suggest the average person does to ensure the 1% stop emitting 15%? Vote green? That has worked wonderfully over the past 30 years right?
Is 'be the change you want to see in the world' supposed to be a summary of my arguments? Coz it sure as hell doesnt fit you attitude of 'dont change anything as long as rich people dont change'.
veganism has been around since the '40s and the meat industry grows every year.
Yes, yes you are. The only reason you are arguing right now is because you're mad that I refuse to stop eating meat while some rich fuck's personal jet flies around the world just so he can have a shit in a different toilet every day. If you didn't care about changing my way, you'd be doing something else.
You really want to get politicians involved, huh. You haven't figured out yet that they're part of the problem?
Be the change you want to see in the world is meant as an encouraging statement to go and take things into your own hands instead of relying on third parties to fix your problems.
You dont see a difference between 'making an argument' and 'forcing (because thats the exact word you used) someone to change their way of life'?
Also, I am not mad at you for eating meat. It is your own decision. Im not even vegan myself. Please dont project your insecurities on me. I am mad at big corporations and billionaires for causing misery for a large group of people, but for that to change, I sincerely believe that the attitude in our society has to change from blindly consuming everything we are offered to living and consuming more consciously. I will not start shooting billionaires (thats obviously what youre suggesting and I hope it is just a phase driven by interner anonymity and frustration).
And related to 3., taking matters into your own hands is my whole point, youre arguing against it.
Also, please answer 2, because youre constantly complaining about me suggesting that change comes from.the consumers, but you are completely avoiding suggesting any alternative.
Regarding 3, all I'm saying is that there's an easy way to reduce CO2 emissions by about 15% but all you're doing is waffling about beans.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
You should put 10000x times the effort trying to stop the 1% from releasing 15% of the CO2 than you do trying to convert me to your bean religion.
I ain't gonna stop beating my children while Israel drops bombs on schools to take out a hamas laptop.
Eat your bugs, you need to offset the damage caused by a billionaire's third yacht.
What is with you guys and bugs? Do you really think vegetarians eat bugs or want you to eat bugs?
We eat and want you to eat beans, but I guess that's not disgusting enough for you to get mad over.
Bugs, beans, whatever. That's not the point.
Feel free to feel good about saving all that planet.
Oops some billionaire's megayacht just dumped more CO2 in the atmosphere in a day than you banked by eating beans for the past decade.
But yeah, more beans please.
Also, 'people like men talk about bugs because that's what the elite is working hard trying to manufacture that delicious bug eating consent
I will, and i will also feel good about not assaulting children even though there are people out there slaughtering droves of them.
So your evidence for this grand elite conspiracy is one article from the new York post. Tell me what's the advertising budget for crickets, or if you've ever even seen an ad for crickets? Cause the advertising budget for Tyson foods alone is over $200 million . That's just the industry itself, that doesn't include restaurants like McDonald's etc. That are also pushing you to buy meat. Tyson foods alone also lobbies the government to the tune of $2.8 million. The big money is not trying to get you to eat crickets, it's trying to get you to eat meat.
Man you're still missing the whole point of my argument just because I said bugs, huh?
Your brain that starved for real protein? Try meat.
Please rethink this comment. This isn't why we joined Lemmy.
Please rethink this comment. This isn't why we joined Lemmy.
Ah, name calling, the last refuge of bad takes.
If the whole point of your argument is that you're absolved of the bad things you do because there's someone out there doing worse things at a greater scale, then I have addressed it multiple times with the analogy showing that's not how ethics work. You haven't addressed the analogy or shown how it's different.
So tell me why don't you just go around pushing kids over for fun?, there's people out there doing way worse to a lot more kids.
Why shouldn't you just litter and throw your trash in the river?, there are a lot of companies out there dumping way more into that river, your bag of trash is a drop in the bucket.
If you follow this logic of "theres a worse guy out there so my relatively minor transgressions are fine" then you just become a scumbag . Yeah, you're not evil, but society would be a lot better without you.
Man I love how you guys put on the same level 'pushing kids' and eating meat.
And then you call me for having bad takes lmao
It's ok my dude eat your beans, save the planet is thankful for your sacrifice.
I will, I'll also throw my trash in the trashcan, not because the planets going to thank me, but because I care for my environment, I hope you do as well
As for the child thing, I don't see how you can say this or this is less cruel then pushing over children, unless you have no sympathy for animals. If that's the case you shouldn't be around pets, or even kids for that matter, hell just stay away from people in general.
Wow you're such a good little boy I bet you even separate the plastic lid from milk cartons. Your masters must be making so much money off of your free labor. Heck did I say free? You most likely live in an area where you pay to have someone take your sorted recycling so they can sell it for more money.
Also, I'm not concerned by your shock videos because I don't consume inferior quality factory meat.