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Comment by kstenerud | Hacker News Reader

Yeah, so is farming. Most arable land has had its effectiveness severely reduced by salination from hundreds of years of farming. Perhaps we should stop eating farmed goods altogether?

This is not some simple ethical equation with a Pollyanna answer.

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Actually it is simple: eat less meat. Meat production is vastly more wasteful than vegetable production calorie-for-calorie.

And that double-espresso fair bean organic latte is vastly more wasteful than a glass of water.

And your sharp looking clothes are far more wasteful than a peasant shirt and plain shorts.

And your smart phone is far more wasteful than a basic phone.

And a house with a yard is vastly more wasteful than a 150 sqft per person apartment.

And do you know how much wastage occurred to make that movie you watched? Or that TV show you like?

Everything can be considered wasteful by comparison. It comes down to balancing your needs/wants with energy requirements, and choosing which causes to bring up when preaching your moral superiority.

Agreed, we have a lot of things which are wasteful compared to spartan requirements. Definitely a sliding scale of luxury. So what are the real costs of meat eating? 10-50x more water for a meat diet, is that moral or practical superiority?

Nice. I saw your edit to change it from "10x" to "10-50x". Moving goalposts are of course much harder to hit.

But regardless, this is what I mean by choosing which causes to bring up when preaching your moral superiority.

None of those things cause as much greenhouse gas emissions as a high meat diet.

The level of meat consumption in rich countries is unjustifiable.

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