311
Plant-heavy ‘flexitarian’ diets could help limit global heating, study finds
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 27 Mar 2024
311 points (90.6% liked)
News
23448 readers
4463 users here now
Welcome to the News community!
Rules:
1. Be civil
Attack the argument, not the person. No racism/sexism/bigotry. Good faith argumentation only. This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban. Do not respond to rule-breaking content; report it and move on.
2. All posts should contain a source (url) that is as reliable and unbiased as possible and must only contain one link.
Obvious right or left wing sources will be removed at the mods discretion. We have an actively updated blocklist, which you can see here: https://lemmy.world/post/2246130 if you feel like any website is missing, contact the mods. Supporting links can be added in comments or posted seperately but not to the post body.
3. No bots, spam or self-promotion.
Only approved bots, which follow the guidelines for bots set by the instance, are allowed.
4. Post titles should be the same as the article used as source.
Posts which titles don’t match the source won’t be removed, but the autoMod will notify you, and if your title misrepresents the original article, the post will be deleted. If the site changed their headline, the bot might still contact you, just ignore it, we won’t delete your post.
5. Only recent news is allowed.
Posts must be news from the most recent 30 days.
6. All posts must be news articles.
No opinion pieces, Listicles, editorials or celebrity gossip is allowed. All posts will be judged on a case-by-case basis.
7. No duplicate posts.
If a source you used was already posted by someone else, the autoMod will leave a message. Please remove your post if the autoMod is correct. If the post that matches your post is very old, we refer you to rule 5.
8. Misinformation is prohibited.
Misinformation / propaganda is strictly prohibited. Any comment or post containing or linking to misinformation will be removed. If you feel that your post has been removed in error, credible sources must be provided.
9. No link shorteners.
The auto mod will contact you if a link shortener is detected, please delete your post if they are right.
10. Don't copy entire article in your post body
For copyright reasons, you are not allowed to copy an entire article into your post body. This is an instance wide rule, that is strictly enforced in this community.
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Maybe I’m being too pessimistic, but feels like this is yet another study to add to the mountain of evidence that people will ignore because they’ve deemed the taste of meat worth an impending global calamity. When will the average persons tipping point be? When oceanfront property is available in Tennessee?
When its too expensive to buy meat. Its not like this is new either. Here's meat consumption over the last 100 years in the USA:
It tracks decently with the rise in GDP in the USA:
If you could graph sentient creatures' collective agony I'm sure that would line up pretty well too
I hope things get better
People only want to have happy feelings for the animals they eat. It's what they are told since they were toddlers and don't you dare say those animals are actually suffering while they keep stuffing themselves. And they'd go "plants have feelings too!"
This is a very sobering read: https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2023/9/27/23893028/farmed-animals-animal-welfare-human-progress-poverty-climate-change-environment
Endless nightmare indeed
Plants react to stimulus as well. The smell of freshly cut grass for instance is chemical signaling -- typically they'd be losing their plant matter to insects eating them, so they release chemicals to attract other insects which prey on the ones eating them.
Is the grass in agony? It responds to harm with a chemical response aimed at stopping the harm.
Where do we draw the line? Do we starve obligate carnivores so their prey lives?
I think you're getting a little too philosophical. Why not start with mammals with whom we share much in common? They exhibit levels of cognition far above what people like to believe. They mourn, have cultures, traditions. They feel fear, and that fear looks like ours, so it should be something we all can understand.
I'd also extend the same protection to fish and other complex organisms.
If it was really up to me, nothing would ever suffer, whether an earth worm or a human. But realistically we can stop eating the things with brains and friends and that'd be a boon for our climate, environment, and our health.
I would never starve animals in nature. My dog eats meat too because that's what he is made to do. I don't, because I don't have to. Nature is cruel, but we don't control that. We can easily control our nature and what we eat (or factory farm).
Fair enough, that's a very good argument.
Individual people choosing to "do the right thing" is never going to work. It doesn't matter if any individual chooses the right food, or kind of car, anything else.
Blameing people for not cutting their meat intake, is misplaced.
The government needs to change the market by subsidizing "good" things and taxing "bad" things. That's the only way to change behavior at scale.
Ok but remember when Republicans made up that Biden was going to "outlaw burgers" with the Green New Deal? And how even the made up idea that the govt would stop subsidizing meat caused half the nation to flip their shit, while the other half went "no don't be silly, we would never ever touch your precious tendies."
Appealing to individuals is important because without shifting the public's perception of meat as it relates to climate change, the government will be too terrified to enact those kind of changes for fear of getting voted out by the angry, barbecue-loving mobs.
Until flexitarians, vegetarians, and vegans (I'm vegan btw, just need everyone to know that) become a sizable enough percentage of the voting population, these systemic changes are never going to even be considered by our leaders. So we should keep pressing the importance of these changes to collectively move ourselves closer to that tipping point.
Or at least start by ceasing to fucking subsidize the bad things!
That would be a good first step they could try.
Capitalism is so funny like that. Everything has a price to everyone, you need to find a threshold (tax %) to tip the scale.
You're completely right because right now in UK meat has FAR MORE subsidies than vegetables and meat alternatives.
Most people alive today will be dead before anything affects them. My parents have that attitude to global warming so fly out on holiday 2-3 times a year.
This change needs to happen from the top to force everyone's hands, you can't rely on the goodness of individuals because we're all selfish fucks
I think "anything" is a huge stretch.
There are going to be noticeable effects, even in the first world, in the coming decades. Definitely half a century from now.
Don't know about you guys, I'll be dead by then
You said "most people alive today", not "I"