As negotiations get underway at COP28, we compiled a list of the leading research documenting the connection between meat and greenhouse gas emissions.
Saving the climate is not going to be done by guilting consumers into changing individual consumption habits. Enough with the green consumerist bullshit that only serve as neoliberal justifications for inaction.
If the meat industry is hurting the planet, REGULATE IT.
The problem is not that the method that meat is produced, it is that it is produced at high levels at all. The inefficiencies don’t go away by changing regulations. We are going to have to have changes in production and thus consumption levels. It’s going to be difficult politically to get any policy like that through if people are unwilling to reduce any on there own as well
Do I think systematic actions are needed, yes, but if we’re going to get there we’ll have to start with some degree of individual action before any of it is paltable to the larger society
In order for regulations to stick, they should come from the people. If you try to regulate meat consumption without convincing people that it’s good, it will just not stick. It needs to be a consolidated effort, and guilting regular people into better choices is a big part of it
You’ve got some downvotes … and there’s a pretty strong “don’t be obnoxious to people if you want to persuade them to do something” attitude here … which I generally agree with.
Just to provide my own sentiment here … at a broad, like “historical” level … it does bother me that it seems like we’ve kinda become this coddled culture. Yes, we can be obnoxious about how our choices are better than someone else’s bad choices.
But having frank discussions about what choices and actions are good and bad without getting stuck into ego shit fights is not only healthy but I’d argue pretty fundamental. And that includes whether it makes sense for an issue to be elevated to the government/regulatory level … and then … how we as the electorate are going effect that (because in the end, leadership from government these days isn’t really a thing … which is also part of the this coddled “make every feel good about themselves” culture I feel).
I recently started calling this something like “secondary climate denial” (which I got from somewhere I can’t remember). The idea being that a fair amount of people (myself included I’d say) have acquired a sort of learnt helplessness and passiveness about the climate crisis … have learnt to deny the possibility of there being things that they can actually do and that are actually worth doing. Sometimes we expect things to be more effective and more quickly than is reasonable, so we do nothing. Sometimes we think the world is too big and powerful for us to move it, so we give up.
Sometimes we get worried about letting perfect be the enemy of good and so we give up. And what have we all got to show for it … what have we actually done?!
If/when it goes to shit and we’re sitting grand-children who are asking us why we didn’t stop it from happening and what we actually did … are we really going to be satisfied that, well, we had some arguments online about it and tried to eat vegan as much as possible? Won’t the grand-children then say “I’m vegan too, but what did you do to stop it? Didn’t you do anything?”
You can’t even get people to oppose livestock subsidies, and you’re talking about proactive blocks? The action you propose has the least chance of success. Individuals with self-control is the only certain action you can count on.
Saving the climate is not going to be done by guilting consumers into changing individual consumption habits. Enough with the green consumerist bullshit that only serve as neoliberal justifications for inaction.
If the meat industry is hurting the planet, REGULATE IT.
The problem is not that the method that meat is produced, it is that it is produced at high levels at all. The inefficiencies don’t go away by changing regulations. We are going to have to have changes in production and thus consumption levels. It’s going to be difficult politically to get any policy like that through if people are unwilling to reduce any on there own as well
Do I think systematic actions are needed, yes, but if we’re going to get there we’ll have to start with some degree of individual action before any of it is paltable to the larger society
In order for regulations to stick, they should come from the people. If you try to regulate meat consumption without convincing people that it’s good, it will just not stick. It needs to be a consolidated effort, and guilting regular people into better choices is a big part of it
Guilting people makes them dig their heels in. Especially when bacon is on the line. There is no good vegan bacon substitute
Right because capitalism is bad we should all feel free to never care about our choices
You’ve got some downvotes … and there’s a pretty strong “don’t be obnoxious to people if you want to persuade them to do something” attitude here … which I generally agree with.
Just to provide my own sentiment here … at a broad, like “historical” level … it does bother me that it seems like we’ve kinda become this coddled culture. Yes, we can be obnoxious about how our choices are better than someone else’s bad choices.
But having frank discussions about what choices and actions are good and bad without getting stuck into ego shit fights is not only healthy but I’d argue pretty fundamental. And that includes whether it makes sense for an issue to be elevated to the government/regulatory level … and then … how we as the electorate are going effect that (because in the end, leadership from government these days isn’t really a thing … which is also part of the this coddled “make every feel good about themselves” culture I feel).
I recently started calling this something like “secondary climate denial” (which I got from somewhere I can’t remember). The idea being that a fair amount of people (myself included I’d say) have acquired a sort of learnt helplessness and passiveness about the climate crisis … have learnt to deny the possibility of there being things that they can actually do and that are actually worth doing. Sometimes we expect things to be more effective and more quickly than is reasonable, so we do nothing. Sometimes we think the world is too big and powerful for us to move it, so we give up.
Sometimes we get worried about letting perfect be the enemy of good and so we give up. And what have we all got to show for it … what have we actually done?!
If/when it goes to shit and we’re sitting grand-children who are asking us why we didn’t stop it from happening and what we actually did … are we really going to be satisfied that, well, we had some arguments online about it and tried to eat vegan as much as possible? Won’t the grand-children then say “I’m vegan too, but what did you do to stop it? Didn’t you do anything?”
>If the meat industry is hurting the planet, REGULATE IT.
i’d say “attack it”. i don’t care to ask people in the seats of power to pwease pwease hewp.
You can’t even get people to oppose livestock subsidies, and you’re talking about proactive blocks? The action you propose has the least chance of success. Individuals with self-control is the only certain action you can count on.
>Saving the climate is not going to be done by guilting consumers into changing individual consumption habits.
💯