It’s systemic solutions that are needed. Some of those may include disincentivizing consumption. But it’s also not simple given that in many places there’s serious pushback against that. And also the economic cost. Everything is interwoven.
I wish people stopped pretending that this is just a matter of going vegan.
My point is about the fact that we already know and have most of the solutions: less consumption, less emissions, less destruction of our environment. Yet, most people with decision power (be it as individuals, as heads of governments or companies) refuse to accept and follow them. Instead, many prefer to propose global-scale, geo-modifications whose results are unknown and potentially more dangerous.
It’s something we can do today, just need to decide whether having a burger is more important or not.
But they won't. Even here on HN, where some smart people roam, touching their meat (like, eating LESS of it, not quitting altogether) will make them into incoherent angry (I guess) men. And that's of course a big step, smaller steps are even not a thing for many people; not flying, no car, hell, here people even refuse to obey the law of not topping up (or filling) their swimming pools even though there is an huge water shortage.
The only way will be if governments decide to step in. Problem there is; a lot of gov people and the people they support or who support them, are giving the wrong examples; big cars, slabs of meat, villas all over the place, bailing out struggling airlines, making sure the energy/oil companies can make more profits, making sure farmers have to obey nothing of these new rules because export products (so they can keep using whatever amount of water, cut ancient trees down just like that, ...) etc. People pick the govs they like, which means they hope either things will get better for themselves (not the world) or remain the same.
But I agree we need much stronger regulation.
I would have hoped that especially this HN crowd would change their mind because it's quite clear and logical that not consuming meat and dairy will mean requiring fewer resources and producing less pollution.
Not so smart then.
> The only way will be if governments decide to step in
That's why more people vegan == more pressure for governments not to ignore the issue.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
"In a hypothetical scenario in which everyone in the world went vegan by 2050, the regrowth of trees and wilderness could sequester around 547 billion tonnes of additional CO2. Each year we emit around 36 billion tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuels, so that’s equal to around 15 years of emissions at our current levels. They also estimate an additional 225 billion tonnes of CO2 could be stored in soils ..."
That's much more impactful than reducing emissions alone. It would store a load of carbon while preserving biodiversity (paramount for healthy ecosystems).
The study probably explores what would happen if _everyone_ did that. And that’s the issue right there. Everyone casts a wide net, it includes climate deniers, poor people, rich people, hard core dairy aficionados, etc, etc. The single most important thing an individual can do is inducing systemic change in one way or another. Preferably somehow avoiding alienating the bulk of the audience, as that may end up with people in power who actively undermine any efforts towards solving the situation.
There is also a link to the PDF - try this one: https://www.nature.com/articles/s43016-023-00795-w.pdf.
RE: The single most important thing an individual can do is inducing systemic change in one way or another.
And that was my point. Vote with your wallet and inform others in your circle that reducing / avoiding will have positive impact. This will trigger systemic change.
Is it the only thing we can do, no it's not, but it's something you and I can do right now.
After all, if we ban beef. We have accepted that taste has no meaning in life and we can just ban everything not mandatory like spices and herbs.
It's about cutting out food that create the biggest damage to our biosphere, which is the large scale meat & dairy industry.
RE: Why not go all the way, select handful of optimal foods and only allow those to be sold or grown. [...] ban everything not mandatory like spices and herbs.
This is not about banning meat & dairy. And you can't seriously compare meat & dairy to herbs & spices.
We have accepted that human life is worthless, because cars are allowed to drive fast enough to cause fatal crashes, may as well remove all limits alltogether.
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Absolutist arguments are absolutely absurd.
It has to start in our own kitchens.
