India offers no-beef climate solution

[El_Machinae]

I'd take India's environmental concerns more seriously if half a billion of their citizens didn't live on the world's most polluted river, much less bathe and drink from it... it's like Pig-Pen telling Charlie Brown to wash his shirt.

Surely you realise that the levels of sophistication in the West are higher, and that the level of desperation is lower in the West.

The West has known of its GHG pollution for almost 20 years. We've 'decided' that economic progress is worth a few gigatonnes of pollution. To then insist that other groups of people cannot emit the same pollution is hypocritical. India has pollution, yes, but how much of it spreads beyond their borders? Yeah, a lot. As much as us? Maybe.

Yes, India needs to clean up. Yes, India has some serious problems.

He's still correct about beef being a huge source of the global problem. I don't even know why people need to insist upon the ad homs. It's not like we like the current system of subsidised meat, and causing global pollution. Or maybe we do. Maybe we like chomping down on meat that's been paid for by the richest taxpayers, and whose pollution is being spread out into all the commons.

 

[Dragonlord]

He's still correct about beef being a huge source of the global problem. I don't even know why people need to insist upon the ad homs. It's not like we like the current system of subsidised meat, and causing global pollution. Or maybe we do. Maybe we like chomping down on meat that's been paid for by the richest taxpayers, and whose pollution is being spread out into all the commons.

Quite right! Personally, I would prefer paying more for my occasional steak or hamburger and not paying taxes so others can afford to eat their ridiculously cheap cheeseburgers every day...

 

[RedRalph]

Quite right! Personally, I would prefer paying more for my occasional steak or hamburger and not paying taxes so others can afford to eat their ridiculously cheap cheeseburgers every day...

I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

But I love beef...How do you suppose a Korean to live without beef?

 

[Lord Baal]

But I love beef...How do you suppose a Korean to live without beef?

Eat that popcorn my friends say they give you in every restaurant.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Eat that popcorn my friends say they give you in every restaurant.

Huh? Korean restaurants give popcorn?

 

[Lord Baal]

Huh? Korean restaurants give popcorn?

Apparently the Two-Two - which my friends call the greatest fast food place on Earth - handed them popcorn with everything. I told them it was likely millet, but they're convinced it's popcorn.

 

[Quackers]

Let the free-market decide!

 

[Agarwaen]

In other news: Muslim countries proposes the rest of the world to eliminate the consumption of pork.

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

Well... they are not wrong, whatever their motivations. Beef is the least efficient of the major western meats to raise.

On the other hand I get so annoyed with sushi-eating new-agers depleting the precious remaining fisheries. It is about as stupid as people associating "clean", "natural" bottled water with a nice environment.

That being said, beef is delicious. I suppose the key is to substitute pork whenever possible. Chicken is ideal, but it just doesn't provide the giant slab of juicy meat effect.

 

[aneeshm]

Also, let's keep in mind that the "developed" world isn't the part with the big ugly permanent cloud of crap hanging over the entire region.

Hey, you try having China as a neighbour for a few years!

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Hey, you try having China as a neighbour for a few years!

Thats exactly what Canada thinks about the US.

 

[IglooDame]

Thats exactly what Canada thinks about the US.

And Canada isn't upwind nor does it have a huge wall called the Himalayas in the way.

 

[aneeshm]

The reactions make it look as if Mr. Ramesh wanted to snatch away the cheeseburgers from the hands of your ill-nourished obese. Far from it. As has already been said, simply getting rid of market-distorting subsidies would do half the job.

Secondly, you're reacting like teenagers rebelling against parental instructions. Mr. Ramesh did not ask that anything be banned, or restricted, or anything like that. A small reduction by a large number goes a long way. Even if everyone replaced a single meal of beef with one of vegetables, it would have a significant impact.

Finally, meat is a luxury we can ill-afford. The wastage at each level of the cycle (sunlight->plants matter->animal tissue) in terms of energy and total resources is enormous. If the land devoted to the production of feed for meat animals was gradually turned over to the growing of human-edible crops, it would drastically increase food production and reduce the agricultural footprint of the world.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

The reactions make it look as if Mr. Ramesh wanted to snatch away the cheeseburgers from the hands of your ill-nourished obese. Far from it. As has already been said, simply getting rid of market-distorting subsidies would do half the job.

Secondly, you're reacting like teenagers rebelling against parental instructions. Mr. Ramesh did not ask that anything be banned, or restricted, or anything like that. A small reduction by a large number goes a long way. Even if everyone replaced a single meal of beef with one of vegetables, it would have a significant impact.

Finally, meat is a luxury we can ill-afford. The wastage at each level of the cycle (sunlight->plants matter->animal tissue) in terms of energy and total resources is enormous. If the land devoted to the production of feed for meat animals was gradually turned over to the growing of human-edible crops, it would drastically increase food production and reduce the agricultural footprint of the world.

But...I still cant withstand a week without eating beeef at least once.

 

[aneeshm]

By the way, I don't think that religious motivation has anything to do with it. He isn't that sort of man.

 

[aneeshm]

But...I still cant withstand a week without eating beeef at least once.

This isn't about "giving up" anything. It's more about eating just a little less. If someone has ten meals of beef a week, would reducing that to nine make such a personal difference? It would make a collectively large difference, though. That's the beauty.

If the farmland that went to making that one meal were turned instead to the production of food for humans, we'd have ten meals instead of that one.

 

[Eretz Yisrael]

Wouldnt be better to tax the businesses involved in the selling, distribution, and packaging of beef products to cover up environmental costs rather than to completely stop the whole world's beef comsumption? I wonder how much of an effect it would have to countries that export beef when they get hit, if such an event ever occurs.

 

[IglooDame]

By the way, I don't think that religious motivation has anything to do with it. He isn't that sort of man.

Not a Hindu? He could at least use "meat" generically rather than beef, though being a vegetarian he's still vulnerable to the exact same charge (of a sort, depending on the root of his vegetarian beliefs).

This isn't about "giving up" anything. It's more about eating just a little less. If someone has ten meals of beef a week, would reducing that to nine make such a personal difference? It would make a collectively large difference, though. That's the beauty.

If the farmland that went to making that one meal were turned instead to the production of food for humans, we'd have ten meals instead of that one.

I thought I read somewhere that "global food scarcity" (or more correctly, frequent localized shortages) was a problem of transportation and logistics rather than production.

 

[El_Machinae]

Beef is worse than the other meats.

And global food scarcity has never been worse. The FAO estimates that there are currently a billion people being malnourished.