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Eating beef is a great way to prove that you don't care about the environment (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 day ago by to c/justpost@lemmy.world
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Beef is by far the most environmentally costly food most people can put on their plate, which is why choosing it over alternatives is such a telling signal. Per gram of protein, beef produces many times the greenhouse gas emissions of chicken, eggs, or legumes, mostly from cattle methane and from the forest cleared for pasture and feed. It also demands far more land and water than almost any other common food. These facts are widely published and easy to find, and cheaper, lower-impact options are available in nearly every grocery store. So when someone keeps choosing beef anyway, they are showing that the environmental cost isn’t a factor in their decision. Nobody has to be perfect, but picking the highest-impact option when better ones are easy to reach is a pretty clear statement of priorities.

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[–] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Spoken like somebody who has internalized the carbon footprint propaganda and built their self worth on how they measure up to that standard. Your abstinence will not stop those farms. The market will support factory farmed meat until regulated to do otherwise, and any action you take that does not move towards that regulation is ultimately futile.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 day ago

    Yes the carbon footprint propaganda is bad and real, but it's not really relevant here. Collective action, ie. everyone choosing to not support unethical and harmful practices, is basically our only path to effecting actual change. You can and should refuse to support unethical things, it's not exactly hard to understand that continuing to support the industry is actively working against regulation...

    Regardless, the system isn't going to fix itself, it's working as designed. If you want things to be different then you do, in fact, have to be part of the effort to change it. This isn't about going around shaming people for a moral failing, it's about working together and actually changing things instead of sitting around and waiting for the evil people to decide they don't want to be evil.

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