Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet

[Nosi]

I for one think there's too darned many people on this planet and think that more people need to use birth control. Consider 'how many children I want to have' and cut that by half or less. We need to maintain or reduce the population of this planet. Doing that entails ending child marriage and empowering girls with education + birth control so they've control over their lives/reproduction in third world countries.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Pass the crickets.

Make it a double.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

It's not his place to tell anyone else how to eat, or to artificially jack up the price of foods he disagrees with.

When Lord Stern decides to live a lifestyle consistent with his goal for everyone else he'll have some credibility. And it goes far beyond how much meat he eats, let's compare house size and number, number of cars, travel, etc. Let's compare the resources Lord Stern uses compared to what the average inhabitant of Earth uses.

Elitist prick.

This is kind of silly. It's like saying a doctor who smokes can't advocate for cigarette taxes.

 

[WildCat]

This is kind of silly. It's like saying a doctor who smokes can't advocate for cigarette taxes.

More accurately would be if he advocates taxes on everyone but himself.

 

[mumblethrax]

More accurately would be if he advocates taxes on everyone but himself.

How do you figure? It's not like cigarette taxes are levied in proportion to income. He's just saying that negative externalities should be incorporated into the price of meat, such that market forces can work their magic and reduce production. Meat becomes more expensive for everyone.

It's a bog standard view for an economist to take, and yes, it means that the rich can afford more of the stuff. But that's already true of meat (the developed world--rich elitists that we are--eats almost three times as much meat per capita as the developing world), not to mention every other scarce good in the world.

 

[WildCat]

How do you figure? It's not like cigarette taxes are levied in proportion to income. He's just saying that negative externalities should be incorporated into the price of meat, such that market forces can work their magic and reduce production. Meat becomes more expensive for everyone.

Sorry, meat is food. We don't need to drive up the price of food.

It's a bog standard view for an economist to take, and yes, it means that the rich can afford more of the stuff. But that's already true of meat (the developed world--rich elitists that we are--eats almost three times as much meat per capita as the developing world), not to mention every other scarce good in the world.

Exactly. Which is why the average resident of London looks a lot healthier than the average resident of Mumbai.

 

[Trakar]

The problem isn't so much with meat itself, but rather with some of the unsustainable and unwise farming practices. Most of it goes back to promoting a reasonable dietary balance (good for the body, good for the planet), eating local as much as is possible, and expanding variety and horizons with regards to the types of meat consumed.

 

[mumblethrax]

Sorry, meat is food. We don't need to drive up the price of food.

Well, I'm going to suggest that if it's a major contributor to global warming, driving up the price of meat (and not food in general, that's an inductive fallacy) is precisely what we need to do. It's not a staple food, we'll be fine. In fact, driving up the price of meat should produce a downward pressure on the price of staple foods (since there would then be more arable land available for staple crops), which is what's actually important with respect to feeding the world's population.

Exactly. Which is why the average resident of London looks a lot healthier than the average resident of Mumbai.

Hardly. Access to adequately nutritious food, sanitation, health care, and education will have a lot more to do with it, and I'm all in favor of dispersing those costs. I see no reason to do that with meat, unless you're going to argue for radically different systems of allocation in general.

 

[Captain.Sassy]

Sorry, meat is food. We don't need to drive up the price of food.

Meat could drive up the price of other foods.

If you have rising incomes in one area and stagnant incomes in another, and if with rising incomes comes more demand for meat, then market forces could divert more grain into producing feed for cattle and pigs. Assuming that at least some of the increased use of grain for animal feed comes from existing grain supplies (i.e. grain output doesn't expand fast enough to meet increased feed requirements entirely through new production) then the price of grain for food would increase.

Diouf blamed a confluence of recent supply and demand factors for the crisis, and he predicted that those factors were here to stay. On the supply side, these include the early effects of global warming, which has decreased crop yields in some crucial places, and a shift away from farming for human consumption toward crops for biofuels and cattle feed. Demand for grain is increasing with the world population, and more is diverted to feed cattle as the population of upwardly mobile meat-eaters grows.
http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/world-food-stocks-dwindling-rapidly-un-warns

Not sure if recent grain prices bear out this theory, but the logic is sound.

 

[dio]

... unsustainable and unwise farming practices.

Examples?

...and expanding variety and horizons with regards to the types of meat consumed.

Examples?

 

[kedo1981]

Lord Stern, ye are welcome to bite-th it

 

[applecorped]

Does soylent green count?

 

[eeyore1954]

When they come for my cheeseburger, they'll have to pry it from my cold dead hands!

If it is a baconator from Wendy's you may get cold dead hands.

The Baconator consists of two 4oz. beef patties, two slices of American cheese, six strips of bacon, mayonnaise, and ketchup on a premium bun.

As a talk show host in NY said the other day

the cows and pigs let loose a lot of methane gas to make it.

 

[a_unique_person]

This is kind of silly. It's like saying a doctor who smokes can't advocate for cigarette taxes.

More like a bunch of stoners, and one of them says "We need to stop smoking all this weed".

 

[Trakar]

Examples?

Many of the currently predominant factory farm schemes, and its not the mass production that is the problem, it is more in the manner that the mass production is achieved, and the utilization of resources needed to support sustain such operations.

And this isn't getting into issues of quality and transportation.

Examples?

They span the range from insects, crustaceans, shellfish, guina pigs, rabbits, all manner of fowl and fish, to the more traditional goats, pigs and cattle. The key is more in reducing the current beef (and pig/chicken) emphasis, bringing the dietary meat % more into established guideline standards, and providing a variety of meats to meet those standards and fostering more localized production where-ever possible. It is difficult to locate a beef herd in the middle of a large metropolis, but many of these alternative meat sources can as easily produced in the middle of a city as they can in rural setting.

 

[quadraginta]

If it is a baconator from Wendy's you may get cold dead hands.

The Baconator consists of two 4oz. beef patties, two slices of American cheese, six strips of bacon, mayonnaise, and ketchup on a premium bun.

If it's gonna kill ya anyway I don't think they should be so stingy with the bacon.