MatthewToadAgain
@MatthewToadAgain@climatejustice.social
Back office climate activist with a background in tech. Autistic, grey ace/aro spectrum, etc. I want to see socialism and radical climate action, but I oppose primitivism and eco-fascism. Israel out of Gaza and Russia out of Ukraine. All our major crises are connected to the climate and biodiversity crisis. Intersectionality matters, I try to boost other marginalised groups. Occasional tech and jobs. My last account was MatthewToad43 on this server.
climatejustice.social
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@Zeezee@mastodon.nl
Food
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@Zeezee@mastodon.nl @sarahdalgulls@ecoevo.social Most importantly beef. Giving up beef is a small step with a disproportionately large impact in both carbon and ecosystem terms. And even if you can't absorb iron from vegetable sources, other red meats use much less land and carbon.
https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
Cattle use enormous amounts of land, which we need for rewilding, both to restore ecosystems and absorb carbon.
But small steps forward are still worthwhile. You don't know what people are dealing with in terms of allergies, neurodiversity, and family.
And there are system changes that will help. For instance, there was a craze in UK bakeries for vegan baked goods, which largely ended last year. Most are now reintroducing their tasty vegan sausage rolls, vegan pasties etc. So availability matters sometimes, depending on lifestyle pressures. But we can drive that to some degree.
Cost should reflect the real ecological impact of food, but it should be possible to have a healthy diet cheaply. Neither of those is true right now, so lets not lose track of the system change issues.
Ultimately it won't be individual consumer choices that make a large scale difference. We need system change. That means meat-free alternatives need to be available and cheap, and that the most damaging meat needs to be more expensive.
Arguably that also applies to rice, whose carbon footprint is close to that of eggs and more than that of milk. Unfortunately peeling potatoes isn't much fun with my sensitive hands. When I was living on my own I mostly had pasta for carbohydrates.