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.

  • Allero@lemmy.today
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    9 days ago

    Woah, didn’t know about cheese (although makes sense), coffee and chocolate.

    Why do coffee and chocolate have such an impact?

      • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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        9 days ago

        Although if you regularly eat a kilo of red meat a day, you should probably talk to your doctor about those blood spots when you wipe your arse.

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        9 days ago

        True, but still

        Why is it so much worse than other plant-based foods on per-kilogram basis?

        • Tar_Alcaran@sh.itjust.works
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          9 days ago

          It’s mostly an artefact from how we measure it.

          Chocolate demand is rising, which means cocoa demand is rising. It grows best in really warm places, where there’s plenty of readily available mountainous land that’s currently covered by old growth forest. They farm cocoa very unsustainably, by illegally logging the land, growing beans for 5 to 8 years, and moving on (following the illegal loggers). We’ve decided to place the CO2 impact on the cocoa, not the wood though, probably due to lobbying.

          That land use change drives climate impact of chocolate. Milk drives the rest.

    • Sphks@jlai.lu
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      9 days ago

      Coffee and chocolate do not grow where you live. It needs to travel the oceans. (Unless you live in a country where it grows)

      • Allero@lemmy.today
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        9 days ago

        Ocean travel us very fuel efficient, and also bananas don’t seem to have the same effect despite also coming from afar.