Red meat has a huge carbon footprint because cattle requires a large amount of land and water.

https://sph.tulane.edu/climate-and-food-environmental-impact-beef-consumption

Demand for steaks and burgers is the primary driver of Deforestation:

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-beef-industry-fueling-amazon-rainforest-destruction-deforestation/

https://e360.yale.edu/features/marcel-gomes-interview

https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2023-06-02/almost-a-billion-trees-felled-to-feed-appetite-for-brazilian-beef

If you don’t have a car and rarely eat red meat, you are doing GREAT 🙌🙌 🙌

Sure, you can drink tap water instead of plastic water. You can switch to Tea. You can travel by train. You can use Linux instead of Windows AI’s crap. Those are great ideas. But, don’t drive yourself crazy. If you are only an ordinary citizen, remember that perfect is the enemy of good.

  • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
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    1 day ago

    Okay. But as an individual we still have a choice. And knowing what clearly is worse, while having minimal impact on your life if not doing it. It doesn’t exactly feel like a smart decision, to have red meat/animal products in general. Can i at least call you dumb?

    • Ileftreddit@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      I mean it’s really funny you asked permission to call me dumb, lol. “Carbon footprint” was a term invented by BP. The red meat industry is a methane polluter, but while we can estimate how much methane a cow produces, the oils and gas industry have no idea how much they lose. like they don’t even keep track of how much methane gets just wastefully vented into the atmosphere. https://youtu.be/K2oL4SFwkkw

      • Alsjemenou@lemy.nl
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        11 hours ago

        :p would be rude to call someone dumb otherwise.

        Look, you’re completely right about big poluters. Obviously.

        But them polluting doesn’t rid you from your responsibilities. Car manufacturers make cars go 150 but you still need to keep to the speed limit. And because everybody does that, at least to a fair degree, we can all drive safely.

        You can just toss your thrash on the side of the road. But if we all do that it’s going to be a mess real fast.

        You can just exist on a red meat only diet.

        Its all the same. Have some common decency. Don’t consume polluting products when you know that it’s the worst option and there is much better available.