arguments against CSR and some answers
Global Reporting Initiative - commentary
Mallen Baker's Blog
Pushing vegetarianism is not the answer to climate change
30 Oct 2009
Lord Stern, credited with being one of the voices that raised the temperature on climate change considerably with politicians and business leaders in the UK, has issued a call for people to become vegetarian as part of the battle against global warming. I think this was a big mistake.
I was a vegetarian for 23 years, up until about three years ago. Nobody knows better than me how good and varied a diet a veggie can have. As a positive lifestyle choice - taken for whatever reasons - it has a lot to commend it.
But for most people, it's just another variation of the dreary old hairshirt environmentalist message that says that in order to care for the planet you've got to give up everything that's fun. There's no sex, drugs or rock n' roll in this new eco-topia - and now there's no meat either.
It's the wrong message. It is guaranteed to turn people off. It is guaranteed to lose support. Nobody votes for hairshirts, and nobody has yet proven that they are required.
Even if your life's desire is to promote vegetarianism, this is not the way to do it. Turning it, in people's minds, into the dreary thing some bureaucrat will force you to do - it's disastrous.
As the meat industry itself has pointed out, work has been started with a lot of seriousness to look at how to reduce carbon and methane emissions from agricultural production. Diving to the conclusion that we can only afford the most humbly utilitarian of methods is premature. We don't know. We just know that we have a lot of work to do.
And solutions that we can't sell to the wider public, and therefore the politicians and businesses that depend on their consent, are no solutions at all. Otherwise we could solve so many problems.
We could solve obesity. We just tell people they HAVE to eat less, and exercise more. That should work.
We could solve violent crime. We could solve addictions, and vice.
All we need is for people to behave the way we'd like them to behave, rather than the way they actually do.
Telling people they have to give up meat for climate change just turns off a whole bunch of more people from considering the things that they could accept, could change, could even benefit by embracing. Because once more it's not a positive choice, it's the most tedious denial.
Challenge the companies that sell food to innovate. Encourage people to feel good about choosing the low carbon foods that result. Make it the exciting challenge of the future - the mountain that needs to be climbed.
Ultimately, if you can do it well enough, that is what will gain long-term currency.
Tags: CSR climate change vegetarianism Lord Stern corporate social responsibility Mallen Baker
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12 comments for this post
Comment by: JC on 31 Oct 2009
Check out this uplifting and inspiring video on why people choose vegan: http://veganvideo.org/
Comment by: Keith Akers on 31 Oct 2009
Weblink: http://compassionatespirit.com/Keith-Blog/2009-10-23.htm
Just out of curiosity, have you seen the November/December WorldWatch article? Is your comment a response to it, or have you read it yet? Take a look at" "Livestock and Climate Change," by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang.
Comment by: Cycling in Hollywood on 31 Oct 2009
Unfortunately, this kind of incremental approach will never result in changes of the scale we need to make a difference.
Comment by: Myrto Ashe on 31 Oct 2009
Weblink: http://www.ecoyear.net
I agree with Cycling in Hollywood. It is really a sad day when our lives are so dull that giving up meat, or Hummers becomes akin to wearing a "hairshirt".
Why are people obese? Why is there so much crime? Surely the solution is not to say that we are powerless over anything important.
Comment by: Sleepless in NJ on 1 Nov 2009
For most American, giving up meat and Hummers is the first step to Socialism.
The second step to Socialism is using the Metric System. Americans will not countenance such indignity.
Comment by: Mallen Baker on 1 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://www.businessrespect.net
It all depends what you define as an incremental approach. Radical and energetic action to reduce the impact of livestock enabling people to live sustainably whilst enjoying a quality of life only a little different to today - that should be quite a radical agenda.
Assuming in advance that the destination should be one that forces people to make changes that they currently don't want to make - that might be more radical but it is also dumb if the unpopularity of the proposal means that anyone who puts it forward would be voted out of office. That then isn't radical, its self-indulgent because it's striking up a position in such a way that guarantees it cannot be implemented. Who benefits from that?
If it becomes impossible to achieve the desired result without major sacrifice, then it may become inevitable. But people will not trust the solutions of people who seem to want what they see as a 'worst case scenario' because they just want to force other people to adopt their values. There's a reason why awareness of the environmental crisis has grown, and yet Green Party's are not running the country. Anywhere. Those who draw attention to a problem are not necessarily seen as the best people to give leadership to resolve it. That's just the way it is.
Comment by: Mallen Baker on 1 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://www.businessrespect.net
Keith - obviously if the Worldwatch piece is right, that would change the investment and resource that would be channelled into this area. There would need to be considerable scientific consensus that the figures in the article were right before major changes were made based on its conclusions, though.
Comment by: Paul Van Uytrecht on 4 Nov 2009
Malen, I would be interested to know what made you become a non-vegetarian again after all that time.
Personally, and whilst I concede that it does provoke much emotional and overheated reaction, I think it is important to start getting the message across that technology alone will not solve the climate change problem. Living ethically in the 21st century means behavioural change and weaning ourselves off the limitless consumerism bandwagon we have been on for the last 70 odd years.
On the other hand perhaps we should also be emphasising that with peak-oil either upon us or around the corner, that many things we consume now without thinking twice will simply be too expensive in the future with $500/barrel (an illustrative thumb-suck) oil. Meat is likely to be one of those items.
Factory farming is an abomination and the sooner it disappears the better.
Best wishes to all.
Comment by: Mallen Baker on 4 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://www.businessrespect.net
Hi Paul
Thanks for the comment. After 23 years I realised that I was vegetarian through force of habit rather than through conviction. I spent two years questioning whether I was ready to change, and once I'd worked that through, I just started to eat meat again.
Your comments about limitless consumerism are spot on, of course. To be honest, the way I think it will go is that as we get better at costing carbon (and carbon equivalents) into pricing, the price of carbon-intensive products will go up. Meat will remain a part of people's lives, but will become more of a treat - two or three times a week, rather than every meal. And, of course, when it comes to carbon, not all meat / fish is created equal.
That seems a more likely, and politically survivable (albeit challenging) scenario than adopting as a worldwide policy enforced vegetarianism!
Comment by: Deborah Smith on 6 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://eqmanagement.co.uk
I understand why pragmatically you advocate presenting the new choices we need to make as consumers somehow challenging/exciting/fun but I am deeply worried that we seem to have become such a bunch of children as a society that we have to be pandered to in this way. Can we not simply face up to some stark realities, bite the bullet and change because we need to, not because it's made to seem "fun" for us? Growing up/evolving should not be seen as being forced to wear a hairshirt. The horror of what we put millions of animals through every year should be enough factual and moral evidence to reduce meat eating/factory farming dramatically. After all,in the end, earlier societies have outlawed other ghastly bad habits like having slaves, bear baiting, wives/daughters with the legal status of property etc etc etc
Comment by: Mallen Baker on 6 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://www.businessrespect.net
Hi Deborah
You may well bemoan that we have "become a bunch of children" but suggesting we should "simply face up to some stark realities" falls into the category of change that requires people to be the way we might wish them to be rather than the way we are. It's a fair frustration to have - but if we're serious about change, it's not good enough. Those historic changes you mention were neither inevitable nor easy. It's by no means clear that the issues you outline will ever be seen in the same vein as those issues, or indeed should be. But if we think they should be, it would be worth really understanding what were the factors that made those changes happen. I don't think any of them came into being because people just one day decided to "face up to stark realities".
No more than you get athletic achievement without ability and hard work. Or business success without a good product and great service.
Remember, failure IS an option. That's why it's worth us getting involved - we can actually make a difference.
Comment by: jane stretton on 8 Nov 2009
Weblink: http://www.dovefarm.co.uk
now lets just think about this for a minute, and not class all meat producers as 'the meat industry.' many keepers of rare breeds in the UK, do so, not only out of respect for the breed, but for the landscape, the way it is maintained, traditional methods of rearing animals for meat, and a passion for bringing quality, high welfare, ethically produced meat to people's plates. It is fairtrade and low food miles in its purest form - often grassfed only, and reared in harmony with nature. Now where is the threat to climate change in that - or shall I tell my kids meat is off the menu today, and instead I shall buy a pack of those plastic-packed, green beans flown in from Kenya to go with our processed veggie sausages, complete with packaging and advertising costs. but hey, the picture on the pack shows a countryside scene, so it's gotta be good.