Well if we're going that route, the best way is probably just to kill ourselves... (Sorry this came of meaner than I thought, but I just don't think it's constructive. To live is to consume, and...
Well if we're going that route, the best way is probably just to kill ourselves...
(Sorry this came of meaner than I thought, but I just don't think it's constructive. To live is to consume, and part of our species living is to have children. Though, I stronger support adoption, for people and pets).
Since learning this fact a couple years ago, my goal has been to reduce, not eliminate. Eliminate would just be too difficult for me, but not eating meat & dairy every meal is a huge change.
Since learning this fact a couple years ago, my goal has been to reduce, not eliminate. Eliminate would just be too difficult for me, but not eating meat & dairy every meal is a huge change.
That's sort of how I started too. I saw some documentary about how if everyone in North America ate one less burger a day, we could meet our emission goals, and decided I could do that. (Though I...
That's sort of how I started too. I saw some documentary about how if everyone in North America ate one less burger a day, we could meet our emission goals, and decided I could do that. (Though I didn't eat a burger a day...lol).
According to a press release by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency just reducing meat and dairy is hugely beneficial to not only the climate but also your personal health. 50%...
According to a press release by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency just reducing meat and dairy is hugely beneficial to not only the climate but also your personal health. 50% reduction of meat consumption yb everyone in the EU would be enough to meet its climate target and bring down the consumption of saturated fat and red meat to the targets of the WHO and World cancer research fund. So its great that you already started!
I think this is something we all know, and I personally have a hard time cutting it out completely. I love burgers and cheese. However, I do think it's important to try to reduce the amount of...
I think this is something we all know, and I personally have a hard time cutting it out completely. I love burgers and cheese. However, I do think it's important to try to reduce the amount of meat especially that is consumed. I try by always considering the veggies option first and eating good meat. (By good meat, I mean, free range if possible, and not fast food like KFC).
Same. I eat meat maybe once a week now. I wanted to have a more responsible diet, but I didn't do it overnight. I just slowly started trying alternatives. Over the course of about two years,...
Same. I eat meat maybe once a week now. I wanted to have a more responsible diet, but I didn't do it overnight. I just slowly started trying alternatives. Over the course of about two years, without forcing myself in any way, I went from having some meat for 2 out of every 3 meals to once a week in one meal. (Even if I will somehow progress to eating no meat at all, I don't think I'll ever label myself a vegetarian.)
As for dairy, I'm having a hard time finding substitutes that are as protein rich as quark, for example.
Good question. Easy answer: Because I would still eat fish, seafood, and possibly insects. Real answer: Because I don't identify with the movement associated with vegetarianism. Or rather, the...
Good question. Easy answer: Because I would still eat fish, seafood, and possibly insects.
Real answer: Because I don't identify with the movement associated with vegetarianism. Or rather, the movement I associate with it. The self-identifying and outspoken vegetarians I encountered growing up were as vocal and relentless as vegans are seen by some to be now. That image has stuck with me.
I went through a similar long transition of reducing my meat intake over years, and now I'd consider myself a vegetarian. Personally, I found that it became easier as time went on to displace meat...
I went through a similar long transition of reducing my meat intake over years, and now I'd consider myself a vegetarian. Personally, I found that it became easier as time went on to displace meat with plants, not as alternatives (i.e. bean burgers or faux-chicken strips) but by trying plant-based meals that were good in their own right. It seemed to help my exercise as well as my day-to-day feeling, but that may have been the addition of more plant-based variety in my diet and not neccessarily the exclusion of meat.
To your point about the vegetarian/vegan movement: I think to outsiders many movements are defined by their loudest/most obnoxious examples and not by the "normal" people who don't bring it up every conversation. I consider myself a vegetarian even though these types of people don't represent what it meanst to me.
This resonates with me. Privacy activists suffer the same fate. It doesn't happen as often any more, but people often associate us with tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists. It makes any...
To your point about the vegetarian/vegan movement: I think to outsiders many movements are defined by their loudest/most obnoxious examples and not by the "normal" people who don't bring it up every conversation. I consider myself a vegetarian even though these types of people don't represent what it meanst to me.
This resonates with me. Privacy activists suffer the same fate. It doesn't happen as often any more, but people often associate us with tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists. It makes any conversation about privacy an uphill battle.
With all the sheer mind boggling revelations that both governments and private companies are trying to harvest as much data about ordinary people as possible, one would think it would be harder to...
With all the sheer mind boggling revelations that both governments and private companies are trying to harvest as much data about ordinary people as possible, one would think it would be harder to ignore privacy advocates.
But I suppose the veil of ignorance can feel comforting.
Well, like I said, it's getting better. But not that much better. There is more public support for data protection policies, which is having a significant impact.
Well, like I said, it's getting better. But not that much better. There is more public support for data protection policies, which is having a significant impact.
I'm the same. Even when I didn't eat meat, I didn't label myself. I don't really like labels, and I found that it came with a lot of hate. People labelled me for me, and then criticized my...
I'm the same. Even when I didn't eat meat, I didn't label myself. I don't really like labels, and I found that it came with a lot of hate. People labelled me for me, and then criticized my choices...it was kinda weird.
Have you ever heard of the saying 'no single raindrop feels responsible for the flood'? I like this one about slow moving things like climate change because even if you're just a tiny part of the...
Have you ever heard of the saying 'no single raindrop feels responsible for the flood'?
I like this one about slow moving things like climate change because even if you're just a tiny part of the solution you're still part of it. For every person that changes their mind about how we've been living it could inspire more and you're creating a demand for food that isn't harming the environment and reducing demand for food that is. It might not feel like you're making an impact but you would be and to be honest it's actually not that much effort to avoid meat and dairy and it's no effort at all to just heavily reduce it. People have been saying that Vegans have made no progress over the last few decades but I would say look how many vegan options are on menus and in shops now compared to even a couple of years ago, there's plant based diet athletes on the news and all heavily publicised. That just wouldn't have happened a couple of years ago, so progress is being made it's just slow.
As to the why? Well if you really need an answer to that I don't know what to say, assuming you want to keep living on this planet it's kind of in your best interest.
Well, there's a point to be made about feeling that you're making a change. But I'll just leave this here. https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried...
Well, there's a point to be made about feeling that you're making a change. But I'll just leave this here.
Also couple other points. Veganism is a privileged position. It is expensive. Billions of people in the world do not have the option to be vegan. And if you say being vegan is about doing as much as you can, then what's the point? It's just about the feels then.
On the other hand, doing all these things - going vegan, reducing your 'carbon footprint' - makes you feel like you're really making a change when all it does is rob you of your rage against the situation you find the world in.
All that veganism is a way for middle-class people to feel better about themselves that there's nothing they can do to avert the environmental catastrophe that is going on.
I don't understand the point of that link? There's a mixture of things that have already happened beside things that are made up scenarios and either way it doesn't paint a good picture of what...
I don't understand the point of that link? There's a mixture of things that have already happened beside things that are made up scenarios and either way it doesn't paint a good picture of what happens in the future if this continues?
Let's leave veganism on the shelf for the minute - It is quite a radical statement. Instead just going from the presumption that there is some form of human influenced climate change going on and wanting to limit the effects of it. I used to eat meat twice a day every day. Now I eat meat maybe once a week/two weeks. I still eat/drink dairy. Being "vegetarian" in this sense is cheaper for me. I've learned to cook a wider variety of foods, learned the importance of having a balanced diet and about nutrition, I feel physically healthier.
How many individuals are ever capable of "really making a change"? We're long past the point where one smart individual can discover electricity or make the printing press. The knowledge of sanitation stopped countless deaths but at one point there had to be someone pleading with everyone around them to please wash their hands after they shit and to pour alcohol onto a wound.
Individual change has a miniscule impact but it compounds and if more people just limited the amount of meat they eat it's a huge impact.
It also has the effect of changing things upstream that have industries-wide impacts. Because a small but significant group started eating more responsibly and demanding certain products from...
Individual change has a miniscule impact but it compounds and if more people just limited the amount of meat they eat it's a huge impact.
It also has the effect of changing things upstream that have industries-wide impacts.
Because a small but significant group started eating more responsibly and demanding certain products from supermarkets, all major chains in the Netherlands now carry both better quality meat and more non-meat alternatives. This has changed the meat industry, and it has introduced many more people to alternative options.
Same goes for packaging of products. There's more paper and less plastic in the aisles in supermarkets now. Legislation is being prepared at the EU-level to ban single-use plastics. All those individual choices and wishes of consumers is causing bigger and bigger changes.
I think how much value this change is worth to an individual is exactly that - individual. However, I have already noticed change in my lifetime. I have uncles that were veterinarian/vegan, and...
I think how much value this change is worth to an individual is exactly that - individual. However, I have already noticed change in my lifetime. I have uncles that were veterinarian/vegan, and they went from either not being about to go out with us for food, or eating a non-dressed salad to having pretty decent choices. Change has to start somewhere, no matter how small.
Unrelated, but I do feel sort of defeated on the donations and recycling front after finding out that about 50% of 90% of donated clothes still go the the landfill, and less than 75% of our city's recycling is actually recycled. But I don't think it's not worth making the effort. For me, it just means we need to try affect up the chain a bit more.
No. About 90% of the worlds population have the ability to go vegan because vegetables, grains and fruit, especially locally sourced, are a fraction of the cost of meat and dairy no matter where...
Also couple other points. Veganism is a privileged position. It is expensive. Billions of people in the world do not have the option to be vegan
No. About 90% of the worlds population have the ability to go vegan because vegetables, grains and fruit, especially locally sourced, are a fraction of the cost of meat and dairy no matter where it's from. Sure if you only eat at vegan restaurants and buy vegan ready meals and other junk it's more expensive but you shouldn't really do that anyway.
I went vegan earlier this year and the amount I spend on food literally almost halved. Instead of buying a £3 pack of mince I spend 79p on a big bag of lentils, instead of buying the pack of sausages for £2 I buy a huge bag of mushrooms for £1. This is the case for the majority of the world, there are obviously some outliers where it's impossible such as in extremely dry or cold climates but less than 1% of the worlds population live that way.
And if you say being vegan is about doing as much as you can, then what's the point? It's just about the feels then.
I never said it's doing as much as you can?... It's just one part of the solution. I find your attitude to be very nihilistic, I mean we can't actually recover the environmental damage we have done in our life time so why bother trying to fix the planet? Why not just let the sea levels rise the bees die out and millions of people starve? Come on that's actively being part of the problem.
On the other hand, doing all these things - going vegan, reducing your 'carbon footprint' - makes you feel like you're really making a change when all it does is rob you of your rage against the situation you find the world in.
I can assure you my rage against the situation has only gotten stronger over the years and to be perfectly blunt you can sit being angry about it but if you're doing nothing what is the point in that, then it's literally "just about the feels then".
All that veganism is a way for middle-class people to feel better about themselves that there's nothing they can do to avert the environmental catastrophe that is going on.
It stops you from askig for true alternatives.
I don't think you understand the purpose of it it's just one part of the solution, are you hoping for a magic technology to come along and just save us? Techno-optimism is incredibly misguided it's akin to praying to Zeus to heal a disease we can already treat but not cure. We need to change so many things; going vegan, using renewable energy, reducing/eliminating plastic waste, buying locally where possible, buying for life items, travelling in more eco-friendly ways, saving the rainforest and protecting the oceans.
I think you're looking for "true alternatives" because you hope you can continue on living the way we are now and want someone to come along and just fix it, well that isn't likely to happen at all but you're using it as a way to feel better about how you live while actively contributing to the catastrophe and then proceed to say other people who are making a change are wrong because it makes only a tiny difference. Something to think about in that.
False. The best way to reduce your environmental impact is to not have children.
Well if we're going that route, the best way is probably just to kill ourselves...
(Sorry this came of meaner than I thought, but I just don't think it's constructive. To live is to consume, and part of our species living is to have children. Though, I stronger support adoption, for people and pets).
You're nearly there, but not quite. the Best™ way is to kill everyone else, then yourself.
lol
Lol, but make sure you do it before you have kids.
I'm just kidding though. Please nobody kill themselves.
At that point, might as well just kill every animal...
I guess that's kind of what I mean. I do have pets too, and they're cats, so they will always need meat.
Indeed: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children
False. The best way to reduce your environmental impact is to not exist.
Everything we've been talking about have been viable choices you can make, this one is not.
Way ahead of you there. Been vegan for 2+ years now.
Congrats. It's not for me, but it's awesome for you.
Will you be double vegan so I don't have to but I can still save the earth?
What if we both go double vegan?
Nooooooo! Get out of here with your earth-saving logic! How about you go quadruple vegan???
Since learning this fact a couple years ago, my goal has been to reduce, not eliminate. Eliminate would just be too difficult for me, but not eating meat & dairy every meal is a huge change.
That's sort of how I started too. I saw some documentary about how if everyone in North America ate one less burger a day, we could meet our emission goals, and decided I could do that. (Though I didn't eat a burger a day...lol).
Can you remember which documentary it was?
Sorry no, it was just some random thing they were showing at uni, and I popped into it.
No worries. Thanks for trying :)
According to a press release by the PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency just reducing meat and dairy is hugely beneficial to not only the climate but also your personal health. 50% reduction of meat consumption yb everyone in the EU would be enough to meet its climate target and bring down the consumption of saturated fat and red meat to the targets of the WHO and World cancer research fund. So its great that you already started!
http://www.pbl.nl/en/news/newsitems/2016/cutting-europe%E2%80%99s-meat-and-dairy-intake-is-beneficial-for-human-health-the-environment-and-climate
I think this is something we all know, and I personally have a hard time cutting it out completely. I love burgers and cheese. However, I do think it's important to try to reduce the amount of meat especially that is consumed. I try by always considering the veggies option first and eating good meat. (By good meat, I mean, free range if possible, and not fast food like KFC).
Same. I eat meat maybe once a week now. I wanted to have a more responsible diet, but I didn't do it overnight. I just slowly started trying alternatives. Over the course of about two years, without forcing myself in any way, I went from having some meat for 2 out of every 3 meals to once a week in one meal. (Even if I will somehow progress to eating no meat at all, I don't think I'll ever label myself a vegetarian.)
As for dairy, I'm having a hard time finding substitutes that are as protein rich as quark, for example.
Good question. Easy answer: Because I would still eat fish, seafood, and possibly insects.
Real answer: Because I don't identify with the movement associated with vegetarianism. Or rather, the movement I associate with it. The self-identifying and outspoken vegetarians I encountered growing up were as vocal and relentless as vegans are seen by some to be now. That image has stuck with me.
I went through a similar long transition of reducing my meat intake over years, and now I'd consider myself a vegetarian. Personally, I found that it became easier as time went on to displace meat with plants, not as alternatives (i.e. bean burgers or faux-chicken strips) but by trying plant-based meals that were good in their own right. It seemed to help my exercise as well as my day-to-day feeling, but that may have been the addition of more plant-based variety in my diet and not neccessarily the exclusion of meat.
To your point about the vegetarian/vegan movement: I think to outsiders many movements are defined by their loudest/most obnoxious examples and not by the "normal" people who don't bring it up every conversation. I consider myself a vegetarian even though these types of people don't represent what it meanst to me.
This resonates with me. Privacy activists suffer the same fate. It doesn't happen as often any more, but people often associate us with tinfoil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists. It makes any conversation about privacy an uphill battle.
With all the sheer mind boggling revelations that both governments and private companies are trying to harvest as much data about ordinary people as possible, one would think it would be harder to ignore privacy advocates.
But I suppose the veil of ignorance can feel comforting.
Well, like I said, it's getting better. But not that much better. There is more public support for data protection policies, which is having a significant impact.
I'm the same. Even when I didn't eat meat, I didn't label myself. I don't really like labels, and I found that it came with a lot of hate. People labelled me for me, and then criticized my choices...it was kinda weird.
But why would I want to reduce my environmental impact when it's a whole lotta effort but doesn't make a real difference?
Have you ever heard of the saying 'no single raindrop feels responsible for the flood'?
I like this one about slow moving things like climate change because even if you're just a tiny part of the solution you're still part of it. For every person that changes their mind about how we've been living it could inspire more and you're creating a demand for food that isn't harming the environment and reducing demand for food that is. It might not feel like you're making an impact but you would be and to be honest it's actually not that much effort to avoid meat and dairy and it's no effort at all to just heavily reduce it. People have been saying that Vegans have made no progress over the last few decades but I would say look how many vegan options are on menus and in shops now compared to even a couple of years ago, there's plant based diet athletes on the news and all heavily publicised. That just wouldn't have happened a couple of years ago, so progress is being made it's just slow.
As to the why? Well if you really need an answer to that I don't know what to say, assuming you want to keep living on this planet it's kind of in your best interest.
Well, there's a point to be made about feeling that you're making a change. But I'll just leave this here.
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/xwvgeq/an-incomplete-timeline-of-what-we-tried
Also couple other points. Veganism is a privileged position. It is expensive. Billions of people in the world do not have the option to be vegan. And if you say being vegan is about doing as much as you can, then what's the point? It's just about the feels then.
On the other hand, doing all these things - going vegan, reducing your 'carbon footprint' - makes you feel like you're really making a change when all it does is rob you of your rage against the situation you find the world in.
All that veganism is a way for middle-class people to feel better about themselves that there's nothing they can do to avert the environmental catastrophe that is going on.
It stops you from askig for true alternatives.
I don't understand the point of that link? There's a mixture of things that have already happened beside things that are made up scenarios and either way it doesn't paint a good picture of what happens in the future if this continues?
Let's leave veganism on the shelf for the minute - It is quite a radical statement. Instead just going from the presumption that there is some form of human influenced climate change going on and wanting to limit the effects of it. I used to eat meat twice a day every day. Now I eat meat maybe once a week/two weeks. I still eat/drink dairy. Being "vegetarian" in this sense is cheaper for me. I've learned to cook a wider variety of foods, learned the importance of having a balanced diet and about nutrition, I feel physically healthier.
How many individuals are ever capable of "really making a change"? We're long past the point where one smart individual can discover electricity or make the printing press. The knowledge of sanitation stopped countless deaths but at one point there had to be someone pleading with everyone around them to please wash their hands after they shit and to pour alcohol onto a wound.
Individual change has a miniscule impact but it compounds and if more people just limited the amount of meat they eat it's a huge impact.
It also has the effect of changing things upstream that have industries-wide impacts.
Because a small but significant group started eating more responsibly and demanding certain products from supermarkets, all major chains in the Netherlands now carry both better quality meat and more non-meat alternatives. This has changed the meat industry, and it has introduced many more people to alternative options.
Same goes for packaging of products. There's more paper and less plastic in the aisles in supermarkets now. Legislation is being prepared at the EU-level to ban single-use plastics. All those individual choices and wishes of consumers is causing bigger and bigger changes.
It's snowballing!
I think how much value this change is worth to an individual is exactly that - individual. However, I have already noticed change in my lifetime. I have uncles that were veterinarian/vegan, and they went from either not being about to go out with us for food, or eating a non-dressed salad to having pretty decent choices. Change has to start somewhere, no matter how small.
Unrelated, but I do feel sort of defeated on the donations and recycling front after finding out that about 50% of 90% of donated clothes still go the the landfill, and less than 75% of our city's recycling is actually recycled. But I don't think it's not worth making the effort. For me, it just means we need to try affect up the chain a bit more.
No. About 90% of the worlds population have the ability to go vegan because vegetables, grains and fruit, especially locally sourced, are a fraction of the cost of meat and dairy no matter where it's from. Sure if you only eat at vegan restaurants and buy vegan ready meals and other junk it's more expensive but you shouldn't really do that anyway.
I went vegan earlier this year and the amount I spend on food literally almost halved. Instead of buying a £3 pack of mince I spend 79p on a big bag of lentils, instead of buying the pack of sausages for £2 I buy a huge bag of mushrooms for £1. This is the case for the majority of the world, there are obviously some outliers where it's impossible such as in extremely dry or cold climates but less than 1% of the worlds population live that way.
I never said it's doing as much as you can?... It's just one part of the solution. I find your attitude to be very nihilistic, I mean we can't actually recover the environmental damage we have done in our life time so why bother trying to fix the planet? Why not just let the sea levels rise the bees die out and millions of people starve? Come on that's actively being part of the problem.
I can assure you my rage against the situation has only gotten stronger over the years and to be perfectly blunt you can sit being angry about it but if you're doing nothing what is the point in that, then it's literally "just about the feels then".
I don't think you understand the purpose of it it's just one part of the solution, are you hoping for a magic technology to come along and just save us? Techno-optimism is incredibly misguided it's akin to praying to Zeus to heal a disease we can already treat but not cure. We need to change so many things; going vegan, using renewable energy, reducing/eliminating plastic waste, buying locally where possible, buying for life items, travelling in more eco-friendly ways, saving the rainforest and protecting the oceans.
I think you're looking for "true alternatives" because you hope you can continue on living the way we are now and want someone to come along and just fix it, well that isn't likely to happen at all but you're using it as a way to feel better about how you live while actively contributing to the catastrophe and then proceed to say other people who are making a change are wrong because it makes only a tiny difference. Something to think about in that.