World Bank’s climate plan: Pricier red meat and dairy, cheaper chicken and veggies

I cant wait for some conservative idiot to spin this in the worst possible way. Mixed in with some lies, whataubout-isms and straw-mans for a delicious disinformation-coktail!

I agree, let's end subsidies for the industries that are fucking up the climate. Fuck all the weak snowflakes who don't want to change their meat consumption. How hard is it to not eat beef? Not hard, people are just weak. So hit them in the wallet then, if that's what it takes.

Honestly, it makes sense. Something's gotta give or we're all fucked. We should already be eating less red meat and dairy anyway since they're less healthy than white meat and milk alternatives - adding the economic incentive would be a push in the right direction to be healthier and more eco-friendly.

may be turned into a culture war battle

May be? Bit optimistic, don't you think?

How about a carbon tax?

As a bonus it's much healthier. Win win. Though a large portion of the population won't see it that way.

Crazy how enthusiastic everyone here is about some rich guy telling us what we are allowed to eat.

He probably flies private and eats a steak every day.

Meat and dairy should be way more expensive in general

Sounds good to me, I love chicken and veggies!

Dinosaurs back on the menu boyz

"red meat"

What does this expression even means nowadays?

Beef should be expensive. It should return to what it was thirty or forty back: a luxury item. Nobody needs to eat a steak every day.

But is pork still - or again? - red meat? It had been disqualified as such some time back.

Bring on cheaper vegetables, please. I'm seeing cabbage peak at €2,19. Poultry is on average €2,29, peak on the €2,69. It's borderline as expensive to make a pot of quality soup than to make a roast chicken.

The problem with that is the rich still get to enjoy it and the rich live in excess. It would make more sense although logistically nonsensical to keep the price the same but only the poorest are allowed access to it

How about heavily carbon taxing the rich cunts, hmm?

You know, instead of another bullshit scheme to offset the responsibility of climate change to the majority of the population with the least control over it?

Red meat for the rich, white meat for the poor.

Or just fight back against private jet overusage and giants like Exxon?

Lately it has been reversed.. Chicken prices have been more than pork.. Even on the chicken quarters I normally get. I'm hoping once lab grown is scaled that we'll be able to get steaks cheap.

I'm not sure why it's so difficult to understand. Eating lower down the trophic levels is energy efficient, and the energy level is proportional to environmental destruction, water use, and pollution. This is especially relevant if you have a large population to maintain (food security), which is the case for humans.

Eating up the world’s food web and the human trophic level | PNAS

Abstract

Trophic levels are critical for synthesizing species’ diets, depicting energy pathways, understanding food web dynamics and ecosystem functioning, and monitoring ecosystem health. Specifically, trophic levels describe the position of species in a food web, from primary producers to apex predators (range, 1–5). Small differences in trophic level can reflect large differences in diet. Although trophic levels are among the most basic information collected for animals in ecosystems, a human trophic level (HTL) has never been defined. Here, we find a global HTL of 2.21, i.e., the trophic level of anchoveta. This value has increased with time, consistent with the global trend toward diets higher in meat. National HTLs ranging between 2.04 and 2.57 reflect a broad diversity of diet, although cluster analysis of countries with similar dietary trends reveals only five major groups. We find significant links between socio-economic and environmental indicators and global dietary trends. We demonstrate that the HTL is a synthetic index to monitor human diets and provides a baseline to compare diets between countries.

This first estimate of HTL at 2.21, i.e., a trophic level similar to anchoveta and pigs, quantifies the position of humans in the food web and challenges the perception of humans as top predators (2). Humans dominate ecosystems through changes in land use, biogeochemical cycling, biodiversity, and climate (11, 13, 14). It is not sufficient to separate humans from analyses of ecosystem processes, because there are no remaining ecosystems outside of human influence (15). Thus, investigations of ecosystems, without accounting for the presence of humans, are incomplete (13). There is a variety of other ecological indicators based on trophic ecology theory or diets, e.g., the omnivory index, that may also prove useful in assessing the impact of humans in the functioning of ecosystems. However, a first estimate of an HTL gives us a basic tool that places humans as components of the ecosystem and assists in further comprehending energy pathways, the impact of human resource use, and the structure and functioning of ecosystems.

The global increase in HTL is consistent with the nutrition transition that is expected to continue for several decades (16, 17) from plant-based diets toward diets higher in meat and dairy consumption (18–22). This 0.15 increase in HTL from 1961 to 2009 is mainly due to the increased consumption of fat and meat (SI Appendix, Figs. S5–S8), as opposed to a shift toward the consumption of species with higher trophic levels. In fact, we find that the mean trophic level of terrestrial animals that are consumed by humans has only slightly increased (by 0.01 or 0.5%) due to the higher proportion of pork and poultry in the diet (SI Appendix, Fig. S11_A_), whereas that of marine animals has decreased markedly from 2.88 in 1961 to 2.69 in 2009 (SI Appendix, Fig. S11_B_). This decline in the trophic levels of marine food items in human diets is consistent with the global decline in the mean trophic level of marine fisheries catches. This decline has been related to the consequences of fishing pressures on marine predators (23), although changes in the characteristics of fisheries over time may also influence this trend (24).

The global convergence in HTL is consistent with the convergence in diet structure between countries with diverse levels of development (18, 19), and in agreement with previous studies of the FAO (17, 25). Globalization and economic development facilitate the access to diverse foodstuffs and can enhance the rate of this convergence (18, 26). For India, China, and countries in groups 1–3, HTLs are low and rising. With economic growth, these countries are gaining the ability to support the human preference for high meat diets (18, 19, 26). For countries in group 4, the nutrition transition has reached a point where health problems associated with high fat and meat diets (i.e., high HTLs) have led to changes in policy and government-run education programs that encourage these populations to shift to more plant-based diets [i.e., lower their HTL; SI Appendix, Figs. S4–S8 (18, 20, 22)]. Similarly, countries with high initial HTLs (i.e., group 5) show decreasing trends with time (Fig. 3). For Scandinavian countries, this decline is due to government policies promoting healthier diets (18, 22). For example, in 2011, Sweden consumed historically high levels of meat due to low market prices, leading the Swedish government into discussions of a Pigovian tax to reduce this consumption (27). Changes in diet in Mauritania (decreased meat and dairy consumption) and Mongolia (increased proportion of vegetables) are linked to increased urbanization and economic development and decreased nomadism.

They need to open up more Popeye's

Why do I feel like we're only going to get the first half?

Oh look, more suggestions. Im sure it'll work this time.

.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

In a new paper, the international financial lender suggests repurposing the billions rich countries spend to boost CO2-rich products like red meat and dairy for more climate-friendly options like poultry, fruits and vegetables.

The politically touchy recommendation — sure to make certain conservatives and European countries apoplectic — is one of several suggestions the World Bank offers to cut climate-harming pollution from the agricultural and food sectors, which are responsible for nearly a third of global greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the report, countries must funnel $260 billion each year into those sectors to get serious about erasing their emissions by 2050 — a common goal for developed economies.

Governments can partly plug the gap by reorienting subsidies for red meat and dairy products toward lower-carbon alternatives, the World Bank says.

The switch is one of the most cost-effective ways for wealthy countries — estimated to generate roughly 20 percent of the world’s agri-food emissions — to reduce demand for highly polluting food, it argues.

Food is an "intensely personal choice," he added, saying he fears that what should be a data-based debate may be turned into a culture war battle.

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