People are used to seeing stark warnings on tobacco products alerting them about the potentially deadly risks to health. Now a study suggests similar labelling on food could help them make wiser choices about not just their health, but the health of the planet.
The research, by academics at Durham University, found that warning labels including a graphic image – similar to those warning of impotence, heart disease or lung cancer on cigarette packets – could reduce selections of meals containing meat by 7-10%.
It is a change that could have a material impact on the future of the planet. According to a recent YouGov poll, 72% of the UK population classify themselves as meat-eaters. But the Climate Change Committee (CCC), which advises the government on its net zero goals, has said the UK needs to slash its meat consumption by 20% by 2030, and 50% by 2050, in order to meet them.
Please focus on curbing your own satisfaction, so the oil industry can continue to be the biggest polluter AND make money hand over fist.
The Guardian is very much a neoliberal newspaper (some people confuse it with being Leftwing because, like most neolibs, they’re also liberal on moral subjects) so it is usually against regulatory solutions and heavilly favours using Nudge Theory to influence the masses.
So yeah, you’ll see a lot of articles about how people should become Vegetarian because of the emissions from livestock farming and very few demanding, for example, regulation of aircraft emissions (though there is a single Opinion writter there which does not suffer from profitability-prioritizing-thinking when it comes to ecological subjects).
The oil industry is, of course, doing all that polluting for the sheer fun of it. Our collective consumption habits, esp. in the PRIVILEGED western countries, have absolutely nothing to do with it.
There is no sustainable way to eat the amount of meat we do, no matter how much or how little capitalism gets involved. Even assuming the absolute best (aka unrealistic) stats for grass-fed cows, we’d still have to reduce our meat consumption to 1/7 of where it currently is. Do you think that is doable just by destroying some companies? Do you think people would just accept that???
Since around 2018 we have known that agriculture, specifically the raising of cattle, spews out more harmful emissions than the oil industry does.
No, it does not:
Any study that also includes indirect greenhouse gas emissions such as methane, and not just CO2.
