You Don’t Have the Right to Stop Me from Eating Meat
In recent years, the extreme weather of Antarctica, the disappearing glaciers, frequent earthquakes and tsunamis, and the sudden decline of tropical rain forests have all issued warnings: Nowadays, protecting our living environment has long been related to everyone’s life. It is now not a remote and unattainable topic, even ordinary people need to pay more and more attention to the negative impact of environmental degradation on their daily lives.
“How to protect our homeland” has also become one of the topics covered by many media. One of the solutions to protect the environment has been controversial in recent years, that is, calling on the public to eat less red meat, and even less meat. Some vegetarians will persuade everyone not to eat meat in the name of protecting the environment by instead eating vegan meat.
So, does the opinion “ Vegan meat revolution could help solve global warming ” make sense?
First of all, the world’s increasing consumption of meat, especially red meat, does have an impact on the environment, and the slogan calling for people to eat less meat is not groundless. According to data from FAO Agricultural Outlook (Edition 2021) released by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, in 2019, New Zealand’s GHG (greenhouse gases) emissions from beef (including veal) and sheepmeat production alone accounted for nearly a quarter of the country’s total GHG emissions.
From this set of data, it appears that there is indeed some truth in calling people to eat less meat. However, it is worth mentioning that New Zealand is an economically oriented country and exporting meat is one of its pillar industries, and there are not many countries that take meat exports as the main economic pillar industry like New Zealand. For example, the OCEO total’s greenhouse gas emissions generated by agriculture accounted for only 9.7% of the overall level, and the livestock industry, which is included in the agricultural category, is even less.
It can be seen from the macro view that the direct impact of animal husbandry on the environment is not significant. So, is it still necessary to achieve the goal of protecting the environment by changing the eating habits of ordinary people and restricting people’s right to eat?
Take New Zealand as an example again. Looking back at New Zealand’s meat-eating history, sheepmeat used to be their main meat consumption, far surpassing other meats. However, between 2003 and 2009, New Zealand’s annual per capita sheepmeat consumption dropped sharply, from 23.3kg per capita in 2003 to 6.4kg per capita in 2009, it has dropped to 3.4kg per capita by this year, this is a very huge change. By checking the news during that time, the significant drop in sheepmeat consumption was mainly due to the increase in the price of sheepmeat in the economy, the structural adjustment of animal husbandry in the policy, and the media’s promotion of environmental protection. More and more people choose to eat poultry meat because it is cheaper and emits fewer greenhouse gases.
But we can also see that New Zealand’s per capita greenhouse gas emissions have not dropped significantly in sync with the sheepmeat consumption. Compared with the cliff-like per capita consumption of sheepmeat, it seems that eating less red meat does not make any contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
We can notice from this chart that between 2004 and 2008, the export volume increased for a while, and it was not until The Great Recession, according to this set of data, we can see that there is a significant positive correlation between New Zealand’s sheepmeat export volume and production volume.
Here I can’t help but wonder that is the growing argument to get people to eat less meat really a concern for the environment, or is it an excuse for business and money?
Looking back at the popular discussions this year about calling for less meat.
From the beginning of 2021, the Western media claimed that if the Chinese could switch from eating less meat, eggs and milk to a vegetarian diet, global carbon reduction targets would be achievable. An artificial meat company in the United States, in order to promote gourmet vegetarian chicken into the Chinese market, also said that every time the Chinese eat a piece of meat, the Amazon rainforest emits a puff of smoke. These Western media reports have aroused heated discussion and opposition in China. Some Chinese netizens pointed out that the per capita carbon dioxide emissions in the United States in 2020 is 14.2 tons, 1.9 times that of China, and 3.2 times the global average. At the same time, China believes that this accusation is very one-sided and does not mention the Chinese market at all. The import of meat from China also brings economic benefits to exporting countries.
In April of this year, Biden announced the U.S. emission reduction target plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to half of the 2005 level by 2030, and achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, that is, zero emissions. What is the concept?
Biden didn’t say so explicitly, but it was explained by the Dailymail that in a year Americans can only eat 4 pounds of red meat, can’t have fuel-powered cars, and have to replace all their gas furnaces and water heaters with electric lights, and with the recent ongoing inflation in the US and rising meat prices, especially red meat and chicken prices, and with this momentum, the right has rumored that Biden wants to cut 90% of red meat from the American diet in order to reduce carbon emissions from animal agriculture. Although this news is fake, it is clear that the issue has been brought to the negotiating table.
The media and many celebrities in various countries are also keen to persuade people to eat less meat. Netizens in various countries do not agree with this:
Some netizens even say that eating less meat is actually a disadvantage just for the poor, the rich can continue to eat what they want. Isn’t this going back to the past? If the market is flooded with vegan meat under the guise of environmentalism, it will develop into a situation where only the rich will have access to real meat.
Looking back at The 26th United Nations Conference of Parties on Climate Change (COP 26), which just ended in November, the issue of emissions from agriculture was once again mentioned, but the good news is instead of forcing people not to eat meat, the focus was on innovative meat production. In my opinion, instead of talking about whether people will eat meat or not on COP 26, participants should limit emissions from the private jets of the world’s rich.
For example, Amazon President Jeff Bezos, who drove a private plane to participate in the COP 26, was directly accused by netizens of being too “fuel-efficient and environmentally friendly”. He became a negative teaching material before he even entered. In fact, it was not just him. The BBC News reported, “ In the four days before 1 November, a total of 76 flights involving private jets or VIP flights arrived in and around Glasgow and, roughly speaking, a single trip from Rome to Glasgow by one private jet already produced 5.9 tonnes of carbon emissions”. This figure is already more than the annual per capita emissions of half of the countries in the world, not to mention the fact that private plane directly exhausts carbon dioxide at high altitudes, which have a higher impact on the environment. And this is just one-time flight.
The living environment is related to everyone’s health. We ordinary people may not have the opportunity to talk at the climate conference or participate in one after another impactful project to improve the environment.
As for how to balance life while improving the environment, I believe that everyone can find a way that suits them, instead of being manipulated and guided by various information as they are now.
