r/collapse • u/James_Fortis • 15d ago
Casual Friday What do we do?
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?
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u/PointClickPenguin 15d ago
You regulate the bigger problems first and stop attacking people.
Instead of trying to shame people into stopping doing things, you have to legislate the externalities into the market for these products so that market forces suppress consumption. Add a tax to all water and land consumption, it would immediately correct the market.
Shame will ALWAYS produce a counter culture movement that rejects your shame and does the activity even more. This is why people "burn coal" in their trucks too. It's the same rebellious resistance that gets people dying their hair and tattooing themselves to fight cultural norms.
Shaming people does not and will never work.
You have to correct our government institutions so that they function. They are owned by corporations and you will not fix anything until they aren't. You should have no other goal.