EAT ALL THE MEAT !

An interesting look at how one effect leads to another.

The former head of the United Nations’ climate change organization, for example, suggested that meat-eaters should be made to feel like pariahs. “How about restaurants in 10-15 years start treating carnivores in the same way that smokers are treated?

Well, there's no question that eating meat is bad for the environment. But as a predatory species this is a very odd suggestion. And no-one is really a carnivore, we're all omnivores (except for Atilla the Hun, but he's dead). Eating meat is an entirely natural thing to do. This is too radical a solution to be sensible. Suggesting we switch primarily to lab-grown meat is more plausible.

We’re often told that going vegetarian is the biggest thing that any of us could do, with headlines telling us: "Cut your carbon footprint in half by going vegetarian." Statements like that are misleading for two reasons. First, that cut isn’t to our entire emissions — just those from food. That means four-fifths of emissions are ignored, according to an analysis of emission from the European Union, which means the impact is actually five-times lower.

Some Google searching finds that agriculture overall contributes about 10% of all greenhouse gas emissions, so this seems to ring true. I wonder about the indirect effects though, e.g. land currently needed for animals (and growing animal freed) could be restored to forests. That will change not only emissions but also albedo, possibly indirectly through affects on clouds due to changing the local water vapour content and temperature of the air.

Vegetarian diets are slightly cheaper, and saved money will likely be spent on other goods and services that cause extra greenhouse gas emissions. In the U.S., vegetarians save at least $750 on their food budgets every year. That extra spending will cause more carbon dioxide emissions, cancelling about half the saved carbon emissions from going vegetarian.

That's the kind of logic - even assuming the answer here is wrong - that we need more of. It's good to start with the absolute basics : what's the emission level generated by such-and-such ? But after that we have to ask what's the full real-world impact of doing such-and-such. David Attenborough once spoke of developing an everyday attitude to fighting climate change, by making it habitual that we consider the energy use and environmental impacts of everything we do. That's perfectly sensible. But I tend to agree with :

It's not you, it's big business: You can't save the climate by going vegan. Corporate polluters must be held accountable. In a first world setting, the reality is that going entirely vegetarian for the rest of your life means you reduce your emissions by about 2%, according to a study of the environmental impact of Swedish vegetarians. Given all of this, it seems downright mean-spirited of the Manchester University scientists to try to shame people for having a summer barbecue. 

It would be a better use of their time to push for more spending on development of artificial meat, which is showing much greater promise than the idea that all the planet’s meat-eaters will develop a taste for vegan alternatives. They should also push for global research and development into green energy.

I tend strongly towards favouring replacement over reduction wherever possible. I would rather people had electric vehicles than no vehicles at all, that they used low-power devices instead of disconnecting themselves. And we need sociological research as much as we need technological ones. For example, risk compensation : as energy use drops, to what extent do we compensate by using more devices ? But we can't and shouldn't go back to living in the trees.

Don't let vegetarian environmentalists shame you for eating meat. Science is on your side.

CLOSE Go ahead, grill a burger. Going vegetarian can help our climate a little bit, but it's an inefficient policy to try to push on people worldwide. Around the world, we're being told to stop eating meat. Headlines, think tanks and activists all ask us to change our diet to combat climate change.