Eat low on the food chain and try to minimize unnecessary consumption.
Don’t have children. Probably this should be #1 because there’s really nothing as environmentally damaging as creating another human (and all their descendants).
Try to convince others to do the same when you can.
Trying to help specific individual wild animals is never going to have an impact close to any of those items, unless you’re already very wealthy and powerful.
Ultimately we live in a global society with around 8billion other people. Individualistic thinking such as “don’t eat meat,” or “don’t have children,” is making a moral judgement as well as using the trivial answer to the problem. (If there were no humans there would be no human-caused climate change, amazing.) It doesn’t advance anyone’s understanding of the problem, and it doesn’t even pretend to address the societal problem. It also implies that if people change their diets to be less burdensome with current tech, that things would be solved which is demonstrably untrue. An all vegan diet of 8 billion people just kicks the can down the road until we have 15billion people and run into almost exactly the same problem, but now instead of meat production we have industrial farming practices of soybeans or whatever to blame.
If you want to say that earth cannot support anymore then X people that are eating meat, or we should only have Y people total and they should all be vegans that is an argument that I’m pretty sure no one can support. Feel free to prove me wrong however. But you must start the argument by saying what number of people you think is the appropriate number.
Otherwise you are just advocating for a trivial demand side solution that puts the blame of the current problems on literally everyone that currently exists which is also false.
I don’t want to pollute the well by giving my ideas yet, but if you wish to engage, let me know what I’m getting wrong about my critique of your position. To succinctly sum-up my critique of your position. You say that global climate destruction is a “consumption” problem that individuals can solve, but I say that it is a systemic problem that individuals are forced into and cannot escape thus the solution cannot be at the individual consumption level.
Individualistic thinking such as “don’t eat meat,” or “don’t have children,” is making a moral judgement as well as using the trivial answer to the problem. (If there were no humans there would be no human-caused climate change, amazing.)
Saying “don’t eat meat” is an individualistic proposal, but that doesn’t mean it is ineffective or a moral argument; reducing the carbon intensity of the food you eat is undeniably effective at reducing the demand for carbon intensive foods. It’s not the same as shutting down a factory farm, but it is still having an affect. It can’t be the only thing done, but saying “that’s an individualistic argument” seems like avoiding the fact that it is undeniably effective. Choosing to eat meat is an individualistic decision as well.
Not having children is more complicated. Humans don’t inherently have a net positive carbon offset, because we are able to create things like carbon sinks that more than offset that person’s individual carbon output. The problem is that our system as it stands actively discourages people from having a positive environmental effect. I choose not to have children, because in our current capitalist driven climate change train, having children is like bringing a log into a house fire; they’re not going to make a big difference but they are kindling nonetheless and will suffer for it.
OP specifically asked for what they could do as an individual. It seems really weird to chastise me for “individualistic thinking” if I give them an answer to their question.
is making a moral judgement
I certainly have my own ideas about what’s moral or not, but you’re reading in stuff that didn’t actually exist in my post.
The reason I made those points is in terms of practical effects. Roughly 90% of food energy is lost per link in the food chain. Consequently, if you eat high on the food chain you are effectively throwing away 90% of the food energy. Scale this wasteful approach up to feeding 8 billion people and the effects on the environment are very extreme. I also said to reduce unnecessary consumption.
Humans, especially privileged humans living in developed countries (generally, anyone that will be reading posts here) use a disproportionate share of resources. We exist by exploiting other people and the environment, and it’s nearly impossible to avoid. We don’t pay the real costs for those effects either, for the most part. We usually don’t even account for those costs, which are or will inevitably be paid by someone eventually.
I don’t even know what an average individual living in the US or similar countries could personally do to break even, let alone have an overall positive effect. In general, or for simplicity we can just say in terms of the environment. Either way, it’s basically the same. So creating a new human, who is overwhelmingly likely to be average (and even if they’re not, maybe they do a lot of harm, maybe they do a lot of good) is almost certainly going to be harmful from an environmental perspective. Not only that, but this new human may also propagate and so one’s responsibility for the effects involved in creating that individual don’t just stop there.
It also implies that if people change their diets to be less burdensome with current tech, that things would be solved
If I’d wanted to say that, I would have written it in my post. However, I didn’t so that implies what?
It reduces harmful effects. Reducing harm is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t just solve everything in one fell swoop. Reducing or mitigating harm can also allow more time for more permanent solutions to be developed before irreversible changes/losses occur.
An all vegan diet of 8 billion people just kicks the can down the road until we have 15billion people
What? You just got done criticizing me for saying people should choose not to have children and now you’re acting like that part didn’t exist. Not to mention, I even said the not having children point should probably have been #1.
If you want to say that earth cannot support anymore then X people that are eating meat, or we should only have Y people total
I mean, unless you want to argue that the earth has infinite resources then there has to be some point where resource consumption in unsustainable. If you take steps to reduce resource consumption, for example by eating low on the food chain then the point where it’s unsustainable changes.
So while I wasn’t saying that in my post, it’s just factually and obviously true that one could put a general number on how many humans can sustainably be supported in various scenarios.
Otherwise you are just advocating for a trivial demand side solution that puts the blame of the current problems on literally everyone that currently exists which is also false.
I think consumers have at least an equal part of the blame, but they don’t have all of it. However, production won’t exist without consumption. Politicians also won’t/can’t pass laws and policies that will just immediately get them voted out. If a politician says “Okay, starting tomorrow we start paying the true price of meat production including future environmental effects as accurately as we can quantify them: so the price will quadruple” it wouldn’t matter if that was accurate. They’d just get voted out.
The population has to support (and indicate their support) for that sort of thing before politicians can pass legislature that will restriction companies.
let me know what I’m getting wrong about my critique of your position.
Your biggest issue is imagining a bunch of arguments and points that never existed and devoting your time to attacking them. Respond to what I actually wrote.
For the OP. Asking what an “individual” can do in a society specifically addressing a trivial part of societal waste (animals) the answer is nothing. It doesn’t matter a single bit what an individual does on their own without collective action. This is the same answer for what an individual can do about car-dependency, about cruise lines, about the fact that oil extraction and the oil dependent industry is ~70% of all carbon emissions. An individual cannot do anything about that. It’s framing the question wrong. I didn’t structure our society around fossil fuels and ignore the externalities they present, so what the hell am I supposed to do about it?
I wanted to engage you specifically. Because you proposed specific individual solutions that I wanted to critique. So I apologize for making conclusions about your position without providing the reasoning for my conclusion.
The things you have suggested can be boiled down to reducing individual consumption. But the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that zero consumption of the individual is the ideal situation. The only way for a living being to consume nothing is to kill themselves before breeding. So how can that possibly be a reasonable solution?
I apologize for making conclusions about your position without providing the reasoning for my conclusion.
I appreciate that but like I said before, you should focus on responding to what I wrote. You seem incredibly focused on reading between the lines, to the point that you’re only reading in between and ignoring the content of the lines themselves.
You said you made conclusions about my position: I feel like you still really don’t even know what my position is. That includes this comment because in spite of how I asked you to respond to what I actually wrote, you just kept right on trying to guess what I might be “implying”. Once again: If I wanted to say it, I would have written it down.
This also wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you were making reasonably charitable assumptions, but your assumptions have all basically started out assuming I’m an idiot and extremist and would be implying absurd things. It’s kind of insulting.
a trivial part of societal waste (animals)
Animal agriculture actually doesn’t have a trivial effect on the environment.
It doesn’t matter a single bit what an individual does on their own without collective action.
You have to “be the change you want to see in the world”. Obviously each of the 8 billion people on the planet can’t just casually do something that changes the whole world in major way.
Also, even if something isn’t visible on a global scale it can still “matter”. A single murder isn’t going to make a difference in global death statistics. Right? But it’s going to “matter” if the victim is you, or someone you care about. So doing things that help individuals still has value.
The things you have suggested can be boiled down to reducing individual consumption. But the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that zero consumption of the individual is the ideal situation. The only way for a living being to consume nothing is to kill themselves before breeding. So how can that possibly be a reasonable solution?
How is it possible to write something this ridiculous without realizing there’s a problem?
Me: We should brush our teeth regularly.
You: [reads the above, thinks to self] KerfuffleV2 says we should brush our teeth regularly. What could be more regular than continuously brushing our teeth? But if we continuously brush our teeth we won’t be able to eat or drink! We’ll die of dehydration and exhaustion!
You: [exclaims in horror] Oh my god, why do you want to kill everyone!? You monster!
Me: Huh?
I am a person that likes to “engage” but I don’t see how I can with you. You just twist everything I say beyond recognition.
The problem with reducing individual consumption is that it doesn’t address the problem at all. If everyone reduced their consumption by 50%, what happens when we get twice as many people? What problem have you solved? How have you helped and of course, how have you addressed OP’s question?
Trying to help specific individual wild animals is never going to have an impact close to any of those items, unless you’re already very wealthy and powerful.
This is 100% wrong and individualistic thinking with a healthy dose of sophomoric “humans are the disease” thinking.
How about a counterargument instead of just saying “no”? If I’m wrong, it shouldn’t be difficult to refute my points.
You also weren’t very clear about what you think is wrong. I’m assuming point #2, but who knows.
Ultimately we live in a global society with around 8billion other people. Individualistic thinking such as “don’t eat meat,” or “don’t have children,” is making a moral judgement as well as using the trivial answer to the problem. (If there were no humans there would be no human-caused climate change, amazing.) It doesn’t advance anyone’s understanding of the problem, and it doesn’t even pretend to address the societal problem. It also implies that if people change their diets to be less burdensome with current tech, that things would be solved which is demonstrably untrue. An all vegan diet of 8 billion people just kicks the can down the road until we have 15billion people and run into almost exactly the same problem, but now instead of meat production we have industrial farming practices of soybeans or whatever to blame.
If you want to say that earth cannot support anymore then X people that are eating meat, or we should only have Y people total and they should all be vegans that is an argument that I’m pretty sure no one can support. Feel free to prove me wrong however. But you must start the argument by saying what number of people you think is the appropriate number.
Otherwise you are just advocating for a trivial demand side solution that puts the blame of the current problems on literally everyone that currently exists which is also false.
I don’t want to pollute the well by giving my ideas yet, but if you wish to engage, let me know what I’m getting wrong about my critique of your position. To succinctly sum-up my critique of your position. You say that global climate destruction is a “consumption” problem that individuals can solve, but I say that it is a systemic problem that individuals are forced into and cannot escape thus the solution cannot be at the individual consumption level.
Saying “don’t eat meat” is an individualistic proposal, but that doesn’t mean it is ineffective or a moral argument; reducing the carbon intensity of the food you eat is undeniably effective at reducing the demand for carbon intensive foods. It’s not the same as shutting down a factory farm, but it is still having an affect. It can’t be the only thing done, but saying “that’s an individualistic argument” seems like avoiding the fact that it is undeniably effective. Choosing to eat meat is an individualistic decision as well.
Not having children is more complicated. Humans don’t inherently have a net positive carbon offset, because we are able to create things like carbon sinks that more than offset that person’s individual carbon output. The problem is that our system as it stands actively discourages people from having a positive environmental effect. I choose not to have children, because in our current capitalist driven climate change train, having children is like bringing a log into a house fire; they’re not going to make a big difference but they are kindling nonetheless and will suffer for it.
OP specifically asked for what they could do as an individual. It seems really weird to chastise me for “individualistic thinking” if I give them an answer to their question.
I certainly have my own ideas about what’s moral or not, but you’re reading in stuff that didn’t actually exist in my post.
The reason I made those points is in terms of practical effects. Roughly 90% of food energy is lost per link in the food chain. Consequently, if you eat high on the food chain you are effectively throwing away 90% of the food energy. Scale this wasteful approach up to feeding 8 billion people and the effects on the environment are very extreme. I also said to reduce unnecessary consumption.
Humans, especially privileged humans living in developed countries (generally, anyone that will be reading posts here) use a disproportionate share of resources. We exist by exploiting other people and the environment, and it’s nearly impossible to avoid. We don’t pay the real costs for those effects either, for the most part. We usually don’t even account for those costs, which are or will inevitably be paid by someone eventually.
I don’t even know what an average individual living in the US or similar countries could personally do to break even, let alone have an overall positive effect. In general, or for simplicity we can just say in terms of the environment. Either way, it’s basically the same. So creating a new human, who is overwhelmingly likely to be average (and even if they’re not, maybe they do a lot of harm, maybe they do a lot of good) is almost certainly going to be harmful from an environmental perspective. Not only that, but this new human may also propagate and so one’s responsibility for the effects involved in creating that individual don’t just stop there.
If I’d wanted to say that, I would have written it in my post. However, I didn’t so that implies what?
It reduces harmful effects. Reducing harm is worthwhile, even if it doesn’t just solve everything in one fell swoop. Reducing or mitigating harm can also allow more time for more permanent solutions to be developed before irreversible changes/losses occur.
What? You just got done criticizing me for saying people should choose not to have children and now you’re acting like that part didn’t exist. Not to mention, I even said the not having children point should probably have been #1.
I mean, unless you want to argue that the earth has infinite resources then there has to be some point where resource consumption in unsustainable. If you take steps to reduce resource consumption, for example by eating low on the food chain then the point where it’s unsustainable changes.
So while I wasn’t saying that in my post, it’s just factually and obviously true that one could put a general number on how many humans can sustainably be supported in various scenarios.
I think consumers have at least an equal part of the blame, but they don’t have all of it. However, production won’t exist without consumption. Politicians also won’t/can’t pass laws and policies that will just immediately get them voted out. If a politician says “Okay, starting tomorrow we start paying the true price of meat production including future environmental effects as accurately as we can quantify them: so the price will quadruple” it wouldn’t matter if that was accurate. They’d just get voted out.
The population has to support (and indicate their support) for that sort of thing before politicians can pass legislature that will restriction companies.
Your biggest issue is imagining a bunch of arguments and points that never existed and devoting your time to attacking them. Respond to what I actually wrote.
For the OP. Asking what an “individual” can do in a society specifically addressing a trivial part of societal waste (animals) the answer is nothing. It doesn’t matter a single bit what an individual does on their own without collective action. This is the same answer for what an individual can do about car-dependency, about cruise lines, about the fact that oil extraction and the oil dependent industry is ~70% of all carbon emissions. An individual cannot do anything about that. It’s framing the question wrong. I didn’t structure our society around fossil fuels and ignore the externalities they present, so what the hell am I supposed to do about it?
I wanted to engage you specifically. Because you proposed specific individual solutions that I wanted to critique. So I apologize for making conclusions about your position without providing the reasoning for my conclusion.
The things you have suggested can be boiled down to reducing individual consumption. But the logical conclusion of that line of thinking is that zero consumption of the individual is the ideal situation. The only way for a living being to consume nothing is to kill themselves before breeding. So how can that possibly be a reasonable solution?
I appreciate that but like I said before, you should focus on responding to what I wrote. You seem incredibly focused on reading between the lines, to the point that you’re only reading in between and ignoring the content of the lines themselves.
You said you made conclusions about my position: I feel like you still really don’t even know what my position is. That includes this comment because in spite of how I asked you to respond to what I actually wrote, you just kept right on trying to guess what I might be “implying”. Once again: If I wanted to say it, I would have written it down.
This also wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you were making reasonably charitable assumptions, but your assumptions have all basically started out assuming I’m an idiot and extremist and would be implying absurd things. It’s kind of insulting.
Animal agriculture actually doesn’t have a trivial effect on the environment.
You have to “be the change you want to see in the world”. Obviously each of the 8 billion people on the planet can’t just casually do something that changes the whole world in major way.
Also, even if something isn’t visible on a global scale it can still “matter”. A single murder isn’t going to make a difference in global death statistics. Right? But it’s going to “matter” if the victim is you, or someone you care about. So doing things that help individuals still has value.
How is it possible to write something this ridiculous without realizing there’s a problem?
Me: We should brush our teeth regularly.
You: [reads the above, thinks to self] KerfuffleV2 says we should brush our teeth regularly. What could be more regular than continuously brushing our teeth? But if we continuously brush our teeth we won’t be able to eat or drink! We’ll die of dehydration and exhaustion!
You: [exclaims in horror] Oh my god, why do you want to kill everyone!? You monster!
Me: Huh?
I am a person that likes to “engage” but I don’t see how I can with you. You just twist everything I say beyond recognition.
The problem with reducing individual consumption is that it doesn’t address the problem at all. If everyone reduced their consumption by 50%, what happens when we get twice as many people? What problem have you solved? How have you helped and of course, how have you addressed OP’s question?