Climate Change - The Languish 'Community' Responses?

[Jacob]

I don't really get your point. Sure, we can grow tomatoes and tobacco here and sell on the market. Even figs and peaches (Skåne and Halland where I live is amongst the finest agricultural lands in the world, at least according to the local farmers) and all manner of exotic plants and animals. I can go int town and buy lots of different locally produced produce.

It's very inefficient though, we ought to focus on the products that give the most per surface unit and then import higher quality exotic products from where they grow most efficiently. If that means that you can buy locally produced peaches it probably also means that you ought to eat imported potatoes.

But when it comes to vegetables its more or less meaningless to haggle about that, we can probably produce enough vegetables to feed the world even if we do it inefficiently. Meat on the other hand. Beef for example is ten times worse for the environment than a similar plant based product. Mutton eight, pigs I don't remember, but less. Chicken two times worse. We're soon out of fish and IIRC it's surprisingly CO2 intensive

My points were:

1) Economically efficient and CO2 efficient are not necessarily the same thing, and the two things should not be conflated.

2) I expect whether any given local production is more or less C02 efficient depends on local specifics (and the specifics of the imported mass production as well).

3) I believe that the argument that buying local is a luxury that only Westerners can afford is incorrect. Even if it was correct, it is not a relevant counter argument.

4) If buying local production is, in the big scheme of things, a status purchase that is a net neutral in terms of C02 the "virtue signalling" and luxury components - as well as the marketing and distribution infrastructure - is primed for being shifted towards lower impact consumption if that lower impact can be clearly demonstrated (and marketed).

5) Getting rich Westerners to spend at a premium to lower their environmental impact is absolutely a legitimate strategy in lowering C02 emissions (though not the only one, and probably not the most efficient one).

You're right about meat consumption. I guess the two main approaches is encouraging vegetarianism (which is probably going to be countered by increased meat consumption in places moving out of poverty) and finding ways to make the meat production process less CO2 intensive.

[jimmy olsen]

What are 'we' doing about climate change, individually and as a community?

Might there be things we're doing and others approaches many of us could undertake?

Or are we mainly happy to kick cans down the road and rely on that old standard of 'this is too big a problem and can only be tackled by governments'?

Just under a hundred day till the Cop26 meeting in Scotland, the bright side is the US government is serious about the emergency we find ourselves in and will likely get some movement from over governments.
Though most of those key polluters seem addicted to the sound of tin cans on gravel.

Individually, I have taken public transport, train or bus for the last decade.

[mongers]

Individually, I have taken public transport, train or bus for the last decade.

[PDH]

Because of Mongers I have stopped eating baked potatoes.

[mongers]

Because of Mongers I have stopped eating baked potatoes.

A worthwhile alternative might be steak sandwiches without the bread.

[viper37]

You're right about meat consumption. I guess the two main approaches is encouraging vegetarianism

rather, we should aim at decreasing our consumption of meat, not abandoning it.  Beef is a strong source of vitamin B12, and of protein of course, and much easier to digest for the human body than any vegetal protein. 

Besides, full vegan would be bad for the environment, but we've been over that before.  Even only vegetarian wouldn't be good for the planet, overall.  Animal dejections provide a natural source of fertilizer, which you need to grow your products.  While technically, we could use human waste, it has other problem, like the spread of some infectious diseases.

[Barrister]

You're right about meat consumption. I guess the two main approaches is encouraging vegetarianism

rather, we should aim at decreasing our consumption of meat, not abandoning it.  Beef is a strong source of vitamin B12, and of protein of course, and much easier to digest for the human body than any vegetal protein. 

Besides, full vegan would be bad for the environment, but we've been over that before.  Even only vegetarian wouldn't be good for the planet, overall.  Animal dejections provide a natural source of fertilizer, which you need to grow your products.  While technically, we could use human waste, it has other problem, like the spread of some infectious diseases.

There's also a lot of arid land currently used for grazing cattle (or other animals) that isn't really suitable for growing crops anyways.

I'm cool with reducing meat consumption, and am taking steps to do so, but have no intention of going full vegetarian/vegan.

[Jacob]

Yeah me neither. And I am happy to hear that it's better to just reduce meat consumption than giving it up. I hope it's correct.

[Barrister]

Yeah me neither. And I am happy to hear that it's better to just reduce meat consumption than giving it up. I hope it's correct.

Living with and trying to accommodate a vegetarian has been eye-opening.

First of course in that you can make some really good and nutritious vegetarian meals.  But they can be just as time consuming, if not more so, than meals with meat.

But a lot of the "quicker" vegetarian meal options, in particular a lot of the 'fake meat' kinds, seem even more highly processed and honestly worse for you than the meat-based original.

[Josquius]

Definitely on board with reduction rather than go veggie.
But beef is one where we really should make a bit of an exception and try to cut it out. It's absolutely awful for the environment. It's the major contributer to the destruction of the amazon and then there's all those cow farts. Sucks it's so delicious.

[Jacob]

I eat Canadian beef and maybe occasional Australian beef I suppose. So no worries about the Aamazon on my account. Still responsible for the cow farts, of course. I guess the same goes for dairy.

[crazy canuck]

I buy beef from a farm just north of Pemberton (North of Vancouver) which practices soil regenerative farming - basically what that means is they use cow poo to build up the soil.  Not much downside except for the methane the cows produce.  But since they are all grass fed, on the fields they regenerate by pooping while grazing, it is less than the industrial cow operations.    I also buy chicken and eggs from them - they send chickens in after they move the cows out of a field.  So no grain fed chickens which again reduces the carbon footprint.

They do a pretty good business.

[Grey Fox]

In Quebec, beef consumption is an outlet for thousands of former dairy cows.

[HVC]

Usually "retired" dairy cows are turned into dog and cat food, it's the male caves that become human food (from the diary side anyway). Although there's a relatively new trend of dry aging dairy cows for fancy meat.

*edit* in Ontario anyway

[viper37]

Definitely on board with reduction rather than go veggie.
But beef is one where we really should make a bit of an exception and try to cut it out. It's absolutely awful for the environment. It's the major contributer to the destruction of the amazon and then there's all those cow farts. Sucks it's so delicious.

There is no Amazon forest in Alberta

I think there's a huge difference between the mass producing of cows for ground beef and cheap steaks/beef cuts in fast food chains and buying a good piece of steak once in a while at your favorite butcher, or your favorite restaurants.

Besides, a lot of what fast food produces ends up in the trash can, unless they changed their policies in the last few years.  Burgers are often produced in advance during meal hours, and if not taken after X minutes, they're thrown away.  That's a lot of CO2 produced for nothing.