Meat eaters are destroying the planet, warns WWF report

[Poot]

There are also issues about the best types of trees to plant and where. There was some discussion about it when Ethiopia planted a stupid amount of trees in an afternoon or whatever. There were also a few pieces in New Scientist that when it came to emissions planting trees could often be worse than the grass etc that was there before. Whether this changed in the long term with growth and if this would eventually cancel out over a long period I'm not sure.

...Not to mention not checking what sort of infrastructure was underground. Water mains and sewers really, really don't like tree roots.

 

[Poot]

Also there are a number of farmers locally who use human slurry on non-salad crops, or at least there were fairly recently. Which is another (slightly stomach-churning) solution.

 

[Funky_monks]

Also there are a number of farmers locally who use human slurry on non-salad crops, or at least there were fairly recently. Which is another (slightly stomach-churning) solution.

Croppable land in the UK is about 4.9 million hectares.
Total agricultural land is 9.34 hectares.
What are we going to do with the remaining 4.4 million hectares?

Edited to add that human slurry can and should be used as fertiliser, we made it, we need to return nutrients we've removed from the soil.

 

[Poot]

Croppable land in the UK is about 4.9 million hectares.
Total agricultural land is 9.34 hectares.
What are we going to do with the remaining 4.4 million hectares?

If I knew the answer to that I definitely wouldn't be faffing about commenting on an urban-based forum. Would you?

 

[Larry Noppius]

That doesn't deal with the ecological issues though does it? You could reduce waste and improve distribution to feed everyone and still have many of the environmental impacts including high though reduced greenhouse gas emissions. Is it possible to feed everyone and reduce environmental impacts without changing production far more than just reducing waste? Could a change of what people consume be a part of this? There are also issues around top soil and fertility. Capitalist agriculture has done massive damage. Dealing with that legacy will require major changes in production. A move away from that agriculture and its environmental impact while not reducing yields by more than that wasted surplus third could be a challenge.

Sure, but in order to come up with solutions we first have to properly analyze the problem. And an analysis based on a notion of overconsumption - let alone overpopulation - just ain't cutting it here.

 

[Larry Noppius]

I've been thinking about this thread and how all the other threads about doing things for the environment don't get such an emotional response.

Everyone knows that you're supposed to try not to fly or to drive a massive gas guzzler or buy shit loads of clothes and that's fine, but the minute anyone mentions meat and dairy consumption, people are lining up to tell you why it's not true or - better yet - to tell you why it doesn't apply to them. You don't really get that on the other environmental threads.

And then they try to 'other' the people who are trying to do their bit by calling them all sorts of nicknames. 'They eat mostly vegetables. They're not like me.'

I suppose I can understand the emotional response, some people really like meat, I get it. But the easiest way to influence what is grown in the fields, what the BPS applies to, for example, is to eat less meat and dairy - any kind of meat and dairy - so that farmers are encouraged to grow other crops (and yes, I am aware of the Welsh hill farmer argument, thank you, but it only applies to a very small amount of actual grazed land).

I can't speak for others, but I do in fact argue on essentially the same grounds against individual-consumerist based politics regarding other things - including those other examples you give on environmentalism. And not just environmentalism, for example when there was that whole discussion about AirBnB's in Exarchia and how to respond to it, there were many people suggesting actions against the tourists. I also argued against that, saying that we should go after the landlords and not the tourists. Go after the ruling classes and not after your own class.

 

[WouldBe]

Also there are a number of farmers locally who use human slurry on non-salad crops, or at least there were fairly recently. Which is another (slightly stomach-churning) solution.

You used to be able to get sterilised manure from sewage works.

 

[peterkro]

Croppable land in the UK is about 4.9 million hectares.
Total agricultural land is 9.34 hectares.
What are we going to do with the remaining 4.4 million hectares?

Edited to add that human slurry can and should be used as fertiliser, we made it, we need to return nutrients we've removed from the soil.

Aforrestation, biomass fuel crops and with technology push to open up uses of land the possibilities are many.

 

[Larry Noppius]

Whereas encouraging people to eat less meat is a fucking great idea on multiple levels.

Is that so? You know what would be fucking great idea? Encouraging people to produce less meat. Convincing one factory farm owner to close their business and invest their capital in something else instead is the equivalent of convincing thousands to hundreds of thousands of consumers to eat less meat. We're always told about how the individual consumer has a free choice about what they consume but the same is true for the producers, they are just as well individuals making free choices. But that latter point is never made, is it? In the ideology of consumerist-based politics the producers are presented as if they are just helplessly responding to consumer demand without agency of their own, agency is only ascribed to the consumer. Essentially that is blaming the choices of the ruling class on the working class. I'm seeing no radical, let alone revolutionary, politics in consumerist activism at all - it just seems liberalism to me.

 

[Funky_monks]

Aforrestation, biomass fuel crops and with technology push to open up uses of land the possibilities are many.

And given that the population continues to increase and needs to be fed?
How would you make up the shortfall in nutrition currently produced using animals on nearly half the available agricultural land in the UK?

There's already masses of biomass grown to be fed into anaerobic digesters (usually maize) in the UK, taking up land that would otherwise be used to produce food.

Also, in order for these new forests to actually sequester the carbon, youd need to bury the timber, because as soon as you use it or it breaks down on the surface, the carbon it sequesters is back in the atmosphere.

Europe is becoming very good at reducing food based emissions, but sadly, a lot of this involves exporting food production abroad.

Why should the third world produce our food so we can feel smug about our environmental record? Especially when our own landmass is both resilient and incredibly fertile?

 

[Funky_monks]

In short;
In Europe, agriculture produces just 10% of ghg emissions, of which livestock production is responsible for 4.9% and cropping 5.1%
(Not including the carbon sequestered by ag land - but you have to read the small print to find that out).
The real issue is, and continues to be, taking carbon sequestered millions of years ago and releasing it into the atmosphere.

 

[two sheds]

Is that so? You know what would be fucking great idea? Encouraging people to produce less meat. Convincing one factory farm owner to close their business and invest their capital in something else instead is the equivalent of convincing thousands to hundreds of thousands of consumers to eat less meat.

Although that will mean that prices will go up, so poorer people will be less able to afford it.

 

[Larry Noppius]

Although that will mean that prices will go up, so poorer people will be less able to afford it.

If the alternative is to encourage those people to choose not to eat meat even if they can afford it, then what difference does it make? Either they listen to your encouragement, in which case they end up without meat anyway, or they don't, in which case the only effect of your encouragement is making yourself feel good about it. And of course, under capitalism there is no convincing capitalists to not pour capital into profitable businesses, the whole system is predicated on exactly that: capital accumulation without regards as to the environmental and social consequences. The only way they'd be convinced to do otherwise is by expropriating them, changing the economic system itself to something which isn't predicated on a profit motive. In which case it doesn't necessarily follow that prices will go up and poorer people less able to afford it. I suppose in a communist society meat will be rationed and distributed equally, with consideration for things like medical needs.

The main point though is whether the politics we adopt today get us closer to this systemic change away from capitalism or lock us even tighter within a capitalist framework. Consumerist-based politics does the latter, not the former.

 

[Funky_monks]

If the alternative is to encourage those people to choose not to eat meat even if they can afford it, then what difference does it make? Either they listen to your encouragement, in which case they end up without meat anyway, or they don't, in which case the only effect of your encouragement is making yourself feel good about it. And of course, under capitalism there is no convincing capitalists to not pour capital into profitable businesses, the whole system is predicated on exactly that: capital accumulation without regards as to the environmental and social consequences. The only way they'd be convinced to do otherwise is by expropriating them, changing the economic system itself to something which isn't predicated on a profit motive. In which case it doesn't necessarily follow that prices will go up and poorer people less able to afford it. I suppose in a communist society meat will be rationed and distributed equally, with consideration for things like medical needs.

The main point though is whether the politics we adopt today get us closer to this systemic change away from capitalism or lock us even tighter within a capitalist framework. Consumerist-based politics does the latter, not the former.

It really doesn't matter what political system you have in place, people need feeding and agriculture needs managing in order to do so and conserve the environment.

Buying less meat won't necessarily achieve that, buying no meat from south America and not importing soy, both for human consumption and it's by products for animal fodder might.

 

[WouldBe]

Why should the third world produce our food so we can feel smug about our environmental record? Especially when our own landmass is both resilient and incredibly fertile?

Not to mention taking food out of their mouths.

 

[WouldBe]

In short;
In Europe, agriculture produces just 10% of ghg emissions, of which livestock production is responsible for 4.9% and cropping 5.1%

So producing meat produces less GHG than producing crops. Looks like we need to eat more meat then.

 

[editor]

So producing meat produces less GHG than producing crops. Looks like we need to eat more meat then.

You can't be this thick, can you? The science is pretty straightforward on the devastating impact of intensive meat diets, and at no point has any scientist anywhere concluded that the answer is to eat yet more meat.

 

[Poot]

So producing meat produces less GHG than producing crops. Looks like we need to eat more meat then.

Large quantities of those crops feed livestock.

How much of the world's cropland is actually used to grow food?

This is all a bit ingenuous.

 

[ddraig]

You can't be this thick, can you? The science is pretty straightforward on the devastating impact of intensive meat diets, and at no point has any scientist anywhere concluded that the answer is to eat yet more meat.

yes, yes they can sadly

 

[ddraig]

Large quantities of those crops feed livestock.

How much of the world's cropland is actually used to grow food?

This is all a bit ingenuous.

coming round here with your sensible posts!! don't you know this thread must be piled on, ridiculed and silenced

 

[Spymaster]

coming round here with your sensible posts!! don't you know this thread must be piled on, ridiculed and silenced

Except nobody at all has piled onto Poot because unlike you, she's engaging perfectly sensibly and reasonably and along with one or two others created pretty much the only decent discourse on this thread since the OP. So do us all a favour and stay off it with your usual snidey sniping, eh?

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Croppable land in the UK is about 4.9 million hectares.
Total agricultural land is 9.34 hectares.
What are we going to do with the remaining 4.4 million hectares?

Edited to add that human slurry can and should be used as fertiliser, we made it, we need to return nutrients we've removed from the soil.

There are other questions there. For instance, should we do anything with it? Should we be aiming to farm every bit of land that can be farmed?

While I agree with the broad thrust that land needs to be used smartly everywhere in order to continue to feed the world's population and further drive down malnutrition (it's not all bad news on this front - the number of well-nourished people in the world is at a record high right now), there is also a harder question to do with how much land, if any, we should be leaving alone. Not just for carbon emissions purposes, but simply for its own sake, and also for the more utilitarian but related issue to do with maintaining a healthy biodiversity.

 

[NoXion]

It really doesn't matter what political system you have in place, people need feeding and agriculture needs managing in order to do so and conserve the environment.

Buying less meat won't necessarily achieve that, buying no meat from south America and not importing soy, both for human consumption and it's by products for animal fodder might.

A complete ban on importing Brazilian beef and soy is definitely something I could get behind. It won't solve everything but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

 

[Larry Noppius]

It really doesn't matter what political system you have in place, people need feeding and agriculture needs managing in order to do so and conserve the environment.

That's pretty much the same thing, isn't it? Organizing production to fulfill need and conserve the environment, rather than for profit and capital accumulation, is effectively the same as having a socialist economic system rather than a capitalist one.

 

[editor]

coming round here with your sensible posts!! don't you know this thread must be piled on, ridiculed and silenced

The amount of meat eaters who have relentlessly tried to trash this thread, week after week, is quite depressing and makes you wonder what their motivation is. It's not like the notion of an intensive meat diet being bad for the environment is even slightly controversial - it's something that has been supported by study after study, yet only a few hours ago, we get a post concluding, "Looks like we need to eat more meat then."

 

[littlebabyjesus]

A complete ban on importing Brazilian beef and soy is definitely something I could get behind. It won't solve everything but it would certainly be a step in the right direction.

Generally, we all need to be eating much more locally produced food. And we would need to get used to the idea that we can't get everything all year. It's a structural problem of capitalism, of course, that it creates crazy distribution networks that pay little attention to things like carbon cost.

 

[Pickman's model]

Generally, we all need to be eating much locally produced food. And we would need to get used to the idea that we can't get everything all year. It's a structural problem of capitalism, of course, that it creates crazy distribution networks that pay little attention to things like carbon cost.

not just food that should travel less, of course: people can be as vegan as you like but jetting off across the world with the lack of care people have done for the last 40 years is no longer something that can be done if one wishes to act morally and ethically

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The amount of meat eaters who have relentlessly tried to trash this thread, week after week, is quite depressing and makes you wonder what their motivation is. It's not like the notion of an intensive meat diet being bad for the environment is even slightly controversial - it's something that has been supported by study after study, yet only a few hours ago, we get a post concluding, "Looks like we need to eat more meat then."

You must be reading a different thread from me. I see a discussion of the ways in which meat production fits in to farming currently, how it could do so in a better system, and what kinds of outcomes we want to achieve. Everyone will have different ideas about that, clearly, but it's an exploration of the issues introduced in the OP. Odd kind of trash.

 

[Larry Noppius]

Generally, we all need to be eating much more locally produced food. And we would need to get used to the idea that we can't get everything all year. It's a structural problem of capitalism, of course, that it creates crazy distribution networks that pay little attention to things like carbon cost.

This is indeed a big factor that gets forgotten in an oversimplified "meat bad, veggies good" position. Even locally sourced beef is still going to beat flying in tofu from halfway across the world. Another aspect that gets forgotten a lot is that there is a large variability within the meat and vegetable categories, some meat sources are more environmentally friendly than some vegetable sources.

 

[Pickman's model]

This is indeed a big factor that gets forgotten in an oversimplified "meat bad, veggies good" position. Even locally sourced beef is still going to beat flying in tofu from halfway across the world. Another aspect that gets forgotten a lot is that there is a large variability within the meat and vegetable categories, some meat sources are more environmentally friendly than some vegetable sources.

you mean less environmentally damaging rather than more environmentally friendly, i suspect.