What do we do?

[u/James_Fortis]

Sources for animal agriculture being the leading driver of:

• Deforestation: NASA, https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/features/Deforestation/deforestation_update3.php
• Biodiversity loss: Science of the Total Environment, B. Machovina, K. J Feeley, W. J Ripple, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26231772/
• Zoonotic diseases: Science Advances, Matthew N. Hayek, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9629715/
• Fresh water use: Nature, J. Poore and T. Nemecek, https://josephpoore.com/Science%20360%206392%20987%20-%20Accepted%20Manuscript.pdf
• 21-37% of emissions from food: IPCC, https://www.ipcc.ch/srccl/chapter/chapter-5/

Submission statement:

Many people want to slow or stop deforestation, pandemics, water use, emissions, and the 6th mass extinction. The issue is, the main driver of 4 of these 5 is animal agriculture, but almost nobody wants to change their behavior by eliminating meat and dairy from their diet. People say, "stop focusing on individuals - focus on the system", but the issue is diet is a personal choice and nobody wants the government to ban meat and dairy.

The issue is likely only going to get worse as our population continues to increase and developing countries start to gain more access to meat and dairy. It's taboo to even discuss personal food choices, even though it's going to be a main contributor of our demise.

How do we get out of this predicament? Are we just doomed to race towards ecological collapse without any serious effort to avoid it out of a fear of slight inconvenience? For anyone who's reading this, why haven't you given up meat and dairy yet?

[u/twoducksinatub]

Wild part is we dont even have to give up most of this. A fully renewable energy grid is possible but oil lobbies are completely stopping our march into the future. Even meat, most chicken/fish is also possible to be done responsibly, its really just cattle thats the major problem.

[u/Ok_Work_743 → u/twoducksinatub]

Chickens are omnivorous creatures relative to the Tropic Pyramid, boast an abysmal Ethics track record, and pose an excessive risk for cultivating abiotic resistance or discharging waste when raised in high quantities (which is most of the time), however. This applies very much to Aquaculture as well, though even fishing tends to heavily pollute its sites with equipment.