cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/11740609
Prof Mark Howden, the director of the Australian National University Institute for Climate, Energy and Disaster Solutions, said the sector’s net zero target is “effectively not possible”.
“It’s pretty well embedded in the public consciousness that red meat is high profile in terms of greenhouse gas emissions per serve,” Howden said.
“I suspect the industry saw this as a fundamental threat to their future … A few years ago everybody was kind of jumping on the net zero bandwagon without actually thinking through what it actually meant,” he said.
The CSIRO found the industry would fall short of meeting its net zero target, and instead recommended the adoption of a “climate-neutral” target that would require a reduction of methane emissions rather their complete elimination.
Can we blame them?
Yes.
Sure, but people still don’t stop buying. And money is all that matters. People could just stop, this is bullshit instead of shrugging
Maybe instead of blaming people for buying we should blame the companies for not doing better. After all it is the companies who are responsible for their own actions, regardless of who their customers are.
Both can and should be blamed. You can’t complain that what someone is doing is wrong and then keep supporting that wrong action when you don’t even have to.
Eating meat is 100% an optional and more expensive action that is demonstrably worse for the planet, even aside from ethical concerns, but which the majority of people keep consciously choosing to do even when made aware of the issues and presented with alternatives. Those people are just as responsible as the people actively doing the farming.
This wouldn’t even be considered a controversial statement if it wasn’t for the fact so many participate in it and want to keep making excuses. If a nation hired mercenaries to conduct military operations, you wouldn’t absolve that nation of guilt and say only the mercenaries are at fault, would you?
People could just stop what? Eating?
Buying meat? Is becoming vegetarian not more expensive in terms of time and money for someone who has a meat diet? Many people do not have the money or luxury to make such a change?
Expecting everyone to become vegetarian is unrealistic. If you’re buying meat and all companies you can choose to buy meat from are making the same carbon neutral “commitments”, it’s not like you can choose the company that will actually follow through.
But anyway, blaming people for the depravity of companies is also not going to fix anything.
A plant-based diet is by far the least expensive one on the planet
Sure, but to get to a plant-based diet that meets the dietary and taste needs to replace a meat-based diet, takes an initial investment of time that some people may not be able to spare.
I’m not saying a matching diet will be more expensive, but the cost (mainly time) of changing diets is an investment some may be unable to afford. If there was a lot of social support for the working poor to change diets, sure, but to say changing diets is something that won’t take more time because the buying of produce and active cooking takes the same time is misleading.
That is a good point. Hopefully governments around the world will help people transition at eventually. However, for now, it should point corporations and governments in the right direction. If people, that can spare that initial investment, stop their demand for animal exploitation.
I didn’t read that whole article, just what you linked and a bit further. I’m inclined to be suspicious of what is said based on this very badly researched section:
Those “barren wastelands” were not seen as such to the peoples who lived there for millennia. It’s really only those who adhere to the concept of full enclosure and maximum profit who see these regions as barren wastelands rather than productive, self-sustaining environments.
I don’t know about other regions, but a great many of the shops in the far north of Canada get their stock once a year during the ice-free season and by air, both horrifically expensive undertakings compared to stocking the shelves of a local supermarket in a major city farther south.
It’s true that there is little or nothing in the way of agriculture in the region, but that only means a carnivorous diet is literally the only affordable way to survive, internet or not.
I get that the real rant is logically only supportable in reference to large scale animal agriculture, but let’s not pretend that it’s possible to have an affordable, healthy, vegetarian diet without industrial plant agriculture and large scale transportation networks, possibly global in nature. Both come with a myriad of their own ethical and environmental problems.
Eating meat is 100% an optional and more expensive action that is demonstrably worse for the planet, even aside from ethical concerns, but which the majority of people keep consciously choosing to do even when made aware of the issues and presented with alternatives. Those people are just as responsible as the people actively doing the farming.
This wouldn’t even be considered a controversial statement if it wasn’t for the fact so many participate in it and want to keep making excuses. If a nation hired mercenaries to conduct military operations, you wouldn’t absolve that nation of guilt and say only the mercenaries are at fault, would you?
Is it 100% optional? Are there no dietary conditions that require eating meat? Even if it is optional, I only said that expecting everyone to change is unrealistic, not that it’s impossible.
How much do you expect people to sacrifice? If you give up eating meat can you fly to go on vacation? Or are people expected to give up everything in the name of the climate while billionaires jet around and corporations expell endless emissions?
Also, your comparison to mercenaries is bad. If military operations are required for survival (like eating) then why would the nation feel guilty? If the mercenaries say “yes we will only defend that military base and we will not kill everyone in the nearby school” and then they go and kill everyone in the school, why wouldn’t they be blamed for not following their orders?
What point are you trying to make here? It’s ok for people to support the meat industry because an incredibly small fraction of people need meat? How many people do you know that eat meat? And how many do you know actually need meat for medical reasons? And how many of those specifically require eating red meat, by far the worst offender, the most expensive, and still massively consumed?
“Guys, you don’t get it! Doing 100% is hard, so why can’t people just do 0%?!?” Also, you can criticize people for eating meat and still criticize billionaires on private jets; but nice whataboutism, I guess.
You don’t need to eat meat.
Pray tell, what is the meat industry equivalent of this? You can’t not worsen climate change with a meat industry. And before you argue “lab-meat”, 1) that also takes a lot of resources currently, and it hasn’t been massively adopted so ti’s not what people are eating, 2) you know whether you’re eating lab-meat. You can’t support the meat industry, which you know is responsible for climate change, and then pretend you don’t know the consequences. Stop.
But fine, you want another example, think of a hitman. “They only hired the hitman to kill people, they are not morally responsible for the hitman killing people”. Except in this case, the hitman is also raising his victims from the ground up and worsening climate change.
You know eating meat, and thereby funding the meat industry, is bad; stop wasting time trying to justify it to yourself and other people and engaging in some kind of double think, and start actually making change for the best.