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Comment by skimpycompiler | Hacker News Reader

> What is amazing is the fact people don't realize is that * insert any global industry * caused disability and even death, but hey if it does not affect me I'll just buy * the product * anyway.

This is true for almost anything. Food industry is a huge greenhouse gases producer which indirectly causes pollution and some deaths. Meat, which might be considered a luxury, is the top ingridient in many dishes, environmental impact is higher for producing meat that that of driving cars (globally). Just heating causes pollution and death.

Our reliance on fossil fuels will in 100 years cause a lot of indirect deaths.

People aren't sheep. They just don't care.

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> environmental impact is higher for producing meat that that of driving cars (globally)

That's a pretty tall claim. Have you got a citation? I'd also argue that there are ways to grow meat much more environmentally friendly and not all that more expensive than traditional feed lots.

> People aren't sheep. They just don't care. Sheep care, at least for their babies and each other.

You're a fool if you believe this. Sheep don't plan their environment in any kind of meaningful way, they just wander around eating. If you cut the field in half and move the sheep from side to side and actually manage their grazing you can get more production per acre than if you just leave the sheep to themselves.

Without the farmer intervening and selling sheep off, they'd quickly outgrow the feeding capacity of their naive grazing strategy, continue having babies, and start causing deaths from malnutrition.

Please learn about natural systems a little bit before spouting things that sound insightful but which are actually devoid of any reality.

> That's a pretty tall claim. Have you got a citation? I'd also argue that there are ways to grow meat much more environmentally friendly and not all that more expensive than traditional feed lots.

FAO of the United Nations - report 2006 http://www.fao.org/docrep/010/a0701e/a0701e00.HTM

There are newer reports but I just want to point out how long the information is out.

This is the direct citation:

> The livestock sector is a major player, responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions measured in CO2 equivalent. This is higher share than transport.

What's also a little bit comforting is that the impact is reducing (production is getting more and more efficient). Although as Chinese became rich and started eating meat insanely fast doubling the consumption of the USA, same might happen to peoples of India and Africa.

Increase of demand might neutralize the efficiency increase.

> You're a fool if you believe this. ...

Well, this is not really sheep I had in mind. I was thinking more of the free roaming - no owner - kind of animals.

> Please learn about natural systems a little bit before spouting things that sound insightful but which are actually devoid of any reality.

I completely do not get how my half-assed comment about sheep escalated to your comments about my education (or lack of).

If you grow grass-fed meat instead of grain fed you eliminate most all of the net CO2 emissions. There are still gross CO2 emissions, but once you stop drivings tractors and making fertilizer, there's very little net impact of animals save perhaps the sequestering effects. Net CO2 emissions are from "extra" carbon going into the atmosphere, gross CO2 emissions are from CO2 emissions of recently sequestered carbon.

So burning wood from clearing brush in your backyard would be gross CO2 emissions, but burning gas in the chainsaw would be net emissions (at least until people start synthesizing fuel from CO2 and water).

http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/in-defense-of-the-cow-h...

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ss574

http://naldc.nal.usda.gov/catalog/39886

http://www.nature.com/articles/srep10892

https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/emissions-redu...

> Well, this is not really sheep I had in mind. I was thinking more of the free roaming - no owner - kind of animals.

Those animals too will not plan their reproductive urges around the environment so they will also tend to overpopulate and underpopulate in cycles. I don't really consider that caring, that's just nature taking its course.

> I completely do not get how my half-assed comment about sheep escalated to your comments about my education (or lack of).

If you want to be sarcastic, make it obvious. You made a lot of matter-of-fact statements prior, so why shouldn't I take it at face value? Show empirically that sheep do care, or say that you meant it sarcastically. Internet comments don't make it obvious that you're smirking.

I'd like to see grass-fed meat meeting the demands of 5 billion people.

No one is arguing that the environmental impact can't be reduced. I'm just saying that people are blind and don't care about deaths caused by having a car, but they are also blind and don't care about deaths caused by eating meat.

Yes, not everyone buys their meat from bad sources, I'd definitely like for it to become a majority.

Unfortunately, there's not enough land for that, I'd rather eat bugs.

> If you want to be sarcastic, make it obvious.

Yes I agree that my comment about sheep was entirely unnecessary, as was this whole discussion, I removed it.

It might well be possible. I don't know if you have the patience for it, but this is a very interesting talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzvtM-Wo4c

Basically he argues that yes you can. There are a few reasons this makes sense.

1. All food comes from the sun to begin with (except for what diesel you add in via plowing, etc)

2. There aren't huge variations in different plant's ability to perform photosynthesis (might be 2x, might be 5x, but probably not 1000x)

3. This means it doesn't matter too much if you grow the grain, harvest it, transport it, feed it to cows or if you just grow grass and let them eat it

4. Grasses grow according to a S-curve meaning that there's an optimal height to grow a grass up to, and harvest it down to, for maximal production which is entirely different than annual crops

I'd really encourage you to watch the video, though, if you can stand it because it's very enlightening.

I rarely lose my patience, I do love the subject of sustainable growth and will check your video.

When you go start a farm you'll have to invite me to visit.

> 1. All food comes from the sun to begin with (except for what diesel you add in via plowing, etc)

Nitpick, but all energy we use comes from the Sun (ok, ultra-nitpick, some come from the previous star, but we're talking nuclear reactions in Earth's core here) - all fossil fuels, as well as wind and hydro are nothing but accumulated and transformed solar power.

We are not talking about other corporations here so please don't generalize. I hate it when this happens. We are talking about VW not the meat industry or Chevron who by the way distroyed almost single handed a large portion of the amazon. VW did something wrong, people got hurt, they were exposed and there is sufficient evidence. Just because someone else is doing it does not mean that they should get away with it. And by sheep I mean that we are just ignorant about the bigger picture here.

If VW will emerge out of this relatively unscathed it will create a dangerous precedent and the and the auto industry will have learned nothing. Personally I try to do the right thing, like trying not buying gas provided by BP or Chevron if possible and I can tell you rigth now that my next car will not be a VW.

Why is generalization something you hate? Your objections stand but just because VW is caught at doing something wrong it doesn't make it any different.

Owning a car kills people indirectly, be it VW or not. Yes they deceived with a purpose but people accept the direct and indirect deception, be it in eating meat, or driving botched/normal cars. This is always the way it is.

One can have so many conflicting opinions and attitudes inside one's head, one can be mad about VW but not mad about the highly subsidised food industry, or transportation industry in large.

It's just the way it is. Yes, as you've said, almost everyone is ignorant about the bigger picture.

I was just trying to say that by looking at everything else I'm not at all surprised/shocked/disappointed with people's behavior. It's the way people are, and it always was as it is today, it might sound fairly pessimistic, but an average person needs a car to travel around quicker, needs meat to nurture their palate, needs heating to avoid the inconvenience of dressing several layers of clothes in their home. Given all of these entirely personal, individual, selfish needs it is no surprising at all that the majority doesn't care / see the bigger picture.

Ok I get it now... You are saying that this is a normal reaction given the current circumstances. But still... a human life can't be measured in money and yet they routinely calculate and assign a value to it like it is livestock. All this misery just for making more profit. It's disgusting and it fills me with rage. Ok we need to eat and we need transportation but we can also choose what to eat and what vehicle to drive. If are made aware of a vehicle (in this case) that causes harm to others and we do nothing then we are no different from the company that produced that vehicles with full knowledge of what they where doing and we have no right to complain.

I am not fooling myself, i know this is our 'reality' but people act sometimes with great selflessness. I refuse to think that we can't rise above our selfish needs.

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