I wish people were even remotely open to changing their diets. I worked full time in animal rights for 10 years and its crushing how much people will do to convince themselves it is OK to brutalise and murder billions of animals and destroy habitats to do so for a “moment on the lips”
On a macro scale this makes a lot of sense and, as you point out, is practically feasible although politically less so. There are (of course!) problems when we zoom into detail. The two immediate ones that come to mind are jobs and regional income. It's not that these are insurmountable but some thought needs to be given to the mechanisms that will counter these effects, particular in poorer areas. Stewardship roles, limited tourism-based jobs or agriculture are possibilities.
There is also the rarity value of meat to consider and the likelihood of illegal trade and general poaching. The reduction of meat consumption would need to be gradual, price controlled and rationed. This gradualist approach is also necessary to manage the employment transition and avoid as much of the inevitable outcry about green policy coming at the expense of the less well off.
At the same time, there is an equally tricky task of transforming much more farming to regenerative practices and the question of cultured meat products. All this depends on a much more interventionist approach by governments on a global scale and the COP meetings do not inspire hope in that direction.
The only hope of a managed change is to grow enough support on the ground to enable newer political parties to gain traction and ultimately gain power. More likely, intervening factors will disrupt world trade and the resultant need to be more locally self-sufficient will force some change on a scale that cannot be business as usual. More painful but if there are practical green solutions ready and large base of support it is possible that this could be implemented.
Good points. These are important details to which degrowth activists need to pay attention.
We'd need to find jobs / income for all of those in other destructive activities as well, such as coal miners, fast food workers, etc. The livestock industry in the USA mostly driven by massive subsidies, and absent those, would be much, much smaller (and more expensive). If we cut back or stopped the subsidies, "cultured meat" might displace animal meat just through the free market. We certainly need to build mass support for something like "simple living," but as the economy deteriorates (due to resource depletion, etc.), that may become easier than it currently seems.
Good point -- lots of things could go wrong! Nuclear war, human extinction, and so forth, for example. Obviously this is a revolutionary proposal -- as are all "degrowth" proposals. What it really requires is a change in values, a new Axial Age. It mostly involves NOT doing things we are currently doing; not subsidizing the meat industry would be a good start.
Actually I've been out in the Tsavo bush with the late Daphne Sheldrick, & donated night vision equipment to the Kenya Wildlife Service rangers who were with us. But caring about elephants & recognizing their place at one extreme end of the spectrum of species are two entirely different matters.
Again, Drew, as Stewart Brand pointed out back in 2015, "The potential loss of some rare charismatic megafauna is not to be confused with a general loss of biodiversity, biodiversity presently being greater now than ever before."
Much as I hate to contradict any argument against eating meat, having never eaten any as a relatively rare American second-generation septuagenarian near vegan vegetarian, much of Keith Akers' argument above proceeds from false premises. The ecological errors of E.O. Wilson, never mind his economic omissions, are far more numerous and more egregious than any of the literary sins of James Fenimore Cooper, with no one of the wit and stature of Mark Twain having yet rebutted him, though Stephen Jay Gould certainly tried before his unfortunately early death. Worse, Wilsonian errors continue to influentially misdirect environmentalism and veganism/vegetarianism as causes, including especially his claims about an "extinction crisis" and an impending "sixth mass extinction." Whole Earth Catalog founder Whole Earth Catalog founding editor Stewart Brand demolished the notion of an "extinction crisis" in an April 21, 2015 essay for Aeon entitled “We are not edging up to a mass extinction," pointing out that the potential loss of some rare charismatic megafauna is not to be confused with a general loss of biodiversity, biodiversity presently being greater now than ever before. And as Colin Barras detailed in the June 1, 2025 edition of New Scientist, "There’s growing evidence the big five mass extinctions never happened." Yes, a comet probably killed the dinosaurs, but other than that, the "mass extinctions" in the fossil record occurred over many thousands and even millions of years. With all of that said, Akers' own major error is his statement that "There are no endangered species in agricultural areas because agriculture has mostly wiped out any “competing” species." Indeed, agricultural practices including use of pesticides, over-grazing, deep harrowing, predator control, water diversions, and much else tends to wipe out not only "competing species," but also many non-target species, often without thought or notice. At the same time, endangered migratory birds in particular make very heavy use of agricultural cropland, orchards, and ponds, tending to spend much more time in & flying over agricultural habitat than over protected lands. Endangered predators are persecuted precisely because they venture often into agricultural grazing habitat. The often intensive use of agricultural land by endangered species is easily seen in Colorado, where Keith Akers lives (despite my frequent disagreements with him, I count him as a friend), and is even more evident in Asia and Africa, where my wife Beth & I have observed endangered species as large as elephants roaming through agricultural land, even as cattle encroach upon the elephants' protected habitat. In the end, it is neither necessary nor desirable to set aside half the earth as protected habitat in order to conserve biodiversity, including endangered species. What is necessary is for humans to learn to live with wildlife in general at least as well as we now manage to live with our abundance of urban wildlife, most of which had not yet colonized cities as recently as the rise of the environmental movement of the 1970s.
But I assume you acknowledge that an extinction crisis will occur at some future point if nothing changes. I can easily imagine elephants going extinct as capitalism spreads through Africa, knocking down habitat while poachers still kill them for ivory. There is some trick of the mind that prevents people from seeing future problems as real problems. It’s disturbing. 😳
I wish people were even remotely open to changing their diets. I worked full time in animal rights for 10 years and its crushing how much people will do to convince themselves it is OK to brutalise and murder billions of animals and destroy habitats to do so for a “moment on the lips”
On a macro scale this makes a lot of sense and, as you point out, is practically feasible although politically less so. There are (of course!) problems when we zoom into detail. The two immediate ones that come to mind are jobs and regional income. It's not that these are insurmountable but some thought needs to be given to the mechanisms that will counter these effects, particular in poorer areas. Stewardship roles, limited tourism-based jobs or agriculture are possibilities.
There is also the rarity value of meat to consider and the likelihood of illegal trade and general poaching. The reduction of meat consumption would need to be gradual, price controlled and rationed. This gradualist approach is also necessary to manage the employment transition and avoid as much of the inevitable outcry about green policy coming at the expense of the less well off.
At the same time, there is an equally tricky task of transforming much more farming to regenerative practices and the question of cultured meat products. All this depends on a much more interventionist approach by governments on a global scale and the COP meetings do not inspire hope in that direction.
The only hope of a managed change is to grow enough support on the ground to enable newer political parties to gain traction and ultimately gain power. More likely, intervening factors will disrupt world trade and the resultant need to be more locally self-sufficient will force some change on a scale that cannot be business as usual. More painful but if there are practical green solutions ready and large base of support it is possible that this could be implemented.
Good points. These are important details to which degrowth activists need to pay attention.
We'd need to find jobs / income for all of those in other destructive activities as well, such as coal miners, fast food workers, etc. The livestock industry in the USA mostly driven by massive subsidies, and absent those, would be much, much smaller (and more expensive). If we cut back or stopped the subsidies, "cultured meat" might displace animal meat just through the free market. We certainly need to build mass support for something like "simple living," but as the economy deteriorates (due to resource depletion, etc.), that may become easier than it currently seems.
Big solutions to big problems that are going to require political structures that force people to change. What could possibly go wrong?🙄
Good point -- lots of things could go wrong! Nuclear war, human extinction, and so forth, for example. Obviously this is a revolutionary proposal -- as are all "degrowth" proposals. What it really requires is a change in values, a new Axial Age. It mostly involves NOT doing things we are currently doing; not subsidizing the meat industry would be a good start.
Your source, from 2022, is very much contradicted by more recent scientific publications, for example this from Cambridge University Press: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/cambridge-prisms-extinction/article/forty-years-later-the-status-of-the-big-five-mass-extinctions/D8B7C1C298686D3622273320E778D22A
This is currently the most succinct review of the mounting evidence: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2481371-theres-growing-evidence-the-big-five-mass-extinctions-never-happened/
Actually I've been out in the Tsavo bush with the late Daphne Sheldrick, & donated night vision equipment to the Kenya Wildlife Service rangers who were with us. But caring about elephants & recognizing their place at one extreme end of the spectrum of species are two entirely different matters.
Again, Drew, as Stewart Brand pointed out back in 2015, "The potential loss of some rare charismatic megafauna is not to be confused with a general loss of biodiversity, biodiversity presently being greater now than ever before."
Much as I hate to contradict any argument against eating meat, having never eaten any as a relatively rare American second-generation septuagenarian near vegan vegetarian, much of Keith Akers' argument above proceeds from false premises. The ecological errors of E.O. Wilson, never mind his economic omissions, are far more numerous and more egregious than any of the literary sins of James Fenimore Cooper, with no one of the wit and stature of Mark Twain having yet rebutted him, though Stephen Jay Gould certainly tried before his unfortunately early death. Worse, Wilsonian errors continue to influentially misdirect environmentalism and veganism/vegetarianism as causes, including especially his claims about an "extinction crisis" and an impending "sixth mass extinction." Whole Earth Catalog founder Whole Earth Catalog founding editor Stewart Brand demolished the notion of an "extinction crisis" in an April 21, 2015 essay for Aeon entitled “We are not edging up to a mass extinction," pointing out that the potential loss of some rare charismatic megafauna is not to be confused with a general loss of biodiversity, biodiversity presently being greater now than ever before. And as Colin Barras detailed in the June 1, 2025 edition of New Scientist, "There’s growing evidence the big five mass extinctions never happened." Yes, a comet probably killed the dinosaurs, but other than that, the "mass extinctions" in the fossil record occurred over many thousands and even millions of years. With all of that said, Akers' own major error is his statement that "There are no endangered species in agricultural areas because agriculture has mostly wiped out any “competing” species." Indeed, agricultural practices including use of pesticides, over-grazing, deep harrowing, predator control, water diversions, and much else tends to wipe out not only "competing species," but also many non-target species, often without thought or notice. At the same time, endangered migratory birds in particular make very heavy use of agricultural cropland, orchards, and ponds, tending to spend much more time in & flying over agricultural habitat than over protected lands. Endangered predators are persecuted precisely because they venture often into agricultural grazing habitat. The often intensive use of agricultural land by endangered species is easily seen in Colorado, where Keith Akers lives (despite my frequent disagreements with him, I count him as a friend), and is even more evident in Asia and Africa, where my wife Beth & I have observed endangered species as large as elephants roaming through agricultural land, even as cattle encroach upon the elephants' protected habitat. In the end, it is neither necessary nor desirable to set aside half the earth as protected habitat in order to conserve biodiversity, including endangered species. What is necessary is for humans to learn to live with wildlife in general at least as well as we now manage to live with our abundance of urban wildlife, most of which had not yet colonized cities as recently as the rise of the environmental movement of the 1970s.
The evidence for mass extinctions, past and present, is overwhelming and conclusive. There is a scientific consensus on this. It is not even controversial, it is just news. See, e. g., https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/12/09/climate/biodiversity-habitat-loss-climate.html.
But I assume you acknowledge that an extinction crisis will occur at some future point if nothing changes. I can easily imagine elephants going extinct as capitalism spreads through Africa, knocking down habitat while poachers still kill them for ivory. There is some trick of the mind that prevents people from seeing future problems as real problems. It’s disturbing. 😳