Beef is by far the most environmentally costly food most people can put on their plate, which is why choosing it over alternatives is such a telling signal. Per gram of protein, beef produces many times the greenhouse gas emissions of chicken, eggs, or legumes, mostly from cattle methane and from the forest cleared for pasture and feed. It also demands far more land and water than almost any other common food. These facts are widely published and easy to find, and cheaper, lower-impact options are available in nearly every grocery store. So when someone keeps choosing beef anyway, they are showing that the environmental cost isn’t a factor in their decision. Nobody has to be perfect, but picking the highest-impact option when better ones are easy to reach is a pretty clear statement of priorities.
personal beef consumption is nothing compared to the damage created by the agriculture industry, or oil, etc. your target should be industry, especially factory farms, CAFOs, etc., because even meat eaters can agree and you will actually accomplish something
wait until you hear who buys stuff from the agricultural industry
im trying to help you out here. the consumer side is already stuck in culture war bs, but no one likes Cargill. even if people still eat meat, you will have transformed society if you can destroy the CAFO system and kill subsidies to the meat industry. culture will change after the economics change.
Vegans.
Nitpicking individuals over their carbon footprint is exactly what the oil barons and industrialist billionaires who actually drive climate change want you to do.
Even if it’s not the #1 global cause of carbon footprint, individual choice still makes an impact. If beef is sitting unbought on the shelves, stores will stock less; farms will produce less. It adds up.
Multiple things can be true, mah dude.
They… Didn’t say otherwise?
But they kinda did, directly suggesting that being conscious of meat consumption wasn’t worth doing.
This is the argument of those who eschew responsibility. Factory farms aren’t selling meat to no one.
Spoken like somebody who has internalized the carbon footprint propaganda and built their self worth on how they measure up to that standard. Your abstinence will not stop those farms. The market will support factory farmed meat until regulated to do otherwise, and any action you take that does not move towards that regulation is ultimately futile.
Yes the carbon footprint propaganda is bad and real, but it’s not really relevant here. Collective action, ie. everyone choosing to not support unethical and harmful practices, is basically our only path to effecting actual change. You can and should refuse to support unethical things, it’s not exactly hard to understand that continuing to support the industry is actively working against regulation…
Regardless, the system isn’t going to fix itself, it’s working as designed. If you want things to be different then you do, in fact, have to be part of the effort to change it. This isn’t about going around shaming people for a moral failing, it’s about working together and actually changing things instead of sitting around and waiting for the evil people to decide they don’t want to be evil.
So my options are do what I do and try to limit the harm I cause, or just eat meat anyway because I can’t stop the slaughter? Jesus Christ you people are something…
Keep complaining.
Says the person that created a post for that purpose alone.
How hypocritical of you
I raise animals, I look after them well and at the peak of their lives I butcher them and use them tip to tail.
Someone eating impossible burgers and oreos have a much greater environmental impact than I do.
Psychopath behavior.
Typical vegan.
“If you disagree you’re a psychopath!”
They have no argument besides name calling and it’s kind of sad really.
A tale as old as time.
No just I’m just someone with a different set or morals and ethics as you.
Hey, whatever you have to tell yourself.
Even taking care of them, cows emit so much methane. Its on their nature and when there is one billion of cows, the carbon footprint is a disaster. Look it up on internets, cows seems harmless but they contaminate a lot, its a fact.
The problem is you’re looking at one aspect of a biocycle, a slice, you have to look at the entire life cycle. Ruminants living in a natural environment are net carbon sequesters. Ruminants cause the grass to grow deeper, a deeper and vibrant root system sequesters more carbon, creates more topsoil.
Im sure this is not enough to compensate the enormous quantity of methane the cows make. If not please show me evidence. Having one billion cows is not natural and we are suffering the consequences and grass does not absorb that much carbon.
Im sure this is not enough to compensate the enormous quantity of methane the cows make.
I’m sure your hyperbole isn’t right.
If not please show me evidence.
Right back at you, show me that ruminants living in their natural environments eating their natural food are net negative to the environment. You can’t, because they are part of the environment, you can’t have soil without them.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-43452-3 Also Why i have to give you a source, when its a fact that the lifecycle of 1kg beef is from 30kg of CO2 to 100 kg of CO2?
The problem is you’re looking at one aspect of a biocycle, a slice, you have to look at the entire life cycle.
Despite its title it does not take into account the entire biocycle, it does not do a carbon cycle assessment either. which the authors implicitly acknowledge “there is no additional warming under a constant level of CH4 emissions”… i.e. they recognize a stable ruminant population does not result in infinite warming.
Also Why i have to give you a source
Because the title of the post is “Eating beef is a great way to prove that you don’t care about the environment”. So eating natural beef on natural pastures eating natural food doesn’t demonstrate a lack of care for the environment.
There is no additional warming because methane breaks down in the atmosphere eventually, so if we generate x quantity in 2026 and the same quantity in 2030, global warming will not increase. That does not mean that the stable amount of methane in the atmosphere right now is low and does not contribute to climate change. And if we consume more livestock due to an increase of population, the warming will increase. This is what i understand
Like many papers studying this, the authors cite Poore-Nemecek 2018, a flawed study.
One of its biggest flaws is that it calculates using an outdated “global average” which isn’t applicable at feedlot level, and especially not to different regional farming methods. The authors use GWP-100, which overstates the effect of CH4, since methane is short lived. They underestimate the carbon benefits of avoiding land use changes by more than 10x (corrected in 2019), and also assume an instantaneous switch to a completely plant based diet, a completely unrealistic assumption. I could go on, but you get the idea.
I encourage you to continue reading the literature, especially the sources that they cite. You will find that many papers cite Poore Nemecek.
Well i dont know if you tell the truth, but obviously you know more of this than me. I will still not eat beef or cut a lot the consumption because it is the environmetalist consensus. Maybe you tell the truth and in 10 years they say eating beef is not that bad for what you say, but to be save i will not eat it and i will be happy if someone reduce their beef intake
Cattle account for 10-15% on human’s greenhouse gas emissions which means humans are 85-90%.
You’re bringing logic to a discussion that has vegans as participants. You should know better.
I just keep going with the hope that one day I’ll cure even one of them.
They get cured! https://youtu.be/ScYcAyULXLw
I wish there was a foundation I could donate to to help with a large scale cure.
https://thesmhp.org/donate/ - Fix the metabolism, fix the mind… then you can use data and have rational discussions with people.
More specifically for lmhrs - https://citizensciencefoundation.org/donate/ justifying the high ldl
It is still a lot in my opinion for a luxury that we can replace easily
There is no replacing ruminants in how our ecosystems function, and their place as a complete nutrient rich food in our diet. They are not a luxury, they are essential to life on this planet.
There are a lot of deforestation for clearing forest for pasture and growing food for animal. The enormous quantity of meat that we eat is not natural in the ecosystem. And we can live without beef perfectly
i kind of unintentionally reduced my beef consumption just because i realized that most of the time it makes me feel like shit when i eat it. now i skip the beef unless i see a perfectly sized and marbled ribeye at a decent price (extremely rare in my area), and i have the motivation to actually cook it. but for the most part, chicken, eggs, fish, beans-- more than good enough
Many people will down vote you, but you tell the truth a kg of beef contaminates 6-12 more than any meat from the pig or chicken
what are you basing this on
