I’m trying to give you a flavour of the thought patterns running through Europe, the reasons being offered up for policies, and the nature of the organisations behind them. The driving forces of policy. You are, perhaps, familar with a little feature of human psychology that salesmen and politicians love : ask people for a small favour, and they’re more likely to comply with a subsequent request for a large favour. All we’re asking you now is to eat a little less meat. Tomorrow we’re going to make draconian laws that prevent you eating meat. You’ll laugh and say “oh, that Finley, always sees conspiracies and slippery-slopes everywhere”, but look around you at the Covid-19 scenario. This shit happens. The veneer of Democracy is very, very thin. Don’t imagine your country is immune to ideologically-driven social engineering just because it’s not a banana republic.
No, it’s not like that at all. Banning soft drinks has a solid scientific reason. Banning meat at government mealtimes is based on faulty logic. If you have a product that consumes ten times more resources in its production than it embodies, then eating less of it doesn’t alter the fact that it’s being produced unsustainably.
Of course not. There just aren’t many of them, and most governments aren’t interested in such things.
I’m describing a hypothetical scenario in which meat-eating is heavily restricted across a wide jurisdiction. I’m trying to describe to you why individual instances of veganism are harmless but widespread, legally-mandated restrictions are Bad.
No. The politicians are specifically targeting the beef industry because of methane emissions. They’re not too bothered about poultry.
This is also partly to keep the example manageable.
I never asserted otherwise. I’m all for climate-change mitigation, but I want it based on sound reasoning, not superstition and ignorance.
If you think the numbers (that I spent a great deal of time compiling for you) do not show precisely this, then criticize the numbers. Snarky remarks don’t constitute an argument.
Yes, there is. There are many, many laws that basically make sustainable farming illegal, or at least unprofitable. IMO, that is their intent.
And yet I clearly know a whole shedload more about this than you do, because (a) I’ve spent many years doing the research and (b) it’s my job to know; and if you’d sit down and pay attention, Bond, instead of just fiddling with the scenery, you might actually learn something.
I know the maximum ecological load that you can impose with chickens, and I know the minimum that you need for basic fertility maintenance. Those limits vary dramatically depending on the soil and climate, but 100 per hectare is a reasonable starting point for an average bit of land on an average part of the globe.
Of course it bloody isn’t. There are too many factors. These are back-of-a-napkin estimates. I’ve tried to strip away the complexity so I can boil a 300-page book down to a forum post that you can read in 2 minutes, while still giving you some hard numerical handles to hold onto. Inevitably some details will get lost.
Where did I say this? And in any case, if you do cut down trees, the aim is to (a) jumpstart microbiological action and (b) replace native trees with economically-productive trees; because, if you don’t, your farm is even less profitable - which means you either need more land area for your mega-farm, or you need to charge people more money for their food.
I’ve put a lot of effort into trying to give you some sensible information, but I don’t see this argument going anywhere because your general position is “finley is always wrong about everything”.