Until someone can fix this and disassociate ecological efficiency from the limousine liberal, these programs are unfortunately going to only be marginal. Minimizing environmental externalities can't be seen as optional.
Lots of reasonable things increase cost - such as refrigerated storage and inspection. We don't tier the product market like this though, "oh you want your meat to be free of disease? Well then mr fancy pants... Here's the luxury product."
I agree in principle with your sentiment; however, I have yet to come up with an alternative which does not involve strong environmental legislation. Which, in the US at least, is only likely to happen after it's too late, if ever.
Conservatives are unlikely to be OK with someone knowingly and intentionally exposing people to fatal levels of radiation in the way they are OK with adverse ecological systems.
It needs to leave the intellectual space of optional or preferential discourse and enter the one of rights and crimes.
I don't think that's true. They defended the cigarette industry, for example. They oppose laws and regulations protecting people in the workplace. They support and encourage law enforcement's abuse of the poor and minorities.
> It needs to leave the intellectual space of optional or preferential discourse and enter the one of rights and crimes.
That would help, but for many it's about ideology and greed and not about rational debate.
For instance, if a beer commercial was jingoistic and patriotic, we'd probably agree that it was a marketing tactic and not necessarily the drinking choice of nationalists.
I agree, but many self-identified conservatives believe these things, according to polls.
I'm pretty sure this move was made by the 'anti-environmentalists', including big industry and those fighting the ideological war against 'liberalism'. They would have found a way to discredit it among their followers - if not this way, than another.
Even these terms are from their propaganda, but lots of people repeat them as if they have meaning and represent something real.
> rich liberal urban elite.
> limousine liberal
I didn't say the terms were unintentionally used, I said they were empty stereotypes from conservative propaganda.
Regarding their emptiness: Can you define the terms? Do you have some data to back up the existence of the demographic and their purported behavior?
You can live on a vegan diet, but it is easier to live on an omnivore diet. And since for most people easier is preferable, and when talking about the population of the world as a whole, you'll still find that a large percentage of the world's population will eat meat if it is easily available.
So seguing into climate change issues, this took politics too. It started with grassroots taking hold in the 60's counter culture, then the start of political pressure in the 70's. The first big political move was Reagan coming on board during the 80's; and also some lucky technology hook ups like solar powered calculators (never underestimate the power of logistical growth from a low end but widely used product).
The 90's brought us government sponsored research and industry backed development and product roll outs; this led to massive improvements in cost mainly though scale. The last 15 years have led to product refinements, financing options, and a greater society wide understanding of just how bad climate change could be.
And now we are at a situation of solar becoming cheaper than coal for producing electricity. 50 years!
So if you want to achieve the same with meat vs vegetables there is an enormous amount to achieve, above all you'll need to convince people at least as well as climate change issues, get government backing, make it as enjoyable as eating meat, and drive down the cost of Lysine and Methionine extraction.
In fact Canola (low erucic acid rapeseed) meal (what's left over after oil extraction) is currently used as livestock feed, this could be used for human consumption but would require further post-processing and possibly protein profile adjustment.
To accept it you must either be against democracy as a concept of equal rights to vote, or for an almost equal distribution of income. Neither of which is particular mainstream ideologies today.
We could demand that farms had zero carbon footprint, zero water usage/drainage, a new tree for every cut one, and no pesticides. It is expensive, and food labeled under a mission which try to cover some of those aspects do demand a much higher price. At best it can be said is that its has a lower environmental impact that cows, even through my government (Sweden) explicitly says that if we don't get more farmers, most of the open field and bio diversity that comes from open fields will be lost.
Personally, I would go with a omnivore diet that pay a little extra (ie about double vs the cheapest) for products under environmental focused labels, and then just eat less of it. Even better, skip that car and you will end up having a much lower carbon footprint than any car owner has, regardless of diet.
http://www.mcdonalds.co.uk/ukhome/food-quality/eggs.html#clo...
Couldn't you look at it as a vanguard thing? Like, once the public is more used to the idea because it's been on the market in some form, it's easier to mandate it?