[bamboozled]

When people say “stop buying stuff”, I don’t get it? Should we just let the economy collapse and not have anything of value?

If the “stuff” for example comes from recycled, fairly low emissions techniques of manufacturing combined renewable energy, who care? This is just generalising and it’s not realistic.

Ultimately burning coal for power generation and using oil for transport are the main culprits.

Eating less meat seems sensible, but it’s still not easy either, getting enough protein from a vegetarian diet is challenging for many.

[BattyMilk]

RE protein. We need far less than we're led to believe. Unless you're an elite athlete then you probably don't need to worry.

I'm no elite athlete but I've been vegan 3 years. In those 3 years I've completed 2 Ironmans with no meat/eggs/dairy, no protein supplementation and no issues whatsoever.

[superpermutat0r]

Protein? There's 25g of protein in 100g of raw lentils. Cooking increases water content, but protein is not an issue. Especially for vegetarians that gorge on milk and eggs.

Still, eating less meat would not help at all. Biggest polluters and energy users are industries not related to food.

Individuals are not to blame for their consumption, unless we blame them for adjusting their morals to fit their immoral companies.

[KozmoNau7]

I'm personally not a vegetarian, more of a "reduced meat omnivore", and I am a big fan of all kinds of hummus, this weekend I made butterbean mash made with garlic/thyme-infused oil, and muhammara on top: http://iamafoodblog.com/ottolenghis-muhammararoasted-red-pep...

It's inexpensive, easy, filling, healthy and tasty as all get-out.

Along with pan-fried mushrooms and onions mixed with bulgur (also an Ottolenghi recipe), it was extremely satisfying.

It's a major problem that we are now eating the equivalent of the sunday roast every single day. We should go back to making big cuts of meat a rare treat, and make most days meat-free.

I also agree that individual action won't change much by itself, but we should still do it, and work to hold corporations responsible for their environmental conduct.

[saiya-jin]

Which part don't you get? stuff means resources that needs to be mined, purified, transported, processed into some form, assembled into final product. All this employs tons of people but also causes tons of pollution.

> Ultimately burning coal for power generation and using oil for transport are the main culprits.

And all the stuff mentioned requires both. Huge transport ships produce more pollution than all cars of the world combined. But many like to buy 0.99$ gadgets from China, shipping included, right?

[pas]

> Huge transport ships produce more pollution than all cars of the world combined.

That's not really true. They produce more of one type. (SO2) But certainly not more by volume, or by GHG content.

That said, shipping uses bunker oil, which is a nasty piece of work.

And we should transition to electrified rail based shipping, powered by nuclear and renewables. But Hawaii is out of luck, at least Eurasia can be connected to the Americas sort of easily at the Bering strait.

[bamboozled]

This comment sums up my sentiment well, we do a lot of destructive things by choice. We could just work smarter.