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.
“how can we shift responsibility to the consumer today?”
Eh, in all fairness the meat & dairy industry is one thing that we as consumers really do need to take a bulk of responsibility for. I say that as a devout meat eater.
BUT, governments could go a long way by not subsidising dairy and meat and instead subsidising protein alternatives. It’s fucking nuts to me that it costs more for me to buy plant protein.
(Before the die hard vegans come at me saying you don’t need to eat pseudo (plant) proteins to eat less meat, please remember you’re trying to convert people that are familiar and enjoy one diet to another. You’re not going to encourage anyone by advocating a cold-turkey or 0% meat approach. I hate that I have to put this disclaimer here, but I’m fed up with arguing with puritanical vegans that overshadow pragmatism.)
United States federal government spends $38 billion every year subsidizing the meat and dairy industries
Apparently people consume a lot more meat than they need and even than it’s healthy to consume (though it heavilly depends on the country and the eating habits of the population) so there is room for huge improvement in greenhouse gas emissions from the industry AND health-outcomes by campaigning to reduce meat consumption (rather than the absolutist and rather moralist idea that people should become vegetarians or even vegans).
Also I’m quite weary about any proposed solution involving moving some of the current meat consumption to processed and ultra-processed protein alternatives: we keep getting study after study associating processed and especially ultra-processed food to all kinds of health problems.
No, the capitalists that put profit before the well being of the planet, the consumer, and their products are to blame and should be held responsible, not the people just trying to live their lives under a system imposed on us for the benefit of a small few (and before the die hard vegans come at me - I am a vegan, I just don’t think the problems we’re facing are because other people eat meat, but because capitalism has made meat in to an industry).
Capitalism doesn’t endlessly produce, it produces to meet demand. Sometimes the “demand” can consist of subsidies to the industry with the intention of lowering price to consumers, but with the consequence of potentially creating more waste. I’ve read about farmers dumping excess product out because subsidies “bought” too much product to fit on shelves (aka consumers didn’t buy enough to satisfy the greed for profit). Heaven forbid that excess product help people in need, for that may hurt the bottom line.
You honestly said it best in the first thing you said. …“capitalists that put profit before”… everything else. Pure capitalists, while mostly if not entirely evil, do not pollute for the fun of it. They pollute because of greed. If they aren’t profiting from polluting, they’ll (try to) find another way to profit. It’s all they know, a literal one track mind.
That is definitely not to say that their carelessness while chasing profit is okay. It’s harmful and evil. But it is largely just that, carelessness. A pure capitalist cares of nothing other than personal gain. And a public corporation in capitalist society must put shareholder profits ahead of all else by law. The only things they must adhere to in pursuit of profit are other laws, and even then only if the penalty for breaking the law hurts profits more than ignoring the law. This is by design, however terrible that design may be. Examples of this are everywhere. Children illegally hired in packing plants, illegal union busting, etc.
Perhaps the most brazen examples are car manufacturers doing cost-benefit analysis on whether to issue a recall on defective cars. Literally teams of experts calculating whether it will be cheaper to recall and fix dangerous defects, or pay out lawsuits when people get hurt/die. Spoiler: they can, have, and do choose to eat the cost of lawsuits when it is calculated to be cheaper than a recall. And yes, if you live in a capitalist society your life has a dollar amount attached to it (roughly $7.5 million as of 2020 according to FEMA). Your social security number may as well be a barcode placed on product.
Sorry, I got a little sidetracked. What I’m ultimately trying to get at is, we as consumers will have to take responsibility for consuming less because industry will do its’ best to meet demand as long as it is profitable to do so. I think switching subsidies to alternative, less polluting foods is a great solution because it (in theory) works on multiple fronts.
By not subsidizing the meat & dairy industry, industry will be forced to raise cost to consumers or lose money. A higher cost to consumers means consumers will be more open to alternative options. If the options that are better for the environment are then subsidized to lower cost to consumers they become an attractive option.
Example: If the average meat eating, non-eco minded consumer has the choice between paying $50 for a pound of real meat, or $50 for a pound of meat alternative that tastes identical, they’ll choose real meat nearly every time. Now give that same consumer an option of $10 for a pound of meat alternative (whether it tastes identical or not) and the mental math changes considerably. And honestly I doubt the price difference would have to be that drastic to have a noticeable impact on consumer buying habits. Especially when you take into account that people are trending towards being more eco aware.
I’m gonna end this here before I go on ranting all day. /Rant
Tldr; capitalism sucks. Subsidizing meat alternatives seems like a decent idea. Thank you for coming to my TED Talk. I hope you all have a wonderful day, and achieve all of your dreams. Please leave me alone :)
industry creates its own demand
How so? Which industry produces without consumers involved? I’m honestly not trying to be condescending, if you can help me feel less bitter toward the world… I don’t even know what that would feel like anymore. I cannot express how grateful I would be.
I suppose it could be argued that an industry could (and I suppose maybe has) jumpstarted itself from nothing through clever/abusive advertising; the example that comes to mind is perhaps the diamond industry? I’m thinking of De Beers extensive marketing campaigns that implanted diamonds as the only ‘real’ choice to propose with. But it still takes consumers at the end of the chain for that/any industry to survive. Nobody holds guns to our heads forcing us to buy things. The only industry I can think of that is life or death and simultaneously our only feasible option of survival is the medical industry. But even then, barring external pressures, if people somehow stopped going to hospitals en masse the hospitals would shut down. If people stop buying manufactured medicine, they stop manufacturing medicine.
Just to clarify, I don’t think it’s right or “fair” for responsibility to fall on consumers. Ideally, elected officials would pass laws that make industries take responsibility for their actions. Even more ideally, greedy people wouldn’t be in positions of power. But greedy people will always seek positions of power in their lust for power, and altruistic people will naturally gravitate away from positions of power in their quest to help empower others.
Like I’ve said though, if you or anyone has any examples to help me change my way of thought I honestly truly welcome it with an open heart. But as far as I can tell, in capitalism the only way meaningful, helpful change happens is when the consumers (the masses) are educated, well informed, and think critically about the choices they make at the checkout. Supply and demand economics is well known, and essentially a solved equation for businesses at this point. If there is demand and profit to be had, someone will supply that demand come hell or high water. I (unfortunately) literally cannot see any other way at this point.
capitalist get it wrong all the time. here’s a good example: no one but iPhones in 2004. here’s another good example no one buys fidget spinners in 2023.
First, and I don’t mean to be pedantic, I’m sure you know this but just want to clarify, putting absolutes on things like saying no one buys something is almost always false. Very few people comparatively sure, but when it comes to capitalist greed these differences matter. Anyway…
Sure they’ll miss a fiscal year or two here and there. But in the case of iPhones, I can assure you that if Apple calculated that the iPhone was going to continue to not sell well and would hurt their profits to continue manufacturing, I probably wouldn’t be able to hit the button on a stopwatch fast enough to measure how quickly they would shut down manufacturing. Keep in mind that there are indirect costs/profits involved in many things. e.g. The value of user data gathered by phones is absolutely accounted for, goes into profit calculations, and is probably worth more to the right people than you’d think. Apple is one of the richest, most profitable companies in the world despite releasing what we would consider to be flops several times over the years. Apple released a video game console (the Pippin) in 1996 to compete with the OG PlayStation. They brought it to the US in '97 and pulled the plug the same year. The PlayStation released in '94 and sold well through the release of the PS2 in 2000 for comparison. A colossal flop from Apple that was nixed in merely a year.
A perfect example of the indirect profits that a product can accrue is when Google was initially getting into the tablet OS market some years back (around 2011 I think is when this specific “deal” was in place). They purposely sold the first Nexus tablet at cost/at a loss, paired with a “free” gift card for the Play store; on the condition that you had to add other payment info to your Play store account. A common tactic that other online vendors use because the statistics show that you are much more likely to spend money once you’ve already added and saved a payment method. Google didn’t require people to actually use the added payment info, and as far as I’m aware they didn’t even require you to keep the payment info saved for future purposes. They only required that you save your debit/credit card in order to use your “free” Play store credit. All because the biggest hurdle to getting people to spend online is/was getting them to give their debit/credit card info to the payment vendor. They correctly predicted that when offered store credit, consumers would not only give Google their payment card info, but also not bother deleting said payment info after they added the credit from the Play store gift card. Whatever the reasons may be, whether it be because you don’t trust a website, it’s more convenient to buy elsewhere, etc. and whatever the store may be, once you’ve added payment info you are statistically unlikely to subsequently remove that info and more likely to purchase there again in the future. Gotta love it… but alas even my bitter ass is not immune from these tactics.
As for fidget spinners, I suspect the sheer excess supply from people trying to cash in on the craze has basically cemented them as a permanent item on shelves. I remember reading stories of “normal” people that bought literal warehouses full of the things because during the height of the fidget frenzy the markup on them was insane. And then other people presumably bought up that excess supply for pennies on the dollar when the trend was dying. The capitalists that initially jumped on the profit train when spinners were trending were either successful and took their profits and left the bag holders, or were bag holders that accepted their losses by selling in bulk to someone willing to try selling them.
That went a bit longer than I intended… In short, even flops and niche items that don’t sell very well can still be profitable. I would advise against doubting the ability of greedy people/corporations to extract every possible fraction of a cent in their pursuit of profit.
that was never in question.
literally no one bought an iPhone in 2004. zero people.
wrong
The thing is, you don’t have to eat as much meat. If people cut their meat intake by 25%, we would cut GHG emissions from the food industry by 25%.
i doubt it. but do you have a plan to get there?
No, we don’t.
Good point, you’ve convinced me.
wrong.
Nice, well-supported argument.
i presented exactly as much evidence as they did.
Do you need evidence to support the popular theory that no one has a gun to your head at the grocery store saying “buy that ground beef”?
whether i buy beef or not does not change whether the industry continues.
If no one buys beef, there would be no beef industry, they don’t produce stuff for fun.
do you have a plan to get everyone to stop buying beef?
beef was produced long before anyone bought it. there is no reason to think it will ever stop.
deleted by creator
which one?
Business execs are cloaked reapers. It’s pretty interesting that these people continue to reproduce though, while still fully railing against any chance at a decent world to live in. I guess I’m not surprised they wouldn’t care or have the foresight to worry about even their own blood’s future - it’s exactly what led us here.
Some upstanding citizen with a terminal illness should use the opportunity to make an example out of these worthless parasites.
Whose responsibility is it what to consume, if not the consumer’s?
consumption doesn’t emit greenhous gasses: production does. who is responsible for production?
What method of producing meat that doesn’t emit greenhouse gases do you propose?
“Consumption doesn’t emit greenhouse gases, production does”, that doesn’t really make sense. If no one consumed meat one year, much less meat would be produced the next year, leading to less greenhouse gases.
it seems like you understand that all the emissions are in the production but you’re incredulous and proposing and impossible hypothetical to support your position.
Removed by mod