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by robocat 1736 days ago
> Carbon-cost wise, it should be seen as a luxury.

Virtually every meaningful part of our lives is a luxury.

Your profile mentions you are a musician and artist: many many people in the world would consider your choices as unnecessary luxuries. In some parts of the world you would be deprived of your choices for the good of others. Surely we could even find people that would judge your art and music as a negative worth to the world.

A world where we only work for the minimum needs necessary to survive (food, shelter, etcetera) would not be worth aspiring for.
1 comments
jedimastert 1736 days ago
Whether or not music and art are a luxury, and should be eliminated because of that, is definitely an interesting discussion

Note that I never argued for the abolition of cattle production, just that it's carbon-cost is not considered a much as it should be (as is the case with most things, I think)

I also never argued against luxury goods or only working for the most efficient means of survival. Luxury is fine, but I think everyone in modern society is going to have to give up at least some amount of the comforts of modern society.

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robocat 1736 days ago
> [meat’s] carbon-cost is not considered a much as it should be (as is the case with most things, I think)

Oh, I strongly agree.

However the majority of the greenhouse gas contribution from meat is methane, which decomposes over many decades. So in the long term, not eating meat is expected to only decrease your carbon footprint by 2% to 4%[1][2].

But meat is expensive, and I suspect that whatever you substitute instead of purchasing meat would generate CO2, so my guess is the impact would be much closer to 0%.

Personally I use money as my proxy for calculating carbon footprint. So your long term footprint is highly correlated and mostly dependent upon your income and the economy you belong to, almost regardless of your actions.

Unless you are doing direct action to capture carbon, not having children, killing people, or reducing your economy’s usage of CO2, then action at an individual level makes very little difference IMHO. Not to say we shouldn’t try!

Edit: also note the 60% headline figure is of 35% agricultural emissions, so actually about 20% of personal emissions. And presumably that is very strongly dependant on the country you in (buying meat from).

[1] https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/green-business/125675673/pa...

[2] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/10/5568#

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