UKC

Following on from other threads where everyone seemed to be making "something must be done" noises, a very effective way of reducing your carbon footprint without significantly affecting your lifestyle would be to give up eating meat, or at least cutting consumption by maybe 80 or 90%.

It doesn't require the cooperation of anyone else and you could change today. What's stopping people?

Inertia.

Also the lack of any immediate feedback - if I cut back on biscuits for a week or two I get a bit less fat; when I stop eating meat I don't notice any change to the carbon cycle

I am a vegetarian. 99% of the time, at least.

I think a lot of people have changed their life style and eat less meat and dairy although I'm not sure that it's for climate change issues, often it's for health or animal welfare issues (not that that's a bad thing).

So how much have you cut down by?

Agreed, its definitely the way to go, taking personal responsibility. Waiting around for governments to do something is a non-starter, or slow moving at best.

Because they’ve cleared just as many trees to grow grain as they have to produce beef. 

That's a massive lifestyle change and likely to put most people off. Why not 50% at first, slowly, slowly, catchy monkey.

Bacon. 

What's massive about it?

I'm assuming now that you eat meat every day. Yes fine if you want to taper off then great but giving up meat isn't like giving up fags. I know, I've done both.

Not so clear cut as its made out 

From a recent post that came up on my f****ook feed, from an Australian fruit farmer, pretty sure similar stuff goes on with the UK suppliers. 

pulled out old bird / bat mitigation permits for production of 20 ton of lychee for coles & woolworths ( i dumped 7 ton for cosmetic reasons ) , 150 bats 150 birds for 3-4 month season so : 20000kg / 300 = one dead for every 66.6 kg of un-blemished fruit now multipy by the amount of fruit dumped in edible condition by supermarkets Up to 40 per cent of produce grown in Australia is rejected because it is deemed 'too ugly' to sell. It is estimated that between 20 and 40 per cent of fruit and vegetables grown in Australia is rejected even before it reaches the supermarket because the produce does not meet cosmetic standards. 5000000 ton per year so 5000000 x 1000 / 66.66666666 is WAIT FOR IT = 75000000 dead animals per year 75000000 / population 25000000 average 3 native animals killed per person for fruit & veg higher if vegetarian or vegan then add 1 litre of diesel per 20kg ( 250000000 litres ) just for wastage then contemplate the other 60% that was accepted !!!!!! NOW how many native animals are killed because you don't like how it looks , reduceable by 30% by eating blemished fruit

Yea 50% is quite easy and most people would probably benefit from more veg in their diets. The problem is vegetarian dishes very rarely get advertised in super markets (not very profitable I guess). This reduces the visibilty of how easy it can be to the general public. 

We've cut down to between 2 - 4 meat or fish dishes a week and generally avoid beef. We've ended up cooking a lot more Eastern dishes and throwing in extra greens etc... We could cut out more but in the meat dishes we cook we already swap out some of the meat for pulses and veg. 

Convenience, an aversion to absolutist thinking, the fact I particularly enjoy some meat and even more so fish dishes.

There's nothing stopping me cutting down significantly which I have and which was easy as I have a vegetarian partner. There's still pointless meat to be cut from my lunchtime diet.

jk

Sorry but I don't really see the relevance, unfortunate that it is that some farmers kill birds and bats. That doesn't have anything to do with reducing CO2 emissions, which if we don't address, will kill a lot more bats and birds than the farmer.

I take it you're not willing to give up meat?

Nothing. I eat meat less than once a week now.  Partly for CO2 reasons, partly for health reasons, partly for animal welfare reasons.  

I decided about a year or so ago to reduce my meat consumption.  Driven by a combination of health and environment.  I was not eating enough fruit and veg and most meals (lunch and dinner) included meat.

I started by aiming to only meat as part of one meal per day.  This did not prove too difficult.  My next step was to then critically look at any meals I was eating that did involve meat. Did the meal really need meat?  So things like chilli, most pasta dishes, curries, chinese, thai, mexican etc could all easily be cooked without meat by piling on the veg and tasted no less good and often better.  This had the health advantages as well.  In all of these cases meat is as much filler as about the specific taste so it is easy to replace with veg.

I now only eat meat a couple of times per week and in these cases I celebrate meat for what it is.  A good pork sandwich (from Beres in Sheffield) or a burger for example.  So the meat is the key ingredient.

I think it is very much a mindset.  I was brought up to eat meat in most meals and really thought nothing about it.  However, once you make a conscious decision to reduce meat it is not a massive leap to slowly adapt.  Interestingly though there is an element of addiction I think.  On the small number of occasions I do eat meat there is at least a bit of a craving to eat more.  I have to be a bit controlled over this.

I have also reduced dairy to some extent (no dairy milk is the main thing) but still eat dairy cheese and eggs.

Not sure if that's an evidence-based fact or an opinion?

However there's is a great deal of research to support the view that the carbon footprint of red meat consumption is many, many times higher than that of other food types.  http://shrinkthatfootprint.com/food-carbon-footprint-diet

Time, it takes 5 minutes to fry a steak vs  30-40 minutes to cook a protein rich vegetarian dish using dried pulses. 

...but 30-40 minutes to clear up all the fat from the steak and 5 minutes to rinse a saucepan!

I’m probably wrong about this but grass fed cows and lambs from upland pastures are an amazingly efficient way of turning otherwise unproductive area’s into a fantastic food source. Admittedly grain fed livestock is a total shocker for the environment but I’m not sure how much is. I do know that 80% of agricultural land in the UK goes into arable crops and 80% of that goes to animal feed. Not good seeing as that could all be re wilded 

I eat very little meat, most of what I do eat is hill shot venison. I feel we have a duty to eat wild venison until we reintroduce wolves!

Also, if we are drinking milk, we should be eating veal. 

We need to think bigger picture, not just meat = bad. Choosing where we source it when we do eat it is important and which meats we opt for. I am very lucky that I have numerous sources of local meat in our town and can make better choices. It's more expensive to buy better meat, but I probably only buy it once a week so that makes it affordable.

My wife eats meat and I don't. That generally means when I get in from work I cook my own tea, her also of course.

Typically I cook my veggie tea in about half the time it takes my wife to cook hers. I can, for example cook Tortelloni with a home made walnut pesto in about ten minutes. Quorn and tofu are also protein rich foods that can be cooked quickly.

Do you eat steak regularly? If you cook sausages and burgers more often then the Quorn ones cook just as fast. There's not really any need to cook vegetarian food from scratch if you don't feel like it.

The only animal product I eat now is eggs. For mainly climate but also Animal welfare reasons.

not quite managed to cut eggs yet...

There's nothing you said I disagree with. Of course most carnivores don't have access to wild venison and lamb from hill farms is not that plentiful. If most people cut out the mass produced/factory farmed meat dishes from our diets we'd go a long way in curbing CO2 emissions while leaving people the occasional treat of a really nice piece of meat.

i agree with you completely!

my partner went vegetarian last year and the side affect of this is that i eat a lot less meat too. i go a few weeks a time vegetarian and then end up eating meat (usually whilst travelling or when eating out as Vegetarian options in restaurants pubs and fast food outlets is just awful). but my overall consumption has dropped hugely.

i can honestly say this has had no negative impact on my life at all, Quorn and other Vegetarian replacement options are absolutely amazing and are only getting better. i'm probably more healthy due to eating more veg and we are saving money too. plus I've learnt a whole load of new recipes which are tasty and easy to cook.

i used to think i'd struggle to have a enjoyable diet with such a reduction of meat but i think my diet is more fun than ever. I think most people are accustomed to having some meat form the core of every meal and add veg around it. its become a very entrenched mindset for most. 

Even if most people went for a more environmentally friendly diet then that wouldn't fix the problem on its own. however it would be a huge environmental statement to would prove that people are willing to make lifestyle changes for the bigger picture.

That's like saying you don't have enough time for pasta because it take so long to make, or you'd drink milk if you could but you don't have enough space in the patio for cows.

Not directly related, but goes to show that veggies aren't guilt free, the waste is ridiculous and wastes fuel in their making/disposal.  I see you chose to ignore the diesel wastage

As an engineer, one the worst places I have worked, was on an industrial fertiliser plant down in Severnside, the scale of the operation and the volume of chemicals involved was staggering. Certainly not CO2 free.

Not really bothered about meat, I still eat it, but not a great deal, prefer fish, but we're lucky to live on the coast with locally caught (often by me) fish available very near by. Used to live off-grid for many years as well.

29% of the UK is Pasture

27% is arable land

1% is forest. 

Thats 56% of the UK historically deforested for food production. 

To stop global warming and reverse it  we are going to have to simply produce less food to start with. There’s an elephant in the room...

Population.

It wouldn't solve the problem but even if everyone cut out 50g (2 oz) of meat a day that would save 1 tonne of CO2 per person or in round numbers about 50 million tonnes a year for the UK.

A saving worth having.

It's a lot more than that - 13%

https://www.forestresearch.gov.uk/tools-and-resources/statistics/statistics...

This is very much what I have found. 

I like your point about making meat the focus of meals - this was my trick, make veg the focus of the meal instead.  It is actually not as hard as it first seems.

Having a busy job I had fallen out of love of cooking but similar to you, I have found focusing on vegetables is opening up lots of new possibilities and I enjoy cooking much more again.

One other thing is the general comment people make about what do you do about protein?  I have not made a particularly conscious effort to add specific protein to replace meat protein.  I eat some nuts here and there.  Otherwise most of my protein comes from vegetables and I seem to be getting enough.  Vegetarian friends similarly do not go out of their way and just get protein naturally from what they are eating.

Sorry yes. 1% is mixed forest which I took to be natural. 5% is Coniferous and 4% broadleaf. 

But even then the forests are managed and being harvested so I’m not sure how long the CO2 is locked away for. 

Sadly this is due to our consumption habits. We export more sheep meat than we import. We have no problem producing enough for everyone who wants it. The problem is that we won't eat seasonally, we won't eat all (or even most) of the animal and we won't eat mutton. (When I say "we", I'm meaning at a population level). So we import lamb chops and nice joints and export the rest of the animal. We import it in spring rather than eat it when ours is ready. 

However, it would be better for the hills if we had fewer sheep, so even moving to eating seasonally and eating more of the animal, we should still eat less!

Giving up meat for health or moral reasons is quite valid as is giving up meat in terms of trying to feed an over population of humans.

But in terms of climate change it is like sticking a band aid on a broken leg and saying there done my bit.

The best way to reduce your impact on climate change is to limit your transport by plane and car. Heating your home and yes the amount of time you spend on the internet.

Vegetarian is not the best way to tackle climate change, become a serial killing cannibal is

Good ideas, I'll have to try the walnut pesto sounds yummy. We have cut the amount of meat that we consume as a family of 5. None of us like Quorn its minging. The kids aren't keen on tofu but I keep persevering.

We only have steak about once a month, we have tried some other brands of veggie burgers and frankly some were so meat like it was disturbing.

We cook almost all our meals from scratch because pre-prepared food is too expensive and high in salt and sugar.

I think there are wider issues too which to me don't have a clear answer. So if you are veggie or vegan, will you wear leather and wool? If not, you are using more petrochemicals for your clothing and footwear. So more CO2? I don't know how these compare. Then disposal once you are finished with it, wool will decompose where plastic clothing won't. Cotton seems like a great solution until you realise how much water goes into the production. So if we do decide to use wool and leather, we should also eat the animals. 

I have no answers as to how to weigh these factors up as we are often not comparing like with like. It's a proper mine field! We all need to use less and use second hand etc

Seeing unwanted male chicks ground up alive as standard slaughter practice, regardless of how free range their parents are, changes your view on eggs!

There is NO proof that eating meat  or cutting consumption will make any difference. All the number crunching is theoretical guesswork.  As for cattle adding the main proportion of methane gas.  Well, well.  Where does this research come from?  More theoretical research.   There are millions of other methane producing animals  (domesticated & wild) around the world which are not eaten.

If you really are wanting to do 'something', then perhaps if you reduced your carbon footprint by not having any more than two children you'd have more effect.  

It too requires little co-operation.

We've changed from being vegetarian to being vegan(-sh *)

We miss cheese but apart from that it's fine. 

* We still eat eggs but from our own chickens. Not sure what we'll do with regards the chickens in the longer term, it would be nice if they could live solely on forage but we feed them mostly on laying pellets and it's hard to find out the ecologic impact of that.

Sorry but there are plenty of studies that show that giving up meat does significantly reduce CO2 emmissions.

in the UK the average person produces about 13 tonnes CO2 equivalent per year.

As I said above cutting 2 ounces of meat a year from your diet would save 1 tonne a year. Save 4 ounces and that would save 2 tonnes a year.

Don't you think a cut of about 10% in your carbon footprint is worthwhile? If not what else do you intend to do that will make a similar saving?

- Take the train.
- Cycle.
- Go by foot.
- Wear a condom.

Oh, and I also try to avoid making rabid arguments in favour of vegetarianism or veganism because they have proven to be the worst way to convert people.

Instead, we convert people by serving them vegetarian food that tastes good to eat and comprises a balanced meal. That's the easy bit.

The hard bit is handling the inevitable next question: "But where do you find good vegetarian food when you eat out or try to find lunch in the town?" Sadly, there's no answer to that.

Well you could say that about anything. Science is run on the basis of measurements, modelling and statistics, you can never prove anything absolutely, it doesn't mean you shouldn't act on the basis of what seems likely to be true, at least until somebody comes up with evidence that something different is true.

What do you mean by 'theoretical research'? I know bugger all about it but it seems likely there's been 'practical research' where the methane emissions from some cows have been measured and then the total emissions have been estimated statistically. It doesn't mean it's correct but in the absence of being able to measure all methane emissions directly how else are you proposing it's done?

Doing one thing does not preclude you doing others. You could have no more than two children _and_ reduce your meat consumption, why not?

True!

The Microsoft AI advert about producing more food more efficiently for a growing population annoys me because, as you say, it's missing the fundamental point of why we need to produce 60% (iirc) more food.

In reply to

Any decent Indian restaurant will do good veggie food. It's what people normally eat in India.

Mediterranean food is also good.

I recently went vegetarian, and I always had this cognitive dissonance that; yes I want to be more environmentally friendly/reduce my impact blah blah blah, but knew how goooood meat tasted. And thus deliberately shunned myself away from the opposing argument.

It really took a big 'shock' for me to make that change. And that shock was seeing a video of the animal cruelty going on in a slaughterhouse, which I felt I could no longer be part of. So instead of seeing meat as desirable, I see it as something I pity. 

The only meat I do eat is venison from the estate I work at. I know the deer stalker, he only culls the deer population when necessary, the meat isn't bred for eating, and the production of it is done by a local butcher. And I usually keep it for when having guests over.

So perhaps what is stopping people, is having that catalyst for change???

I question that.

Transportion and electricity is by far the greatest contributor. Argiculture amounts to about 5%

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emissions

I have significantly reduced my carbon foot print by not having kids.

Also I only use the car for long journeys and have not done any foreign travel for over a year now.

Guess I'm a 50%  veggie. It's asparagus time, roasted in the oven for 30/35 mins with just a sprinkling of sea-salt and olive-oil makes a great main-course. Accompanied by what you like most, but the first Noirmoutier new potatoes are just in.............mmmmmmmm !

I might be being thick but doesn't the report you've linked to say 9% ?

Good work. If you haven't already have you thought about changing to a green energy supplier?

You are right  my typo.

Yup done the green energy supplier.

Meat wise I am not a big fan of steak etc. it is sea food I crave

Yawn, I bet you will be telling us next that you don't own one of those vulgar Television things, or pay for a TV licence, yet watch everything on internet. And that you walk everywhere, wearing an old hemp sack and a straw hat  

Being a vegetarian for 25 years, and apparently now a vegan, I'm the same, I don't particularly want to eat red meat but I miss eating fish!

Good for you, well done, long may you continue with that.

Have you seen the CO emissions for hemp? I'm clothed only in the sense of my own smugness.

(The OP did directly ask me what I myself was doing otherwise I wouldn't have posted! )

I only eat meat once a year - so "cutting consumption by maybe 80 or 90%" means I can now only eat meat once every 8 years, or once every 9 years, is that right? Please advise, thank you

I think one of the many things that stops people doing more is that "it's ok because I already do X". So I don't have kids, so I have done my bit for climate change, or I don't have a car etc. You can not have kids AND not have a car AND reduce or exclude meat in your diet. I guess it's human nature to want to put in minimum effort, so if you have done something towards being green then it's easy to feel like you don't need to do more.

Roast lamb/beef/pork, cold roast beef sandwiches, souvlaki, mutton achari, pork pies, bacon, weiner schnitzel, stew, ox cheeks in red wine, stroganoff, belly pork, chicken liver pate, stifado, rib eye steak, chicken pie, parma ham, are just some of the things stopping me.

Yeah fish I really like.

However I do a fast twice a week

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-25549805

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2325671

There seem to be various figures floating around. This piece cites between 13% and 18% 

https://skepticalscience.com/animal-agriculture-meat-global-warming.htm

Fossil fuel use is still the main issue, and of course we can do something to help there too, by reducing our dependence on car use and our air miles. Which as climbers poses a range of difficulties as we know. 

Rice production is far from innocent as well: https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/rice-farming-climate-change-globa...

A mate of mine used to make a very tasty vegetarian curry but most vegetarian meals I've had were bland and tasteless or downright inedible and I don't want to eat things covered in spices to cover up that blandness all the time. Tofu, Qourn etc. are disgusting and I'm not that keen on nuts so my choices are limited.

Average person? 

Is there such a thing? 

If my next door neighbours jet off to Florida for their holiday and I go camping in North Wales what’s the average?

Fair enough but that's an argument to stop eating rice. Not an argument to stop eating meat.

Er, not sure I'm seeing your point here? If you're wolfing down sausages for breakfast and steak for dinner every night then cutting meat out of your diet could make a relatively big difference on a personal scale. If you have a basically veggie diet but don't want to give up your bacon sarnie on Sunday morning then fair enough, you're most of the way there.

The point of this stuff isn't to castigate everyone who isn't living in a cave, wearing clothes made of old newspapers and living off foraged seeds and berries, it's to identify relatively easy ways to make more of a difference as an individual. Although pragmatically I'd still say that the real importance of making a difference on a personal level is that it might help to drive changes on a society-wide level, without which we're still screwed.

Just how.much UK produced red meat do you think is factory farmed?

You are behind the times. Speak to any butcher who will tell you there is already a shift. 

Just do not expect people to be 100% vegan. 

True, but with the Chinese having generated a perennial rice (PR23), this should facilitate rice duck farming, a practice which is known to reduce the global warming impact of released greenhouse gases, and the soil erosion that has brought so much desertification of rice growing areas. Furthermore, with a reduction in annual carbon from spent crops, the impact of use of a perennial vs an annual rice crop may be beneficial for greenhouse gas emissions in its own right, an area under study currently.

I don't doubt there is a trend in the "right" direction but a walk round the supermarket or a glance down a menu will tell you the majority of people eat meat most of the time.

I don't expect people to go vegan but cutting out most meat from your diet isn't, in my experience, a particularly big deal.

Vegan, one child, can walk to grit and limestone (virtue signalling over). However, given that UK emissions have dropped by 38% since 2013, and will continue this trend, and we now contribute less than 1% global emissions, I’m not sure eating a steak or anything we do in the UK makes any difference in the big picture.

I don't drink, I don't smoke, I don't fly, I drive at 60 mph to reduce my fuel consumption (I do ride too fast though) , I have changed every light in my house and works to LED, I don't run the heating at home unless ice is forming in the house.

I am not giving up eating pig, at a push I could live without beef and chicken but not pig. I'm just about to tuck in to a plate of sausage and mash and I will be having bacon for breakfast. 

Pig is just about my only vice and I'm keeping it thank you very much. 

How about letting people choose their own ways of reducing their carbon footprint rather than expecting them to copy you?

...perhaps because there are only a few ways with a particularly significant impact to reduce your carbon footprint: stopping flying, a diet orientated to reducing greenhouse gases are supposedly the two individual actions that are likely to have the biggest impact.

Fine. What are your suggestions and how much CO2 would they save?

Maybe we should evaluate our individual starting points rather than expecting everyone to make the same changes?
 

Sterilisation I'd have thought was more significant

Is there not quite good evidence that vegetarians live longer? If agricultural emissions are 9% of a persons total, and you can cut that in half with a vegetarian diet, then you only need to add 4 years to your life before you've lost all the good that you have done (assuming you've been vegetarian since birth).  If you are middle aged already, then the health benefits of becoming vegetarian might easily outweigh the CO2 savings per year.

JimboW answered your question but if your carbon footprint amounts to maybe 2.5 tonnes of CO2 equivalents then it would be really good if you told us how you have achieved it.

So by eating less red meat we reduce our carbon footprint by  10%.

How much do we add to our carbon footprint by having to cultivate much more land and grow many more monoculture crops which in turn are also wildlife deserts.?  (There goes another Orangutang home as we consume yet more jungle to be replaced by palm oil plantations!)

How many people on here don't buy goods that are shipped all the way around the world by massive ships which have no regulatory limits on the pollution they discharge from their massive engines?  And no doubt plenty of those who travel abroad do so more frequently than they used to, or than their parents??

Has there been any research on the amount of environmental damage and pollution caused by some people's desire for the latest model phones, and other technological developments which require massive environmental destruction & pollution (but not in our own backyard!).

I live with crap vegetarians. They can barely be bothered to peel a carrot and mainly subsist on pasta, cheese and bread apart from the Sunday dinner and veg soup that I cook. Two of them are on iron tablets due to their poor intake. My meat intake is 6 rashers of bacon, a steak, 6 chicken breasts per week. I don’t fly. Am I bad for the planet?

It’s actually pretty easy. I went from eating meat every day to once a month without any issues. 

I could never give up cheese though.

If you really, really care about Climate change, there is much, much more environmentally friendly way of doing it.  And you can all contribute.  

Simply stop breeding more than two children per couple.  In one simple stroke you;ll not contribute any additional carbon footprints (or babies ones), upon our planet which can never increase in size.  And you are tackling the problem of increased green house gases at the source of the problem - an ever increasing number of  humans.

And of course its even cheaper than being a vegan.

It would be nice if someone came up with a simple tool that allowed us to calculate such things and work out what we could change instead of telling us what to cut based on their own assumptions.

Google is your friend..

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/may/31/avoiding-meat-and-dairy...

Re purchase of Smartphones and the like. Fine, don't buy a phone, don't buy a Samsung TV or an Apple PC. That doesn't mean you shouldn't think about eating less meat does it?

There are a host of ways that the world could reduce its carbon footprint but many are not ways that can be realistically achieved by the individual, only governments. Reducing meat consumption is something we can all do, for no cost, now.

Here's a review of such tools with useful links:  https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2008/feb/19/carbon.web

Enjoy!

Because I hope that not flying is enough, due to liking meat is probably my honest answer. I eat meat once a week at maximum though.

Well once a week isn't much, I wouldn't feel guilty about that.

Because I don't want to and it's not as simple as that.

I avoid factory farmed imported meat in the same way I avoid almond products grown in drought-ravaged areas then flown half way across the world.

Meal times can be less than exciting in the middle of winter as it's out of season for so much fruit and veg, but it's surprising how far you can stretch out a freezer drawer full of local, sometimes foraged berries.

Sustainable omnivore is how I describe my lifestyle. That goes beyond food to the likes of buying soap rather shower gels due to the reduction in packaging.

Yes, but it obviously doesn't - and will not, make a comparison with having no children, or just enough to make the human race sustainable = (an average of two humans being raised to breed each two person family.)

Some of the stats are not from the UK, as very few if any dairy farms in the UK use  water extraction from rivers.  Most of the cattle in the UK get most of their liquid from grass or other fodder crops. 

However, it does make the comment about "86% of all land mammals are now livestock or humans".  It would make obvious sense that you prevent the problem/cause in the 1st place and not the effect (increase in carbon).  

The problem is there are too many humans.  If we, humans, keep increasing in numbers then even reducing 10% or more of our carbon footprint per person will still keep the carbon footprint in total going up - because of population increase.  

The reason why a plant based diet is so beneficial is because if you feed animals there is a 10:1 ratio in weight for weight grain:meat production of food. The amount of tilled land required to grow grain to feed animals to then subsequently feed humans is significantly greater than if you just fed humans directly. Feeding people directly is much more efficient. The reason why this is the simple message is because most global meat production is intensive, does rely on grain and silage and does necessitate a much larger land mass to feed the same number of people.

Of course, it is much more complicated than that. Some meat is produced on land that is not good for arable farming. Animals recycle nutrients and are an integral part of pasture ecosystems and help prevent desertification provided they are not overgrazed (with people or even top predators keeping herbivores moving). See Allan Savory's work. Also, as you rightly imply, tilled earth is a problem. Not just because of deforestation of rainforest, but because of the damage directly done by tillage, which directly causes CO2 emissions from soil, causes soil erosion with loss of soil carbon creating a deteriorating trend that ends with barren desertified land, and enhances run off of nutrients in a broken nutrient cycle, requiring nitrogen based fertilisers which also run-off destroying waterways and bringing sea and estuary eutrophication that results in anoxic dead sea and a loss of a ocean ecosystem (such as in the gulf of mexico).

The broken nutrient cycle means fertilisers are essential for global grain production. Where do those fertilisers come from? They come from the haber bosch process, which requires huge energy producing 10% of global CO2 emissions. Still, reducing total grain consumption deleverages the amount of fertilisers required. However, it also means there is a big difference between intensive meat production eg provided to supermarkets, fast food and the low quality meat often used as used as an ingredient vs low intensity meat production that doesn't displace land, doesn't depend on grain and does act as part of a nutrient cycle. The intensity of farming dairy cattle may well be relatively impactful here in the UK, whereas some meat farming in the UK may be of lower impact.

So a plant based diet is important because most meat production ISN'T ecological and DOES divert grain from people to animals and does on efficiency invoke larger CO2 emissions. However in a permaculture setting, herbivores are crucial to nutrient cycling and building soil, and animals used in this context are probably pretty carbon neutral, provided that any grain inputs into the system, if needed, are small. Google Richard Perkins if you are interested.

I was brought up eating a meat based diet, but have become largely vegetarian. We do eat roadkill and rarely meat where we explicity know the provenance of the meat eg from a permaculture farm. Furthermore, we are getting chickens to help build soil that we are using to grow veg. We compost all our food and organic waste, except for our toilet waste, but the latter is the next step, reducing our water requirements and our burden on the water treatment systems (which collectively in Scotland represent an energy burden of 5% of electricity).

Yes. An app for carbon counting, making pledges, measuring improvements and sharing them with your community too. But also, some activities could be community driven: guerilla gardening, reforestation, or a village or tenement solar project. An app would make a huge difference. I'm not sure why there isn't one.

Utterly false - you couldn't be more wrong! Cattle have to be fed with grain or other crops, and there's a huge loss in the process - meat production is overwhelmingly less efficient than growing crops directly for human consumption. 

Switching to less meat should not be marketed as a climate change solution. Most people will not buy into that. 

The current switch to eating less meat is being driven by health issues. That is easily the best way to do it. Makes it more real and personal. 

So you address 2 issues at once. 

If you do eat meat, you can still make an impact by being selective. It makes a difference what meat you buy and the miles it does. Buying from a butcher and asking whether they have organic meat, eg grass fed beef (though the impact must always be judged contextually), and which comes from as local a farm as possible, will also be helpful. Also, different meat has different impacts, beef and sheep farming are associated with higher greenhouse gas emissions, whereas pig farming produces less emissions as they are not ruminants, which is only slightly worse than chicken, which is only a little worse than a vegetarian diet.

If you can source chicken from a nutrient cycling farm, eg a market garden or a permaculture farm, better still. Of course this is expensive meat, which is a justifiable expenditure when it is infrequent, but is unfair on people on low incomes. This is another reason why we need to incentivise the methods of meat production we know are better for the environment AND for nutrient cycling. There is good evidence that agroforestry with combinations of crops and animals can be more productive than monoculture separated systems, so we need Government to help incentivise these better methods of farming, with associated labelling are nuch needed.

Another benefit to the affordability of those on low incomes is a carbon price with redistribution of the dividends to the people, which even if given to all people on an equal basis, would relatively represent a net fiscal transfer to the poor.

Purely from a carbon dioxide production perspective, doesn’t cheese rank above several meats (I think chicken and lamb?) in terms of protein production? 

Wait - so 40 kg of chicken produces 2 tonne of co2? F*cking hell. 

Utterly false. You can graze cattle on extremely rough land, at a low density and not need any additional animal feeds or additives to the land. But the stocking density is low. It's the kind of land that wouldn't yield any effective growth of arable crops too. Of course the price per kilo will be high. You can also have a proportion of the land as semi forest. The real bonus is because cows don't graze very low and are a little selective, species of grasses and flowers that prefer low nutrient soil thrive. Of course this requires some level of support that isn't seen under the CAP scheme, unless the public are willing to pay around double the price for beef. 

Probably not lamb. Pig is pretty similar in impact to chicken. But you are right. Someone eating meat only occasionally can probably make a greater impact on emissions by moving away from dairy, especially where that dairy comes from intensively farmed animals. We are lucky enough to have an organic grass fed dairy less than a mile from us where we get our milk, but we are eating less and trying to use oat milk too, but I'm again aware that making these choices are a privilege that is unaffordable to some, which isnt fair and needs addressed through incentives and labelling.

It isn't utterly false. Most global farming is high intensity, and grain/silage dependent. The UK is better, but there is still significant high intensity farming, especially with dairy, and indeed the first few mega farms have emerged in the UK over the last few years despite the regulations. If you want to avoid this, dint buy cheap supermarket meat, dont by ready made meat products, do buy meat from a butcher and ask where the meat comes from. While what you describe can be the case, even in the UK farming completely free of grain or silage is rare. My brother-in-law farms galloway in one of the few such farms, which is, as you say, incredible for biodiversity as they trample bracken, disrupt soil without killing grasses (in the way that sheep do killing grass by chewing down to the base), and bring up numerous indigenous wildflower species - but as you say this is very low intensity and expensive meat. However almost all cattle farming in the UK does depend on at least silage to over winter, and last year, because of the drought, winter feeds were necessarily used for feeding animals due to poor pastures in summer, with many animals having to be culled early because they couldn't be fed or grown on further. Imports of grain and silage were then required to over winter animals even in farms the generally low intensity rotational farms on the Howe of the Mearns, which is traditionally some of the most productive UK pasture. Your right, agroforestry with animals is a key step forward because it addresses soil erosion and nutient cycling, and which we need the government to incentivise. Plenty of work for government here.

The other question to ask is; "if you're a vegetarian for climate reasons, do you only eat seasonal fruit and veg from local producers?"  (Triggered by digging a bed for blueberries then seeing a plastic punnet of Morroccan blueberries in a work fridge. What is the impact on the climate of fruit and veg being flown around the world so they are available out of season?)

Seeing as this is a climbing forum, my (very personal) take on veganism is that as an old fart, it’s made weight control easy and my grades have started to creep up again at the age of 59. I suspect it’s giving up dairy which has made the biggest difference, in addition to not buying processed food (apart from vegan cheese). I certainly also noticed an increase in overall well-being and energy. However, I’m only one sample.

Wrap this up with the emissions argument and it starts to become more of an attractive proposition?

Cracking weather forecast for this easter holiday weekend, will be dragging the BBQ out - apart from squeeky cheese what else would a vegetarian have on a bbq - no "fake" sausages/burgers please.

Please tempt me to have a vegetarian bbq with your suggestions 

No. It was said that additional feeds were necessary. They aren't. 

I'm presume you know silage isn't grains. 

Two vastly different feeds there. Chalk and cheese.

I'd say feeding with hay is rare, which is the gold standard. There are small come backs though, problem is it's a little more Labour intensive and the sale price of meat doesn't reflect this.  

So do I. Apart from forest, we have several hectares of ancient hay meadow, much of which are sssi type status. Never had any inputs, never grazed with sheep, never had silage cut always hay, a few hectares have to be hand cut as it's too rocky for a tractor. The previous owner only got rid of their horse in the mid 80s. It's a different world in terms of species count. 

So yes. Eating beef in small quantities at a premium price is more than viable.

Due to stocking densities being right on the limit. Supermarkets should just pay more for meat and pass it to consumers. Failed or failing subsidy system. 

Problems haven't stopped, there is always a knock on effect to the following year. 

Is it a solar powered BBQ?

I've not eaten meat since pre-teens and lived a vegan lifestyle for almost 30 years. With all the available vegan options these days I'm now  known as a whole food vegan.

I'm aware that even as a vegan my carbon foot print still has a heavy toll on our planet however hard I try to reduce it by cutting out plastics, recycling, cycling to and from work or the local stores etc... The truth is, yes, if more people payed attention to their carbon footprint then I'm sure we could make a huge difference, not just giving up eating meat (although as a vegan that would make me happy) but looking at all other things in life that that we can change.

Also, if you really wanted to reduce your footprint completely then give up everything in life as you know it and go live in the wilderness.

I've not eaten meat since pre-teens and lived a vegan lifestyle for almost 30 years. With all the available vegan options these days I'm now  known as a whole food vegan.

I'm aware that even as a vegan my carbon foot print still pays a heavy toll on our planet no matter how hard I try to reduce it. Cutting down on plastics, recycling, cycling to and from work or the local stores etc... The truth is, yes, if more people payed attention to their carbon footprint then I'm sure we could make a huge difference and it's not all about just giving up eating meat (although as a vegan that would make me happy) but looking at all the other things in life that that we can change.

Also, if you really wanted to reduce your footprint completely then give up everything in life as you know it and go live in the wilderness.

What you say is true, it's presumably why humans have farmed sheep and cows originally. It's the old chestnut of what 'can' be done, and what 'is' done. Over grazing is the biggest threat/factor which harms protected uplands in the UK currently, by livestock collective IIRC.

Nah, wood fired, wood taken from coppiced woodland on my land so no fuel miles

Love it, like a lot of vegans you just felt the need to keep telling us the same story again and again  

The context of the comment was the existing human consumption of meat, which is globally high intensity with large associated land footprints to provide those additional feeds that are necessary on the basis of existing and growing levels of meat consumption. So yes, as i clearly accepted myself, low intensity systems are possible, but they aren't a reality for existing levels of meat consumption.

I do, but silage is often made with grain crops and is an additional feed invoking an additional land footprint.

Where are you? It might be nice to visit one day. My brother in law farms ex mod land that is SSSI.

I think we were agreeing here.

I'm not sure its just the farming subsidy system, which needs to support better environmentally beneficial farming methods. It is also corporate competition on product price and cultural consumption which feed the productive efficiencies that come at environmental costs that haven't, but need to be priced in.

Indeed.

Apparently it needs to be told over and over.

Veggie kebabs are good, I'm sure you can get mega creative with marinades for different veggies.  Peppers with the top chopped off and various filings added. Corn on the cob is good too, I did baked potato on the BBQ last night which were lovely and fluffy inside (just sprayed with oil while cooking.) I use a bbq with a lid that allows me to roast stuff instead of just grill and it's great (not a patch on the long roasted joints of meat that I do though! That's tonight!) 

Out of six vegans I know, only one will moralise about it to me.  

Edit: ...and that's her character anyway, some of her friends laughed out loud when at her wedding her Dad said she had a very strong sense of morals (which was funny). 

As well as becoming a car-driver? Hopefully you'll not next discover how wonderful a light whale-oil lamps cast

6, you know more vegans than I do... I'm a solitary creature that doesn't do well in groups.

I've had someone new to our workplace that is vegetarian preach at me once in the canteen. I was eating a 3 bean chili and she must have thought there was meat in it. She looked right at me telling me since going vegetarian she can't stand the smell of meat and how disgusting it is. She went on and on about how off putting meat is to her now. I just ignored her and carried on eating but after a while my friend who was sat next to me told her, "Well it's not her food luv, she's a bloody vegan."
At which point you could have heard a pin drop.

I was think if old school silage, not shredded maize. But a lot of pressure comes from companies like arla who penalise farmers on price if the fat content of milk falls below 4.2% etc.. 

Sweden. A very different view in terms of the environment and support, but even then no one makes a living out of just cattle alone. I have been involved in UK agriculture, so I understand the UK system too. 

Global market and customers are driven by price, not national loyalty or environmental issue. So farms get a very small margin price wise and CAP is primarily based on land ownership, not what you do with it. 

That is actually quiet funny - why do people feel the need to preach about their beliefs/convictions, its very off putting - well done to you for not rising to it.

I've been surprised how little mention there has been of population reduction. You're not harming anyone by telling each couple they should only have 2 children, and if people did adopt this, population would soon reduce due to a significant number of people not having two kids, not being able to reproduce or not reaching reproductive age.

Some people seem strongly opposed to population control measures, but it is one major contribution that would definitely work (if it could be applied) costs nothing and is fair to all.

Well f*ck if I have to give up cheese please kill me now.

How long is your hay growing season? How much cattle do you manage to farm in the area you have? Sounds like a great farm. Do you know Richard Perkins and the small Permaculture setup they have in Varmland? Interesting youtube videos that speak to many of the issues discussed above.

I agree that this is desirable to address climate breakdown, but the more fundamental question behind population increases is how you structure your societies. UK fecundity is pretty close to 2 children anyway. Like it or not, societies have been built on economic growth, and underlying that has been an expansion of population, which has often been supplemented by inward immigration and outsourcing to cheaper labour elsewhere. In that sense, Brexit might be a step in the direction of having to recognise that you have to provide your services in the context of the available human resource. In the NHS, this is already causing huge problems, and means people tomorrow will not be able to expect the services of yesterday. Our ideas about retirement and social care will have to change radically too. So the question of population is intimately associated with what can be delivered through capitalist societies. Of course Brexit is also predicated for many politicians on increased trade at a distance, which is unconscionable, so I'm not sure I'd advocate Brexit just to precipitate the crisis in society, which is coming anyway.

I support individuals taking steps to reduce their carbon footprint but shouldn't we also remember that it's very convenient for government and industry to offload responsibility to individuals? Real change will only come if they start to adopt policies and actions to reverse climate change.

Yes, but why should action on the part of the individual inhibit government action. You could argue the reverse, that a strong movement in the general population against climate change would encourage politicians to jump on the bandwagon.

Selfishly I think removing meat from my diet would substantially limit tastes and flavours, also I might eat much more dairy with its own risks. If I became vegan I'd want to be sure I got the right mix of plants with a balance of amino acids. I'd also want to persuade my wife to follow suit. I do now consider the health benefits of eating less meat but it hasn't yet greatly altered my diet.

Question: is dairy farming for the vegetarians much better for carbon footprint than meat?

No.

You have to take.into account the fact that many ruminant feeds are composed largely of by products from human food production or even biofuel production these days.  I have yet to see anyone complaining about the use of land to produce the ingredients for alcoholic drinks

Even if you consider the straight grains that go into rations much of it will be the stuff that didn't make the grade for bread or booze production.

Does that mean that going vegetarian has little effect on carbon footprint compared to veganism?

No. People who eat less meat don't tend to compensate by eating loads more dairy, but significant dairy intake is normal in many people's diet, so can be worthwhile addressing in its own right. People who eat lots of meat would help loads by reducing it and replacing it with a plant based diet. People who eat very little meat may be better to reduce their dairy consumption than to eliminate their meat consumption in terms of emissions. Its about priorities.

There's not really any argument here. As I said, I support individual action. But changing our lifestyles will not in itself send a message encouraging politicians to jump on the bandwagon. Market mechanisms may send a message to the corporate world eventually but that's likely to be partial and unreliable. We need a more coherent and organised approach. (Yes, I know... in our current fractured political state pigs might fly!).

But surely good manufacturers are no different from politicians?

If they see a move away from meat and toward plant based products why wouldn't they follow the market?

Priceless.

It is really only the preaching (of any flavour, dietry, politics, religion) that fires me up and makes me want to take the oppoisite stance.

I don't think they wouldn't follow the market - they probably would do eventually if they thought that was the way things were moving. But they'd try all sorts of other strategies first to try and preserve the current setup they have so much invested in. There is huge inertia in the existing structure.

I walk to work these days as I'm closer and left to my own devices I am 100% vegetarian /vegan.

I will only have a Mortons roll with bacon on the few occasions that I'm hungover and only eat meat in other foods if served it during a family meal. I could do better and cut all meat and dairy again though but the family won't go veggie no matter what I say. 

Season! 1 cut per year, July all or nothing frenzy. For some fields we have to wait until a date we are told, either 1st or 15th July. Flower nerds decide for our region based on the weather that year when they have set seed. 

If you count all the grazing and hay fields roughly 1 cow / 3 and bit hectares. 

Know of, never been. We wouldn't be allowed to push the fertility levels of the soil up or build like he has. We have too much protected ground. Same with planting nitrogen fixing trees etc. We have alder anyway. Not allowed anything non native etc. Or stuff that could compete with existing species. We aren't allowed to dig or build within 30m of any existing buildings due to it all sitting on an ancient settlement. Just getting a new septic tank and fibre in resulted in a huge bun fight between council departments. We have lots of old stone piles, walls etc.. and are paid £6/yr each to stop trees or bushes growing and the roots disrupting them. 

We probably average a visit a year inspecting, species counting, checking the scything etc.  from Swedish equivalent of defra or appointed conservationist. We get the odd visit from a professor at the local university or Carl von Linné museum. We had the big ten yearly count last year and had more species than anywhere else in our county.  

But other than that we sit well under the radar. We don't plot any of the species on any of the various websites, promote or advertise, Increasing footfall wouldn't be beneficial for the ground. We sell direct to a local abbatoir anyway and buy calves from an organic neighbour 5km away, so don't need the promotion. I might start a website at some point but will use a name that could apply to many places. 

But that's not how it's being done, globally, is it? Yes, you can graze cattle on rough land (maybe keep a couple of goats), but at best it's a vanishingly small proportion of the big picture. How big a population can you feed that way? How do we effectively feed billions of people, is surely the big question. The answer is - stop diverting staple crops, and land use, and filtering them through millions of cattle at enormous loss. The inherent inefficiency in producing animal products on a large scale, as opposed to producing arable crops for direct human consumption, is very great, and hard to overstate when looked at globally. Effectively - loss of a massive proportion of potential food resources, huge extra use of water and energy, deforestation, salinatation, desertification, global warming ......

There is presently an urgent need of global solutions - big, radical, and immediate solutions. There's no time left for getting caught up in tiny little side issues.

I tried a bit of a vegetarian sausage a few days ago. It looked just like an ordinary sausage but it tasted shit

All the arguments about the effect of reducing meat consumption has on our carbon footprint is pretty pointless, or whether driving less or not having children is more effective

We are at the stage with climate change that individual action makes no difference, and any change in lifestyle is more a moral choice.

Only big action globally will make a difference, and we are now in a position in the UK and in Europe that we have already made all the 'easy' reduction in emissions. Future emissions cuts will either prove very expensive or very unpopular with voters.

We can all do our bit in the meantime, but ultimately it will be achieving little but easing our guilt.

Most 'green' solutions aren't exactly a punishment. They lead to a better quality of life.

As to how we get there.........!

Of course. My point is you can rear cattle on low quality land that isn't suitable for crops and without any inputs. Much of the uks national parks would be perfect for this. You could reforest parts too. Diversity in many places would improve with a shift to cattle grazing. 

It would of course mean a price shift. A Sunday roast would be a treat like 30 or 40 years ago. The current position where people buy 2,3,400gram fillets at a relatively low prices as you say is killing the environment. And them probably. There is no reason why wild boar and vension can't  be added back into the national diet. Rabbit too. 

Remove Trump has to be a critical start point. Nothing meaningful with happen for another 6 years. 

You don't listen properly. You just come in with your opinions.

Some opinions worth more than others? That'll be free speech is fine as long as you agree with me?

I'm admittedly not 'the' greenest, but I do make a pretty good effort. There aren't many things we haven't done or do. Could I do more, perhaps tiny bits, but then so could we all. But I'm certainly no hypocrite like some on here, telling folk it's a climate emergency then admitting they fly several times for climbing holidays. 

Mony a mickle maks a muckle

Yes. I suspected it might be quite a challenge!

This is good work, all power to you Summo. As an aside I suspect your carbon footprint is probably much smaller than others on here as a result of biodiversity and trophic chains your no input system supports. I understand why you wouldn't want to be on the map, but on the other hand its important to be on the map enough to advocate for this environmental use of land, and encourage young farmers to also consider this kind of farming. Its obviously not a solution to global food production, but it is work important for maintaining the environment and biodiversity and the lessons we learn ARE relevant to HOW we moderate productive farming in general.

If you are interested, my brother in law is Oisin Murnion in N Ireland. There is a little about him on p16 here:

https://vivagrass.eu/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/07-2_-conservation-manageme...

And on page 400 here.

https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=1Od5DwAAQBAJ&pg=PA391&lpg=PA391...

there is nothing revolutionary about what we do, it's just slightly mechanising what happened a hundred years ago, so it's achievable as a one man band, rather than 5 or 6 workers with horses. 

The problem is the income does not reflect the hours or costs. Having cows on 20 hectares makes less in a year what most would call a months income. The forest pays the bills, not the fields.  Double the price of beef in the shops and we might be getting somewhere, and that's factoring in that bottom line mincemeat in the shops here is around £8/kilo. Most other cuts start at £15-20/kilo. For Swedish meat, a little cheaper for Danish as their welfare standards etc are a little lower, stocking densities, housing, antibiotic use and so on. We wouldn't buy Danish meat. 

Totally hear you and understand the economic issues, and I know what Oisin does with 300 hectares doesn't work with current beef prices. Really the price of beef should be higher. Standards should be higher which is commensurate with reduced supply and higher prices, and as consumers it should be more of a treat, not a facet of a standard meal. I still think what you are doing is really valuable!

You’re shifting the responsibility from the individual to the government, which seems a pointless affair as whatever any government imposes will ultimately be down to the individual to live with.. still, I guess it’s easier to blame the faceless ‘big’. 

At the end of the day, if God didn’t want us to eat meat, he wouldn’t have made pigs out of bacon

We are at the stage now that only big changes will make a big reduction in CO2 emissions, and the only way to achieving achieve this is government action, but a lot of changes they bring in will be positive for the individual.

Glasgow must be one of the dirtiest cities in Europe, litter on every corner, and it can be depressing at times, despite alot of individuals taking pride in the city and carrying out litter pick ups, the city remains a dump.  That will only now change with direct government intervention with a redemial charge on plastic bottles and cans etc, with a more long term change in cultural attitudes.  

Transport is now our biggest source of CO2 emissions, and depsite Glasgow and Edinburgh being heavily congested, negatively effecting people life's, the government is unwilling to bring in congestion charging or stop car use on certain streets during the fringe despite all the benefits this would have for the individual, as such policy are precived to lose votes, thus sadly air pollution increase, less kids play oitside, depsite some individual choosing to get train or cycle to work.

Individual action eases our guilt, but only government action can change individual behaviour and make changes necessary to tackle climate change.

The separation of individual action from group action is false. $3trillion fossil fuel divestment started with a few individuals. Seeing that it is possible inspired me to get divestment on my college agenda, and that is now in progress. One person can inspire many, which can bring new individual action which can bring new group action.

One person, Greta Thunberg, has started a global school protest movement, which is really helping to educate and raise awareness in individuals who are increasingly demanding action from Government.

A while ago, family friends did a long distance holiday to the other side of Europe by public transport. That inspired our circle of friends to use public transport for long journeys and not just short, amplifying that individual effort.

Individual action does not happen in a vacuum. It can inspire others, and if it is unfamiliar new behaviour within a group (friends, clubs, companies, organisations) it can be provocative and demand a rationalisation for the change and be a provocation to at least assess if not respond to the reasons for that change.

Yes. We need Governments (with corporations) to act more than any other group. But governments have taken a step back into followership and we do not have the churchillian leadership of yesteryear. Individuals have to demand action to get it. And similarly the media largely delivers the stories it thinks people want to consume. Again individual action matters; your individual action to demand action from all your elected representatives, your contributing to protests. The separation of individual from group action is unhelpful, because it is deflating, and it denies the reality that the two are integrally related.

Ok then ...

All very good and noble, but what has individual action achieved so far? We are no where close to reaching peak emissions never mind starting to see a global fall in emissions, with new demand and energy consumption growth each year far outstripping growth in renewable energy.  We have basically ran out of time, maybe ten years to completely change the global economy, but we have to face facts, climate change won't be tackled, there is no evidence that we are heading in the right direction, we need to start planning for mitigation and effect it will have on society.  

The more people who get involved in green politics and campaigning the better, but the future is not looking good.  I am all for individual action, and try to do my best, but realise whatever I do is a token gesture.

I just feel people need to face up to the facts, look at the evidence, realise how bad the situation is, and not have false hopes that a miracle will happen to save world from climate change disaster.  We are heading for 3-4 degree plus warming by the end of the century, and it's already too late to prevent it.  Maybe when we realise this, we can properly plan for the future world we will likely face.

Global emissions had stabilised until the uptick in 2018. And they are not increasing in the manner they had been. A $3trillion movement of divestment was started by a few individuals and is not token. I agree with you on our direction, the lack of progress, the relativity of the individual next to the task and the unreality with which we continue. But my point is decrying individual action is an unnecessary negative and deflationary act, which actually undermines the chances that groups will act, including governments. Its true we are headed for at least 3-4°C, probably more, but making individuals feel more impotent encourages inaction, and whatever the magnitude of the effect they have, whether the act remains individual or is amplified in the ways I describe above, making people feel like individual action is worthless encourages inaction, which is entirely unnecessary.

I think the recession was seen as a critical factor in slowing down or temporarily reducing emissions. 

I think in him saying you don't listen properly and just come in with your opinions, perhaps it's to do with how you potentially don't (appear to) engage with the points already posted before offering your own point of view? If one person says X, and the other Y without explaining their thinking, it might appear that they're not particularly listening, and pondering on what's just been said?

It's not daftdazza "shifting the responsibility" to governments, it's the IPCC and the world's climate experts:

"Effective mitigation will not be achieved if individual agents advance their own interests independently. Cooperative responses, including international cooperation, are therefore required to effectively mitigate GHG emissions and address other climate change issues. The effectiveness of adaptation can be enhanced through complementary actions across levels, including international cooperation. The evidence suggests that outcomes seen as equitable can lead to more effective cooperation."

"Adaptation planning and implementation can be enhanced through complementary actions across levels, from individuals to governments (high confidence). National governments can coordinate adaptation efforts of local and sub-national governments, for example by protecting vulnerable groups, by supporting economic diversification and by providing information, policy and legal frameworks and financial support (robust evidence, high agreement). Local government and the private sector are increasingly recognized as critical to progress in adaptation, given their roles in scaling up adaptation of communities, households and civil society and in managing risk information and financing (medium evidence, high agreement)."

"Transformations in economic, social, technological and political decisions and actions can enhance adaptation and promote sustainable development (high confidence). At the national level, transformation is considered most effective when it reflects a country’s own visions and approaches to achieving sustainable development in accordance with its national circumstances and priorities. Restricting adaptation responses to incremental changes to existing systems and structures, without considering transformational change, may increase costs and losses and miss opportunities. Planning and implementation of transformational adaptation could reflect strengthened, altered or aligned paradigms and may place new and increased demands on governance structures to reconcile different goals and visions for the future and to address possible equity and ethical implications. Adaptation pathways are enhanced by iterative learning, deliberative processes and innovation."

From the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change summary report. (My emphasis). https://ar5-syr.ipcc.ch/topic_summary.php

The UK average carbon footprint is 13.56 tonnes per person. Straight away 3.3 tonnes of that is used by the state on our behalf so we can't do anything about that ourselves. For the remainder we can mitigate but we can't totally decarbonise for obvious reasons.

We were all born into world that is structured around the consumption of fossil fuels. It touches everything. UKC servers are probably stored in a server room that's powered and air-conditioned by fossil fuel energy. So every time you post a message here it uses carbon. Do you think David Attenborough has a carbon footprint of zero? Of course not. Does that disqualify him from talking about climate change? No. You can't blame someone demanding a new system for using the existing system! They don't have a choice about it.

Asking why Emma Thompson flew from LA to protest in London is a fair question. But a better question is why, three years after the Paris Agreement, it is still possible to purchase flights that don't include a carbon offset tax. While I'm at it why are new houses being built that have an energy efficiency rating of less than A? Why is the government scaling down home solar subsidies? Why are new cars being sold that are not hybrid or electric? Why are closed shops allowed to keep their lights on all night? These are are things the government could remedy with the stroke of a pen that would get us closer to our reduction targets.

Probably true. There a quite a few green conservatives I've encountered who are pro Brexit for exactly the same reason. Though the period included notable reductions in fossil fuel emissions from big emitters like Australia which didn't correlate with productivity, but did correlate sharply with the short period in which a carbon price was in place.

No. 80% cut would once every 5 year, 90% cut would be once every 10 years.

Personally I think you need to swap your annual meat for fish - brain food

Anyone who deflates the role of the individual in preference for government responsibility hinders progress. Because individual action does not happen in a vacuum and encouraging the impotence of individuals undermines the larger groups, including government, which are afterall just groups of individuals. Indeed, it is an idea that presumes some of the myths of individualism, that there is no such thing as society, that we aren't part of a greater whole. Advancing a change of behaviour isn't just an individual striking out, it is also a potential cultural act, shaping families, communities and societies. Yes, most of us will have only very small incremental effects, but these can gradually accumulate, a minority will have larger unpredictable effects, which cannot be predicted in advance. $3trillion of fossil fuel divestment started with a few individuals. Extinction Rebellion was started by 2 academics and is now a worldwide movement. Greta Thunberg has started a global school strike movement. These thing are prominent examples of how powerful individuals can be.

And in terms of government, the mode of many governments is orientated towards market research, is polling responsive, triangulates, indicating followership and not leadership. Its wrong to see governments as something distinct from the public who elect them and who they must responsively represent. As we should in a democracy, we have a role in molding government, which isnt restricted to the vote, but involves an ongoing conversation with our representatives directly and via our media, and sometimes that even involves protest. Furthermore, our democracies have allowed corporations to develop a powerful voice that the people must be mindful of.

Don't get me wrong, I agree with the IPCC about the fact that what we need to achieve requires governments to act and cannot rely on individuals, or indeed individual expression through enteprise. But individual action and engagement is also integral to government action, is made far more likely by individual action and engagement. There is a synergy between the two, but in contrast, deflation of individual action makes government action less likely and likely to be even more tardy than it already is.

100% agree. I was replying to someone who said encouraging government action was pointless  

Thanks! I KNEW when I was writing it that I would get it wrong... I'll eat more fish for my brain ha-ha-ha.... I'm off to TESCO on my bike now for some sustainable fish

Greta Thunberg, good for her. Shall we appoint her as UK Prime Minister now - she can sort out Brexit? Or at the very least we should appoint her now as UK Minister for Energy and the Environment

Global government action is the only sustainable measure and you need Trump booted out as the starting point. Piddling about in the uk will count for nothing. 

You need to focus on improvements over the next 5  years not something which is 100 years off and is therefore irrelevant to most people’s lives. 

Tackle air pollution ,plastic pollution and less meat eating for health reasons as a starting point. 

Otherwise you will get nowhere and still be talking about it in 10 years time.

I couldn’t disagree more. Personal action is empowering and inspiring to others, especially when it’s a really concerted effort. It has massive spin offs. Yes, we need action from governments, but on the other hand it’s too easy to use that as an excuse to sit back, do nothing, make no commitments. 

thoroughly agree! Great post - thanks for taking the trouble to write it

 As I said concentrate on the achievable which has a measurable benefit.

It's odd- in the past five years or so I've just lost the urge to eat meat regularly. No particular reason I just don't feel the need to buy it during a food shop, and when I do it tends to have a yellow sticker on it going cheap in the reduced section. I don't plan on going full veggie mind. 

It's a much, much easier lifestyle change than many others such as giving up the car etc as you don't really have to change much at all.

The thread title is why aren’t I a vegetarian. 

Because I haven’t seen enough evidence that the effect on climate is worth the sacrifice.

That’s not to say that there is no effect on climate, there is an effect on climate from pretty much everything, but dig deeper into some of the information out there and there are some pretty compelling arguments that cows, animal agriculture aren’t the issue.

The narrative is a great one, we all secretly think killing animals is bad and that there is virtue in sacrifice so it’s an easy story to tell. The reality could be more nuanced. 

For starters look into every single “fact” you read. Science is not simple and headlines are. Where does the science come from, where do the headlines come from, where does the money come from are all good questions to ask.

Some bits and pieces that made me think again and start to delve a little deeper.

- Emmisions for animal agriculture have been quoted as worse than cars at 18%. Documentaries on netflix and activists love to bandy this around as do the media. This figure has been pretty much debunked. The figure varies very widely from developed to developing countries but some estimates in the USA suggest only 3% of their emmisions of which you’d only save 1.5% because the food would need to be replaced by something else. It all depends on who does the study, when vegans did it they included all the lifecycle carbon of all the livestock (ie birth to death, transport of the meat, transport of feed literally everything) but when looking at cars only looked at what comes out the tailpipe and didn’t include any manufacture or disposal, maintenance etc. 

- the USA used to be home to millions of Bison, did they not cause an issue?

- apparently you can dramatically cut emmisions by feeding cows a bit of seaweed

- The way carbon emissions are calculated has a big impact on how bad we think this is. In order to quantify emissions for treaties and the like “carbon” was made a thing but this is actually a few greenhouse gases scaled as units. Because methane is worse than carbon it counts as “25 carbon units” towards emissions for every one methane so impacts emissions a LOT. What isn’t considered is that the methane in the atmosphere degrades into Co2 which is then trapped in grass to be eaten by cows. It’s cyclical eco system and yet the calculations are often done as if it’s just pure emmisions. The emissions only go up if you increase the total cow population. In the states at least this figure is stable if not going down.

- Properly managed ruminants actually act as a great carbon sink taking carbon out of the atmosphere.

- Much land across the world dedicated to livestock can’t grow crops

- mono cropping destroys ecosystems and kills huge amounts of animals 

- look up desertification, it’s when you chop down all the trees and plant crops in a few generations the land becomes desert. Ruminants stop this from happening.

- many scientists worry that there aren’t that many harvests left in our soil. It’s not ever lasting and new soil is only made by ruminant activity

- ruminants effectively take nutrients we cannot eat and upcycle into food we can. There isn’t no need to feed them grain but even if we do 85% of what they eat in a lifetime is not edible by humans.

- there are as many horses in the USA as cows they also emit gas, should we kill them? How about dogs and cats

- how do we replace the (complete) protein we get from animal products 

- studies that look at feeding the world look at calories not nutrients as an example the Eat Lancet study (interestingly funded by large processed food companies) is nutritionally deficient

- fruit and veg is some of the absolute worst for airmiles do vegetarians and vegan only eat local and seasonal? In Britain that would be quite limiting in the winter....

- Rumour is the Guardian has been paid by the humane society of America to run a load of anti meat stories so if you’re looking there for info....

- the health issue is not as it has been painted, for example studies linking meat to cancer as severely flawed and yet there are studies linking vegetarianism to depression ...

People speak about meat and climate like it’s a done deal. It’s not

http://theconversation.com/yes-eating-meat-affects-the-environment-but-cows...

Frank M. Mitloehner certainly seems like an expert in the field of animal agriculture but I get the impression he's sitting on the 'cattle are great' side of the fence throwing things across at the other side rather than being an unbiased researcher (if there is such a thing).

I'm not sure his views are the consensus (not that the consensus is always correct but it's a good place to start) nor are they uncontested - 

https://www.jhsph.edu/research/centers-and-institutes/johns-hopkins-center-...

Thank for a very enlightening post.

Agreed, but I think it’s important to note that there is a range of opinion (not just from this one source) and that the meat=bad side is heavily influenced by selection biased research and funded by action groups either overtly or covertly.

Having read quite a bit the actual experts in the individual fields seem to say a lot which disagrees with the general overarching narrative which is pulled together from abstracts at the start of papers. This applies equally to climate and nutrition where the conversation is likely to be linked. 

Not sure if this was sarcastic, I understand why if so as I suppose I didn’t include a lot of detail in those claims. But it also shows how throughly the accepted truth is believed by many based on not very good science.

You can eat all the vegetarian sausages you want, but until we stop the proles and Catholics knocking 8 kids out at a time, it's pointless. 

I don't think either of us know if you can directly compare bison and cattle in terms of emissions but there's certainly a huge difference in numbers (bison estimated to begin the 20 millions at their peak, cattle estimated to be 94 million in 2018), their digestion (I've read bison produce less methane than most cows), and their diet (bison obviously would not have supplemental food). 

It great that research is being done on this butI have my doubts that the companies that use industrial methods to raise cattle care about anything other than their bottom line and are unlikely to make any changes unless forced to by legislation.

I'm not sure I agree with your analysis. When you say 'What isn’t considered...' what makes you so sure? It takes about 8 years (or so I've read) for methane to break down, it seem likely that they've taken that into account and you've not just found a flaw that the many experts in the field had just not noticed...

And when you say "It’s cyclical eco system", well sort of. I mean isn't the whole problem that we are creating more CO2 than the plants can absorb? There's a whole host of inputs to producing meat that aren't just grass, it seems pretty disingenuous of you to suggest there are no net emissions.

Also I'm not sure I follow you about it not being a problem because emissions are stable. We are producing too much green house gas, stable emissions are not okay we need to dramatically reduce emissions.

I'm sure there is a place for properly managed ruminants but I don't think this is happening and I have great doubts it could be done with meat production at the scale it is now simply because of all the inputs needed to produce the sheer number of cattle.

Again, I'm sure there is a place for well managed grazing of cattle but I get the impression that most cattle take input other than grass and hence there is much additional land that is suitable for crops being used to grow crops to feed cattle when it could be used much more efficiently to grow crops for people.

I'd also argue that mono cropping is bad but I'm not sure that less meat production means more mono cropping, grain is often grown expressly for cattle feed and you need more space for growing the grain that is fed to an animal that then produces meat for eating than if you used the crops directly to feed people.

They do? Isn't the chopping down the trees the problem? I'm not sure chopping down the trees and putting cattle on the land fixes this. I've no problem with not chopping down the trees and having cattle in them but I'm not sure this is how the majority of cattle are or can be raised.

I think there is a case for improving how we grow our food and integration of animals into crop production better certainly has its place but I'm not convinced that the current industrial scale production of meat is necessary for that.

Certainly around here the shit from the cattle gets spread on the fields which grows grass for the cattle, it's not used for anything else and it's not cyclic because the cattle get additional feed that from crops grown elsewhere in the world.

I agree that it's a useful process to use animals to up cycle grass into higher quality nutrients but it's not like here in the west where we have a problem with getting high enough quality nutrients. Quite the opposite, we're awash with meat, our problem is over consumption not lack of nutrients as can be seen by the general state of the health of our population. I'd suggest that for our population eating less meat and replacing it with vegetables would mean a healthier diet.

A quick google shows that horses produce much less gas than cattle because they are not ruminants. Dogs and cats? Adding silly points like this undermines your credibility because it gives the impression you've decided which side you're on and are trying to find as many points to argue your case rather basing your opinion on the strength of the arguments.

Again, I'm not sure this is a real argument. Something like 20% of the world's population is vegetarian and they seem to manage. Also meat production is not going away any time soon and I don't think it should be eliminated, the real question is should the massive scale of it (in the west) be reduced so that it can be made sustainable?

I'm pretty sure you can have a nutritionally sufficient vegetarian diet even if that study doesn't have one. Just take a look at the average diet of people in this country and then look me in the eye and tell me that they'd wouldn't be better eating more vegetables and less meat...

It's certainly an issue! We try to eat seasonally is but you're right fresh fruit and veg in the winter in the UK is pretty limiting. It's really worth freezing fruit and veg when it's in season then using it when it isn't and cheaper too. People are often giving away apples for free in the autumn!

I've no idea if that's true, you've no idea if that's true but hey why not just throw it out there anyway!

Nothing is ever black or white, individual studies always have flaws it's all about looking at the balance of the evidence.

I'd agree that like all these things it's not a simple issue.

No it's not.

Have a look at Hans Roslings lectures on population growth for a more rounded explanation of the drivers.

Thanks but I find some of your points dubious and others I'm not familiar with so I'll go with the majority scientific view for the moment.

What sacrifice would you be making by giving up meat?

​​​​I don't support doing nothing, but you should realise how much of a minority we are that care this much about the environment. The cars waiting with engines running outside the leisure centre, the group with fancy cars driving them in circles in the retail park, the amount of pointless SUVs and 4x4s that drive around, even the amount of diesel camper vans that some climbers drive around the place show the number that don't care that much about climate change and aren't interested. You can change your life as much as you want, but changing their lives is what matters and the only way to do that is through government.

A lot is just for people to claim clear conscience "it's not me!" Which just isn't good enough as it's not going to make a difference.

Also look at the top ten european polluters and figure out how much individual action is required to come close to the same impact: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/business-47783992

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0168192309002846

Agreed, It does change the “increase” though which makes the impact not as bad as previously thought. Little subtleties like this which can be glossed over in favour of reporting a headline figure really matter when you’re deciding whether cars or beef are the issue.

agreed, but then neither do non animal argricuture companies which aren’t zero emmisions and I know you’re not saying that they are but we quote animals as costing x amount of carbon whereas really we should be saying they cost x amount MORE than doing everything plant based. Which is a smaller number and gets smaller if changes like this are made.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/100389969/methane-reduction-critic...

new Zealand based but interesting.

yep, and there’s a whole host of inputs to plant based, like flying avocados around the world. Palm oil I believe is a major contributor to deforestation. It’s not simple. 

agreed and then the argument is about how, I’m just saying that when you look at the detail animal agriculture might not be that bad and it’s a bigger sacrifice than the small gains.

Actually USA meat production is very efficient in terms of emissions per lbs of meat. It’s the developing world which needs to use more of the technology and mgt practises to reduce the impact.

I think this is overlying simplistic. Yes you could feed the corn to humans but then you miss out on the nutrients in the cow and the 85% that is fed that we cannot eat is wasted. In a lot of countries land is not (admittedly yet) an issue. UK may be different.

Almonds, soy, rice are all examples of this. 

Yes but you have to chop down trees for crops too. 

Industrial isn’t nescesarily bad but look up Alan savoury he has some thoughts on sustainable and high yield.

this doesn’t have to be the case.

Actually in the West number of calories aren’t the issue as you say. Eating less processed food and more healthy meat and animal products as we used to do 50 years ago is probably the solution to health.

Good point and I was being flippant to show how arbitrary it is to just decide that one set of animals which provide useful function are bad, it’s not logical not to look at the whole picture. The point is if we are so so desperate we need the world to be vegetarian then there are many other thing so id rather see go first.

They do and they don’t. India is a good example the health of the vegetarian population is much worse than the meat eating population. But then you are on the assumption that it’s not sustainable which I don’t think is true. There is a cost in emissions, which I’ve already said are questionable. But there is a cost in plant based emmisions too. It’s a question of if we’d have a limited carbon budget what do we spend it on. It seems we could keep meat the same and use more solar power for example. 

I’d argue they’d be better eating the same amount of meat and less processed food. It really is very good for you.

Fair point but I’d heard it quoted on the radio the other day and it seemed pretty factual, can’t find out if it’s true though. The main point though is that as you say....

which most of this thread didn’t have. Just an assumption that meat is bad for our health and the environment. Which has been heavily heavily pushed by interest groups to the point where it is reportedly as fact not a debate.

Is it the majority scientific view or just the one you’ve heard the most?

Potentially my health?

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/animals-and-us/201812/strange-relat...

Part of the issue with this whole narrative is the assumption that meat isn’t that good for you anyway so it’s a great trade to do and we get to save the environment. There is a lot of increasing evidence that animal products are great for you and that many plant based products such as seed oils are not. Look up Zoe Harcombe who has a PHD in this and is very integellent and articulate. It follows that if animal products are good for you then we should find a way of making them sustainable or reducing carbon in other ways. 

I'll maybe respond to some of your points later, but this is wrong. The relative half-lives of CH4 and CO2 are as precisely factored in as possible in the numerous papers that look at this, including the fact that, irrespective of CO2 utilisation by photosynthetic organisms, net CO2 is not just recycled, it is accumulating (that is the whole bloody problem), and the accumulating fraction has to be factored into the total of what is driving the radiative forcing in our atmosphere at any period of time under scrutiny.

The radiative forcing potential of CH4 is far higher than CO2. CH4 isn't just 26x the global warming potential of CO2. It is far more than that. The 20 year potential of a CH4 is 200x the global warming potential of CO2, so any new increasing CH4 is a major issue. You don't want to know what the 1 year potential of CH4 is!

The 100 year global warming potential of CH4 is where the 26x figure comes from and the CH4 500 year global warming potential of CO2 is still 7x. It is also responsible for other unhelpful feedbacks like increased O3 production and stratospheric humidity, which also increase atmospheric radiative forcing, and as a result of factoring these in the 100 year potential of CH4 is often regarded as higher, e.g. 33x CO2. And, when methane is broken down into CO2, it isn't contributing to a stable pool that is recycled, it is adding to the net accumulating CO2 burden.

I just wanted to say, I don't think I agree with your conclusions as regards meat eating but I appreciate the informed debate. Often people are just looking for confirmation of their preconceived positions and it's no debate at all, it's just people shouting at each other!

Thanks you seem very knowledgeable and happy to change my view if proved wrong by science. What’s you’re view on Myles Allen from Oxford university and his thoughts on this?

Oh I'm sorry, I nearly fell off my chair laughing. I know quite a few long time vegetarians who are in excellent health. I myself am of above average physical health (I get health checks at work every couple of years) and my mental health is fine too and I've been largely meat free for 30 years. You really don't need to worry that giving up meat will harm you, probably the reverse.

Agreed I like the debate, the frustration is for me it’s such a broad area that it comes down to really who do you trust as so many of the studies can be read one way or the other. For what it’s worth I tried vegetarianism for a bit and it didn’t work for me and its what lead me to look into more detail. I’d happily go full vegan if I saw properly convincing science about health and environment these days there’s plenty of tasty alternatives. 

We will just have to disagree here. But “I feel fine” isn’t that scientific although if it works for you that’s great and you should keep doing it. There is evidence to suggest that  is not the case for everyone.

In addition what do you think about the NASA methane findings

As a researcher, its not my area of expertise, but as a non-expert, Myles Allen's criticisms on CO2 equivalents is entirely justified, especially when aimed at long term budgets. The main reason why they are justified is because the half-life of CO2 is long, and thus it is very problematic using CO2 equivalents when looking at long term budgets of molecules with short half-lifes, but powerful radiative forcing. This is one of the reasons why I make the points I do above, because the short term budget contributed by methane is very significant, and because the half life is short, the short term forcing due to methane is more relevant than the long-term. Personally, I do not understand how he jumps from that to saying ergo we don't have to worry about meat eating as long as we don't increase methane production, because the reality is that methane production IS increasing as is meat consumption. He doesn't mention meat consumption in his papers though!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41612-018-0026-8

Which in particular? The recent evidence of growth?

Yes and that the majority is fossil fuel with some wetland (rice) farming thrown in.

I wasn't being facetious  - I genuinely found your response refreshing and informative, thank you

I probably butchered a lot of the info, unfortunately I’m not any kind of expert but it is out there if you want to find it. Documentaries like cowspiracy and what the health have done a lot of harm with their ridiculous claims. 

Some of it was accurate. But even as a person with cows you don't need them to develop soil.  It's just basically rotted organic matter. Semi wooded areas probably bring the fastest growth, due to a high volume of rotting leaves. They also draw up many different minerals from deeper in the ground, than a field of grass. So you eventually have a much richer loam. 

We’ve got a solution: the fartpack : 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2606956/Now-THATS-wind-powe...

Well from memory, this was particularly describing the recent acceleration of methane accumulation, which their data suggests is driven by fossil fuel extraction, especially fracking (I wrote to Claire Perry MP at the time about this) but also possibly warming wet lands and growth in emissions from rice paddies. Though that is data for an acceleration that rests on a background of methane production with a fairly well characterised breakdown of contributors, one major new (over the last century) net anthropogenic contribution to which is agriculture and animal farming.

I don't mean to undermine the individuals tacking action on climate change and support and encourage everyone to do as much as they can.  I just wanted to point out that though people may debate the carbon footprint of many actions, the reality is time has probably already run out.  And as someone else has said, it maybemaybe better to invest and debate issue that might improve our life's immediately in next ten years by looking at reducing urban air Pollution, congestion, down stream flooding, rewiliding, action that will drastically improve people life and reduce co2 emissions as well.

The emission stabilisation between 2014-16 was more a false hope, although emissions never increased during this period they were still at an all time global high, but sadly 3 of 4 years of record all time global increases in CO2 emissions has occurred from 2016 on wards. 

Tackling global warming requires the end of capitalism and economic growth, with the consequences of climate change being hardest felt by the world's poor, it's fairly easy to work out why so little or none significant action has taken place so far. A race is playing out that no side can win, continued economic growth mean more people being tacking out of poverty thus living with infrastructure being able to adapt to climate change, but as people escape poverty more are being born into it with continued population growth.

In my book "the end of capitalism" means state control - where everything is controlled by the government. Four current examples of state controlled countries are China, Vietnam, North Korea, and Eritrea. Do you want the UK to be "required" to have a wonderful system like these 4 wonderful countries ha-ha-ha??? Doesn't sound great to me

I'm always bemused by "student strikes". I understand a bus driver strike - the bus drivers don't work, inconveniencing many people and thereby raising awareness of their demands. I understand a nurse strike - the nurses don't work, inconveniencing many people and thereby raising awareness of their demands

But school or university students on strike? I could not care less if students strike: they are inconveniencing only themselves

I know Greta goes and demonstrates during her "strike", but that's what she does that day, and is nothing to do with any "strike"

Don't worry she comes from a well off family, if her education suffers they can open doors for her. I suspect she'll just write a book in a few years and bank a couple of million. Job done. 

It will be interesting to see how her " brand" develops over hte next couple of years.Will she for example fly to the USA or Aus or China?Fascinating to watch.

You are right about her coming from a well off family, there again is that such a bad thing, she seems to have captured alot of concerns the younger generation have, and sometimes it is good to get a kick up the backside from teenagers.She certainly got me thinking about my business ( use foundries, ship machines via plane , gas blowers for heating the factory and so on). Alot of posters on here would turn in their graves about such things. There again forecasts for my business are strong because  end users for my equipment are pushing more enviromentally friendly diesel engines or battery powered applications for heavy vehicles/ marine engines. In agriculture there are some big things going on as you know to drive down CO2 emmissions.And in aircraft engines expect to see RR, GE and the likes get C02 emmissions down ( electric engines- the next stage- and of course we can always revert to propellors for aircraft, something people tend to forget)

It is not as though the " capitalist " world is behind the times on these issues, something that irks me alot about some of the issues. Is it anti capitalism or climate change that they are protesting against?Capitalism is part of the solution as it generates ideas and innovative thinking.Veganism is now starting to hit mainstream, crikey it is a best seller at Greggs. Who would have though of that a few years ago.

Anyway must go, off to vist the foundry.

Given that she seems to have finished her last year at school a month or two early. I'm guessing she'll be going into politics, Swedish green party. Joining a bunch of folk who are predominately city dwellers and haven't had a normal job, then telling what is a relatively sparsely populated rural country how to live greener lives. 

Of course, politicians will continue to host her for social media shots to try and improve their green credentials. But she hasn't designed a carbon capture machine, she doesn't have an economic solution for infinite growth, she only has so much to offer in such meetings. 

There are elements of the capitalist world, as you would put it, which are very much behind the times, and have been responsible for dragging the rest of the world back. Fossil fuel industries have known for decades of the damage their products would do, and rather than change their businesses, they have funded climate-change denial and withstood, at every step, any efforts to move beyond fossil fuels. Like it or not, European and American fossil fuel industries bear significant responsibility for the state we are now in and they have known this is where we would be heading. They have consistently put their own interests first, regardless of the consequences.

That's an incredibly negative way to talk about a 16 year old trying to make a difference in the world. Are you okay?

It's realistic. I'm not dreamer. It's all very sweet, but it's economics that will be the driver. 

Of course a few will use less drinking straws or carrier bags, but in the big scheme of things it's meaningless and people are selfish. They'll be green as long as it's cheap, which is why we've reached this point. 

I don't think anything meaningful happen until there are more severe climate impacts, failed harvests, water shortages, major storms etc.. it will of course be too late. 

Yes Harry, mostly I agree with you, and "There are elements of the capitalist world" which have been a problem. But is it because they are capitalist? I suggest not. The opposite of capitalism is state control, where everything is controlled by the government, China being a prime example. China is massively increasing power production with coal right now, bears significant responsibility for the state we are now in, and has consistently put their own interests first

(PS I wrote a post about 4 state controlled countries at 4.16 AM today, in this thread)

Don't you think we're expecting rather a lot from a teenage girl?

I don't know about you, but she makes me feel ashamed. 

Don't dismiss cultural and attitude change, these are what drive economic and technological changes, changing people's minds is so important and while I get what you are saying about Greta Thunberg I think what she is doing it really important.

Also whatever you think about the likely success of what's she's doing it seems irrational and mean spirited to question a 16 year old's motives and background.

Let's hope not.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make, unless it is to try to absolve 'capitalism' of any blame for the state we are in. Capitalism has been the driving economic force in the industrialised West for centuries - we are where we are, for good and bad, because of capitalism. 

What capitalism has also allowed has been the accumulation of power by the wealthy, and in this context, has allowed the vested interests of the fossil fuel industries to influence political decision makers, in order to preserve their own self-interest. 

And if you eat the grain you get a huge amount more food value back than if you give it to an animal and then eat the animal.

Yes. She is someone politicians can hang off to try and gain votes, whilst changing nothing meanful. Or the pope, another outstanding hypocrite. 

Isn't a tree a carbon capture machine?

The Pope? 

Yeah. Even better if you build with it. Then plant more. Perhaps instead of glueing people to trains, they should target building companies and those that develop building regs. 

He doesn't deserve capital letters. 

Not really as the grain has to be processed and cows can eat unprocessed grass. 

That’s besides the point I was making. Trees are the carbon soak. We need to absorb tons of carbon quickly. 

If only it was that simple.

There is no excuse these days to not at least be cutting down on meat (and dairy) better still not consuming it at all. Its never been easier / made more sense. The evidence is everywhere that the livestock industry is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gasses globally and uses more water, energy and land than any other. Not to mention the negative effects it has on your health. 

I think the reason some people aren't switching over to plant based diets is the negative association it has amongst social groups and occasionally the media. Also people just don't like change or being different from those around them. 

There is no denying it is the easiest way to reduce your footprint and one that could seriously make a huge change as more people start cutting it out. 

It isn't that simple is it but since various organisations have stated that meat production is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to all those from other sources, put together, then getting a simple message across might help.

You're not a catholic then...

No. I'm a practising atheist. 

Given that the population volume we've got isn't going anywhere (and is likely to get bigger) it is the generation side that needs looking at, thus meat. What about the methane that cattle generates (28 times more powerful than CO2 as greenhouse gas)

Can you provide a link for that evidence? According to the US EPA, agriculture, forestry and other land use accounts for 24% of  global GHG emissions. It follows that livestock farming will be some proportion of that 24%. 

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/global-greenhouse-gas-emissions-data

Do you have a source for the claim that meat production is responsible for at least 50% of GHG emissions?

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/... suggests that the whole of UK agriculture is only responsible for 10% of UK GHG emissions.

Provided one is blinkered as to how far the alternatives have been shipped.

Unconvinced, a cow a can feed you for a long time. Plus that’s calories not nutrition. There’s a good argument that the grain is quite bad for you and doesn’t really contain much that you need to live.

Well considering alot of fossil fuel organsisations are state owned in such places as Mexico, Brazil, venezula, Saudi Arabia etc etc,You have in Norway a state wealth fund founded on oil and gas. Gazprom? I can never remember if this is stae or privately owned.I think you may need to correct your views.

Perhaps I should have been more explicit. Fossil fuel industries such as Exxon, Shell and Chevron and others have known the consequences of their actions for decades, and have been very active in funding climate change denial. For example, the Koch Family Foundations have spent $127,006,756 directly financing groups that have attacked climate change science and policy solutions. ExxonMobil has given $23 million to similar organisations. 

how does a link to some website provide proof these days? We all know how biased and unreliable the internet can be. 

Take the time and read into it, go through all the data that is available and it is quite obvious meat and dairy is a huge issue. is it the only issue? no. There are many. However my point is that this is one we can all make a conscious effort to change and its relatively easy to do so. The alternatives are there you just have to open your eyes. 

There are plenty of alternatives made right here in the UK and even more so over in Europe. Actually Europe is way ahead with these plant based alternatives than further away places and just like anything -the more the demand the more companies will begin to distribute closer to home. 

I would like some evidence for your assertion that the livestock industry is one of the biggest sources of greenhouse gases. If you are not able to provide any such evidence, your assertion has little value. 

The problem I have with the idea that changing one's diet is a meaningful action comes from my belief that there are far bigger problems, and that changing one's diet acts merely as a sticking plaster to one's conscience. Changing diet does nothing to address the fact that a great proportion of the world economy is based on fossil fuels, and changes to that need concerted international efforts on the part of governments around the world. The current trend for changing your diet gets government off the hook.

But you're allowed to believe in something summo...

I do. Thst the pope and his pals are a bunch of hypocrites. 

here's one to start you off if it helps. First link on a quick google search.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production

So what are you doing to address the fossil fuels issue?

Its not something that you can change instantly like cutting down on meat and dairy. I'm not saying its not important but it sounds to me like  your excuse for not acknowledging issues with the over consumption of meat and dairy is that you don't think its as much of a problem. My point again - it IS a problem and its one we can all change relatively easily. 

Money poorly spent considering most companies in the USA are on board with the issues and a lot are getting on with addressing them It’s not all doom and gloom as you portray. 

14.5% globally  according to that link, and it also says that it would only drop 2.6% in the states if animals were completely removed (because their system is efficient) Not a lot. All food production will contribute some it’s not like you’re comparing 14.5% with zero.

and the big point here is you think meat and dairy are overconsumed. Why do you think that? If we were to start from a place of meat and dairy are necessary for human health then instead it becomes about how small can we realistically make that 14.5% by adopting good practise and then find the rest of the savings elsewhere. 

It seems utterly illogical to me that with so many things we do in our lives this is the one people seem to focus on. How about instantly saying only 1 flight per year per person and no air freight of fruit and veg. Problem solved.

The only person saying it's the one thing we focus on is yourself. You're making things up now.

According to which:

"the FAO has recently estimated that livestock (including poultry) accounts for about 14.5 percent of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions estimated as 100-year CO2 equivalents"

which is some way short of your original assertion. 

You miss my point. What you or I do is not going to make the scale of change necessary. Individual actions, while worthy, are not sufficient.  

Compared with the real problems, it's a mere sticking plaster, when major body surgery is what is needed. 

Companies in the USA may be on board with the issue now, but it has taken a very long time to get to that stage. The Kyoto Protocol, which first set limits on the basket of six GHGs was signed in 1992. Since then, CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has risen from about 350 ppm to over 410 ppm. We have wasted over 20 years, failing to do anything meaningful. 

Ok fair point. I’ll rephrase and say coverage of this issue (if it is one) is disproportional to the effects we could have elsewhere and is likely due to a heavy influence by interest groups in the media.

McDonalds as an example started on this issue back in 1988 ......

I think you might be surprised as to how much has been going .

Quite a lot has happened in those 20 years. Think about power generation alone. Electrification of railways, even the concept of recycling... however the global population has gone up from 5 to 7 billion or so. That's a 40% increase in population, emissions were never going to remain the same. 

May I try a different tack? Do you think it sufficient that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 has increased as much as it had done? Are we in a good position now? 

No, of course we're not, and trying to pretend that enough has been done is simply to bury one's head in the sand. You seem oblivious to the notion that fossil fuel industries, both through their direct business actions and through their climate change denial funding and lobbying, have been at the heart of the situation we are now in. The fact that one fast-food chain may have been taking some actions early is hardly grounds for satisfaction. 

Humans aren't vegetarians.

Concerning description of the state of farming going forward. Some of this is economic and some climate, probably very little is behavioural. We need farmers not to exit the market, but to adapt and adopt better practice. Shows how government and CAP is failing. Its only our food at stake.

https://www.fwi.co.uk/business/markets-and-trends/crop-prices/arable-and-li...

I was wondering about dining out. IIRC you eat out and enjoy fine dining. I know some of these restaurants have veg options, even on their tasting menus, but... In my experience it's about the meat plus accompaniments, what do you do?