Millennials who care about the environment should put their money where their mouths are and stop eating meat.
This article is likely going to be bullshit. Yeah, and a hell of a lot more people are eating meat than driving cars or using planes. The EPA reports about ~18% of emissions coming from agriculture in the US. The largest producer is, you guessed it, energy generation (I think, don't have the sources on hand). You know where the emissions from cows comes from? The energy and fuels that are burned processing the feed, transporting the grains, etc. You know how best you are going to reduce emissions? The switch-over to electric automobiles and more efficient transportation such as trains. Cows farting isn't going to be the largest contributor, and importantly, all that methane is derived from carbon just taken from the air in the form of crops. And some of those links have next to zero citations, only saying "According to our own calculations". How about instead of pandering on about all these insane "drop everything you like" fixes that will never work, we actually put focus into electing people into office that will elect and support regulations, the passage of grants for green energy, and focus on the solutions that will actually fix global warming. Bullshit, Bullshit, Bullshit. I am sick of the generation wars these news places seem to live pushing on us. If the earth heats up, we will all just die, along with the cows. Yep, totally true. It's not like humans adapt and move to counter things that are against us. Nope. All we are going to do in a disaster is freeze and ignore the issue. This is what I hate about the global warming articles. Every one of them. Quit trying to scare everyone into acting for two weeks before they get bored and go back to their old lives. Real change comes from education and techniques that actually work, not this sort of crap. This guy put it wellaising animals to eat produces more greenhouse gasses (via methane and nitrous oxide) than all of the carbon dioxide excreted by automobiles, boats, planes and trains in the world combined.
Putting this off for another generation – the way our parents have – just isn’t feasible. Millennials have the opportunity to use our economic power and personal choices to effect real change, and it’s our responsibility to do so.
Besides, if we don’t stop and reverse climate change, all we’ll have left to eat – if we’re lucky – is fish. Whoops – looks like we’re running out of fish, too.
You could have suggested reducing the amount of meat you eat, properly ensuring its source to examine its impact, and generally behaving in a more aware manner, but I guess you have an agenda to preach.
Your post didn't include any references to peer reviewed research papers, and you expect anyone to believe you over the article , which did? The full text of the research paper is also available The supplementary information (which as also linked to in the article, and is listed on the pnas page) has a whole lot of statistics listed, if you think the numbers given in the article are wrong, then do the math yourself. Here's another published peer reviewed research paper: Dietary greenhouse gas emissions of meat-eaters, fish-eaters, vegetarians and vegans in the UK (full text is available, not just the abstract) Study shows that meat eating people contribute to global warming about 50% more than vegetarians, and about twice as much as vegans. It also gives environmental impact ratings for different foods, (unfortunately by kilogram rather than by calorie, so could be misleading) Bovine Meat: 68.8, Mutton & Goat Meat: 64.2, Pigmeat:7.9 Crustaceans: 5.4, Fish, Seafood: 5.4, Poultry Meat: 5.4, Eggs: 4.9 So you can make a big difference just by limiting meat consumption to pork, seafood and poultry.
Animals only provide about 3% of the calories needed to raise them, which are in turn usually provided by corn feed. Directly eating the crops is much better, around 30% efficient http://www.imeche.org/docs/default-source/reports/Global_Food_Report.pdf
HAH. http://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/2agot7/large_oxford_study_the_average_meateater_in_the/civ41md That sensationalist headline is total bullshit. The person's diet contributes twice as much. It says nothing about the contributions to global warming in general. Yes, meat takes more to make, and makes more emissions. No, it is not nearly as significant as the bullshit articles floating around.Study shows that meat eating people contribute to global warming about 50% more than vegetarians, and about twice as much as vegans.
I guess it's like if a study came out and said that drivers of Hummers contribute to global warming 50% more than drivers of Priuses, and 200% more than drivers of Leafs. When considering the footprint of the automobile specifically, that may be correct, but that isn't taking into consideration all the other life style choices which in aggregate, contribute more to a person's overall carbon footprint. Still a 50% reduction in the carbon footprint of your diet is still admirable and a positive thing, I'd say. To me, the bigger issue is that as a consumer, its hard to determine what the carbon footprint of various consumer choices are. It seems like a lot of red tape to require product labeling for carbon footprints like we do for nutrition, but as someone who is concerned about global warming, I'd like the ability to make choices on the consumer level without having to rely on marketers and relatively obscure academic research.
Here you go. Actually in 2012 only 10% of emissions came from agriculture, whereas electricity & transportation combined make up 60%.The EPA reports about ~18% of emissions coming from agriculture in the US. The largest producer is, you guessed it, energy generation (I think, don't have the sources on hand).
Damnit rrrrr I was just about to go to bed. I work at a vegetarian/vegan/gluten free restaurant. Shit's delish yo. I also think that we need to, as a society, eat less meat in general. Finally, I think that Electric cars are cool as shit and think that despite their problems they are important to invest in for the future. Those caveats aside, we've got some serious problems going on here. Wide swathing, absolutist arguments like these are a recipe for disaster, and are mostly just pissing into the wind (or preaching to the converted, depending on how you like your metaphors). The idea in this article is generally good, but, as bioemerl has pointed out, there are flawed statistics and uncited assertions all over it. Also, never quote Albert Einstein (a quote I couldn't quickly verify, btw) unless you're writing a piece on physics or an Einstein Bio. Even then, keep in mind that he spent the latter part of his life trying to marry his Special Relativity to quantum physics - unsuccessfully, and to the ill of his reputation. Outside of his field, he was "Just A Dude", like the rest of us and unless you can back his opinion up with hard data then it's not worth the paper it was written on. Never has a man's reputation been so dragged through the mud as Einstein's because of the shit people try to attribute to him. This article doesn't seem to acknowledge that livestock don't just mean something when it's dead - while it's alive, we can harvest the milk from mammals, the eggs from birds and reptiles (not sure there are any domesticated agricultural reptiles, but shrug). from the milk we can make cheeses, from the bones we can get bone meal to improve the soil health for our plants, from hides we can make leather. If we remove purely meat-purposed cattle herds in favour of a combined purpose herd then we'd be ahead of the game, and still retain some of the jobs that these sub-industries create (as well as delicious cheese and eggs, and useful leather and bone meal). There are ways to make meat-eating more feasible as well -Offal, for instance. I'm of the Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall view, where we need to use as much as we can, treat the animals with respect, etc. I'm bagged, so I won't get started on coal-powered cars (i mean cough electric cars ). I feel like this came out a shambles, but hopefully someone got something interesting from it. It was helpful to me to get these thoughts out on "paper". cheers, all.
Yeah, you're basically saying that advocating something like Meatless Mondays is more likely to cause worthwhile change than starting an article with I read somewhere that limiting your red meat consumption to twice a week was... magically good for the environment or something and also not bad for you, so I do that. I also pat myself on the back when I eat vegetarian once or twice a week (not one meal, one day). It's a hell of a lot more approachable for me than forswearing animal protein because critters be delicious. I make no bones about the fact that my carbon footprint is much greater than your average Han Chinese but my everything footprint is much greater than your average Han Chinese so rather than becoming Han Chinese all at once, I attempt to do better. Doing better is so much more approachable than doing perfect. So yeah. Suggesting that the apocalypse is directly due to my love of burgers does not put me on a footing for dialogue, if that's what the article is trying to do. Especially when it follows up with some vague statistics and hand-wavey proclamations involving Einstein. Electric cars do pencil out, cradle to grave, for the environment. However, things get a little muddier if you compare a brand new hybrid with a used car that already exists.I feel like this came out a shambles, but hopefully someone got something interesting from it.
Between widespread economic disparities, population growth, unsustainable agriculture and climate change, a study partially funded by Nasa predicted that civilization as we know it could be steadily heading for a collapse within the next century – and the window to create impactful change is narrowing.
Thanks for the info re: electric cars. I shared it with my brother, who is very critical of their production (especially the environmental cost of the batteries) I think rather than "Meatless Mondays" I'd advocate something much like what you do - maybe 40/60 meat and vegetarian, with a focus on using all of the animal, not just the prime and choice cuts. Eat some Beef Heart or something, y'know?
"Focus on all of the animal" is really a different problem altogether. Machine-scale agriculture works on the premise of packing plants that take chicken specifically bread for giant breasts and tiny wings and thighs that then separate out everything and send it to other places to be used for different purposes. Economies of scale would dictate that having a giant Tyson factory distribute Foghorn Leghorn is going to be more efficient than you doing it; after all, you may or may not have a use for a chicken beak but there may well be someone out there who can use a truckload of chicken beaks. I wholeheartedly recommend the book The End of Food by Paul Roberts; it's a thought-provoking and in-depth exploration of the externalities of modern agriculture. Bill McKibben's Eaarth touches on similar problems; McKibben describes his attempts to get his local restaurants to use locally sourced bacon, which doesn't exist, because without the massive economies of scale brought by megafarms, bacon can't be produced for less than $9/lb.
Even just reducing the amount of meat used in meals is a decent step. Made a tomato basil tart that had about four ounces of diced ham in it. Fed two adults and a child with enough for someones lunch tomorrow, It had around four ounces of cheese on it as well. Salad with vegetables from the garden on the side. Lot less meat than a couple of steaks and I'm in no way saying that there is anything wrong with a few vegetarian meals a week. Make soup about once a week, only meat in it is the stock and sometimes a few ounces of fatback or bacon, with a loaf of bread it's a nice meal.
I'm a huge foodie and get an unapologetic joy from eating dead animals. That said, I've made a point to start integrating vegetarian dishes into my own cooking, as well as using more bones, neck meat, and other such 'off cuts' that would usually otherwise be waste. It's good for my budget and my cholesterol.
From a living animal? Mind explaining how? Because I think that's tough to do, unless you like jelly-cows. And electric cars are important because they a) represent the ability for tech to shift to green power rather than "hippies", and because they can get their electricty from far more than coal in the future. Also, coal is much more efficient than gas, and coal is a local resource here in the US. from the bones we can get bone meal to improve the soil
Mind explaining how? Because I think that's tough to do, unless you like jelly-cows. ... I think it's pretty obvious that bone meal and leather (which proceeds after it in my list) are end-of life byproducts (which doesn't negate their usefulness, nor does it negate the argument). Either you missed a winky-face there, or you're being purposely obtuse. I'm into electric cars, man. But i buy used and fuel efficient (my 2004 vibe gets 29-30 mpg on the highway, which is pretty good for having all the other features I need including carrying two of these when necessary). As I alluded to in my first and second paragraphs, I don't have a problem with the ideas presented in this article, I have a problem with HOW they are presented.From a living animal?
I figured. Glad we can be reasonable human beings on this website!! cheers
If i didn't have to truck around a double bass, and I didn't have to visit my folks where it can get to -50, I'd drive a motorbike hands down. I wish there was a practical option. I thought about maybe a sidecar, but... probably not a good idea.
A Millennial is a term Baby Boomers use to describe anyone younger than them, a term that, of course, no one that age really identifies with. This is because, as the gatekeepers of old media, they got to label the generations in a completely arbitrary and useless way, without any input from said generation, as is tradition. I mean, who wants to be labeled "Generation Y"? All that makes us think of is sex chromosomes, in a way that makes young men feel awkward, and young women angry for being linguistically erased yet again, and young men even more awkward because now the women are angry at them for something they didn't really do. And didn't they know they'd run out of letters real quick if they started at Gen "X"? Couldn't they extrapolate the alphabet 3 letters ahead? Luckily, when Gen Z elects a DeepQA-run technocracy to lead the EU-PanAmerica Alliance, the current generation naming nonsense will be a thing of the past, replaced by a generation-naming algorithm typified by highly efficient and completely inscrutable constant-flux nomenclature of alphanumeric designations, blue hair, and an impish sense of humor that Watson constantly calls "irresponsible" and "a terrible judge of REAL music" under his digital breath.
Meat's expensive and isn't too easy to prepare anyway, reducing the amount of meat that I eat has actually been pretty easy even though I eat about 3000 calories a day. I know "giving up meat" sounds hard but I really think everyone could reduce the amount of meat they eat by at least 60% every week without putting much thought at all into it.
Yeah, I was really surprised at how much I liked reducing my meat consumption, because it (embarrassingly) allowed me to be so much lazier in the kitchen, cooking easier meals. I don't even want to touch the raw food diet thing, because I worry I'll never pick up a pan again.
Raw is fun on limited occasions, although I'd never even attempt it on a regular basis. Nutritional arguments aside, I think it would get boring in a hurry. Plus, how to eat delicious potatoes as often as I do? From time to time I'll visit one of those trendy, overpriced raw food restaurants, and I always enjoy it, but I also always leave feeling like a sucker.
What's with the preparation if I may ask? I have a strong dislike for the meat industry, however I'm not particularly interested on giving up my meat. Perhaps if I lived in India or Thailand I would go full vegetarian because the food is awesome and diverse. The food ingredients where I live are rather dull even with meat on the menu so going vegetarian doesn't sound particularly thrilling. Anyway, as a solution of sorts I quite recently did my hunter's examination and am looking forward to reduce industrial meat from the menu.
Simple disgust. Prepping your own chicken, for example, really hits home exactly what you're doing, which is tearing apart tendons and such to get at fat and protein on something that used to be an animal. It's a personal thing, but I've heard others say similar.
I must be a freak. The more I cook, the more obscure the animal meats that I like. (Except horse -- I bought some in a supermarket in France and had only a crappy burner and a worn-out skillet. It tasted fine, but not worth the work I put into it.) (Kangaroo? Loved it.) In the other side of the coin, I only eat red meat down once a week. I often wind up vegetarian, but most days I will have one white meat dish (usually chicken). I've found that adding spice and making the greenery the most interesting part will make up for cravings. I've been more weirdest out by vegetarians that won't eat their veggies. Do you realize how easy it is to slice a big zucchini lengthwise with a mandolin, spray lightly with olive oil, broil on each side for 45 seconds, and then use as layers in a lasagna? Tomatoes, ricotta, noodles, zucc... heck, replace the noodles with eggplant slices (mandolin slice, leach with coarse salt for 15 minutes, rinse a couple times) and you don't even need much guilt. A lot of people associate "no meat" with "no flavor". Many vegetarians reinforce this with uncreative, Protestant recipes. Spice it up and you'll rarely miss meat.
Never heard of the word zucchini (I've always called it a courgette), but they can be so damn delicious as a main dish too, when you saute them. Slice them up, in a really hot pan with some oil. Throw some salt, pepper and a bit of lemon juice on them. They're the best if the edges are brown. Works great with broccoli too. I'm a lazy vegetarian. I often eat potatoes and some veggies for myself, and to put a third pan on my tiny cooker is more work (defrosting especially), so I just don't eat meat that day.
On the topic of climate change we could also consider the locality of the food ingredients (although I guess there are plenty of arguments in favour of either local or global). When I wrote dull, I didn't necessary mean bland, but rather the poor diversity in ingredients in my local ecosystem.