Bye bye MEAT! How will the post-meat future look?

[Karl Masks]

I'd like to get people to think about ethics

Veganism is great in principle, but it just doesn't work for everyone. What then?

 

[Funky_monks]

Plant based diets often lead to nutrient deficiencies in women, whilst sometimes lowering risks from conditions that affect men more than women (eg heart disease), once again highlighting the inherent mysogyny of its fanatics:

Fallon, N. and Dillon, S.A., 2020. Low intakes of iodine and selenium amongst vegan and vegetarian women highlight a potential nutritional vulnerability. Frontiers in nutrition, 7, p.72.

Richter, M., Boeing, H., Grünewald-Funk, D., Heseker, H., Kroke, A., Leschik-Bonnet, E., Oberritter, H., Strohm, D. and Watzl, B., 2016. Vegan diet. Position of the German nutrition society (DGE). Ernahrungs umschau, 63(04), pp.92-102.

Bali, A. and Naik, R., 2023. The impact of a vegan diet on many aspects of health: the overlooked side of veganism. Cureus, 15(2).

Eveleigh, E.R., Coneyworth, L. and Welham, S.J., 2023. Systematic review and meta-analysis of iodine nutrition in modern vegan and vegetarian diets. British Journal of Nutrition, 130(9), pp.1580-1594.

Eveleigh, E., Coneyworth, L., Zhou, M., Burdett, H., Malla, J. and Welham, S., 2023. Vegans and vegetarians living in Nottingham (UK) continue to be at risk of iodine deficiency. British Journal of Nutrition, 129(9), pp.1510-1527.

 

[bcuster]

Veganism is great in principle, but it just doesn't work for everyone. What then?

Easy: eat less meat...

 

[Karl Masks]

Easy: eat less meat...

You would first have to establish how much is enough before telling people to eat less

 

[Saul Goodman]

You would first have to establish how much is enough before telling people to eat less

And how much they already eat. I think I already eat just the right amount, TBF.

 

[Karl Masks]

And how much they already eat. I think I already eat just the right amount, TBF.

I've no idea what the right amount is.

The right amount of processed meat is probably zero. But good quality fish, rich in essential fatty acids, very different for example

 

[Funky_monks]

I've no idea what the right amount is.

The right amount of processed meat is probably zero. But good quality fish, rich in essential fatty acids, very different for example

We had this right back when I first started posting on this thread.

Editor was trying to pin me down to a (n over simplistic) yes/no answer to "should we eat less meat?"

It doesn't have a yes/no answer:
Who is "we"? Men? Women? People in the West? The developing world?
Less of what meat? Compared to what?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

We had this right back when I first started posting on this thread.

Editor was trying to pin me down to a (n over simplistic) yes/no answer to "should we eat less meat?"

It doesn't have a yes/no answer:
Who is "we"? Men? Women? People in the West? The developing world?
Less of what meat? Compared to what?

Yeah he tried to do that with me, too. As you say, it doesn't have a yes/no answer. In Africa as a whole, 9.6 kg of meat are eaten per person per year on average. That hides a big disparity between regions and income groups - a great many people in Africa eat very very little meat due to poverty. They could do with eating more meat, not less. Smallholder poultry farmers constitute the majority of meat producers in many parts of Africa. Given the valuable nutrition that meat provides, those smallholders could do with support.

As a point of reference, on average, people in Europe eat 1.5 kg of meat per week. In China, meat consumption - mostly pork - has grown hugely in the last few decades to close to European levels. Until very recently, most of those pigs were raised by smallholders. Again, in China, they face challenges and being squeezed out by industrial farmers. Large pig farmers supply over half of the pork in China as of a couple of years ago.

There is a theme here. Exactly the same things can also be said about the rich world. Small farmers need support but are being squeezed out. That's bad for everyone except the few big farmers. Bad for the environment, bad for the animals, bad for food quality and food security. Some posters here seem not to even recognise that smallholders have been the dominant providers of meat in large parts of the world. Supporting them is an anathema because they won't support any animal farming.

 

[Funky_monks]

There is a theme here. Exactly the same things can also be said about the rich world. Small farmers need support but are being squeezed out. That's bad for everyone except the few big farmers. Bad for the environment, bad for the animals, bad for food quality and food security. Some posters here seem not to even recognise that smallholders have been the dominant providers of meat in large parts of the world. Supporting them is an anathema because they won't support any animal farming.

It's a point I've made over and over "Teh MeAt IndUstReeZ" is the most diverse industry going, from tiny "backyard" producers to Cargill, the biggest company on the planet.

I'll say it again: There should be more farmers, not less.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Biggest private company on the planet. But yes, and of course, as we've covered, those huge multinationals both run some of the worst animal farming practices on the planet and invest heavily in vegan meat substitutes. They're part of the problem, not the solution.

 

[Funky_monks]

Biggest private company on the planet. But yes, and of course, as we've covered, those huge multinationals both run some of the worst animal farming practices on the planet and invest heavily in vegan meat substitutes. They're part of the problem, not the solution.

Yup - in the UK they own Avara, for example.

Mad that this needs pointing out on a "left wing" bulletin board.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Yup - in the UK they own Avara, for example.

Mad that this needs pointing out on a "left wing" bulletin board.

tbf companies like Cargill are very careful to cultivate their anonymity. And very successful at it, it appears. It's interesting that, across sectors, some of the very biggest companies of all are far from household names. They don't want people to know that they control so much of what we consume. And they will routinely control companies that are, on the face of it, on opposing sides. Meat Is Evil proclaims one arm; cheap chicken nuggets anyone? asks another.

 

[bcuster]

Taking from nature until the supply is gone

Wriggling gold: Fishermen who catch baby eels for $2,000 a pound hope for many years of fishing

Baby eels, also called elvers, are likely the most valuable fish in the United States on a per-pound basis - worth orders of magnitude more money at the docks than lobsters, scallops or salmon.

apnews.com

 

[Jeff Robinson]

"Speciesism" is such anthropomorphic bullshit, you'd have to have no understanding of biology in general to even consider it.

You’d have to have no understanding of philosophy to write something like that.

Plant based diets often lead to nutrient deficiencies in women, whilst sometimes lowering risks from conditions that affect men more than women (eg heart disease), once again highlighting the inherent mysogyny of its fanatics:

Batshit even by your standards. It’s your lot who exploit female animals as breeding and lactation machines. And have you ever wondered why large swathes of the contemporary alt right and ‘manosphere’ are so pro-meat and anti-vegan? Anyone who isn’t entirely delusional knows the links between meat and contemporary toxic masculinity are a lot stronger than they are to veganism.

It's a point I've made over and over "Teh MeAt IndUstReeZ" is the most diverse industry going, from tiny "backyard" producers to Cargill, the biggest company on the planet.

I'll say it again: There should be more farmers, not less.

A diverse bunch of kidnappers, throat-slitters, baby killers, pig gassers, chick grinders and animal abusers, some of whom operate small farms. Yay.

 

[Funky_monks]

You’d have to have no understanding of philosophy to write something like that.



Batshit even by your standards. It’s your lot who exploit female animals as breeding and lactation machines. And have you ever wondered why large swathes of the contemporary alt right and ‘manosphere’ are so pro-meat and anti-vegan? Anyone who isn’t entirely delusional knows the links between meat and contemporary toxic masculinity are a lot stronger than they are to veganism.



A diverse bunch of kidnappers, throat-slitters, baby killers, pig gassers, chick grinders and animal abusers, some of whom operate small farms. Yay.

Speciesism is the kind of philosophy that can only come from a post industrial, modern society where people can be utterly removed from the natural world if they so choose.

I see you're doubling, no tripling down on your misogynistic tropes about breeding animals again - when will you give it up? Do you really hate human women so much?
Who gives a shit what the manosphere thinks? At least, I suppose they are openly misogynistic unlike you who hides it behind your veganism.

You also appear to have no scientific comeback to the common mineral deficiencies observed in vegan women.

 

[Funky_monks]

This is the sort of thing nutritional scientists are facing - I see Harvard do not come out of this well. This kind of explains that crappy piece of research that Jeff posted up abut the survey they did of their mates which they then used to make recommendations......

 

[Saul Goodman]

This is the sort of thing nutritional scientists are facing - I see Harvard do not come out of this well. This kind of explains that crappy piece of research that Jeff posted up abut the survey they did of their mates which they then used to make recommendations......

It's almost as if you can't trust the findings of someone who's paid by the very people who stand to benefit financially from those findings.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

You’d have to have no understanding of philosophy to write something like that.

It’s your lot who exploit female animals as breeding and lactation machines.

This in a nutshell is the problem with your philosophy. You try to establish moral equivalence between humans and other animals. But it doesn't work.

For something like speciesism to exist, you have to treat animals as if they had moral equivalency in order to make something that is analogous to, say, racism between human groups. There's a whole list of things that are wrong with that. First up, I assume you are not including all animals in your list of moral equivalents. Malaria-bearing female mosquitoes aren't being wronged, I assume, by human attempts to kill them. So you're selecting some animals and excluding others. You're creating a moral hierarchy somewhere. But even that can't work. We have established moral norms that say that it is unacceptable to kill other humans just because they're in your way or they are consuming something you want to consume. But that's exactly what is being done when rats or rabbits or other pest animals are killed on farms growing crops. The alternative is to give the rats and rabbits free rein and lose your harvest (and spread diseases). I assume you're not advocating that. It's a non-starter.

So it's not possible even to create a hierarchy of animals based on some sense of sentience or whatever. For example, you can't say 'never kill mammals'. Doesn't work. If those mammals are in your way and consuming something you want to consume, you have no choice but to get rid of them. For us to exist in the world, someone has to do some killing of animals, including fluffy mammals. It's naive in the extreme to think otherwise.

The reason I've called you a fundamentalist in the past is because of exactly this kind of thinking. You seem to think there are moral absolutes out there waiting to be found and then lived by. But when it comes to other animals, there aren't. It's hard enough to produce moral absolutes for humans dealing with other humans. Impossible to extend those to other animals except in a very limited way. That doesn't mean I think there is therefore a free-for-all in our treatment of other animals. But it's not an issue that can be dealt with using the same moral framework as the one we might seek to use for each other.

A vein of misanthropy runs through the thinking behind things like speciesism. Informed by self-loathing because humans aren't ruminants that can spend their days in fields peacefully munching on grass. Even that image is romanticism, of course. In reality, there are scarcely any herbivorous animals out there living beyond human protection that don't experience a daily threat from predators or conspecifics. Life isn't idyllic anywhere for anyone or anything.

 

[Karl Masks]

This is the sort of thing nutritional scientists are facing - I see Harvard do not come out of this well. This kind of explains that crappy piece of research that Jeff posted up abut the survey they did of their mates which they then used to make recommendations......

Nutrition science is a massive fucking minefield. I have no idea how to navigate between the likes of Dr Greger, who seems genuine, people like Professor Chris Gardner, The ZOE people, and the cranks at either extreme, be they vegans or lunatics who only eat meat and listen to Jordan Petersen

 

[Funky_monks]

Nutrition science is a massive fucking minefield. I have no idea how to navigate between the likes of Dr Greger, who seems genuine, people like Professor Chris Gardner, The ZOE people, and the cranks at either extreme, be they vegans or lunatics who only eat meat and listen to Jordan Petersen

As the paper says, its really quite difficult to conduct meaningful nutritional science, it often relies on epidemiological studies because its very hard to get people to volunteer for clinical trials for any length of time, and there will be many confounding factors, because the idea that vege diets are more healthy, many people adopt them for health reasons. Those people are less likely to smoke, to drink to excess, do regular exercise etc etc how do you disentangle those factors influencing markers of health? On the flip side, it is reasonably straightforward to ascertain deficiencies in certain populations - although attributing significance to those might be somewhat more complex.

I think, by contrast the highly processed food stuff (which is what this thread was about) has quite compelling evidence that it is harmful, logic says that humans are unused to consuming these types of food and so it would be sensible to apply a precautionary principle, ie not eat very much of it.

I think the carnivore types are just as bonkers as the vegans - again, whilst there is compelling evidence that humans were apex predators and hunted large herbivores, it would be bonkers to assume that they haven't been eating significant amounts of plant material - particularly high energy roots and tubers (which don't survive well in preserved bodies). I can remember seeing a really interesting programme with Ray Mears and some kind of ethnobotanist bloke, who pointed out things like the fact that the flag iris has a highly edible, big tuber. Flag Irises are everywhere along waterways in Europe - I can't imagine pre-agrarian Europeans didn't know that there was a readily available, highly digestible energy source there.

 

[bcuster]

This in a nutshell is the problem with your philosophy. You try to establish moral equivalence between humans and other animals. But it doesn't work.

For something like speciesism to exist, you have to treat animals as if they had moral equivalency in order to make something that is analogous to, say, racism between human groups. There's a whole list of things that are wrong with that. First up, I assume you are not including all animals in your list of moral equivalents. Malaria-bearing female mosquitoes aren't being wronged, I assume, by human attempts to kill them. So you're selecting some animals and excluding others. You're creating a moral hierarchy somewhere. But even that can't work. We have established moral norms that say that it is unacceptable to kill other humans just because they're in your way or they are consuming something you want to consume. But that's exactly what is being done when rats or rabbits or other pest animals are killed on farms growing crops. The alternative is to give the rats and rabbits free rein and lose your harvest (and spread diseases). I assume you're not advocating that. It's a non-starter.

So it's not possible even to create a hierarchy of animals based on some sense of sentience or whatever. For example, you can't say 'never kill mammals'. Doesn't work. If those mammals are in your way and consuming something you want to consume, you have no choice but to get rid of them. For us to exist in the world, someone has to do some killing of animals, including fluffy mammals. It's naive in the extreme to think otherwise.

The reason I've called you a fundamentalist in the past is because of exactly this kind of thinking. You seem to think there are moral absolutes out there waiting to be found and then lived by. But when it comes to other animals, there aren't. It's hard enough to produce moral absolutes for humans dealing with other humans. Impossible to extend those to other animals except in a very limited way. That doesn't mean I think there is therefore a free-for-all in our treatment of other animals. But it's not an issue that can be dealt with using the same moral framework as the one we might seek to use for each other.

A vein of misanthropy runs through the thinking behind things like speciesism. Informed by self-loathing because humans aren't ruminants that can spend their days in fields peacefully munching on grass. Even that image is romanticism, of course. In reality, there are scarcely any herbivorous animals out there living beyond human protection that don't experience a daily threat from predators or conspecifics. Life isn't idyllic anywhere for anyone or anything.

We never invited rats or rabbits into the human community to coexist with us. The animals we did are the ones we owe a moral duty of humane, cruelty free treatment to

 

[Saul Goodman]

We never invited rats or rabbits into the human community to coexist with us.

Some say that Rabbits were brought to the UK by the Romans, whilst others say it was the Normans, perhaps they both did, as they do originate from South Western Europe.
The Normans kept rabbits like other forms of livestock, as a source of food and fur.

History of the european rabbit, its journey , the damage and survival

The European rabbit is one of the top ten invasive species in the world and has caused problems to each country it has been introduced to

www.evergreenrabbitcontrol.co.uk

 

[Jeff Robinson]

This in a nutshell is the problem with your philosophy. You try to establish moral equivalence between humans and other animals. But it doesn't work.

For something like speciesism to exist, you have to treat animals as if they had moral equivalency in order to make something that is analogous to, say, racism between human groups. There's a whole list of things that are wrong with that. First up, I assume you are not including all animals in your list of moral equivalents. Malaria-bearing female mosquitoes aren't being wronged, I assume, by human attempts to kill them. So you're selecting some animals and excluding others. You're creating a moral hierarchy somewhere. But even that can't work. We have established moral norms that say that it is unacceptable to kill other humans just because they're in your way or they are consuming something you want to consume. But that's exactly what is being done when rats or rabbits or other pest animals are killed on farms growing crops. The alternative is to give the rats and rabbits free rein and lose your harvest (and spread diseases). I assume you're not advocating that. It's a non-starter.

So it's not possible even to create a hierarchy of animals based on some sense of sentience or whatever. For example, you can't say 'never kill mammals'. Doesn't work. If those mammals are in your way and consuming something you want to consume, you have no choice but to get rid of them. For us to exist in the world, someone has to do some killing of animals, including fluffy mammals. It's naive in the extreme to think otherwise.

The reason I've called you a fundamentalist in the past is because of exactly this kind of thinking. You seem to think there are moral absolutes out there waiting to be found and then lived by. But when it comes to other animals, there aren't. It's hard enough to produce moral absolutes for humans dealing with other humans. Impossible to extend those to other animals except in a very limited way. That doesn't mean I think there is therefore a free-for-all in our treatment of other animals. But it's not an issue that can be dealt with using the same moral framework as the one we might seek to use for each other.

A vein of misanthropy runs through the thinking behind things like speciesism. Informed by self-loathing because humans aren't ruminants that can spend their days in fields peacefully munching on grass. Even that image is romanticism, of course. In reality, there are scarcely any herbivorous animals out there living beyond human protection that don't experience a daily threat from predators or conspecifics. Life isn't idyllic anywhere for anyone or anything.

Perhaps it would be useful for me to explain what I mean by speciesism. To be a speciesist means to give less weight or consideration to the interests of a being simply in virtue of their species membership. A simple example is this: thinking the pain experienced by a pig matters less than the same level of pain experience by a dog (all else equal). The anti-speciesist thinks that we have an equally strong obligation to avoid inflicting suffering to both. But this does not entail that we have to treat all sentient beings the same. There has to be equivalent level of interest between two beings for them to be owed comparatively strong duties (my additional view that animals have moral rights complicates this a bit, but I can set that aside for now as you are challenging the anti-speciesist side of my view here, not the rights-side of it). There's at least a plausible case that most humans have a stronger interest in continued living than animals like rats and rabbits (and that the death of a human is more tragic for those they leave behind than the deaths of rabbits and rats are), so it would not inconsistent with being an anti-speciesist to think that the death of a human is, all else equal, worse than the death of a rabbit or a rat and that we have reason to take more steps to avoid the deaths of humans.

With that said, your crops example in my view shows that the types of obligations we owe to humans and other animals are closer than you think. You write that 'We have established moral norms that say that it is unacceptable to kill other humans just because they're in your way or they are consuming something you want to consume'. I think that depends on the details. In times of extreme scarcity - where there is not enough food to go around - it may be permissible to kill humans who are trying to consume crops you've grown if that were necessary to avoid starvation. By contrast, if I'm eating a bag of chips on the beach and a seagull tries to steal them, I don't think I'm entitled to kill the seagull. If not killing field animals means, in your words, 'los(ing) your harvest (and spreading diseases') then there are weighty reasons at least in favour of killing, not dissimilar to the extreme scarcity senario sketched above. In all of these cases we need to be clear about the competing strength of interests at stake. The anti-speciesist calls only for the fair weighting of all interests, no more and no less.

Once more fully sketched out, you'll see that the anti-speciesism I defend is far from 'fundamentalist'. It's consistent and principled but also highly fact-sensitive in its application. Your approach, as far I can tell, has none of the virtues: a vague, ad-hoc, hodge-podge of intuitions that seem, at best, to be self-serving rationalisations for slight modulations on the status quo.

In any event, I'm really not that bothered if people accept or reject my anti-speciesism. If you don't think human and nonhuman animals are moral equals, fine. As the vegan adage goes: we don't need you to agree that animals matter as much as you, just that they matter more than your taste buds. That's my only real vegan beef with people like you LBJ, your massively inflated sense of entitlement to the bodies and bodily secretions of other sentient beings, no matter what the cost. You're fine to have male chicks thrown into grinding machines so you can eat an omlette. You are happy for dairy cows to undergo a whole life of torment so you can eat brie. You're happy to send cows and pigs and lambs to die terrifying deaths in industrial slaughterhouses so you can devour their body parts. Maybe you want to reflect on whether the extreme speciesism needed to sustain your own beliefs can be justified?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Perhaps it would be useful for me to explain what I mean by speciesism. To be a speciesist means to give less weight or consideration to the interests of a being simply in virtue of their species membership. A simple example is this: thinking the pain experienced by a pig matters less than the same level of pain experience by a dog (all else equal). The anti-speciesist thinks that we have an equally strong obligation to avoid inflicting suffering to both. But this does not entail that we have to treat all sentient beings the same. There has to be equivalent level of interest between two beings for them to be owed comparatively strong duties (my additional view that animals have moral rights complicates this a bit, but I can set that aside for now as you are challenging the anti-speciesist side of my view here, not the rights-side of it). There's at least a plausible case that most humans have a stronger interest in continued living than animals like rats and rabbits (and that the death of a human is more tragic for those they leave behind than the deaths of rabbits and rats are), so it would not inconsistent with being an anti-speciesist to think that the death of a human is, all else equal, worse than the death of a rabbit or a rat and that we have reason to take more steps to avoid the deaths of humans.

With that said, your crops example in my view shows that the types of obligations we owe to humans and other animals are closer than you think. You write that 'We have established moral norms that say that it is unacceptable to kill other humans just because they're in your way or they are consuming something you want to consume'. I think that depends on the details. In times of extreme scarcity - where there is not enough food to go around - it may be permissible to kill humans who are trying to consume crops you've grown if that were necessary to avoid starvation. By contrast, if I'm eating a bag of chips on the beach and a seagull tries to steal them, I don't think I'm entitled to kill the seagull. If not killing field animals means, in your words, 'los(ing) your harvest (and spreading diseases') then there are weighty reasons at least in favour of killing, not dissimilar to the extreme scarcity senario sketched above. In all of these cases we need to be clear about the competing strength of interests at stake. The anti-speciesist calls only for the fair weighting of all interests, no more and no less.

Once more fully sketched out, you'll see that the anti-speciesism I defend is far from 'fundamentalist'. It's consistent and principled but also highly fact-sensitive in its application. Your approach, as far

I'm not really sure what it could mean for a human to have a stronger interest in continued living than animals like rats and rabbits. That you're causing more grief by killing humans than by killing rats, I get, but not the 'interest'. All living things have an interest in staying alive.

By your definition of speciesist - to give less weight or consideration to the interests of a being simply in virtue of their species membership - I'm speciesist. I prioritise human wellbeing. I would prioritise the wellbeing of a dog over that of an insect. And I think you have to stretch the limits of your argument in order to say that you're not. You think the ideas I sketch out are 'a vague, ad-hoc, hodge-podge of intuitions' that are self-serving. But being vague and hodge-potch isn't necessarily a vice if you're aware that your ideas aren't watertight or entirely bulletproof. The real danger comes when you think your ideas are bulletproof. That's what I see in your arguments. You don't conceal your contempt for anyone who doesn't understand as you understand it that not being vegan is morally wrong. That's the fundamentalism. This position is correct, anything else is utterly wrong.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

As the vegan adage goes: we don't need you to agree that animals matter as much as you, just that they matter more than your taste buds. That's my only real vegan beef with people like you LBJ, your massively inflated sense of entitlement to the bodies and bodily secretions of other sentient beings, no matter what the cost. You're fine to have male chicks thrown into grinding machines so you can eat an omlette. You are happy for dairy cows to undergo a whole life of torment so you can eat brie. You're happy to send cows and pigs and lambs to die terrifying deaths in industrial slaughterhouses so you can devour their body parts. Maybe you want to reflect on whether the extreme speciesism needed to sustain your own beliefs can be justified?

As for this bit, it's an idiotic caricature and not reflective of anything I've said on this thread.

Because of your fundamentalism, you can't make common cause with any non-vegan who seeks to improve farming.

 

[editor]

The meat industry is doing its best to replicate the filthy tobacco industry:

The world’s largest meat producer is being sued by the state of New York for “greenwashing” its business practices.

New York’s attorney-general, Letitia James, filed the lawsuit against Brazilian meat giant JBS in February. James says JBS must be held accountable for “misleading consumers and endangering the planet.”

New York State Sues Meat Giant JBS Over 'Greenwashing' Claims

JBS has said it will become net-zero by 2040, but the New York attorney-general says it's misleading consumers

plantbasednews.org

Elsewhere:

The omission of meat-eating reduction from proposals in a UN roadmap to tackle the climate crisis and end hunger is “bewildering”, according to academic experts.

The group also criticised the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s report for “dismissing” the potential of alternative proteins, such as plant-based meat, to reduce the impact of livestock on the environment.

In a commentary published in the journal Nature Food, experts said the FAO’s failure to include a methodology on how the 120 actions it did support were chosen, or a list of authors, was “concerning and surprising”.

‘Bewildering’ to omit meat-eating reduction from UN climate plan

Academic experts also criticise UN Food and Agriculture Organization for dismissing alternative proteins

www.theguardian.com

Billion-dollar financing is driving unsustainable increases in global meat and dairy production, a report has found.

Global meat production rose 9% between 2015 and 2021, the report said, while dairy production increased 13% in that time.

Over almost the same time period, 2015 to 2022, financiers provided the world’s top 55 industrial livestock companies with average annual credit injections of $77bn (£60bn), and some appeared to compromise their own anti-deforestation policies to do so, according to the report.

Credit, the report said, “is designed to help companies expand … and has helped drive a huge and unsustainable increase in global meat and dairy production”.

Martin Bowman, policy and campaigns manager for Feedback, the UK-based campaign group that produced the report, said: “We’re calling for financial institutions to defund industrial livestock companies as soon as possible.”

Banks driving increase in global meat and dairy production, report finds

Financiers providing billion-dollar support for industrial livestock companies to expand leading to unsustainable rise in production

www.theguardian.com

 

[Funky_monks]

Imagine having the utter lack of awareness of food production and land management to post the above without realising that it is basically farming and forestry that are supposed to be providing the "offsets" to make greenwashing possible (farmers seem not to be that happy about it as most seem to consider their job to be producing food).

All industries (certainly within Europe) are supposed to consider their "scope 3" emissions, ie emissions in the supply chain and therefore will either pay (or force - in the case of the now dead Red Tractor "greener farms commitment) farmers to do their sequestration and or natural capital/habitat creation for them and ruminant farmers are often best placed to do that....

 

[Saul Goodman]

The good thing about carbon emissions from cattle farts is they can be offset elsewhere. Nitrates from chemical fertilisers, on the other hand, can't be offset. They're polluting the rivers and killing everything, and the more people turn vege, the worse it's going to get.

 

[bcuster]

As for this bit, it's an idiotic caricature and not reflective of anything I've said on this thread.

Because of your fundamentalism, you can't make common cause with any non-vegan who seeks to improve farming.

I believe its better to be merciful, kind & humane to some animals, rather than none
objective human standards can be applied

 

[Saul Goodman]

I believe its better to be merciful, kind & humane to some animals, rather than none
objective human standards can be applied

Me too. I love cats and dogs, and multitudes of other creatures, so I'd say you're confused in your thinking that meat eaters are somehow animal haters.