I really don’t understand how so many smart people don’t understand this and continue to consume animal products regularly.
Animal products will continue to be consumed no matter how obvious it is that their production is morally repugnant and environmentally destructive.
I am sorry to say that I am one of those consumers despite knowing better.
Dietary control is not something I have been able to exercise in the past. I’m attempting to obtain pharmaceutical help on that front, so maybe I will be able to execute on being a better person in that dimension in the coming months.
There is no societal structure to disincentivize meat eating. Social pressure from vegetarians (which is so very slight) and logical arguments are the only thing we’ve got. Tradition, convenience, identity, and preferences are all arrayed against the reasonable thing.
For now meat consumption is probably going to be somewhat inversely correlated to meat prices, as per usual.
But societal attitudes can change quite quickly. For example, homosexuality has gone from being illegal, to being tolerated and now (I think for a lot of people in the UK) pretty much a non-issue in 50 years.
As long as meat is produced in sufficient quantity and at prices consumers can afford, I don't expect huge change from them.
Here’s hoping a tipping point is reached soon
Here in the UK it seems that cigarettes have to be hidden from view in a 'drawer of shame' while vapes are in left clear view. I'm not sure why vapes seem to be getting an easier ride than cigarettes. Are vapes any less harmful than cigarettes? Apart from the effects on health they create a lot more waste. Also some vapes seem to be clearly marketed to children.
(Disclaimer: I have never smoked or vaped, so it isn't a subject I know much about. Please enlighten me.)
But George Monbiot quite famously adjusted his position[0] in response to - and since this is a thread about books - one of my favourite works on the subject, 'Meat, A Benign Extravagance' by Simon Fairlie (2010).
(My copy was signed by the author when I attended one of his scything weekends.)
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2010/sep/06/meat-p...
I reiterate my recommendation of Fairlie's book, which goes into much more detail than George Monbiot's brief article where he responds to same in the Guardian some 13 years ago.
I note in that article, however:
"If we stopped feeding edible grain to animals, we could still produce around half the current global meat supply with no loss to human nutrition: in fact it's a significant net gain."
I guess 'half the current global meat supply' probably is 'far less', as you say.
Milk products are obviously a big part of the diet there, and it invites the question 'what are all those cows eating?'. And then some questions like 'How much beef could they be consuming in a similarly sustainable <sic> fashion?'.
If you've been to India you'd have noticed cows are everywhere. Frequently just wandering wild along the city and suburban streets.
Tangentially, a big part of India being vegetarian is obviously cultural, but I suspect that health or food safety / handling plays a (growing) part. When I travel to India my diet shifts to primarily vegetarian - just to reduce my health risks.
There's probably lots of examples of people who don't self-label as permaculturists -- Joel Salatin's springs to mind -- who would also assert this is something we demonstrably know how to solve.
Some of the biggest success stories have been implementations in $-poor environments.
There's nothing inherently expensive about the principles of permaculture.
As to 'work at scale for staple cereals' I think you are perhaps misunderstanding what permaculture advocates - broadacre cereal crops are definitely NOT on the menu.
> Some of the biggest success stories have been implementations in $-poor environments.
So why is it not the dominant method of agriculture yet?
> broadacre cereal crops are definitely NOT on the menu.
And yet, they're a basic part of most humans' diet. How many people actually get _all_ their food from permaculture?
Anyway one of the things Monbiot talks about in his book are new perennial versions of wheat and rice that have decent yields, so maybe they can become part of permaculture.
Define dominant?
I'll note that permaculture does not have an army of lobbyists, sales people, marketers, lawyers, pushing this into public policy, beating its drum across media, using threats of prosecution to lock people into expensive seed / fertiliser / herbicide combinations, and so on.
It's a bit like free software competing with lower-quality non-free software, or fresh fruit competing with plastic-wrapped highly processed fast food - the product is demonstrably better for the consumer and the planet, but the disparity in advertising budgets dictate which is more popular.
Apropos whatever you like ... Bayer is worth around 130B euro - having picked up Monsanto for USD $60B five years ago.
In contrast, you can go do your permaculture design course for around US$1k, or pick up the original - Permaculture One - in ebook format for around AU$30.
Anyway, I've assumed by dominant you mean pervasive or popular, rather than merely superior.
> And yet, they're a basic part of most humans' diet. How many people actually get _all_ their food from permaculture?
I think you're asking some interesting questions, but perhaps coming at it from the wrong angle.
I mean, it's fascinating why it is that we're still using the same handful of grains that were chosen about 12k ya at a time when health & longevity weren't major concerns, and obviously weren't strong evolutionary factors.
Grains are far from great, and arguably the move from hunter gatherer to fixed / agricultural settlements was a backwards step in terms of individual health, but you'd certainly live long enough to propagate genetic material on a diet of mostly grains, so in that sense you could say 'it worked'.
Back to the thrust of your question - how many people actually use Debian rather than Microsoft Windows?
Does this mean the latter is two orders of magnitude better, or just two orders of magnitude more dominant?
> Anyway one of the things Monbiot talks about in his book are new perennial versions of wheat and rice that have decent yields, so maybe they can become part of permaculture.
You should probably read some books on permaculture, because 'growing a better monoculture' is entirely not what it's about.
If you're stateside, Toby Hemenway's book is well regarded. (He once intimated to me that my reliance on metric meant I couldn't be as good a designer as someone familiar with both metric and imperial / customary / archaic but nonetheless.) The original Permaculture Designer's Manual (600 pages) is hefty and dense, but definitely the canonical work.
I mentioned Joel Salatin earlier - he doesn't identify as a permaculturist, but his integrated approach to farming definitely aligns with some of the permy principles. I've only read his 'folks this ain't normal' and 'everything I want to do is illegal' but he's got an abundance of books, as well as some great videos available on youtube. He's the chap that featured in Michael Pollan's 'The Omnivore's Dilemma'.