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Eating Less Meat won't save the Planet. Here's why [Transcript with Sources] (Patreon)

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2021-04-26 12:09:29
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Hey everyone!

New video is finally out. Really interested to hear y'alls comments on this as I know it's a touchy subject. What did you guys think? Did you have a position on this and was it changed after watching?

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Eating less Meat won't save the Planet. Here's Why

First 200 people to use this link https://brilliant.org/WIL can get 20% off an annual premium subscription to Brilliant! Big thanks to Dr. Frank Mitloehner for chatting with me. I'll release the full talk soon. You can find him on twitter under @GHGGuru Navigation: 00:00 - Why are people saying Cows are bad for the planet? 1:14 - How much would Americans going plant based actually reduce GHG emissions? 2:56 - Do cows really take all the water? 4:53 - The real problem with water 7:01 - Do Cows really take all our Food? 7:53 - Livestock make the whole food system more efficient. 10:17 - Do Cows really take all our Land? 12:30 - You can't just grow whatever wherever. 13:54 - Why Global numbers are Misleading 15:45 - United States cattle are super efficient 16:48 - What about methane? 20:52 - Something more worth talking about than meat I tried to put all sources on screen, but I'll be uploading a link to a PDF of the transcript with sources soon. Also, check out the documentary "Sacred Cow" by Diana Rogers, narrated by Nick Offerman - well made, informative and engaging. ▼Newsletter signup: https://mailchi.mp/a58275fd1906/josepheverettwil ▲Patreon: www.patreon.com/WILearned ▲Twitter: https://twitter.com/jeverettlearned​ ▲IG: www.instagram.com/jeverett.whativelearned/ For business inquiries: Joseph.Everett.Wil@gmail.com

Comments

Anonymous

Thanks for your response, I watched the second video and yes that is a good point. It was poor methodology and Dr Mitloehner was right to call it out. I am however talking about much more recent LCAs that compare different food types using the same methodology for all food groups. These clearly show that red meat has much more Global Warming potential then other food types: - 59.6 kg CO2eq for bovine meat - 6.1 kg CO2eq for poultry meat - 3 kg CO2eq for tofu This is the study I am referring to: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0959652617311940 And this is data showing LCA data for a bunch of food groups using different standards and angles of analysis, take a look it's great data (I found it in the references of the article above): https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MmzB40COW5v7ZMyLvh702vP6UmNyzNB1/edit#gid=242112657 I understand Dr Mitloehner is calling out the macro aggregated numbers, but when we look specifically at the impacts of our diets, red meat is by far the highest contributor to the carbon footprint of our diet. Therefore, it is only logical to reduce it if we want to reduce our carbon footprint. Then, if we compare it to other climate actions we can take individually, in terms of impact, it is all the way up there (behind reducing car use and flights). Food waste is also up there, although behind reducing red meat consumption, but it still should be a priority given it might be easier than changing our diets! All this to say I am concerned that your video will lessen the importance people put on reducing their red meat consumption while it is on of the most important things they should do (in my opinion the most important thing since it's easier than reducing car usage for a lot of people that live in cities that were made by cars). What are your thoughts around this?

Anonymous

Appreciate the effort of your video. Thanks for making it. But I'm going to be extremely critical of your points, out of honesty and respect. I found it difficult to hear a conflicting a point of view, but sometimes you can learn from it... I did disagree with nearly all of your ideas, but I still found this quite interesting and even learnt/reconsidered a few things by the end of it (like the water usage of nut trees). - My first thought is that, to make a fair video, you shouldn't have 100% of it backed by one expert who is naturally biased towards livestock. It's immediately going to turn off many people who have opposing beliefs, like, "Sigh, of course the livestock guy is pro-meat..." - I'd say that trying to justify the water usage of meat by looking at the vitamin content isn't a very strong point, because people generally aren't deprived of vitamins. We only need a little meat and lots of vegetables and we're nutrient-overloaded. Your overall point that we should try to avoid high-water-usage foods sounds reasonable though. - Whether livestock food is human-inedible is another dubious point in my opinion. I think you should specify how much of the inedible livestock feed is not human leftovers. Also, how much does it cost to prepare the edible food, and to physically feed the animals? - The point about land seemed to ignore other uses for land. Sure, you can't grow crops on 2/3 of livestock land -- but what about the deforestation that happens in order to find new land, for example? I think there's more to land than it just being arable or non-arable. - "50% of fertilizer is manure." How much livestock do we actually need to produce that? - "World average emissions don't matter because it's skewed towards developing countries." I don't understand -- why? The only way this would make sense to me is if you're saying that those developing countries will become developed very soon, which will make their emissions plummet, so we shouldn't even try to push them in that direction(?) That would be a big point to gloss over, I don't know - is there a different reason why you're saying global emissions don't matter? I'd appreciate some clarity here. - "In the US, crops produce more emissions than livestock"... Of couse - we eat way more crops. I think you should've taken proportionality into account, like Kurzgesagt did in their video. Like when you say cows "only" produce 2% of emissions, compare that to bananas (<0.01%). "In the US/Japan 80% of greenhouse gases are made from burning fossil fuels." What percentage of that 80% is actually just used for livestock? You didn't mention that number so the 80% doesn't feel too useful. Also, I personally don't know of a way to reduce fossil fuel usage that's as easy as just eating less meat! - I'd imagine that everyone agrees we should never waste any food, by definition (the word "waste" itself implies it's a bad thing). So I think it would've been more worthwhile to talk about HOW we can stop food waste. It's a more challenging question. Overall, I think I would've liked to see you focus more on Kurzgesagt's video(s), which talked about emissions more directly. Kurzgesagt had some outstanding source referencing, regarding lifecycle assessments (LCAs) too. They also brought up an interesting point that our food emissions alone (just 26% of total emissions) would use up our entire carbon budget by 2100, if we carried on as we are. Thanks for reading.