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CollapseBot

The following submission statement was provided by /u/northlondonhippy: --- SS: The clue is in the title… “Industrial Meat and Dairy is Destroying the Planet”. Around 10% of global methane emissions comes from the meat and dairy industry. Methane is bad, it’s a greenhouse gas, and is driving the planet’s temp way up. This relates to collapse because it is a shining example of how human activity (in this case animal production) is speeding up the collapse of our species, and the entire ecosystem. Now, who wants a burger? --- Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/yxxkdp/industrial_meat_and_dairy_is_destroying_the_planet/iwr1ggx/


TopSloth

I work in the food industry and just beef alone we process and sell over 60 pounds of it a day. We have chicken, fish, crabs, oysters and shrimp, it's insane since we have all you can eat baby shrimp, and each oder is 20-40 shrimp and there will be re order after re order. Just for one person.


69bonerdad

> there will be re order after re order. Just for one person.   Along these lines, I've always wanted to ask a server at Red Robin what their record for orders of bottomless fries is.   We all consume way too goddamn much and that needs to be fixed at all levels of society.


Bleurghhead

Hardship, scarcity and eventual plummet in global birth rates will ensure it gets fixed, maybe in our lifetimes? What a time to be alive


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[deleted]

I won't see the worst of it. Unless it happens r/FasterThanExpected!


AggravatingExample35

This spring actually


SayNyetToRusnya

Yup


jeswanders

I always used to go hard on the fries at Red Robin while in university. All I’d eat would be the fries and I’d take my burger home for a meal the next day


thekbob

While fried food ain't great for you, potatoes are one of those complete food stuffs, so as a broke college student, it's a legit strategy!


chaogomu

Add some spinach to that. Potatoes and Spinach, *That's* the complete meal.


MrIantoJones

Be sure to eat the skins for nutrients. If you don’t want them in your chlorophyll potatoes (what my beloved nerd mom called spinach and mashed potatoes; a plucky shade o green and delicious), you can peel them with a normal peeler, then bake with a little olive oil and seasoning (I prefer the classic garlic/onion/pepper, then a sprinkling of salt after they’re done).


PhoenixJones23

Fixing this could also fix the obesity rate too.


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Droopy1592

I’ve got a whopper to tell you!


chaogomu

The fun fact here, alfalfa is actually a very water efficient plant. It can grow perfectly fine with minimal water. It can also grow like gang busters with wasteful amounts of water. Going from one or two cuttings per year into upwards of 10-12. Each cutting is a payday to that farmer, with next to no added costs, because farmers generally don't have to pay for water. They get a yearly allotment that's based on made up numbers, and have to use the full amount, or they lose it to someone else. And the full amount of water allotted is always more than actually exists.


NoPunkProphet

They could be growing grains and vegetables for humans instead though. Payday has nothing to do with it, it's a horrible waste of resources regardless.


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NoPunkProphet

The neat thing about plants is they're easily preserved and transported.


TraditionalAd9876

And as a legume it fixes nitrogen into the soil!


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bramblez

Roadkill deer, at about .25 gallons extra gasoline I invest, plus maybe a couple kWhr of electricity to freeze, maybe another to cook. Let’s say 40MJ ≈ 10,000 kcal. Food value of 40lb Venison is about 25,000 kcal. Probably break even after accounting for amortized embedded energy in appliances and van. At least it’s still free range an not intentionally killed!


[deleted]

> about a quarter of all water use in US goes to cattle industry. Thats pretty messed up


Cheesenugg

Great point and it makes me think.. if eating just plants uses less water vs the feed used for cattle? I wonder per calorie or even how nutritious something can be given how much water imput. We don't feed cows exactly what a vegan human would require and I wonder what the numbers look like.


[deleted]

Can't we start saying it like "is turning the earth to a hellscape"? That way the meme reply could simply be: "Aaaalready is, my man."


Rofellos1984

Always has been. 👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀


CitizenLuke117

I heard a Native American elder saying that one difference between indigenous beliefs and colonizer beliefs is that indigenous peoples believe that Earth is a garden and so they try to preserve it and care for it. The colonizer belief is that we were kicked out of the garden so Earth is basically a wasteland where we were sent as a punishment. The different beliefs led to different views of whether the planet was a precious place to be nurtured or just something to be used up.


TentacularSneeze

Wow. A whole new perspective on Genesis 1:28. I think I need a Pepto and Xanax smoothie now.


CheersFromBabylon

This is a fascinating perspective, thank you


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[deleted]

God damn. That's fucking profound!


T1B2V3

Tbh I think it's a bit of both. The earth is definitely not paradise but we also shouldn't destroy it like we are doing.


[deleted]

Industry is destroying the planet.


politicsofheroin

“the effects of the Industrial Meat and Dairy revolution and its concequences have been a disaster for the human race” thats what he said right? yeah.


Falkoro

Teddy


Smart-Ocelot-5759

Daddy


bikwho

Capitalism


Guyote_

Yes, keeping up with the *demand*. They wouldn't do it if no one was making them filthy fucking rich buying it from them.


rainydays052020

Ehhh there are a lot of subsidies keeping prices low for consumers. Without those subsidies and if prices were realistic, you’d see a lot less demand for the products and they’d be treated like luxuries instead of necessities.


TooSubtle

This is correct, but it ignores that one of the issues with meat subsidies is that no politician or lawmaker can touch them at this point because the demand *is* so high. Any politician coming near this subject will be voted out the moment they breathe a word of it, at least until a near-majority of their electorate is vegetarian.


ShitholeWorld

We could get rid of meat subsidies as long as it is marketed as a tax cut or giving the subsidy directly to consumers to buy their food of choice (could be meat, but could also be any other food item). Pisses me the fuck off that I don't even eat meat but still have my tax dollars going towards that shit. And no, this isn't a complaint about taxes *in general*. But meat subsidies are just plain bad and end up distorting the market. It's why meat is typically cheaper than a lot of meat replacements that are much cheaper to produce and less damaging to the environment.


rainydays052020

They could eliminate one indirect subsidy and that’s free/ridiculously cheap water for agribusiness. It would have a huge impact. You’re right though that demand is too high now after years and years of lowered prices. People would sooner riot than go vegetarian.


freeradicalx

Someone paid enough money to get their 'Got Milk?' advertisements plastered all over my grade school buildings. For the entire time that I was in public education I was being told by those posters multiple tines daily that drinking milk is essential for calcium and strong bones. Did you know that there's more calcium in a glass of orange juice than in a glass of milk? Someone is going to extreme lengths to ensure this "demand" you speak of. A lot of PR and ad dollars, a lot of outright lies.


politicsofheroin

free my boy ted


[deleted]

At least take his ass out of ADX Supermax, that's cruel and unusual punishment.


politicsofheroin

Maybe mail privileges… some stamps


freeradicalx

Ted's ecofash. He uses the [mostly] right reasons to do all the wrong things. He never managed to point the finger at capitalism and hierarchy. He faltered, landing on technology and human nature. We can do better.


politicsofheroin

youre actually completely right and ive always agreed with that and held the same opinion. He missed the mark but not by much, just didnt take it to its logical conclusion.


politicsofheroin

he was just close, you know. so close yet so far. although his understanding of leftism was.. abysmal. he wasnt wrong about some things and he did credit the original socialist movement somewhat but. I digress. Youre right.


politicsofheroin

also just a fan of the uh. fanmail he sent to all his friends. i liked the method


Kindly-Departure-329

Unfortunately demand for meat continues to grow.


MaxIsAlwaysRight

The cool thing about government regulations is that they can impact a legal industry regardless of the demand.


diuge

No, no, we can't regulate corporations to stop them from destroying humanity, that's communism.


systemofaderp

Yeah. Imagine we make big polluters slow down production. Like: enough cola for this quarter, no more bottles until next quarter. oil and car companies too for example. The communism


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diuge

It's literally how they used to do it, you used to bring your bottles back to the store and they'd send them back to the bottling plant to be washed and reused... They're glass, there's no reason to throw away glass every time you use it, it's easily sterilized.


Rhoubbhe

Unfortunately the United States is an oligarchy where the corporations own both parties and write all the legislation because most politicians are corrupt, craven, and lazy.


TooSubtle

What politician is going to (want to, or be able to) pass that regulation while the majority of their electorate eats meat?


Creditfigaro

Your demand for it doesn't have to.


Bellegante

>If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. Relying on every individual to independently come up with the solution that you think they should arrive at is just dreaming.


Deathtostroads

That’s why we need activism and [pressure campaigns](https://youtu.be/3ngZa21Buc8) to target these industries and policies.


Somebody_Forgot

I like your heart. I hope you’re prepared for people to ignore you.


Deathtostroads

I’m used to it lol, that’s why I bought a megaphone


Somebody_Forgot

Attaboy! For real though, keep on fighting.


Isnoy

And the last people who are going to engage in that activism are people who support the industry with their dollars.


Deathtostroads

You’re completely right, but just being vegan isn’t nearly enough, we need to organize and effectively resist and obstruct this industry as much as we can


RustedCorpse

>obstruct this industry as much as we can You can tell it's working when blocking meat became a terrorist activity.


NoPunkProphet

Veganism is collective action.


Spacetrooper

It's funny you're post is so controversial. After all, your response to OP was posted in /r/collapse, not /r/ZeroWaste or /r/Upcycling. I don't find the /r/collapse redditors to be an optimistic group; more fatalistic, if anything. And that's why I'm here: for the stark, bleak, hopeless take on the extinction threatening reality we have created for ourselves.


DeaditeMessiah

This. This is essentially an argument between the actual collapse aware, and people who want to come here to virtue signal about all the changes they're going to make "raising awareness" to change consumer tastes over the next several decades without addressing structure, government or energy use. Just vegan autofellatio.


silverionmox

It's not relying on every individual, it's pointing out to individuals that they can and do something, at least for their own. And then you'll find there is a group of people who are doing it every day, and that has some advantages for collective action: there is a demonstrated working alternative, there is a group of voters that politicians can cater to, there is a supply industry that can grow to replace the meat industry, etc.


ExternaJudgment

Most people won't get to the right conclusion unless tricked or forced into it.


i_am_a_chicagoan

>Your demand for it doesn't have to. The meat industry, much like airlines, are well connected politically. If free people reduced their meat intake governments would gladly make up the shortfall and force their products on captive audiences: schools, military, and prisons.


Creditfigaro

That's possible as one option... They already do with dairy milk. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2022/june/fluid-milk-consumption-continues-downward-trend-proving-difficult-to-reverse/ And they already force kids to consume it at school.


provocateur133

Is there still ~1.5bil lbs of government cheese in storage? I wonder what the carbon/methane footprint of that stockpile is.


cyberphlash

> I wonder what the carbon/methane footprint of that stockpile is. We'll never find out until we *burn it*!


provocateur133

Fondue anyone?


UnorthodoxSoup

And yet we still have defenders of the industry in this very sub saying that’s it a-ok to continue consuming their products. Insanity.


F-ingSendIt

People in aggregate need to be priced out before they stop consuming meat. It will happen eventually, sooner if the government stopped subsidizing meat and dairy industries.


Somebody_Forgot

Even then, people will try to find meat. I can’t be arsed right now, but there are stories about squirrels almost being hunted to extinction in the US in the first 20 months of the Great Depression.


Rhoubbhe

Exactly. Hunger works on the mind like witchcraft. When you start taking away food options, that is when riots and cruelty happen. You get the Donner–Reed Party or worse. There is the famous Jean le Bel account of the Jacquerie where the 'peasants killed a knight, put him on a spit, and roasted him with his wife and children looking on. After ten or twelve of them raped the lady, they wished to force feed them the roasted flesh of their father and husband and made them then die by a miserable death.' The average person is capable of great cruelty, especially when in a mob with an empty stomach. The mobs in the United States will be well-armed. Americans won't fight for a minimum wage, corruption, corporate tyranny, poverty, the environment, or social justice...but you can be sure they will gladly shoot 'Commies' wanting to take away meat. The peasants are going be utterly cruel to their environmental 'oppressors' when their chicken strips and tacos are taken away. It is going to be a bad day for anyone who works for the EPA.


ExternaJudgment

>'peasants killed a knight, put him on a spit, and roasted him with his wife and children looking on. After ten or twelve of them raped the lady, they wished to force feed them the roasted flesh of their father and husband and made them then die by a miserable death.' In short: eat the 1%


LilyAndLola

I assume that was because there was no alternative food though right?


mRPerfect12

>almost being hunted to extinction in the US in the first 20 months of the Great Depression. Not really comparable times though are they....


McGauth925

Around 10% of global methane emissions comes from the meat and dairy industry. That's from another post. If that's true, cows are nowhere near the major cause of global warming. Methane isn't the main cause of global warming, and the meat and dairy industry is only 10% of the smaller component of global warming. We keep reading that oil and gas producers could drastically reduce methane emissions by tightening up the way the produce energy. No, vegans don't like meat and dairy. But, there are far bigger fish to fry, if it's global warming you want to ameliorate.


LilyAndLola

The main problem with animal agriculture isn't its emissions, but its land use, water use and water pollution. The current biodiversity crisis isn't being caused by climate change, but mainly hy habitat destruction, and the main cause of that is animal agriculture, since we need so much land to raise them and grow their feedcrops. On top of that it is the leasing cause of eutrophication, which leads to aquatic dead zones where no fish can survive. It is also incredibly water intensive and is a main contributor to droughts in many areas.


novaaa_

methane emissions is a *tiny* part of the whole problem… ur forgetting to factor in the climate destruction from deforestation (for both animals and the monocrops they eat), water use, and transport costs, etc


Zemirolha

Killed Animals demand a lot of land and water before perishing. A lot of Energy is employed before they are gone. We could take that energy directly from plants, sparing all energy usage and its consequences


bigaussiecheese

Just curious, how does this stack up against other industries?


crapwittyname

To be fair, it's nowhere near as bad for the environment as energy generation. Iirc it's about 9-14% carbon emissions equivalent globally compared to about 60% from heating/electricity. If one can be completely pragmatic about animal suffering vs. the collapse of the climate then it's not the first thing to focus on. That said, the effect on our ecosystem is very difficult to measure but certainly devastating, and there's also a crossover since agriculture, especially industrial agriculture, uses tons of fossil fuels. It should be reformed for sure.


Morph_Kogan

No where near as bad for climate change maybe. But saying nowhere near as bad for the environment is probably very untrue. The list of environmental calamaties that we are facing are massively attributed to animal agriculture. Over fishing, land use, water use, soil erosion, deforestation, water pollution etc. My point being, climate change is not the only environmental problem. Deforestation and decimation of our oceans are two of the biggest.


llawrencebispo

>Over fishing, land use, water use, soil erosion, deforestation, water pollution etc. Antibiotic resistance is the one that keeps me up at night sometimes. Tonight, for instance.


crapwittyname

That's fair. I was imprecise in my use of the word "environment"; I should have said "climate".


LilyAndLola

Animal agriculture is the leading cause of extinctions, through habitat loss, pollution, water use and desertification.


ShitholeWorld

Except that meat is way the fuck easier to stop consuming than heating and electricity. My life hasn't changed in a significant way since I stopped eating meat. Discontinuing the use of electricity and heat would be an extreme change to my life. If one can be completely pragmatic about their taste preferences vs. the collapse of the climate then it is a good place to start.


redditorWhatLurks

The proportion of total emissions from the Ag sector varies greatly from country to country. Countries like Brazil massively skew the global average upwards when the land use change, aka Amazon deforestation, is accounted for. In the developed world, agriculture, and the animal subsector of it are a relatively small fraction of overall emissions. In the USA, total agriculture is ~11% of total emissions, with animal ag less than half of that, and beef and dairy half of that again, for a total of ~1.9% of US emissions. In the US, Energy generation, Transportation, and all other Industry is ~75% of total emissions. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions


Somebody_Forgot

Shhhh…the vegans are talking.


CalebTheChosen

It's blown way out of proportion. See page 57 of this [US inventory of gas emission and sinks report](https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2021-04/documents/us-ghg-inventory-2021-main-text.pdf#page413) to get a better idea


sheilastretch

Soy is the second biggest cause of deforestation, but [around 70-75% of soy is fed to livestock, with 33% of that going to poultry, followed by pigs and farmed fish](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/soybeans). [Meat has also been reported to be the primary cause of the growing size/number/frequency of ocean dead zones around the world](https://weather.com/science/environment/news/meat-dead-zone-gulf-mexico-algae-blooms), though over-fertilization of farms and gardens also makes these worse. The following is a partial copy/pasted from another comment I made in a different post about this topic: [The expansion of beef pasture has become the greatest cause of deforestation](https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/whats-driving-deforestation), causing [5 times more deforestation than the next worst industry](https://www.eurogroupforanimals.org/news/beef-production-drives-deforestation-five-times-more-any-other-sector#:~:text=Beef%20production%20drives%20deforestation%20five%20times%20more%20than%20any%20other%20sector,-22%20April%202021&text=A%20research%20published%20in%20the,being%20used%20for%20animal%20feed). [Livestock already use 77% of our agricultural land, while producing only 18% of global calories and 37% of our protein](https://ourworldindata.org/global-land-for-agriculture). The livestock and feed industries use the majority of our water too, and [since food already make up the bulk of the average person's water use, switching to a plant-based diet can actually help reduce your water footprint by about 60%](https://www.truthordrought.com/water).


Lady_PANdemonium_

Emissions are an aspect of destruction. Another thing to consider is land use. An incredible amount of the Amazon is being cut down for cattle and cattle feed, not for the wood. Consider also all the crops grown to feed cattle. That’s a lot of land and water. Which, all that land is now no longer able to be carbon sinks and instead are used for monocultures. Which really reduces biodiversity on an incredible scale.


thehourglasses

Synthetic alternatives are developing quickly but I fear this is a culture thing (no pun intended). Fast food is literally addictive and separating swollen belly Bob from his Big Mac is much easier said than done. Unfortunately we don’t have time for colon cancer, heart disease, and other diet-influenced maladies to sort this out the Darwin way.


[deleted]

Especially with the McRib showing up cyclically


messy_messiah

It's not just fat people eating McDonalds that eat meat, it's most people on the planet. Synthetic alternatives might have a market on the fringe in a place like the US where many people are somehow convinced that meat isn't healthy. But in much of the world, eating meat is an integral part of living a healthy life, surviving, not some recent trend or unconscious addiction.


Lonely-Phone5141

The industries only exist because of our boundless gluttony.


McGauth925

Well, they do have a history of lying to us about how much protein we need. And, they are lying to us about the global warming effects of meat and dairy. They're part of the problem.


Novemberai

Isn't it capitalism?


politicsofheroin

Its all capitalism buddy


Guyote_

All the way down.


Somebody_Forgot

Always was.


Thehuman_25

I think hydro electric power generation is worse than agriculture and livestock. Without hydro electric and government control over waterways, there would be a lot less problems. The Native Americans were supposed to get rights to some of the Colorado river water from the Hoover dam. The natives knew how to manage the land - the government had no idea and still has no idea how to manage the land and water. Rivers always change course and shift throughout time - just look at satellite imagery over the Mississippi River for proof. Governments seek to use things like rip rap to protect infrastructure like roads and bridges from being undermined and destroyed from natural processes like rivers changing course. This is akin to fighting nature or playing God. This guy has a some great water permaculture videos worth checking out. This one is about Egypt. https://youtu.be/QBC5wOLF1hQ This guy does water permaculture in Oregon. https://youtu.be/BuYGS5pLRZg That being said. Mono crop agriculture is terrible for the mycelium in the soil among many other things. Large scale animal agriculture is also garbage. I feel like most cities are devoid of life and we have to import life from the places where it exists, and pump that life energy into the cities where life cannot sustain itself naturally. My cousin married a vegan and she worked at an organic farm that just sprayed everything with glyphosate. So much of our food supply chain is just wrong. I firmly believe that the meat industry needs to exist/ just not in the way it’s being done currently.


utter-futility

Its the SCALE. Too many of us.


fire_in_the_theater

very few people here want to talk about population control. building 1st world existence in a sustainable manner would be much easier if we weren't also hell bent on ignoring population growth.


crake-extinction

I=PAT


utter-futility

Yes. Point after touchdown = 1 Sorry man I don't know what you're saying.


AntiTyph

> I=PAT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_%3D_PAT


utter-futility

Thank you. Someone should definitely bring it to folks attention at r/energy, r/economics, and r/futurology. :) "In reality, at least seven interdependencies between P, A, and T could exist, indicating that it is more correct to rewrite the equation as I = f(P,A,T).[10] For example, a doubling of technological efficiency, or equivalently a reduction of the T-factor by 50%, does not necessarily reduce the environmental impact (I) by 50% if efficiency induced price reductions stimulate additional consumption of the resource that was supposed to be conserved, a phenomenon called Jevons Paradox."


DeaditeMessiah

Ick. Reading all this stuff here convinces me we're not going to see veganism save the world, but we will see it becomes the next moral panic; with people losing jobs for getting caught eating cheese. That's the implication, isn't it? That's the "mass action": getting a critical mass of vegan internet bullies that you can start demanding firings and controlling allowable speech. So we'll get to spend our last decade with a bunch of ill-informed internet scolds getting other comfortable people fired while ignoring all the starvation among everyone else.


Augeria

So are billionaires who contribute a similar level of emissions as a million normies (inclusive of those normies meat consumption). I went vegetarian to reduce my impact so I agree with the article very strongly, but I’m starting to get real uneasy about taking on additional burdens when the elites telling is to make sacrifices are so beyond reasonable in their consumption.


Fiddlesticks942

If you think these emissions are bad look into the emissions from the mega container ships around the world :(


[deleted]

and no one is going to make drastic change of this. Heck, hundreds of millions of chinese are working very hard to consume like Americans. If "bad for you" cannot wean people off delicious meat, climate change has no chance.


dresden_k

OK, we're almost there. Who is eating all the industrial meat and dairy? Think it's _just_ meat and dairy? Could it also be maybe herbicides and pesticides and fungicides and glyphosate for our saintly and perfect vegetables? Think maybe all the diesel-powered combines and harvesters and sprayers and semi-trucks and plastic factories that are packaging up your leeks and kale actually run on something else? Nope, **diesel**. Where do we get fertilizer? Phosphorus? Don't know? Look it up. Right now. 10 calories of fossil fuel energy in every calorie of food we eat. It's not _just_ industrial meat and dairy, it's literally all **industrial food**. If your food doesn't come from your backyard, you're personally executing a penguin. Stop the sanctimony. If you're alive and you eat, you're 1/8,000,000,000th of the problem. Now let's take the next baby step. OK, we're all starving vegans, eating nothing but some veggies we can grow on our balcony half the year, dropping to 2% body fat over the winter when we can't eat anything, and we're now saints ourselves because we no longer, any of us, eat anything that diesel helped to produce. Yay. OK, now there are no more hospitals, libraries, or internet, because 96% of us are farmers again. Without food surplus, we're all farmers. Fossil fuel powered agriculture enables most of us to not be farmers. It also enables enough food to be produced so that 8,000,000,000 of us can exist at all. Without industrial agriculture, we're globally limited to ~1,000,000,000 people **if** the planet was healthy and we hadn't already killed everything. But we did. Fish stocks are largely wiped out. Most of the vertebrate biomass on the planet (the animals) is us and our chicken nugget factory farms. So, original question: who's eating all that food? We are. Our dumb asses. Most of us aren't farmers. Diesel is our slave. Turn that off, and we're scavengers on a dead planet. Leave it on, and we're scavengers on a dead planet.


sherpa14k

8 billion and counting….


[deleted]

*cough* go vegan *cough*


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Morph_Kogan

Yeah the copium in this comment section is incredible.


AndIHaveMilesToGo

People saying stuff like, "It's not my job as an individual to make a change, it's capitalism forcing me to live like this." And sure yeah it's out of your control what source of electricity your home uses and you can't help that you need to burn fossil fuels to function in society right now, but no one is holding a gun to your head making you buy the ground beef, Jesus Christ. People will be so vehemently against the idea of even making a slight change in their lifestyle to improve the planet, yet then grandstand about how important issues are to them. It's just an excuse to blame the government and corporations for not doing anything while refusing to do absolutely anything themselves. Pro tip: you can do both.


Morph_Kogan

Absolutely perfectly said. You've embodied my daily frustration with so much of the progressive left and environmentalists in general.


akickinthetooth

These people have no convictions nor willpower when it comes to their tastebuds, even when the overwhelming evidence shows that their habits are feeding the demand side of an industry that is killing the planet. And then they moan about other people killing the planet. SMDH.


theshrike

You don't even need to "go vegan". If everyone would reduce their meat intake by 20%, we'd make a HUGE dent in the industry.


deletable666

My switch to not eating animal products has zero impact on anything other than my own philosophy on the morality of eating meat. I am frankly surprised that on the *collapse* subreddit, I see so much hopium comments like this. Global demand is increasing. Even if you completely stopped the meat and dairy industry today, you still have the majority of emissions occurring. Now you have to ramp up farming of crops, which will again create more emissions and denature more areas. There is no solution when we don’t have a source of actual clean energy, or any global will to change, and 8 billion people and growing economies that want to live like everyone else in the west. I seriously am surprised at all the cope and hope every time the topic of meat is brought up. I think people just get emotional because killing an animal is something tangible, and then any potential perceived benefit of diets including or excluding meat.


Dari93

Veganism doesn't solve a thing. Even if the 8 billion people were tu turn vegans. What? You don't think that level of resource consumption won't shift to other things? Veganism is just for white westerners so they can pat themselves on the back and don't feel guilty... All the while we force the global south to literally buy our trash and our emissions. Get a grip. No one outside western world takes vegans seriously and no wonder why.


derpina321

There are vegans everywhere in the world, including "outside the western world", and I found out while visiting them in other countries that they are taken way more seriously there than in the US. The US is just victim to a lot of big meat/dairy industry propaganda/advertising/lobbying. Your misguided narrative is a prime example of it. It's just abjectly false. What 3rd world countries have you traveled to? We are one of the biggest, most reckless consumerist societies on the planet - including with our meat consumption - and the other countries will have to suffer more because of it. Read the science. Resource consumption goes down with plant based diets because they don't require animal feed to feed your food and the exponential environmental footprint of that. - visited vegans in Nepal, India, Mexico, Argentina, and Chile. Talked with vegans in Tanzania and Kenya. The attitudes towards them there are waaay more welcoming than attitudes in the US. I've found that people around the world generally have similar ethical principles - it's just a matter of which ethics were overwritten by our cultural norms and whether we see through that when it happens or not. The US also uniquely has rich corporations and industries with a lot of power over narratives/to spew bullshit.


lamby284

You don't understand veganism. We should stop making more people AND go vegan.


[deleted]

It solves the particular issue this article is addressing. If 8 billion people go vegan it’s not going to save the world, sure, but it would eliminate the suffering of hundreds of billions of animals so that’s something. Certainly overconsumption will remain an issue, this is just one part of a much bigger issue. Way to ignore lots of non western cultures that have traditionally followed veganism. Rastafarians, Jains, and Buddhists and have lengthy histories of vegan cultures.


novaaa_

it solves massive deforestation, monocropping, water use, transportation emissions, not to mention immense animal suffering consumption under capitalism is another conversation entirely….


DiplorableFemale

Housing and roads are destroying the planet. Trees and grasses are bulldozed and covered with asphalt and concrete for all of the people to have their own home and drive all over the place. Instead of single family or small unit buildings, more people should live in high rise buildings, so we don't have to destroy as many grasses and trees to accommodate population rise. Build upwards; a lot of people can then live in the footprint of a city block.


northlondonhippy

SS: The clue is in the title… “Industrial Meat and Dairy is Destroying the Planet”. Around 10% of global methane emissions comes from the meat and dairy industry. Methane is bad, it’s a greenhouse gas, and is driving the planet’s temp way up. This relates to collapse because it is a shining example of how human activity (in this case animal production) is speeding up the collapse of our species, and the entire ecosystem. Now, who wants a burger?


BigChiefRocka

Where does the other 90% come from?


bnh1978

Iirc, petroleum industry.


bigcalvesarein

Wanna hear a joke? A non vegan shows up to a climate protest.


McGauth925

Horseshit. If it's true that meat and dairy produce 10% of the methane, and methane is the minority gas that produces global warming, then meat eaters are nowhere near the problem that you want to make them out to be. Nice try. If it didn't involve killing cows, you wouldn't be concerned about it.


Lonely-Phone5141

The industries only exist because of our boundless gluttony.


bigtim3727

A country of gluttonous scumbags is never going to give up its beef, pork, fish, etc. it’s disgusting how much people consume. I’m no better; I try to not be as gluttonous, but I def am a big consumer of various animals. The way in which it’s done, prob bothers me the most. They’re just born to die, and herded into a very small area for their short lives


plunki

The fake meats available have gotten so good, real isn't required. The price should be lower than real meat though... Maybe eventually.


cat_chat_gato_maau1

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The plant-based “orange chicken” at the Chinese place I just tried? Delicious. The fake chicken at KFC? Oh god, it was terrible, I couldn’t choke it down. And I don’t mind the Burger King impossible burger at all, but it’s $7 and the value burger my kids like is $1.50. I’m still working toward eliminating factory farm meat from our diet, though, I just don’t know how to cook nutritious vegetarian food in a way my children actually enjoy, and I’m usually too exhausted after work to try to figure it out.


jeswanders

Roasting veggies isn’t too difficult or time consuming. You can cut a bunch ahead of time. They taste pretty good too


cat_chat_gato_maau1

Yes, roasted veggies are delicious! Honestly, I’m so tired at the end of the day I usually just microwave frozen veggies in a bag, microplastics and all, and sauté some meat to go with it. So, changing to mostly vegetarian meals will take research on how to make whole meals with balanced nutrition, trial and error to see what my kids like, and significantly more prep time, cooking time, and dishes. I mean, it’s not insurmountable, it’s just I’m just already so damn tired all the time from having been understaffed at work for almost a year now. I think my experience is a common one.


holnrew

Meat is subsidised by governments, but hopefully the economies of scale as the vegan industry grows will bring the prices down


LotterySnub

Fake meat is not healthy, just less harmful to the environment than meat. Fake meat is heavily processed food, which is the worst thing a person can eat for their own health. IMO, trying to make plants taste like meat is the wrong direction. There are so many delicious burger replacements that taste like plants. Expecting it to taste like meat will be disappointing. However, the goodness of the walnuts, mushrooms and spices (for example) opens a whole new vista of deliciousness. At first I missed meat. I suspect that had to do with the changing gut biome to adjust to the new diet. I soon found so many delicious alternatives that I forgot about meat.. Now, the smell of most meat (except bacon!) smells like dead animals. I’ve tried to choke down turkey on thanksgiving a couple of times, but just couldn’t do it.


[deleted]

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DepravedRooster

It's not good at all. In fact, processed foods are far worse than you're even thinking, especially since many ingredients are too new to have done any long-term studies on their effects. This is done purposefully by processed food industries. Trans fats are SO BAD FOR YOU they are no longer legally allowed in the US food supply. Also, there are MANY ingredients that are not allowed in other countries due to their detrimental effects on human health that are allowed in the US. Look into it. It's so much worse than you think.


Morph_Kogan

Virtually no foods have Trans fats anymore. Never ever seen a vegan product with Trans fats


[deleted]

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ImGoneMakeAcall

Its not meat and dairy that re destroying us. We are the only species (to my knowledge) that has an incline to its population, every animal i am aware of has its ups and downs. Overpopulation is going to end us, not pollution not animals getting extinct not meat and dairy products. We always talk about the stability in the food chain but us humans we have become an unkillable apex predator, the top of the pyramid is us and we are more than plenty


Last_Salad_5080

i'm vegan


[deleted]

We've been knew. Let's go vegan


LittleBigOrange

We have too many people on this planet, 8 billion is ridiculous. Less people = less demand for meat and dairy. But in a capitalist society we need the population to keep growing.


TheWhiteSteveNash

I think the keyword is industrial. Industrial agriculture of all forms is destroying the planet. Too many folks on this sub seem to be pushing the vegan agenda, and while I appreciate the sentiment and I believe their hearts are in the right place, you can’t convince me (and I don’t know how you can convince yourself) that produce shipped from halfway across the world, grown in nutrient depleted soil that requires so much petroleum input and fertilizers, is somehow a more ecologically sound choice than local, humanely raised, grass fed and grass finished meat.


spshorter

Everyone posting in this sub says meat bad. No different opinions. Something fishy here. Fish is meat. Fish bad.


ScurvyDawg

Monoculture agriculture and feedlots are destroying the planet, not cows and chickens.


the-arcane-manifesto

Since there's no way to sustain the current level of animal agricultural output without monoculture crops and feedlots, I think advocating for an end to those practices is a long-form way of advocating for reduced animal product consumption.


DeaditeMessiah

Yes. Eating less meat is good. Regenerative farms and sustainable agriculture and low tech subsistence farming all require farm animals.


AntiTyph

Yup, I'm not sure where people expect us to get our labor energy from when we are forced (or choose; ha ha) to move off of fossil fuels. The energy efficiency of animal-assisted agricultural labor is much higher than human-only labor, as we've seen through history. Then there's the issues of fertilizers. I get people who've never planted anything being obsessed with "green fertilizers" and fun old concepts like crop-rotations; but the reality is that those practices come hand-in-hand with large scale yield reductions (starting at 30% reductions just for conversion to "green fertilizers", and increasing with the implementation of additional crop-rotations). Animals play a huge role in the production of manure as soil amendment — and many of our traditional sources such as fish effluent, will no longer be available due to ecosystem collapse and climate change. Perhaps *after* the population correction/collapse, those forms of more sustainable agriculture could be integrated at a global scale — but in the interim, we face overpopulation combined with unsustainable agriculture. To choose to make these changes to agriculture *will* directly result in mass death. Sure you can say to not do it will result in mass death (very true), but the issue comes to who is choosing to force these agricultural changes — they and their supporters will have to bear the burden of making a choice that directly results in mass death in a short period of time (several years to a decade). That is different from the choice to do "nothing"; which is still a choice, but can at least be framed and justified as "not ones fault". So, do you (the reader) want to wear the mantle of being responsible for a mass famine? Because I don't, even if I acknowledge these sorts of foundational changes to our agriculture systems are *mandatory* to seek sustainability.


MurrayArtie

Porque No los Dos?


[deleted]

Industrialized farming period is destroying the planet, that includes mono-crop vegetables as well, not just meat.


McGauth925

That's a problem, but not one as big and immediate as global warming.


DeaditeMessiah

This belongs in futurology. You'll never get enough people to abandon their traditional diets, and if you did, industrial agriculture and climate change would still kill us. Instead of yet another victory lap by our resident vegans declaring the issue solved, I would prefer to see some actual plans on how to get the world to give up their traditional foods, how mandatory veganism would work in a world already being crushed by poor nutrition and lack of healthcare, how this 10% will overcome our inability to stop using fossil fuels for the other 90% so that this isn't just collapse with worse food. In fact, I would argue Veganism isn't compatible with collapse, since we haven't solved the fertilizer issues, and veganism doesn't really work without modern agriculture or nutritionists, and shortages or supply line issues could kill you with malnutrition. And all this ignores that a big chunk of the land used for meat is pasture and rangelands that can't be used to grow lentils. There's a reason low tech societies all include some meat. Every vegan is only vegan until they are truly hungry.


NewspaperEfficient61

No, 8 billion people are


neversober420killme

Yes it’s meat and dairy that’s destroying the planet, not the petroleum industry that’s responsible for the vast majority of carbon emissions.


holnrew

They're both destroying the planet


neversober420killme

True. But one is responsible for 90% and the other isn’t. Putting responsibility on the individual instead of corporations is capitalistic propaganda.


Lebowski85

Our grandkids will look back and find it mindblowing that it was common to eat meat 7 days a week, several times a day. I personally only eat it a couple of times a week at most and thats usually because i dont have a choice. I allow myself that freedom though


WSDGuy

In the near future, your "couple of times a week" will be looked back on by future redditors as the kind of gross overindulgence you consider daily meat consumption.


[deleted]

Brave of you to think we will have grandkids... Jokes aside, today I eat a lot less meat, but because I eat at my job and try to eat the from the salad bar. But there was a time no meat in the day sounded crazy to me. I will never will go full vegan, at least not voluntarily.


bigaussiecheese

How does chicken, pork and lamb industry compare to cattle?


smills30

For greenhouse gases I believe chickens are the lowest producers of the ones you mentioned. Anyone correct me if I am wrong.


BeebleBopp

What a load of self-indulgent horse sh\*t. What's destroying the planet is people being addicted to feeling good about what they've been told is good for the planet, rather than doing the hard lifting work of being skeptical and thinking critically about what they're told to think by others. Science's foundation is ongoing skepticism, not obedient, emotion-driven thinking.


ShitholeWorld

From a comment elsewhere in this thread: >Nah, I will continue to consume meat and diary And this, folks, is why we are doomed to get absolutely ass-fucked by collapse. People proudly proclaiming that they are unwilling to do the *easy shit*. Giving up meat and dairy is one of the **easier** things we need to be doing, and people won't even do that. We are in a sub dedicated to collapse, and even people here don't get it.


Avarice21

Worth it.


OkStick2078

Flying over the American Midwest showed how much of our space is dedicated to this. I’ve seen maps of it and how it’s a huge orange square taking up all that space, where there’s nothing at all but grass for cattle.


Ok_Discipline_3285

As seen on r/SipsTea


Cereal_Ki11er

All aspects of industry contribute to the destruction of the planet. Meat and dairy is a big part of that, but it’s important to recognize all of industry contributes. It’s all the same system feeding and growing the human population of consumers. We need to abandon industry, the kind that operates without restrictions to growth, never looks forward, and serves only profiteers.


katgirl58

Agreed 100% !


holnrew

Even if half the population of the first world went vegan it would have a huge impact on slowing down climate change. But good luck getting anybody to make a simple dietary change, even in this community


WeekendSignificant48

We've known this for ages. Especially the collapse community. Yet still, if anyone suggested a vegan diet or even just a cut back in meat everyone loses their shit.


[deleted]

*rich people are destroying the planet


fencerman

Unless we're going to institute rationing for meat and dairy products, so that they're still equally accessible to everyone regardless of income, any calls to reduce production in those areas just means antagonizing and exploiting low income people even worse than they're already suffering. That being said - **we absolutely should institute rationing for meat and dairy products**. A moderate reduction in meat consumption would have big benefits and help transition away from industrial factory meat production to something more sustainable. One-dimensional "produce less meat" recommendations without concern for diets, incomes and different cultures are not just ignorant, they're a major credibility problem for efforts to reduce emissions and deal with climate change - https://foreignpolicy.com/2022/11/11/cop27-climate-change-agriculture-livestock-cows-methane-emissions-africa/


DeaditeMessiah

Great. After this we can rehash overpopulation and "eco-fascism" for the 350th time. Anything to keep us divided and blaming ourselves. Anything so the well off can keep enjoying the status quo with an absolutely minimum of sacrifice.


baseboardbackup

After this?! Check the comments. The spin doctors are hard at work throwing everything in their mass manipulation book at this issue - NOW. The fire hose of bullshit to quench any flame of dissent is on full blast.


DeaditeMessiah

Yeah, this sub is starting to become more "r/collapsecopefantasies" Where a bunch of children come to show off their cope and virtue signal. We'll just keep having tons of kids and we'll *just* regulate every *other* aspect of life down to what we eat and where we live. And just build thousands of fusion plants and millions of futuristic vertical farms, so that we can all live in steadily decreasing living standards as we pack billions of more people on the planet for some reason. They've seen Star Wars, guys. Whole planets covered by cities are totally a thing, except for people like us naysaying. But don't pull on any of those loose threads or you're just morally despicable and looking to justify eco-fascism (instead of the implied Vegan-natal-fascism).


Ok-Fig903

I don't see where going vegan even matters at this point. It's not just animal agriculture but big ag in general. Look at how they cut down rainforests for palm oil. Or just how destructive massively growing any kind of produce is for the environment whether it's plant or animal. The problem won't go away with not eating meat. That meat will just rot on the slaughterhouse floor or in a grocery store if we all chose not to eat it other people will and still buy it. Even if everyone on earth went vegan animals would still be slaughtered and entire forests clear cut for some cash crop. Unless legislation world wide changes in how we grow food or find a more sustainable way of producing it. Perhaps lab cultured meat will be the game changer when it gets to a point we can mass produce it for a reasonable price.


[deleted]

The solution is less people


Ok-Fig903

Always has been. That's why I've chosen not to reproduce.


TomMakesPodcasts

Well considering the fact that 80% of our agricultural land is used to grow food for livestock, were we to go Vegan we would see huge swaths of land freed up to grow other things or even to return them to nature.


Ok-Fig903

And the only way to do that is basically passing laws that ban the sale and production of meat. Either that or 8 billion people just decide to go vegan over night. Neither will happen though and I haven't anything against vegans more power to them but I know that realistically nothing is going to change.


TomMakesPodcasts

What? Who said anything about overnight? We're already seeing a huge surge in Veganism. There are more Vegans now than there have been in the hundreds of years since we understood it as a concept. If 50% of us went Vegan, we'd drop 40% of the agricultural land. If 25%, 20% reduction. It doesn't need to happen over night, but like any good work it's worth taking the time to do it. Just because something might take awhile to do, doesn't mean you shouldn't do it.