Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumGreenhouse gas fear over increased levels of meat eating (BBC)
Global consumption of meat needs to fall - to ensure future demand for food can be met and to help protect the environment - a study says.Research from Cambridge and Aberdeen universities estimates greenhouse gases from food production will go up 80% if meat and dairy consumption continues to rise at its current rate.
That will make it harder to meet global targets on limiting emissions.
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"The average efficiency of livestock converting plant feed to meat is less than 3%, and as we eat more meat, more arable cultivation is turned over to producing feedstock for animals that provide meat for humans.
"The losses at each stage are large, and as humans globally eat more and more meat, conversion from plants to food becomes less and less efficient, driving agricultural expansion and releasing more greenhouse gases. Agricultural practices are not necessarily at fault here - but our choice of food is."
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more: http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-29007758
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)SUV anyone?
We just won't learn, will we?
DebJ
(7,699 posts)days, or minimalist consumers of meat.
I could see the increase in dairy though... getting protein from cheese instead of meat.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)That's where the increased demand is coming from, not the developed world.
DebJ
(7,699 posts)GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)DebJ
(7,699 posts)a particularly choice cut and I am ravenous, but that's about it.
Usually after two ounces my body says: ENOUGH. Quite loudly.
Sigh...unless it is bacon, bacon, bacon! LOL
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)We call it "meat candy"!
I'm in a narsty fix when it comes to diet. I'm perfectly aware of the environmental issues around meat, but I have metabolic syndrome that makes it dangerous for me to get many of my daily calories from starches. The gods have an evil sense of humour!
DebJ
(7,699 posts)On the other hand, an in law recently dropped dead at age 49 of a heart attack. He ate like a full pound of fat laden steak
for dinner. And he ate, and ate, and ate, into diabetes, and feet that turned solid black in a matter of hours, and still, he ate.
He was a very sweet and loving man. But he killed himself and he was killing the planet. It's THAT type of behavior that
ruins the environment.
Not you, sweetie!
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)Those animals are "meat candy"? Do you know how smart pigs are? Do you know what they're put through? just for some bald monkeys' momentary taste, or no no "mouth feel" right? lol
I see people still think cutting out most meat means eating lots of starches.
And if someone wants to eat meat three times a day they still do not have to eat pigs.
Oh but every single "environmentalist" at DU does the hunting themselves or buys straight from the farmer right? Right.
"meat" defenders are just like climate deniers.
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)- On one hand, I know that humans evolved as heterotrophic omnivores, and have eaten meat for our entire hominid history.
- On the other hand, I know that the human taste for meat is causing us to replace all the planet's wildlife (and more) with domesticated animals for human consumption. That is doing untold damage to the planet's biosphere.
- On the third hand, I know that animals are intelligent, sentient beings. As a Deep Ecologist I believe that they have intrinsic value beyond their simple utility as food sources.
- On the fourth hand, I know that my personal decisions make not a whit of difference to the planetary outcome, which is driven by the collective choices of 7.2 billion individuals - all of whom have the same evolutionary history as I do.
- On the fifth hand, I have metabolic syndrome that makes the consumption of grains as my primary caloric source personally dangerous.
- And on the sixth hand, I could use vegetable oils as a high-density calorie source, but most polyunsaturates pose CVD risks due to oxidation, and a diet based on coconut oil isn't sustainable for me.
I know you're adamantly on the other side of the fence. I wish I could be there too, but my experience with five years of strict vegetarianism has shown me that the result of that lifestyle, for me, would be disability and premature death.
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)nothing you say here has anything to do with "meat candy"
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)I've even eaten and enjoyed horse. Those are my preferences. I absolutely love the taste of bacon, and no amount of self-flagellation will change that.
When I die the worms will eat me.
Hakuna Matata - it's the circle of life.
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)but there's no use discussing this with any human at DU . "necessary evil" right? Can't just excuse the 4th smartest animal and fill in that meat-space with all the others.
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)again du is telling me I can only reply to myself. There's no use talking morals here anyway.. cognitive dissonance and yummy tastes and all
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)stuntcat
(12,022 posts)your health reasoning ("for years" even! ) is more reasonable than your funny "meat candy" .. even better than DU's proud "meat industry isn't bad for the planet" thread that you wrote. Why is it so far down the list of reasons?
And no, no one can decide anyone else's morality, but you also said "As a Deep Ecologist I believe that they have intrinsic value beyond their simple utility as food sources." Having to eat meat means you can't draw an easy little line at pigs?
Just because we've done it for our whole history does not mean we can't evolve. A change that big is the only hope we have. Or did have. I know there is no use now and we are fully completely screwed, but what if we did change in time? You'd still think that industry should keep going?
If morality is so relative then why protect the planet at all? Why bother learning about it?
GliderGuider
(21,088 posts)Last edited Fri Sep 19, 2014, 01:30 PM - Edit history (1)
I suppose I put health issues that far down my list because I really would much rather preserve the planet than eat it. I eat it because I have to. It's the way life works.
I don't think that people are intrinsically moral in any fundamental sense. IMO morality is mostly a self-justifying story we tell ourselves to make us feel better about what we're already doing. Morality tends to change with our physical circumstances, as anthropologist Marvin Harris has noted.
Just because we've done it for our whole history is precisely the reason we can't evolve our collective preferences willy-nilly. I agree with the evolutionary psychologists, that some universals (like a dietary preference for meat and animal fat) are indicators of underlying neurological structures that evolved over time in order to adapt our behaviour to an environment that we have now eradicated. This feature of our neuropsychology makes it very difficult to shift peoples' collective behavior through education. Individuals can manage it, but there is tremendous resistance when it comes to collective behavior, resistance that comes from our unconscious mental processes and the behavior patterns they produce.
We can't protect the planet. the planet doesn't need protecting, IMO. It is what it is, and will develop as it does, with us or without us. I see Homo sapiens as just another species, nothing special at all. However, that doesn't keep us from wanting to learn about it - even though since very ancient times we have learned about it mainly in order to control it better...