Ranked: The Foods With the Largest Environmental Impact
Ranked: The Foods With the Largest Environmental Impact
Food and agriculture have a significant impact on our planet, particularly in terms of carbon emissions, water withdrawals, and land use.
You're viewing a single thread.
This infographic brought to you by the oil industry™
Please focus on this infographic and curbing your own satisfaction, so we can continue to be the biggest polluter AND make money hand over fist.
I mean not really.
Live stock accounts for 60% of land usage, but only 2% of calories consumed. Much of that land is growing feed for cattle. They eat millions more calories in grain than is harvested.
Meat is just such a luxury with how many resources it uses. Like the world doesn't have enough space for everyone to eat meat like the US does.
It also feels very cruel to grow so much feed for cows when people are starving.
But people love Meat and have it part of their culture so people won't stop no matter what.
So fingers crossed for lab grown meat so this debate can just vanish.
most cows mostly eat grass. what crops are given to livestock is usually plants (or parts of plants) that people can't or won't eat.
I think what they’re getting at is that the land being used to grow that grass and inedible plants could instead be used to grow plants that humans can eat.
grasslands usually aren't suitable for growing crops.
most of the crops that are fed to animals are just the parts of the plants that people can't or won't eat. soybeans, for instance: 85% of all the soybeans in the world go through an oil press, and after extracting the oil, we feed the industrial waste to livestock.
Most cows eat grass. True. But most cows are fed grains, not grass.
So growing grain, using the seeds for feeding humans and using the rest for raising additional food for humans is a good idea and was practiced for millenia. But this way our ancestors got a pig or a cow per year per family, not a steak a day.
cows are fed grains
i never said they aren't. i'm saying the bulk of what makes a cow is grass. grain finishing isn't that big of a deal (in my opinion). certainly, the whole food system accounts for ~20% of our emissions, so we could be focused on other sectors instead of food which people eat.
I'm a biologist and I fully agree with the infographic, unless you have any actual data points that disprove it to share with us.
Permanently Deleted
There are tons of sources that show agriculture and food pale in comparison to the emissions of other sectors.
I'm happy that you could pass Biology, but you failed Statistics. Try again.
Once again, I'm not disputing that - I never claimed agriculture is a bigger source of emissions.
But guess what - the infographic also isn't making this claim.
It's showing within agriculture what impacts the most. And it's correct, the data is precise enough. Not sure why you're replying as if I had insinuated agriculture was ahead of other sources.
I didn't fail statistics - I'm concerned about your reading comprehension though.
It would seem this entire discussion stems from your misunderstanding of my initial comment.
I pointed out that there are other industries that have a much greater environmental impact and you got butthurt about it. I wanted to help you understand that other industries (e.g. oil/transport) have a much greater impact, which it looks like I've accomplished. I'm glad I could help you see the bigger picture, but you might want to check your own reading comprehension before throwing a tantrum in the future.
I pointed out that there are other industries that have a much greater environmental impact and you got butthurt about it
Yes, because you started with a criticism of this infographic for an assumption it did not make - it did not claim agriculture is the biggest impact.
However, agriculture is the biggest individual impact, unless you're in a position to bankrupt Shell, or something. I kinda doubt that's the case though.
Finally, there are more impacts in the environment than simple carbon emissions - and if we add that in, things get even worse.
But you do you - downvote, reply as if anything you've just written makes any sense, go nuts. At the end of the day, you're happy with the "oh no, individual action is irrelevant, big companies are the culprits so I can keep my habits and feel no guilt" so now you must defend this position.
Not eating red meats is the single most impactful change an individual can have on their carbon footprint
i doubt it.
I doubt it
Yeah I bet you do - life is more comfortable this way. Guess what though, that's what the literature supports..
But keep downvoting.
Guess what though, that’s what the literature supports.
that claim is beyond the scope of that study, which didn't actually consider any source of ghg emissions except agriculture.
i didn't downvote anything.
poore-nemecek 2018 is pretty low-quality. they attribute everything fed to livestock as emissions necessary in rearing livestock, but that's just not true: much of what is fed to livestock would outherwise be waste, so feeding it to livestock is a conservation of resources, and not a net emission.
I urge you to stop sending a thousand replies to the same comment - breathe, write everything down once you're done reading, and then reply. Do not read a sentence, think of a comeback, and write a separate comment a billion times.
Otherwise I will not bother replying.
I will not bother replying.
i never asked you to reply at all.
I urge you to stop sending a thousand replies to the same comment -
why, so your gish gallop is easier to maintain? fuck that.
I urge you to stop sending a thousand replies to the same comment - breathe, write everything down once you’re done reading, and then reply.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDUjeR01wnU&pp=ygUXZG9udCB0ZWxsIG1lIHdoYXQgdG8gZG8%3D