[const_cast]

This comment is the opposite of nuance. They literally argued that everything you do has a CO2 impact, therefore you either shouldn't try at all or should just kill yourself.

That's, like, the least nuanced and most caveman-brained take on climate change you could possibly develop.

Also: appealing to edge-cases as a distraction isn't nuance, it's derailing. I can find fucking exceptions to anything. ANYTHING. How many people in the West are growing their own chickens? Give me a fucking break man.

[quonn]

I‘m trying to find something resembling a reasoned argument in your comment, but there‘s nothing except profanity.

I did not point out exceptions and the chicken example is merely an illustration of one of my points.

And who says we are talking about the west? Plenty of comments in this thread are talking about pandemics, something that is not known to originate from western agriculture.

You know what‘s a caveman take? Thinking that there is any chance to convince a meaningful number of people to reduce meat consumption globally in the required time window (20-50 years) in a way that has any bearing on climate change (as opposed to the many steps being taken that actually work). That‘s a caveman take.

But now some facts:

https://interactive.carbonbrief.org/what-is-the-climate-impa...

As you can see, the type of meat matters a lot. Cheese is doing worse than pork in this example (not sure I even believe this without more evidence yet). Non-meat sources of protein don‘t do very well: Tofu is just 2x better than poultry. Compare this to the giant bar for beef.

Better chart, apparently same source:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/0477/production...

In short, yes, it would be theoretically possible to eliminate about 10% of global emissions if everyone everywhere stopped eating meat and replaced it with a balanced non-meat diet.

But such an outcome is not realistic.

This is my last comment on HN. It is sad what this corner of the internet has become.

[const_cast]

In defense of myself not being a big meanie:

> You know what‘s a caveman take? Thinking that there is any chance to convince a meaningful number of people to reduce meat consumption globally in the required time window

The "caveman take" I'm referring to is when you implied the correct solution to climate change is suicide.

It's a caveman take because I've heard it numerous times, and it lacks all nuance or thought. Yes, we emit CO2 by existing the way we do. We can improve our situation without going to extremes. This is a "perfect is the enemy of good" type thought process.

It's what I call an anti-solution. It doesn't solve anything, but it does completely halt the conversation and makes sure that other real solutions can't pop up.

> As you can see, the type of meat matters a lot. Cheese is doing worse than pork in this example (not sure I even believe this without more evidence yet). Non-meat sources of protein don‘t do very well: Tofu is just 2x better than poultry. Compare this to the giant bar for beef.

Okay, but none of this was in your original comment. You talked about raising chickens, which I appropriately clocked as a not real solution that isn't going to work.

Eating more chicken and less beef is good, I agree, and a reasonable solution. You should probably lead with that.