World News
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed. Sources that have a Low or Very Low factual reporting rating or MBFC Credibility Rating may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF 10/19
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
view the rest of the comments
Ok, I'll give you a choice!
What great choices you have!
what your suggesting takes time and equipment (and some experience with seasoning). the time alone can make it cost-prohibitive.
many people still cannot afford it, no matter how your arrange the facts.
many people get meat for free or heavily subsidized.
Many of the poorer people can't really afford beef regularly, it's more of a once-a-year-treat. Source: Used to be very poor when I was a kid.
money isn't the only cost, there is also the matter of time. no amount of money saving would add more time to my day.
Half the world could switch to a plant-based diet and it would barely make a dent
Our part is teeny tiny compared to corporations
But who is buying the goods and services these corporations produce? Mysterious figures in the night, or humans?
Greenwashing is a result of a change in consumer desire, not 100% what was wanted but a change non the less. If the people buying goods actually think before they buy and don't just look at the lowest priced item then change will happen.
Many times people have no choice but to buy those goods due to years of monopolistic practices
When the choice is between saving the planet and eating and being able to afford rent, you can't possibly blame someone for choosing the cheaper option.
[Edit] also want to add that while I'm still eating meat, I fully support vegetarianism.
I see this argument a lot about choosing between saving the planet and eating and affording rent. Of course that person is barely surviving they aren't making choices for their food. The same can not be said for the middle class and up.
To instantly dismiss any argument that you as a person don't have any responsibility in this, no matter how small, is ludicrous. We should all be doing all we can. Not blaming corporations but then still buying their products, eating their fast food, etc. Blame a corporation and then do something about it, like avoiding nestle products even if it means going without, especially for non essential items.
The demographic that can afford to make those changes, the middle class as you stated, have been a shrinking for decades due to wealth consolidation. They don't make up the majority of people.
I'm not absolving any one person, I'm saying their impact is so minimal that combined with every other individual they wouldn't come close to corporate impact so it's stupid to single them out.
Not to mention, many people in that demographic are time-poor, even if they ostensibly have the money. It's not like middle class people still have a stay at home parent to do all this emotional labor.
I've been flexitarian for decades, before it was a term. But it takes a lot more thought and time to eat healthy without animal products.
There is no "middle class." There is only the working class, and the entire thing falls into that "barely surviving" category.
Not only do boycotts not work, advocating for them is almost a bad thing because it only distracts people from advocating for the remedy that does work: enforcing antitrust law.
And that brings me to my main point, which is that both "blame corporations" and "blame consumers" are overly simplistic and wrong. The real problem is the systems that create the circumstances that both the corporations and the consumers are operating in. We should really be asking ourselves questions like this:
Why is cheap food so often unsustainable, despite the fact that "sustainable" basically means "least costly" in the long run, by definition? The answer is that there's a whole pile of subsidies and externalities that mean the full cost of the unsustainable food is being borne by somebody other than either the consumers or proverbial "big ag."
Why do even people who are "barely surviving" so often end up driving to buy fast food? The answer isn't just that they "can't cook" or "don't have time" or whatever; there are deeper reasons for it. They don't know how to cook because the public school system seems to have mostly stopped offering home ec class. They don't have time because the zoning code forces their home to be far away from both their job and their grocery store, which not only robs them of the time spent making car trips between them and the money spent owning a car in the first place, but also artificially incentivizes businesses with drive-throughs.
Of course, now you might think I'm simplistically trying to blame the government, but nope. Why'd the zoning code get written the way it was? Well, that's for a whole bunch of reasons (most of them racist, BTW), but among them was the influence of corporate entities like Standard Oil and GM.
So now, taking all that shit I just wrote into consideration, what's the bottom line? The bottom line is that the systems have to be changed, and that takes action from individuals and corporations and government -- but mostly the latter, not because it's the government's "fault" but because government has the power to change laws. But even then, it's not heavy-handed stuff like prohibiting eating meat or prohibiting driving; it's stuff like ending subsidies, internalizing externalities (that's what a carbon tax is for, BTW), and ending the failed Suburban Experiment by abolishing things like low-density zoning restrictions so that people can pop into the store for groceries on their walk home from work instead of having to make an onerous car trip to go "grocery shopping" or resorting to fast food.
The "cheapest" or easiest option has to become the most sustainable option, such that people freely choose it without being coerced. That's the only way any real change will ever happen.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
This took me a while to digest, but thanks for the thorough answer.
I agree that silly subsidies should be abolished and climate friendly subsidies should be enacted worldwide. However looking from the American lens you are talking in the change seems almost impossible. Democracy worldwide has been corrupted America being the largest example of this with "lobbyists". How are these uneducated, time poor, malnutritioned people meant to make any change? Maybe I just have my doom and gloom face on today.
In Australia we can barely stop our government from cutting down ancient forests to make woodchips. Let alone the 3 new coal mines they opened, and this is the climate concious party.
Looking at all that I feel making personal changes is the only way I can personally stay motivated. At least I am doing what I can in the face of this seemingly impossible task.
Food production is 35% of global greenhouse gases. Meat accounts for 60% of the emissions from food production. So yeah, if we cut global meat consumption in half it would absolutely make a dent.
Blaming the corporations is just a convenient way of putting the responsibility on somebody else. You can’t eat beef and then blame the farmer for the emissions caused by cattle production. You can’t drive a big truck and then blame the oil companies for the emissions. You can’t fly around the world and then blame the airlines. Corporations are selling stuff to people. Their emissions look huge because they’re the aggregate emissions of millions of people.
I'm not blaming the farmer, I'm blaming the megacorps that have control over the food supply. I'm blaming the lobbyists and corrupt politicians who push deregulation of industry.
I'm blaming the 1% whose hoarding has left so many people struggling, forcing them to work against their own best interest.
I said it in another comment, but you can't blame someone for choosing to pay rent instead of buying eco-friendly products.
Sure, sure. Whatever makes you sleep at night and keeps your overlords happy. Seriously, stop putting down your fellow men and start punching upwards. They are the problem, not people who eat meat.
When do you people stop pretending this is about the environment?
You fell for the propaganda.
The 1% do more damage to the planet than consumer habits could ever hope up mitigate.
If you feel better making what you see as more sustainable life choices I fully support it and more power to you. But the reality is that it doesn't matter whether or not we eat meat, sort your recycling, or bring our canvas bags to the grocery store.
Found the vegan.
Some people need to eat meat: Like my room mate who has mass cell activation.
Also many indigenous peoples have dishes that involve meat. They are not apart of this problem.
Frankly there are a lot of reason to eat meat. If I go out and shoot my own deer and butcher it and cook it this does not effect the climate the same way as buying beef of the shelf.
And while beef is particularly resource and land intensive so are many vegetables you see at grocery stores.
Do you eat avocados? Because most avocados grown in mexico are done under control by violent cartels.
Many people probably should eat less meat. But acting like EVRYONE can do this is wrong on many fronts.
If you want to be a vegetarian please do. But lets stop acting like its a real solution to climate change or even a option for many people. It isnt.
and we NEED to demand that they are made using green energy. The price incentives offered by the US government now are so fucking insane that the only thing keeping these companies from making a change is whatever fossil companies can offer them.
Just ..... You already know what you have to eat to mitigate this horror. And it ain't plants, friend.