You Should Know

What bother's me about these sorts of posts is they don't give people a consumption goal. Blindly telling everyone to consume less isn't exactly fair. Say, for example, there's person A who consumes 1 unit of red meat per month, and person B who consumes 100 units of red meat per month. If you say to everyone "consume 1 unit of red meat less per month", well, now person A consumes 0 units of red meat per month, and person B consumes 99 units of red meat per month. Is that fair? Say, you tell everyone "halve your consumption of red meat per month", well, now person A consumes 0.5 units of red meat per month, and person B consumes 50 units of red meat per month. Is that fair? Now, say, you tell everyone "you should try to eat at most 2 units of meat per month", well now person A may happily stay at 1 unit knowing that they're already below the target maximum, they may choose to decrease of their own accord, or they may feel validated to increase to 2 units of red meat per month, and person B will feel pressured to dramatically, and (importantly, imo) proportionally, reduce their consumption. Blindly saying that everyone should reduce their consumption in such an even manner disproportionately imparts blame, as there are likely those who are much more in need of reduction than others. It may even be that a very small minority of very large consumers are responsible for the majority of the overall consumption, so the "average" person may not even need to change their diet much, if at all, in order to meet a target maximum.

Mmm, close to 700 comments. Have fun yall.

Save the planet! Eat Deez Nutz!

I've been the bane of chickens all my life...

I stopped eating beef about 4 years ago. It was a great decision. I much prefer pork/poultry anyway.

You forgot number one: By far, the best thing you can do for the climate is not have children.

I could devote all my time to recycling, reducing carbon emissions, not driving, voting, not eating red meat, including forcing everyone i know to do the same - and the net result would be an iota of a drop in the ocean of change. i.e. nothing.

As others have said, until there is a global shift on how the world operates and the major oil companies, cruise lines, and airlines all shut down, nothing you or i can do will matter.

or eat the wealthy is a better start

If you don't have a car and rarely eat red meat

To be fair, only one of these is a choice in many parts of the world.

The metric of per kg of product, while entirely fair, can be a bit misleading when it comes to making high impact decisions in your life. The switching to tea example is a good one to criticize because on this chart coffee is quite high up there, but I consume only 15g of coffee a day, compared to probably close to a kg of meat, egg, and dairy. Eliminating coffee would not be a high climate impact decision.

Looks slightly off TBH, sources? Nuts being lowest, while Palm oil being quite high. Nuts are efficient, especially when considering caloric value, but I'm pretty sure something like a potato is better per kg. Palm oil AFAIK is a very efficient (most efficient vegetable) oil, might be that the destruction of highly carbon rich forest is factored in there maybe...

Coffee is a big one for me along with cheese. I'm waiting for cheese to get better with vegan alternatives, the last time I tried shredded vegan cheese it melted and tasted like plastic, although that was 3 years ago now, and I am willing to try again.

Coffee is something I think can be helped if people were more picky on what brands they chose from. I do not believe Starbucks is the most sustainable coffee brand, as they trained me when I worked there to believe.

Until Exxon and BP are no longer in business and global shipping transitions to zero emissions, there is nothing an individual human can do that will have an impact in any way on global climate. They problem is systemic, not individual