I don't understand otherwise well-meaning liberals who continue to eat meat

Great Debates
1

I know this isn’t a new topic for this board, but I’m growing increasingly exasperated at the number of scientifically literate liberals who continue to eat meat.

We’ve known for years now that “a vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use. It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car.”

We know that “bees and other pollinators are declining in abundance in many parts of the world largely due to intensive farming practices, mono-cropping, excessive use of agricultural chemicals and higher temperatures associated with climate change”, and those declines are drastic.

We also know that the overall flying insect biomass has been reduced by 75 to 80 percent, and we have strong reason to suspect that that’s also from habitat loss due to agriculture plus chemical insecticides. For that matter (from that same link), the vertebrate biomass loss is over 50%, also likely due to habitat loss.

The biomass in our oceans has been reduced by somewhere between 40% and 90% depending on whether or not his latest study pans out. Overfishing is undoubtedly a big component, but it’s likely that agricultural runoff is as well.

Lastly, we know that eliminating meat production is the single biggest thing we could do to cut back on agriculture, as somewhere between 50 and 75% of US cropland is dedicated to growing livestock feed. That means dramatically less habitat loss, less CO2 emissions, less pesticide usage, etc.

This damage has all happened in my lifetime. Humans are absolutely annihilating all other life on this planet in addition and related to causing climate change with CO2 and methane emissions. And experts agree that the #1 thing any of us can do as individuals is to stop eating meat.

I understand it’s popular for people to call themselves “flexitarian” now and to brag about how they’ve reduced their meat consumption for various reasons, but the numbers don’t bear this out.. Other than beef taking a hit from the anti-red-meat campaign of the 80s and 90s, per capita meat consumption in this country has barely budged, and the reduction in beef has more than been made up for by an increase in poultry consumption. Yes, chicken has a lower carbon footprint than beef but… come on. The drastic level of destruction we’re causing to the environment requires real action, and replacing the occasional steak with a chicken breast or implementing “meatless Mondays” isn’t cutting it.

I guess I’ve written off conservatives as a lost cause, because of the whole death cult and not even believing in climate change things. But I don’t understand how liberals can rationalize eating any meat at all when the evidence is this clear.

2

Liberals do lots of stuff that, as a species, we’d be better off not doing. We drive cars to places we could bike to. We use A/C or heat when we could sweat it out or put on a coat. We throw away things we could compost, or buy products with more packaging than is strictly required.

How do we rationalize any of it? From a purely objective standpoint, every one of us should live a much more austere lifestyle. From a realistic standpoint, human beings enjoy being comfortable and having nice things.

Human beings who aren’t wealthy are more likely to cling to the creature comforts they do have. Why should I give up my A/C unit when a billionaire matches my 12-month carbon footprint in one chartered flight to his private island paradise? And so on.

3

I’m not sure why you think that massively converting diets to veganism isn’t going to have its share of severe environmental impacts, considering that “intensive farming practices” and “excessive use of agricultural chemicals” will continue to be necessary to assure adequate yields.

If your vision includes markedly diminishing reliance on high-yielding hybrids, relying on organic farming methods (which require a surprisingly large amount of potentially hazardous chemicals) and renouncing genetically modified varieties (the latter is an article of faith among many critics of modern agriculture), that’s going to require major increases in the amount of land under cultivation (just taking into account organic farming expansion), harming the environment and driving ever-larger numbers of species into extinction.

It’s not as simple a moral equation as you make it out to be.

4

Certainly the hypocrisy of my typical American lifestyle isn’t lost on me. But unlike throwing away things I could compost, or nitpicking on product packaging, going meatless has the support of experts as having the greatest effect of things I could do. And unlike biking more or giving up creature comforts, going meatless is easy.

It’s a double win. Simple and very effective.

5

Few people care about any of that stuff when it comes down to it. On the other hand, the same people might opt for the vat-grown or soylent burger when a “real” quarter-pounder costs $50 or $100 or simply isn’t available.

6

Because people smarter than me who have studied this (the experts) have said so. Presumably they’re smart enough to have factored in the things that you mention.

It does not. Put your strawman away. GMO all the things, factory farm to your heart’s content… just don’t feed those high yield crops to livestock.

7

Only if enough people do it to drive down meat production. If you ride your bike to the store, you are personally cutting one trip’s worth of vehicle emissions from the atmosphere.

Are there any historical examples of massive societal change without massive external pressures? Note that the upcoming crisis (and I don’t disagree with the extent or nature of the crisis) is not currently an external pressure. It’s something that will be a pressure in the future.

8

I’m not a historian but peer pressure has caused lots of societal shifts. From Victorian attitudes about pretty much everything to advertising to religion.

9

Eliminating meat =/ veganism. Why is the OP promoting veganism rather than a vegetarian diet? Are figs, honey, silk a huge problem?

10

A devastating comeback. :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

It’s bizarre that you believe that to “factory farm” while simultaneously eliminating “excessive use of agricultural chemicals” is going to work, and that raising vastly increased amounts of food acceptable to vegans isn’t going to have serious impacts on the environment and the survival of non-human species.

You may want to go beyond your preferred panel of experts before making such dogmatic but flawed assumptions.

There’s no cure for MSD, but there is hope.

11

I have quoted an expert who is promoting veganism. Personally, I’d be content with vegetarianism, and my thread title and conclusion neither mention the word vegan. Meatless, rather.

12

I can’t find any experts who promote a meaty diet as being better for the environment. Can you link to some?

13

There is evidence many ignore. Many want to ignore it since they enjoy eating meat. You may disagree. But do you really misunderstand?

14

I really don’t understand. I can’t think of another issue where liberals hold this level of cognitive dissonance.

15

It may be easy for you. It is not easy for everyone, especially people who live in rural areas or small towns. If I were to become a vegetarian, there would be about three restaurants here in town where I would consistently be able to order more than one thing on the menu.

Also, at least one of your links is not about “going meatless,” it’s about going vegan, which is not easy for anybody. It’s a major, permanent lifestyle change of the sort that is highly unlikely to be embraced by more than a tiny minority of the population. Eating less meat, or less carbon-intensive types of meat, OTOH, is legitimately easy and attainable for most people. Dismissing this sort of thing as useless strikes me as a classic case of letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

16

I think part of the problem the OP references can be tied to is a disconnect between avoiding meat and reducing meat production. If I buy an EV, and use green electricity, I can appreciate a direct reduction in carbon emissions. If I pass the steak aisle at the grocery store, I figure the cow’s already dead and if I don’t eat that steak someone else will, or worse, they’ll have to throw it away. Of course, if enough people stop eating meat we’ll eventually see a reduction in beef production, but none of us have faith that others will do that. So, we grab another steak for the grill.

17

A fair point. Everyone drastically reducing their meat consumption, even if not eliminating it entirely, would have much the same positive benefit. But… people aren’t doing that even. Even, I suspect, people who claim they are, or think they are. Unless everyone else is really ramping up their meat consumption to compensate.

50% of the country reducing their meat consumption by 90% would be pretty measurable in short order. Disruptive to the meat industry, even. We haven’t seen that despite the clear need for it.

18

Sure, but those changes are happening over generations. That’s different than a society turning on a heel and going meatless all at once.

I expect that we will - provided we don’t burn out the planet in the next hundred years - reduce our overall meat consumption. But like all other changes, it’ll happen over time. Grandparents will be complaining that in their day they could just go to the store and buy a ribeye but nowadays if you want a real steak you have to pay a thousand dollars for a boutique experience.

19

I had vegetable soup for lunch.

20

Thank you for your service.