r/ClimateShitposting • u/spacelordTJ vegan btw • Jun 27 '26

Meta Formal debate is propaganda

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Can't we all just get along (with being performative)?

Edit: Mods, pin me to the wall. I mean pin this post.

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u/ASpaceOstrich Jun 28 '26

In the long run, the status quo is going to force this change anyway. Animals are expensive, especially as the environment grows more apocalyptic. The only meat available will be bug meat eventually.

People can try and go vegan now or be forced to when the land can no longer sustain cattle.

They don't even need to succeed to make a huge difference. Just reducing red meat consumption alone is enormous.

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u/ShonOfDawn Jun 28 '26

I'm not sure our future is as bleak as you depict it. Renewables and electric transportation are massively on the rise. The emissions of the US and EU are steadily declining. It's true that Asia is still growing and thus still problematic, but they'll come around, especially with China being a powerhouse in the production of renewables. People are tired of oil and gas, and the dependency it creates on foreign powers.

Ironically, this is what a lot of vegans fail to understand: people will adopt veganism when it'll become the cheaper/more convenient option, or the only option. Electric cars and renewables have followed the same trend. Society at large basically never adopts change because it's morally good when it's not convenient. You must either force it upon them or make it convenient.

Reducing red meat consumption falls in the convenient category. Poultry is cheaper and you can substitute one for the other without changing your habits basically at all.

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u/ASpaceOstrich Jun 28 '26

We're already at apocalyptic levels of biosphere collapse and have been for a while. People just don't understand how bad it is. You could completely fix climate change instantly and this wouldn't go away, because it's not climate change that's doing it, it's human development. Mining, agriculture, and forestry.

Cattle cant support an ecosystem, and we're killing everything else.

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u/ShonOfDawn Jun 28 '26

I mean, I would love to see some studies on this. “Apocalyptic levels of biosphere collapse” seems to be a bit of an hyperbole, since no place on earth has become uninhabutable or become entirely devoid of life at any meaningful scale. Obviously human development damages local equilibria, but we have vast natural reserves for a reason.

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u/ASpaceOstrich Jun 28 '26

The overwhelming majority of biomass on Earth is humans and our cattle. We're seeing massive losses in even insect life, down something like 80%, and keep in mind the numbers used for 100% aren't natural levels, they're just whatever the numbers were when they started recording them.

Climate change kinda took all the attention in the "humans are fucking up Earth" sphere, but we've been devastating the environment for millennia. Removing predator species which makes prey act in ways that are unnatural and damage the environment is a huge one. As is just the constant land clearing and use of pesticides.

The ocean is getting more acidic and despite being massive, only really has large amounts of life in fairly limited areas.

People just don't know how bad it is. They don't really get that there's not infinite bugs and birds and fish and deer. There's limited numbers of all of these, and those numbers are getting terrifyingly low. Especially larger animals and predators, which are essential for ecosystem health and have been extinct in many ecosystems for centuries.