Each individual is facing the following choice in life:
- sacrifice to save the planet, and fail
- or not
People want to immediately jump to “if everyone would just …”
Nobody is looking at an “everyone does X” button. People only have their “I do X” button available.
So that is literally the answer to your question. Very few people would sacrifice the civilization to eat a cheeseburger. But nobody has that choice or that power in their hands. Their choice is eat the cheeseburger or not, and the survival of civilization stays rigidly the same between those two choices.
Best response. Almost everyone alive has a net negative impact on the environment. Maybe that one Indian guy who planted a whole forest by himself gets a pass. We can try to be less negatively impactful depending on our inclinations, resources, and other interests and priorities. Some people may choose vegetarianism, some might buy an electric car or install some solar panels, some might organize politically for a new policy. Some might spend their altruism improving social conditions rather than focusing on the environment. But being ever so slightly less of a negative impact on the environment than your neighbour who has a slightly different set of priorities is hardly a reason to feel morally superior.
Same reason we use electricity despite not being 100% green energy and thus being even worse for the earth?
If you actually wanna guilt this question then the fuck are you doing using your coal and gas powered electricity to do it?
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, because the capitalists have seen to it that you will never be permitted to make an ethical choice that would dare compete with what they expect you to choose.
Being a moralizing prick doesn’t send any message, what gets people to change is making that change easy, that’s why instead of being terminally online fuckwads, british vegangelists spread the good news by hosting free kitchens, volunteering to take people grocery shopping on their own pound, teaching vegan cooking classes, and all other sorts of actually addressing literally any of the actual concerns people have about going vegan instead of being a condescending snob about it.
So honestly, in your opinion, one of the only ways a vegan can change people’s minds is to take them shopping and PAY for their food for them. Amazing, this is a new level of shitty push the blame away behaviour. Pathetic.
You’re saying that trying to motivate people positively to move on from meat is “push the blame away” behavior. But I think tut-tutting individuals who eat meat is pushing the blame away.
While there are some people who believe that eating meat is an absolute moral wrong no matter where or when it takes place in human history, a lot of people who feel eating meat is immoral feel this way because of what the meat industry does, both to the animals and to the planet. Five thousand years ago, people weren’t supporting the meat industry and all its wrongs by eating meat.
So considering it to be pathetic to try to effect real reduction in people’s meat consumption because the methods shift blame away from the individual meat eater seems really ironic to me, as well as completely counterproductive, if your goal is less meat consumption in the world.
The real question is, why should we try to not eat beef for the environment, when corporations make 90% of all pollution in the world.
Maybe focus on the 90% of the problem and not the individual people who but meat?
In my country at least beef consumption peaked around 2012 (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/oct/24/uk-meat-consumption-lowest-level-since-record-began-data-reveal)
I think post WW2 there was a drive towards the idea that we’d never need to go without. This combined with lifestyle changes (more people working longer hours) gave birth to the rise of fast convince foods and the mass growth of places like McDonalds and Burger King.
Why don’t people just stop? Ideas within society have a lot of momentum, they take a lot of energy to get started and a lot to turn or stop again.
Where I live the beef is local and cheap. I’m not able to obtain enough protein without meat, as confirmed by a doctor and a nutritionist when I tried to go vegetarian. With food costs so high it’s cheaper to buy cow than anything else, but when I have the money I opt for fish or turkey. I looked into hunting but it’s prohibitively expensive for me with permits, tags, guns, licenses, days off and transportation. I tried fishing for myself as well, but whenever I get time to do it, there are warnings about eating fish in the area. When there aren’t I never catch anything big enough to legally be allowed to keep. I’d like to get chickens if/when local government ever lifts the bylaws preventing it.
I’m not able to obtain enough protein without meat
How does that work? Isn’t egg white pure protein? Surely eating a pile of boiled eggs would give you the same amount of protein as a steak, not counting stuff like cheese and legumes.
Oh gee I didn’t try eggs or dairy in the months I felt like shit after going veggie, and neither the doctor nor nutritionist suggested that either. You solved all my dietary needs and I can give up meat now after years of trying to figure out the most sustainable diet I can manage.
Sorry, I was trying to ask a genuine question, I didn’t mean to come across in a negative way.
I’d still be very interested in the answer.
Sorry about that, it’s the internet. I’m not a doctor, but it was explained to me that proteins from different sources are not all the same and, while I can process protein from a variety of foods, I don’t do it as efficiently as with muscle proteins. The nutritionist I spoke to - who was a vegan and a vegan activist - said people like me need about 1-2 chicken breasts per week. It’s not uncommon, a lot of people who try to go veggie and can’t hack it just go back to meat without trying to figure out why they felt sick and tired. Other people have said it’s genetic based on your ancestors, but I haven’t seen a lot of evidence to support that. Other sources point to evidence you can alter the way your body processes things by following specific diet plans, but I’m not prepared to feel that shitty again to figure it out.
I and others are over here with soy, egg and gluten allergies that restrict pretty heavily what I can eat. But go off since you have it all figured out, king.
Sorry about your issues, I never meant to diminish them. I was genuinely curious about how one can become so limited in ones protein intake, but clearly worded my question poorly.
You know who else has restrictions on their food? Vegans. You’d have thought you’d be more sympathetic, but nah, you’re negativeyoda.
Cow yummy
This has got to be a troll, right?
We have a vegan infestation unfortunately.
deleted by creator
Because we are carnivores and that’s how nature works?
The word you’re looking for is omnivores
Cigarette smokers must really baffle you too
No, they don’t. I used to smoke, nicotine is a fucking removed of a drug, somehow I managed to quit using vaping and nicotine gum over 2 years. Beef is not an addictive chemical. You must never have experienced nicotine drug, what a naive ass comment to make.
This rage bait question could be reworded as…
Why do people consume <anything> when we know it’s bad for the earth.
Dumb fucks who fall for propaganda on every platform.
I’m a native whose culture have hunted and eaten meat for millennia, what propaganda were my ancient ancestors being shown?
What does what your ancestors did have to do with what we now know about modern factory farming? The question was about still eating beef despite what we know today, what does that have to do with your ancestors? Is your comment not the very definition of a strawman?
The average human has much more of a negative effect on the environment than a cow. So, shouldn’t the question be why we tolerate so many people?
Don’t ya just love when scumbags try to make ecofascism woke?
Go back to being a terrible dad Ra’as AlGhoul.
You’re really sensitive, huh?
How would not tolerating look like? Let’s start with you as an example, maybe your loved ones too. And maybe look at the horrors of a one child policy in China before we start following that idea again.
Maybe start with people like you who take things on the Internet too seriously
Why do vegans always think they have the moral high ground?
Probably because they do, at least in the realm of dietary choices. Choosing to slaughter billions of sentient creatures every year for food and accessorization, when the majority of us have an abundance of other options, is morally fucked… and this is coming from somebody who eats meat with some frequency.
Just because we like it, or because it’s easier, or because it’s “tradition” doesn’t mean it’s morally righteous, it just means we’re selfish assholes 💀
When people lash out at vegans it always seems to boil down to some degree of cognitive dissonance… Eat meat and revel in the immorality if you so desire, no one’s stopping you; but don’t fucking lie to yourself, and don’t get butthurt when someone holds a mirror up to your face. The loss of life, environmental impact, and the effects on our own health is enough justification to argue in favor of veganism, vegetarianism, or some other alternative that doesn’t result in needless harm.
Tastes gud
Because people are selfish, stuck in their ways, and speciesist. Some are also ignorant
