Whilst I agree with the broader direction of travel that is needed in this area, the idea that we should increase tax on the sort of processed meat eaten by poorer people while our MPs are eating tax-payer subsidised Fillet Steak in the House of Commons is something that I find more than a little hard to swallow.
Cultured meat is the endgame, anything else is a stop gap.
I’ll stop meat altogether if private jets stop being a thing.
Clearly the meat and dairy industry need to up their party ‘donations’ they are clearly falling behind others, which is basically what this story is about.
No our reliance on cheaply manufactured good imported from the Far East?
As a researcher in agricultural sustainability – this comment thread gives me a rollercoaster of hope and utter despair.
Why does it have to be a mix of incentives and penalties, why can’t we restructure things so that it’s so easy to choose to eat less or no meat that it becomes the default option?
One step I think we could be exploring with little controversy (…maybe) is making public institutions plant based. Or towards that direction.
Civil service canteens, hospitals, councils, museums maybe, and other public institutions that receive catering. Why not roll out a load of whole food plant based options. It’d would be healthy and environmentally friendly.
reduce subsidies for meat, increase subsidies for veg
People are consistently knee-jerk about this and I understand why. Meat tastes good and we’re used to eating it.
But I have to wonder why many are so indignant about simply *reducing* our meat consumption. Surely we can all manage that?
For me giving up meat was an ethical choice, and the reduction in my footprint is a nice bonus
I don’t know how anyone can eat animals after seeing the suffering they endure, it’s horrific.
Before I get replies, yes I’m sure you get all of your meat from your local hedonistic butcher who massages all of his livestock before bed
Most people don’t love animals, they love pets.
Yeah, that’s gonna fix it…..
Get ready for another round of articles extolling the virtues of eating insects.
Winter 2022-2023 is going to be lit, freezing in our shitty flats munching on crickets while the elites continue to live like it’s BAU.
Nah screw that, I’ll eat all the meat I want. Get the billionaires and their pet politicians to emit less pollution and then we can talk about this.
Seems like they’re just looking for more ways to tax us more
While the people making these decisions/recommendations eat quail egg and venison…at tax-payer subsidised restaurants..
Fuck off.
Fix the cost of living, stop letting megacorps poison the rivers and burn fossil fuels by the megatonne…then tell me what I “must” do…
YOU VILL LIVE IN ZE POD
YOU VILL EAT ZE BUGZ
YOU VILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY
Do we need to change our eating behaviour? Absolutely. Will it prevent the climate crisis? In no way shape or form.
The issue with this is that it requires a tremendous amount of change on a personal level, which is hard to achieve on a large scale. If everyone in the England went vegetarian it would reduce CO2 output by 50m tons (which is about 13% reduction in overall emissions), but impossible as this would require everyone to go vegetarian.
We could instead look at something where the government holds significantly more power and where increased taxes would not target the poorest. Houses. UK gov has a target of 300.000 new houses in the UK, that’s 15m T CO2 fully within government control, meanwhile there are 600k houses sitting empty in the UK, this housing stock could be used by implementing housing regulation similar to Denmark (where owning a 2nd residential house and letting it sit empty is illegal). By using existing housing stock you can greatly diminish the CO2 output from new builds. Furthermore this would not target the weakest in society as these are rarely homeowners.
The headline makes it look like. England is souly responsible for climate breakdown because as a nation we eat meat.
Let the privileged activists and rich people eat as much bugs and grass as they want while the rest of us carry on as normal
Going after meat yet we have an obesity epidemic that is being driven by carbs and sugars.
This not only leads people to developing a whole host of chronic disease including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, Parkinson’s, diabetes. Even many things like IBS, skin problems, sleep problems. But it’s addictive and causes people to overeat and eat more often.
A rising population that is getting fatter and eating more does not solve climate change. It causes a rise in food production. A rise in the transportation of food from farm to shelves to plate. Really this is a far bigger problem than meat and has far broader consequences, especially when it comes to human health and everything related to it including healthcare.
How about China stopping building coal fired power stations?
What they mean is the working class need to eat less meat whilst they continue to stuff themselves with prime steak.
Maybe the climate breakdown would be improved by companies and governments not dumping waste into the world?
Rich tsars need to do one and have a word with their rich pals. Never doing anything a rich person in power tells me to again just F OFF!!!!
I dont see how little old England will stop climate change or make any sizeable difference whilst still developing countries like China and India are burning fossil fuels like no tomorrow.
25 comments
Whilst I agree with the broader direction of travel that is needed in this area, the idea that we should increase tax on the sort of processed meat eaten by poorer people while our MPs are eating tax-payer subsidised Fillet Steak in the House of Commons is something that I find more than a little hard to swallow.
Cultured meat is the endgame, anything else is a stop gap.
I’ll stop meat altogether if private jets stop being a thing.
Clearly the meat and dairy industry need to up their party ‘donations’ they are clearly falling behind others, which is basically what this story is about.
No our reliance on cheaply manufactured good imported from the Far East?
As a researcher in agricultural sustainability – this comment thread gives me a rollercoaster of hope and utter despair.
Why does it have to be a mix of incentives and penalties, why can’t we restructure things so that it’s so easy to choose to eat less or no meat that it becomes the default option?
One step I think we could be exploring with little controversy (…maybe) is making public institutions plant based. Or towards that direction.
Civil service canteens, hospitals, councils, museums maybe, and other public institutions that receive catering. Why not roll out a load of whole food plant based options. It’d would be healthy and environmentally friendly.
reduce subsidies for meat, increase subsidies for veg
People are consistently knee-jerk about this and I understand why. Meat tastes good and we’re used to eating it.
But I have to wonder why many are so indignant about simply *reducing* our meat consumption. Surely we can all manage that?
For me giving up meat was an ethical choice, and the reduction in my footprint is a nice bonus
I don’t know how anyone can eat animals after seeing the suffering they endure, it’s horrific.
Before I get replies, yes I’m sure you get all of your meat from your local hedonistic butcher who massages all of his livestock before bed
Most people don’t love animals, they love pets.
Yeah, that’s gonna fix it…..
Get ready for another round of articles extolling the virtues of eating insects.
Winter 2022-2023 is going to be lit, freezing in our shitty flats munching on crickets while the elites continue to live like it’s BAU.
Nah screw that, I’ll eat all the meat I want. Get the billionaires and their pet politicians to emit less pollution and then we can talk about this.
Seems like they’re just looking for more ways to tax us more
While the people making these decisions/recommendations eat quail egg and venison…at tax-payer subsidised restaurants..
Fuck off.
Fix the cost of living, stop letting megacorps poison the rivers and burn fossil fuels by the megatonne…then tell me what I “must” do…
YOU VILL LIVE IN ZE POD
YOU VILL EAT ZE BUGZ
YOU VILL OWN NOTHING AND BE HAPPY
Do we need to change our eating behaviour? Absolutely. Will it prevent the climate crisis? In no way shape or form.
The issue with this is that it requires a tremendous amount of change on a personal level, which is hard to achieve on a large scale. If everyone in the England went vegetarian it would reduce CO2 output by 50m tons (which is about 13% reduction in overall emissions), but impossible as this would require everyone to go vegetarian.
We could instead look at something where the government holds significantly more power and where increased taxes would not target the poorest. Houses. UK gov has a target of 300.000 new houses in the UK, that’s 15m T CO2 fully within government control, meanwhile there are 600k houses sitting empty in the UK, this housing stock could be used by implementing housing regulation similar to Denmark (where owning a 2nd residential house and letting it sit empty is illegal). By using existing housing stock you can greatly diminish the CO2 output from new builds. Furthermore this would not target the weakest in society as these are rarely homeowners.
The headline makes it look like. England is souly responsible for climate breakdown because as a nation we eat meat.
Let the privileged activists and rich people eat as much bugs and grass as they want while the rest of us carry on as normal
Going after meat yet we have an obesity epidemic that is being driven by carbs and sugars.
This not only leads people to developing a whole host of chronic disease including cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, depression, Parkinson’s, diabetes. Even many things like IBS, skin problems, sleep problems. But it’s addictive and causes people to overeat and eat more often.
A rising population that is getting fatter and eating more does not solve climate change. It causes a rise in food production. A rise in the transportation of food from farm to shelves to plate. Really this is a far bigger problem than meat and has far broader consequences, especially when it comes to human health and everything related to it including healthcare.
How about China stopping building coal fired power stations?
What they mean is the working class need to eat less meat whilst they continue to stuff themselves with prime steak.
Maybe the climate breakdown would be improved by companies and governments not dumping waste into the world?
Rich tsars need to do one and have a word with their rich pals. Never doing anything a rich person in power tells me to again just F OFF!!!!
I dont see how little old England will stop climate change or make any sizeable difference whilst still developing countries like China and India are burning fossil fuels like no tomorrow.