Even if you're a climate activist I doubt you save many human lives, so don't increase global meat consumption much (if at all?). Most climate activism groups are also vegan, and I think you and I would agree that veganism is the actual solution to the problem.
I do agree with you that if you consider all the future animals that will be bred into existence, there will be much less suffering if more humans die as soon as possible from climate change. I guess what does this mean we should do as individuals though, should we take action or not? There's one paper about the social cost of carbon which estimates that for 3 people's lifetime emissions in a developed society, about 1 person will die from climate change. Going off this, if I as an individual don't take action or try to maximise my emissions to maximise climate change maybe I'll contribute to a couple of human deaths. But at this current point in time, those people will likely be people with a low amount of resources who do not eat much, if any, farmed animals.
Yes that's true, I also would opt out of existence if I were to be a factory farmed animal.
I don't mean to say that climate change might ravage poor parts of the globe in some scenarios, it's just that people with the least resources will be impacted first, and rich people with a lot of resources won't be impacted until things are much worse. For example, a severe drought in some African nations may lead to consequnces like deaths from diarrhoeal illnesses from lack of clean drinking water, food insecurity leading to starvation, and total social chaos. Whereas where I'm from in Australia when there is a severe drought we switch on the desalination plant and nobody even notices. We also get extreme heat waves here. Houseless people living off donated food can die from those, but the richer who buy meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner just turn on their aircon. it's not that climate change might ravage poor nations first, its that it will definitely kill poorer people at a higher rate. I believe we will have to witness death and suffering of the poor for a lot of decades until the people consuming most of the meat will be impacted.
Thanks for the post. I'm new to the forum and not sure if I'm missing the point, but isnt veganism to the solution to all this? There is already heaps of evidence that a whole-food plant based diet is very good for health.
Interesting! I think there are a couple of pieces missing from the argument that climate change might reduce suffering.
First is just an anecdote about why I believe climate change is bad for farmed animals, too. I live in Australia and used to volunteer at Marine Rescue. I did a short stint helping out at an inland flood with thousands of hectares of farmland under about a metre of water. I thought we would be helping stranded locals getting food or medication. In fact, the locals were fine; everyone had 4WDs that could clear the water on most of the roads, and their houses were sandbagged. Our job ended up being to 'save' stranded livestock. At one job there were hundreds of sheep and lambs stranded on a tiny levy. They were starving, shivering, and had been standing in spot unable to move for a couple of weeks. Some were standing on dead sheep. There were dozens that had been trampled and drowned around the levy. Another several hundred were missing (probably drowned and/or starved). At another job all the sheep were fly blown (maggots eating them alive). At another, a herd of goats was dying from starvation. While all these animals were 'saved' just so that they could be slaughtered, the suffering added to their lives is unimaginable. They had just been through all that, and they still had to face the slaughter house. I believe that livestock are at the most risk of suffering from natural disasters, more than humans (both in number of animals and amount of suffering added), and that that suffering exceeds what they would have experienced anyway.
Second, climate change is not going to kill us equitably. People living in poverty will go first. They already eat far fewer animal products because it's unaffordable. It's hard to know how long it will take for climate change to impact the supply of meat to the rich.
Yeah, I also sometimes wonder if it's better to end all humans to end all suffering. This only holds up if your only goal is to minimise suffering - which is a kind of one-dimensional goal and we can feel that it's missing something because most of us would rather suffer sometimes as long as our life is mostly good? Maybe a better goal is to do maximum good and minimise suffering as much as possible? If the goal is to do max good and minimum suffering then I don't think stopping climate change achieves this.
Even if you're a climate activist I doubt you save many human lives, so don't increase global meat consumption much (if at all?). Most climate activism groups are also vegan, and I think you and I would agree that veganism is the actual solution to the problem.
I do agree with you that if you consider all the future animals that will be bred into existence, there will be much less suffering if more humans die as soon as possible from climate change. I guess what does this mean we should do as individuals though, should we take action or not? There's one paper about the social cost of carbon which estimates that for 3 people's lifetime emissions in a developed society, about 1 person will die from climate change. Going off this, if I as an individual don't take action or try to maximise my emissions to maximise climate change maybe I'll contribute to a couple of human deaths. But at this current point in time, those people will likely be people with a low amount of resources who do not eat much, if any, farmed animals.
Yes that's true, I also would opt out of existence if I were to be a factory farmed animal.
I don't mean to say that climate change might ravage poor parts of the globe in some scenarios, it's just that people with the least resources will be impacted first, and rich people with a lot of resources won't be impacted until things are much worse. For example, a severe drought in some African nations may lead to consequnces like deaths from diarrhoeal illnesses from lack of clean drinking water, food insecurity leading to starvation, and total social chaos. Whereas where I'm from in Australia when there is a severe drought we switch on the desalination plant and nobody even notices. We also get extreme heat waves here. Houseless people living off donated food can die from those, but the richer who buy meat for breakfast, lunch and dinner just turn on their aircon. it's not that climate change might ravage poor nations first, its that it will definitely kill poorer people at a higher rate. I believe we will have to witness death and suffering of the poor for a lot of decades until the people consuming most of the meat will be impacted.
Thanks for the post. I'm new to the forum and not sure if I'm missing the point, but isnt veganism to the solution to all this? There is already heaps of evidence that a whole-food plant based diet is very good for health.
Interesting! I think there are a couple of pieces missing from the argument that climate change might reduce suffering.
First is just an anecdote about why I believe climate change is bad for farmed animals, too. I live in Australia and used to volunteer at Marine Rescue. I did a short stint helping out at an inland flood with thousands of hectares of farmland under about a metre of water. I thought we would be helping stranded locals getting food or medication. In fact, the locals were fine; everyone had 4WDs that could clear the water on most of the roads, and their houses were sandbagged. Our job ended up being to 'save' stranded livestock. At one job there were hundreds of sheep and lambs stranded on a tiny levy. They were starving, shivering, and had been standing in spot unable to move for a couple of weeks. Some were standing on dead sheep. There were dozens that had been trampled and drowned around the levy. Another several hundred were missing (probably drowned and/or starved). At another job all the sheep were fly blown (maggots eating them alive). At another, a herd of goats was dying from starvation. While all these animals were 'saved' just so that they could be slaughtered, the suffering added to their lives is unimaginable. They had just been through all that, and they still had to face the slaughter house. I believe that livestock are at the most risk of suffering from natural disasters, more than humans (both in number of animals and amount of suffering added), and that that suffering exceeds what they would have experienced anyway.
Second, climate change is not going to kill us equitably. People living in poverty will go first. They already eat far fewer animal products because it's unaffordable. It's hard to know how long it will take for climate change to impact the supply of meat to the rich.
Yeah, I also sometimes wonder if it's better to end all humans to end all suffering. This only holds up if your only goal is to minimise suffering - which is a kind of one-dimensional goal and we can feel that it's missing something because most of us would rather suffer sometimes as long as our life is mostly good? Maybe a better goal is to do maximum good and minimise suffering as much as possible? If the goal is to do max good and minimum suffering then I don't think stopping climate change achieves this.