this post was submitted on 10 Jul 2023
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When I was in elementary school, the cafeteria switched to disposable plastic trays because the paper ones hurt trees. Stupid, I know... but are today's initiatives any better?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

A lot of the initiatives are ineffective by design because the real goal is to give the consumers agency over the problem. Corporations have known that individual effort is a drop in the bucket but by framing the problem as not not a "corporate" problem but a "society" problem, they can keep not fixing it, for profit.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Today's initiatives are theater.

100 companies are responsible for 71% of the worlds emissions. The rest is also mainly companies. The idea of a carbon footprint is propaganda invented by BP (this sounds like a conspiracy but I swear it's true, look it up). Before anything you personally can accomplish can make any difference, we would first have to significantly change society.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago

Those companies pollute to produce goods and services that individuals buy.

What does holding corporations accountable look like if not refusing to give them our money while advocating for regulation?

Individual change is changing society.

Throwing your hands in the air, doing nothing to change your destructive habits and just saying "but corporations" isn't gonna help anything.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yes, go vegan and stop driving if you actually want to change your impact.

https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The average British person emits 76 times more CO2 than the offset of one person going vegan for life. Even if everyone on the planet went vegan today, forever, their sacrifice would be undone by the number of new babies born in a single year, globally. Veganism isn’t going to solve climate change. It’s not even going to make a dent. We should be focusing on practical, real measures to reduce global CO2 output. For example, the move from coal to LNG halves CO2 output. This transition alone is an order of magnitude more impactful than the entire world going vegan for life. If you care about climate change you’ll invest your limited time and energy where it counts.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You can easily be vegan while advocating for other change like less coal.

Sorry, but major lifestyle changes are not "easy." It's "easy" to lose weight, and yet two thirds of Americans can't do it. I like eating meat but would be willing to give it up if the juice were worth the squeeze. It's not. Instead of spending your time telling people to make major lifestyle changes with almost zero impact to the climate, why aren't you focusing on real, sustainable solutions?

FYI the top four metrics in the image you linked are for agriculture, not meat production alone. Agriculture includes the production of plants, fruits, and grains. It's all food production.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It really isn't hard, buying the plant based products instead of the animal ones is easy.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I find it very difficult. It appears that what you find easy and what others find easy are not the same.

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

What's hard about choosing the plant based option in the grocery store or restaurant?
It's literally just buying a different product.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I like meat a lot. Not eating meat will significantly degrade my standard of living.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You'd be surprised how many vegans said that exact same thing.. and then went vegan.

I used to eat meat too and know it's tasty but you're probably not as addicted to it as you think.

Plant based food can be just as tasty and knowing your food isn't harming animals or the planet is great.

Are your tastebuds really more important than the lives of other animals and the health of our planet?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I appreciate the affirmations but I've spent enough years on this planet, and attempted various diets enough times, to know what I like and do not like. I like meat. Many people like meat.

My tastebuds are definitely more important than the almost zero impact I have explained such a diet has on the planet. You slipped up a bit there and fell into ethical concerns. Remember, this is a discussion about the impact meat has on the environment. Or is your argument not in fact about the environment at all?

[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is reducing farmland from 4 to 1 billion hectares zero impact?

Animal agriculture is incredible inefficient and wasteful.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

How is reducing farmland from 4 to 1 billion hectares zero impact?

In the context of our discussion, it has minimal impact on climate change. The scope of harm is really limited to deforestation, but this has minimal impact on CO2 emissions as a proportion of all other output.