While I’m a card carrying bike nut and plant-based eater, I feel we can make more of a difference encouraging people to do things that are less all in.
Work commute too far right now? Maybe start replacing the small car trips with bike trips.
Veganism unthinkable? Maybe try a meatless day or two a week.
Something people can wrap their heads around, and after trying, realise they haven’t died.
While I’m also a card carrying bike but and plant-based eater, I think that in many places the answer is also better public transport. When I lived in a big city, busses, subway stations, trams, etc were always 5-10 minutes away, both walking and waiting for the next one.
I live in a smaller town now of ~40,000. However, only ~13,000 live in the actual “town”, roughly 20 minutes of walking. The rest of the people live anywhere from 10-60km away. Grocery stores can be anywhere from 10-30km away. Iove biking into work when the weather is nice, but it also snows six months out of the year. Even for a “small trip”, you’re looking at 20km round trip in hilly terrain to the nearest anything that isn’t a neighbor. Busses exist, but out in the countryside they’ll come twice around 6am and then twice around 6pm, and none at all during weekends. So if you’re not working in the middle of the week, you’re SOL unless you’re prepared to spend 12 hours in town.
It’s also a chicken and egg problem though, everyone has a cat because public transport isn’t great. But public transport isn’t great because there’s no demand, because everyone has a car.
This issue is definitely not only in my town, 70% of the country is dotted with small towns like this and the same issues. Not everyone is physically capable of biking 20km on a summers day, let alone in -20°C on a half meter of snow, so they have almost no choice but to drive.
I live in a town of about 20,000. The adjacent regional centre (80k people) is about 35km away. We’re the opposite of snowy, we have highs in the mid 20s here right now in the dead of winter, high 30s to mid 40s with high humidity in summer. I bike commuted to the regional centre for years, but again, I’m aware I’m a bit extreme.
Agreed better public transport is also important. We’re lucky, our buses run about hourly throughout the day, you are a bit screwed at night.
The luxury! It’s been a bit of an annoyance for us since we moved out of the town center and into the countryside… If we want to have a night out with drinks involved, either gotta book a taxi or have a nice friend to drive us (or one of us just doesn’t drink, but that sort of defeats the purpose of us going out for drinks together…)
The culture here is also just more car-centric. If I bike to work, which honestly is downhill almost all the way, all my coworkers look at me like I’m some Olympic athlete. Like cmon, it takes less than 40 minutes, it’s not exactly impressive.
“Willful extinction” is not a productive way to end climate change.
You won’t convince people, so it’s DOA, but it’s also philosophically weak in the face of alternative views. Alternatives which also theoretically have humans in them and don’t obliterate the environment exist, meaning you are on the back foot here to justify an anthropocentric philosophy.
“Why do you think people should exist?” Can be an interesting discussion, but as an argument it’s not a great one.
Maybe. I think sometimes we get disillusioned because incremental progress is hard to feel in the face of systemic momentum, but things are getting better. Often in ways that are far less …genocidey… Than willful extinction.
Birth rates are plummeting to maintain what will probably be around 13 billion. That’s wildly distinct from willful extinction.
I… What? You made a post saying people should do x, I responded. Yeah we’re both trying to convince people of a thing, I’m not sure I see how that is actually relevant.
Birthrates are not plummeting to zero, if thats what youre implying. As people get more educated, they tend to have fewer kids. No one is considering having “fewer” kids because of the childs lifetime GHG emissions
Birth rates are plummeting for a variety of reasons, but that is most certainly one of them. No one in their right mind would willingly bring a child into this world knowing what’s going to happen, and educated people know what’s going to happen.
There’s nothing inherently bad about eating meat. We’ve been doing it for 100s of thousands of years. It’s that there are too many freaking people. I judge people way more when I see them with offspring, then I do their dietary consumption.
And that is microscopic compared to levying massive fines on businesses that don’t go carbon neutral and passing global laws to protect the amazon and MESS UP any government that toys with it.
And that is nothing compared to corporate emissions and air travel, but the internet LOVES telling you that how you live your life is wrong for moral reasons or due to some panic.
I say this as a chef that’s generally vegan friendly. We gotta stop blaming each other when we’re a drop in the bucket compared to big business. They got you attacking other people so they can do what they want with impunity.
Totally agree with your sentiment, we wasted so much time putting the pressure on the individual when the real culprit was Industry, there is no argument whatsoever there.
That being said, the Agriculture Industry (food production in general) does account for a hearty chunk, about 25%, of all worldwide emissions, and that is without doing calculation for “land lost” costs, i.e. the reduction in forests we took by having agricultural industry there instead, and the emissions those forests could have negated.
Food is a serious driver of climate change. Meat, but especially beef, is the worse food in terms of the cost we pay in overall emissions. Moreover, half of ALL agricultural land in use is for pasturing animals. Beef being eliminated as a food product would incredibly help climate change and meet emission goals much faster. This video does a great job at summarizing the problem, is a generally reliable channel for informative mini docs, and provides a huge list of sources you can review there.
Cycling is cool but that’s small-fry compared to if we all went vegan (or even just vegetarian)…
While I’m a card carrying bike nut and plant-based eater, I feel we can make more of a difference encouraging people to do things that are less all in.
Work commute too far right now? Maybe start replacing the small car trips with bike trips.
Veganism unthinkable? Maybe try a meatless day or two a week.
Something people can wrap their heads around, and after trying, realise they haven’t died.
I’m not a vegan but, are there really people who eat meat 7 days a week?
I live in regional Australia, there are people who eat meat every meal.
Does it not get boring?
I’m not the one to ask, I don’t eat meat.
While I’m also a card carrying bike but and plant-based eater, I think that in many places the answer is also better public transport. When I lived in a big city, busses, subway stations, trams, etc were always 5-10 minutes away, both walking and waiting for the next one.
I live in a smaller town now of ~40,000. However, only ~13,000 live in the actual “town”, roughly 20 minutes of walking. The rest of the people live anywhere from 10-60km away. Grocery stores can be anywhere from 10-30km away. Iove biking into work when the weather is nice, but it also snows six months out of the year. Even for a “small trip”, you’re looking at 20km round trip in hilly terrain to the nearest anything that isn’t a neighbor. Busses exist, but out in the countryside they’ll come twice around 6am and then twice around 6pm, and none at all during weekends. So if you’re not working in the middle of the week, you’re SOL unless you’re prepared to spend 12 hours in town.
It’s also a chicken and egg problem though, everyone has a cat because public transport isn’t great. But public transport isn’t great because there’s no demand, because everyone has a car.
This issue is definitely not only in my town, 70% of the country is dotted with small towns like this and the same issues. Not everyone is physically capable of biking 20km on a summers day, let alone in -20°C on a half meter of snow, so they have almost no choice but to drive.
I live in a town of about 20,000. The adjacent regional centre (80k people) is about 35km away. We’re the opposite of snowy, we have highs in the mid 20s here right now in the dead of winter, high 30s to mid 40s with high humidity in summer. I bike commuted to the regional centre for years, but again, I’m aware I’m a bit extreme.
Agreed better public transport is also important. We’re lucky, our buses run about hourly throughout the day, you are a bit screwed at night.
The luxury! It’s been a bit of an annoyance for us since we moved out of the town center and into the countryside… If we want to have a night out with drinks involved, either gotta book a taxi or have a nice friend to drive us (or one of us just doesn’t drink, but that sort of defeats the purpose of us going out for drinks together…)
The culture here is also just more car-centric. If I bike to work, which honestly is downhill almost all the way, all my coworkers look at me like I’m some Olympic athlete. Like cmon, it takes less than 40 minutes, it’s not exactly impressive.
Vegan (or even just vegetarian) is cool, but that’s small-fry compared to if we just stopped having freaking kids.
I’m doing my part. The life of one person creates so much waste and pollution.
Well… I mean I’m not having kids either, but someone has to to continue the species, nobody needs to eat meat.
Why?
“Willful extinction” is not a productive way to end climate change.
You won’t convince people, so it’s DOA, but it’s also philosophically weak in the face of alternative views. Alternatives which also theoretically have humans in them and don’t obliterate the environment exist, meaning you are on the back foot here to justify an anthropocentric philosophy.
“Why do you think people should exist?” Can be an interesting discussion, but as an argument it’s not a great one.
That pretty much sums up any approach by humans to do something about what’s happening to the planet. Anything anyone throws out is realistically DOA.
Maybe. I think sometimes we get disillusioned because incremental progress is hard to feel in the face of systemic momentum, but things are getting better. Often in ways that are far less …genocidey… Than willful extinction.
I don’t have to. Birth rates in the developed world are plummeting.
And unless I’m mistaken, you are the one trying to convince people right now.
Birth rates are plummeting to maintain what will probably be around 13 billion. That’s wildly distinct from willful extinction.
I… What? You made a post saying people should do x, I responded. Yeah we’re both trying to convince people of a thing, I’m not sure I see how that is actually relevant.
“[S]omeone has to to continue the species” —
you, not mesomeone elseBirthrates are not plummeting to zero, if thats what youre implying. As people get more educated, they tend to have fewer kids. No one is considering having “fewer” kids because of the childs lifetime GHG emissions
Birth rates are plummeting for a variety of reasons, but that is most certainly one of them. No one in their right mind would willingly bring a child into this world knowing what’s going to happen, and educated people know what’s going to happen.
There’s nothing inherently bad about eating meat. We’ve been doing it for 100s of thousands of years. It’s that there are too many freaking people. I judge people way more when I see them with offspring, then I do their dietary consumption.
And that is microscopic compared to levying massive fines on businesses that don’t go carbon neutral and passing global laws to protect the amazon and MESS UP any government that toys with it.
And that is nothing compared to corporate emissions and air travel, but the internet LOVES telling you that how you live your life is wrong for moral reasons or due to some panic.
I say this as a chef that’s generally vegan friendly. We gotta stop blaming each other when we’re a drop in the bucket compared to big business. They got you attacking other people so they can do what they want with impunity.
Totally agree with your sentiment, we wasted so much time putting the pressure on the individual when the real culprit was Industry, there is no argument whatsoever there. That being said, the Agriculture Industry (food production in general) does account for a hearty chunk, about 25%, of all worldwide emissions, and that is without doing calculation for “land lost” costs, i.e. the reduction in forests we took by having agricultural industry there instead, and the emissions those forests could have negated.
Food is a serious driver of climate change. Meat, but especially beef, is the worse food in terms of the cost we pay in overall emissions. Moreover, half of ALL agricultural land in use is for pasturing animals. Beef being eliminated as a food product would incredibly help climate change and meet emission goals much faster. This video does a great job at summarizing the problem, is a generally reliable channel for informative mini docs, and provides a huge list of sources you can review there.
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