All true. But there isn't one culprit or a silver-bullet solution. And if there was, it certainly tied to any form of personal consumption but likely the policies and practices of large corporations and governments. However, I don't believe perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good when it comes to making ethical or philosophical choices.
Agreed but it seems like eating meat is often elevated up to a level that doesn't make sense,when other aspects (often far more impactful ones) are left on the table.
The cynical highlight of this year was when Greta Thunberg took a plane from Sweden to the Netherlands to join some environmental protests for a day...
While consuming less meat may not be all that impactful in the grand scheme of things it's among the easiest changes to make. In contrast, personal use vehicles might be one of the biggest single-sources of emissions in the US. Yet it's only responsible for something like 15% of all US emissions. However to make any sort of significant dent in personal vehicle miles traveled we have to undo a hundred years of bad land use/urban planning, and create (from basically scratch) new mass transit options. Work, school, and errand commutes are simply not feasible without the automobile in most places in this country; reducing red meat consumption by 1/2 or more can be done tomorrow. Of course the Dutch context is different but I'd imagine many of your other more significant options to reduce emissions are also politically, practically, or economically infeasible, or require long time horizons.
Frankly, I don't think moving to less meat is an easy change to make. Because what I see happening here in the Netherlands is that people replace meat with highly processed meat replacements. It's one giant health experiment that's unlikely to have positive results on people's health.
I think vehicle use is actually far easier. Look at the US car inventory: there's so much low hanging fruit there. People could do the same distances in smaller more efficient cars and you would have massive gains!
That's just one example but there are still plenty of other options and consumption patterns that are fairly easy to change that have huge pay offs, but are left on the table.
My biggest gain was probably when gas prices started going up and I basically made the decision to stop using my central heating (admittedly allowed by living in a fairly modern appartment building with good isolation). While it meant giving up some comfort because you have to habituati to about 17 degrees C in the winter, and the motivations were mostly financial and geopolitical, the difference in carbon output is if I'm using anti-meat propagandist's numbers in the same ballpark as going from an average meat-eater to a vegetarian.
Overreliance on non-seasonal, non-local produce should also be criticized too.
I live in California so I cannot and will not defend nut production lol.
Well 'it depends'. As a person whose bowel system cannot tolerate brassica I don't have much of a choice but to buy non-seasonal stuff in at least some months because otherwise the diet would become incredibly monotonous in certain months.
Also 'non local' isnt
necessarily problematic. For example non-local regular farmfield produce will have a lower footprint than local greenhouse stuff. And as long as transport is by sea the extra foot print of non-local isn't necessarily all that problematic.
I understand your point that pound for pound it's less (environmentally and economically) efficient to raise "happy" animals. I don't think we have any disagreement. "Happy" animals are more environmentally damaging than conventional factory farming if they are consumed in the same amount or whatever the equilibrium point making them equivalent is. I'm making separate points that, 1: that the amount of consumption is in large part driven by prices which are artificially low because of terrible practices as well as other unaccounted for costs, and 2: that consumption should be lower. The increased cost of animal products from happy animal policies would likely reduce consumption. Would it reduce consumption enough to be less ecologically damaging than the current factory farming state of affairs? I don't know, maybe. But throw in prices that also reflect externalized costs and we'd eat very differently.
Contrary to popular belief the price of 'happier animals' isn't necessarily all that large. Its mostly supermarkets that
make it large. The extra cost to the farmer isn't necessarily all that big, especially since the price of carbon output is negligible.
There is still a cost difference though (I think it's about 25 to 50%, not the 100+% the supermarket charges) and this actually reflects the reduction in efficiency. I'm not going to guess as to what extent that really impacts consumption or not; there are plenty of other factors at play and I'm not sure whether Jevons paradox really applies here.
Prices being artificially low applies to almost all agricultural production, not just meat. So in meat vs vegetarian that's a bit of a wash IMO. The only exception to that is 'animal suffering' but beyond the individual animal that is
not an environmental concern - though it certainly is an ethical one.
By the way I wasn't trying to argue against 'happier meat', just pointing out the awkward paradox that exists there... I don't have a good solution to it either; I
wished happy animals were also the most efficient environmental-friendly animals but it just doesn't work like that.
Just quickly looking up the stats, Americans consume 124 kg of meat per year, Dutch people consume 76 kg of meat. It's not half but it's a significant difference. Considering how tall, fit you Dutchies are compared to us I'd hardly say you're starving.
Honestly I've mostly been talking from the Dutch and my individual perspective. You Americans are all a weird exception anyway.
I would expect average height to go down over here in the future though, looking at dietary trends. I'd actually be willing to put money on that.