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Comment by deevolution | Hacker News Reader

The single best thing as an individual you can do for yourself[1] and the planet[2][3] is adopt a vegan diet. we could reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by 24% simply by abstaining from meat and dairy products.

[Edit]Other key insights from J.Poole's study addressing climate change thru food[1]

>Eating vegetable products - even the highest emitting products, will still have a better impact on the environment than selecting only low emitting meat products

>Food responsible for 31% of global GHG

>High impact beef producing 5000% more emissions than low impact beef

>Agriculture sits at heart of all environmental problems

>Population size highly correlated with global c02

1. https://www.drcarney.com/blog/health-issues/diet-linked-to-h...

2. https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:b0b53649-5e93-4415-bf07-6b...

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How is that possible when animal agriculture only accounts for ~3% of greenhouse emissions? Even if you take into account the entire agriculture sector it's only 9%.

Let's not use this as a grandstand for pushing political agendas. There are much larger contributors that can be addressed. It just dilutes the entire climate change message by pushing a vegan agenda.

https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/sources-greenhouse-gas-emis...

It's pretty simple actually. Think of energy as a closed loop system down here on earth. Now imagine the amount of energy it takes to: Grow the feed to feed the animals, butcher and transport the meat/dairy in refrigerated vehicles, store/prepare/cook the meat, etc. The impact is much greater than the "cow farts" that are released into the atmosphere, despite methane actually being a much more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide (which I'm not sure if they account for in the report).

The energy, of course, has to come from somewhere. Typically it comes from coal or gasoline.

> Now imagine the amount of energy it takes to: Grow the feed to feed the animals

Animals are fed from crops, which sequester carbon from the air. Carbon atoms make up about 15-20% of most animal's mass. A 1000 lb cow would have sequestered 200 lbs of carbon out of the atmosphere. Some of which will be re released when eaten, but not it's not as simple as just saying "look how much energy goes into feeding a cow". Because most of that energy comes from crops - cows don't eat gasoline.

> butcher and transport the meat/dairy in refrigerated vehicles, store/prepare/cook the meat, etc.

All of which had to be done for plant products as well.

In reality is that going vegan isn't going to have a significant impact on the environment. About 10% of the US's carbon emissions are from any kind of agriculture, and animal products are a fraction of that 10%.

>Animals are fed from crops, which sequester carbon from the air.

Most animals are fed from industrially grown crops. Those crops require tons of oil to grow and contribute to deforestation.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/oct/05/vast-ani...

Obviously corn is a huge one because the government subsidizes it so heavily.

But another popular food source for animals is beet pulp pellets. Now these are pure waste by products of sugar production. So even if you don't feed animals it's not going to reduce the impact of this.

Livestock accounts for 77% of all agricultural land space and takes up about 30% of the world's habitable land. That us a HUGE proportion of land. If we removed meat from our diets that would free up space for carbon sinks (reforestation)[1] if everyone switched to a plant based diet. Additionally, urban vertical farming methods such as those used by aerofarms[2] have by far the lowest environmental impact, lowest water use, lowest land use, pesticide free.

1.https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/10/Land-use-graphics...

2. Https://aerofarms.com

> Livestock accounts for 77% of all agricultural land space and takes up about 30% of the world's habitable land. That us a HUGE proportion of land

You omitted the fact that livestock is often raised in land unsuitable for cultivation. Not all pasture can be converted to farms. Most pasture is in grasslands. Closing these pastures would not free up land for reforestation. Taking up habitable land is also not surprising. Everyone needs to eat, so it makes sense to put farms close to population centers. Doing otherwise would result in higher transportation costs (and more carbon emissions). Living space also isn't a constraint in most developed countries. Their populations are shrinking and urbanizing. Why are you so intent on finding problems for veganism or vegetarianism to solve?

Vertical farming is promising, but it requires energy. It's tough to compete against traditional farming where energy is free from the sun. Using solar power is obviously not efficient - crops outdoors are already solar powered. Maybe feasible with more nuclear power, but that's not popular these days.

Research suggests strongly that this armchair analysis is wrong [1].

I personally don't advocate for completely eliminating meat from our diets, but it's pretty naive to outright deny the environmental impact (including greenhouse gas emission) of meat production.

[1] Tons of original research here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_p...

> Research suggests strongly that this armchair analysis is wrong [1].

Perhaps, but not the article you linked to. Your link doesn't deviate from the 3% of total GHG emissions figure. Actually it provides the lower figure of 2.6%. The Wikipedia article claims this figure is criticized, but doesn't provide any alternative ones.

I challenge you to commit to a vegan diet for 3 weeks and let me know how your body feels. Personally, I'm much more energized and more productive than when I was 4 weeks ago eating meat everyday. I breathe easier, my sleep has improved, I dont feel bloated. And to top it off I'm reducing my carbon footprint.

This is completely departing from the original claim that going vegan is "the single best thing an individual can do" for the planet.

Your comment has nothing to do with any of the arguments nightski brought up.

3% is still significant and such estimates vary. Some estimate it at 15%.

Moreover, greenhouse gas emissions aren't end all be all. Animal agriculture fucks up the environment. It's a source of drug-resistant diseases.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/04/animal...

Unless you have certain medical issue, the cost of not eating meat is just a minor inconvenience.

The cost of not eating meat is also a large quality of life impact in that now you can't eat a substantial portion of dishes. Let alone going vegan as the original commenter proposed. You may see this as "just a minor inconvenience", much of the world disagrees.

I agree that going 100% vegan is "a large quality of life impact". I don't agree that going vegetarian is.

>much of the world disagrees

Much of the world didn't ever try it.

I would argue quality of life should increase by not eating meat. Diabetes, cancer, and heart disease are all highly correlated with meat consumption.[1]

1.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_China_Study

Quality of life is not the as quantity of life. Not everyone sees their bodies machines that need to be optimized, they'd rather eat tasty food.

This study you cite only accounts for U.S. emissions. I'm citing GLOBAL emissions.

framing climate change as something that can be feasibly solved by individual consumer behaviors is basically a psyop by the corporations that are actually responsible for climate change.

being vegan is cool, and i support anyone who does it, but calling it the "single best thing" is not honest IMO.

The single most impactful to thing an individual can do is to work towards the development of large-scale policies that address climate change on a systemic level.

On a basic level, that starts with voting for people who have the competence and political cachet to implement such policies.

No, the single best thing you can do for yourself at this point is move away from water, learn basic farming skills, and teach your kids and grand kids how to survive the next, turbulent, 100 years.

I find this attitude not only wrong, but misleading and in the end doing more harm than good. individuals having the illusion of any kind of control of the incoming global warming, deflects the real issues which can only be resolved with real pressure on decision makers. if the average person thinks it's enough that he recycles and eats only vegetables, he's never going to pressure his government to solve the issue before it's too late.

24% sounds really high when I think of the global economy built on oil, gas, coal, plastics, rubber, etc.

Depends on the individual. How often do they fly, for instance?

If you fly from the US to Austrailia just once a year you erase all of your progress, but not every single individual flies that distance...

Most people don't, but a lot of people make multiple shorter flights each year. Not to mention that it's far less effort to change a single action than a lifestyle.

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