But even with quite hefty price increse, the conditions will still be a living hell. And for an individual eating animals and animal produce is about the most environmentally harmful thing conducted regularly regardless of the price.
So, I think there should be much better regulations about minimal living conditions (though this would face strong opposition).
Additionally, it would be wonderful if every animal-derived product had a recent photo (within the last year) from the exact farm of origin. It would be even better if every food product included a CO2e per calorie estimate (see e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore).
This isn't as hard as people make it seem. I live in a city. Yet I participate in a local livestock farm share, the farm is about an hour away. They allow members & prospective members to come in and tour the farm, see the conditions, and their processes. They work to be transparent about everything that's going on. It took me about 10 minutes of googling 15 years ago to find it. The only extra work I've had to do since is once a month go about 30 minutes out of my way to the local pickup spot
Yes, this isn't feasible for every American. Nor could the scale of small farms accommodate that. Yes, it's a luxury. But still, people discuss these things like it's fantasy land and it really isn't.
Not immediately, but if the food-buying public started to prefer doing things that way, eventually the industry would reshape itself to accommodate. Over the span of decades, I figure.
There sure are, e.g. anything plant-based! ;)
> Additionally, it would be wonderful if every animal-derived product had a recent photo (within the last year) from the exact farm of origin. It would be even better if every food product included a CO2e per calorie estimate (see e.g. https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/ghg-kcal-poore).
Produce animal welfare and environmental impact are orthogonal, and maybe even somewhat opposed. But both would indeed be better.
It would indeed be interesting if packaging from supermarkets put some estimate of environmental footprint on the packaging. I doubt it will happen: It would thoroughly confuse many consumers that the product with the highest price has the worst environmental impact, and could reduce sales of their highest margin products.
I don't particularly care whether people choose to let the environment or animal welfare prevail, but the choice should be well-informed.
All of this makes it very hard for people who are posturing trying to appear virtuous/moral in their choices (food, clothing, whatever). At the end of the day if you think you are a problem the best solution is to get rid of it...
All the studies about plant-based vs animal food are deeply flawed because they don't compare properly the nutritional profile and ressource intensity. Most of what we feed to animals is waste/byproducts or just not fit for human consumption, but conveniently can be grown in less arable land.
Technically correct, but very very misleading. Yes, methan degrades quickly, but it degrates to CO₂.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methane#Atmospheric_methane_an...
Also, farmed livestock don't automatically exist in a "living hell". Factory farms, yeah, but a properly-managed ranch should have happy, healthy animals.
The situations in which this is the case (which are oversimplified by the doc) are so specific and small scale that to think they will address the environmental impact without acknowledging the insane, unsustainable demand for meat is magical thinking. People love to point to ideas like this and stuff like feeding cows seaweed to avoid the reality of the dire need for significant shifts in our consumption behaviors.
> but a properly-managed ranch should have happy, healthy animals.
again - the percentage of meat that comes from these conditions is so small as to be virtually irrelevant in the context of the animal agriculture industry
You have to recognize that the scale of demand for meat REQUIRES the conditions you find in factory farms. You do not get to keep the same demand while having it all come from Happy Healthy Farm™ for a wide variety of reasons.
Manufactured meat can't and won't replace cattle farming. It still needs vast inputs of energy, water and raw ingredients compared to raising a cow.
Care to share some data on that?
But on top of that we don't only get meat from animals (quite a few modern things use byproduct of meat production in fact) and the animals help us re/up-cycle things that would be just a waste otherwise.
All the anti-meat anti-animals' thing is just a new kind of religion that is based on the morals of a few alternative types who want to appear more virtuous than anyone else, in a desperate attempt at faux competition (race to the bottom).
Do you think that the evolutionary goal for animals is "make the most edible mass possible"?
> All the anti-meat anti-animals' thing is just a new kind of religion that is based on the morals of a few alternative types who want to appear more virtuous than anyone else, in a desperate attempt at faux competition (race to the bottom).
What an incredibly shallow reading of an idea that has been around for thousands of years. Clearly a strawman to avoid engaging with important questions.
Hm..I think that Gabe Brown would like a word. :) https://www.fwi.co.uk/arable/land-preparation/soils/how-gabe...
Scales with population growth, and immigrants don't come to the U.S. just so they can eschew meat. I don't see what's unsustainable about it. Land-use has barely budged. At any rate if the population didn't grow, the demand wouldn't either. As it happens, global population growth is projected to stall in less than 100 years.
Growth in the 1st world means more emissions and land encroachment, until innovation catches up. Electricity is being abated with renewables, but not concrete, ammonia, plastics, etc. There's no free lunch, if we want the juicy GDP growth, that's the price.
> again - the percentage of meat that comes from these conditions is so small as to be virtually irrelevant in the context of the animal agriculture industry
There's the consideration of our own personal choices and options having a place in the conversation, and the other consideration of prescription for improving conditions and/or emissions.
You think 11-20% of GHG emissions[1] coming from livestock and the insanely high water footprint of meat[2] is sustainable?
[1] https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/food-agriculture-environm...
[2] https://waterfootprint.org/resources/Report-48-WaterFootprin...
Notwithstanding that since global population growth is going to stall anyway, demand for meat will stagnate as well. It could only be "unsustainable" on the conceit that it would skyrocket into perpetuity.
Plenty of things you enjoy and "don't need" necessitate emissions, water, and land encroachment. Increases in efficiency mitigate that. Recently, China's fossil fuel use has plateaued. That is quite an accomplishment because demand for energy had been growing fast.
Even in the US it has been rather stable. There are just more people getting out of poverty on the planet and they won't deny themselves consumption of this beneficial product just to fit to the ideology "du jour".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_cons...
It's just feelgood greenwashing for people who don't want to consider changing their diet.
Kind of like the allure of finding people to tell you that butter and bacon are actually superfoods. How convenient that you were already eating those every breakfast.
Who is actually doing that? Who has enough time and money to actually do that? I'm confused because in EU it's an extremely rare thing and as far as I'm concerned in the US you have a whole section just for breakfast cereal.
So surely if there are people doing that, there are the minority and considering how in bad health much of the US population is, maybe, just maybe, they are onto something.
But if one goes to the local supermarket, it's easy to find upbranded labels charging more for who knows what. Probably mostly to fund their marketing budget.
Local farmers markets sell animals that had quite happy lives. Some farms even have live webcams where you can check in on the animals 24/7.
Honestly the prices aren't always that much higher, especially for certain cuts, with prices being at worst, about the same as higher end grocery stores, and at best, halfway between fancy grocery stores and a regular supermarket.
I've seen what better farms look like and I disagree. It most closely matches what consumers want and expect. Suffering is non-zero because it necessitate slaughter, but not as egregious as in commercial agriculture.
In other words, there is a threshold of suffering consumers are ok with.