In a new oped I show how going vegetarian won’t cut your greenhouse emissions much: not the often-promised 50% but more likely ~2%https://nypost.com/2018/10/22/no-giving-up-burgers-wont-actually-save-the-planet/ …
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But how do they get 10% rather than 4.3% from the metastudy? They disregard the lower of their two cherry-picked studies (Meier, 4.05%) and round up [!!] the highest (Hoolohan, 9.00%) Definitely cherry-pickingpic.twitter.com/bQot3xE5MK
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But what about rebound? Going vegetarian frees up resources you then spend on other products, increasing your emissions. This is well-described in literature, and can often lead to much lower emission reductions (or even increases) e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095965261732382X …
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My critics simply ignore rebound and talk about other stuff:pic.twitter.com/sKIEIhROm3
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1) How is it relevant Swedish paper relies on data from 2006? Ironically, both their favorite papers rely heavily on data from 2006: Hoolohan’s LCA estimates are from 2006 and 2008, Meier estimates food intake for 2006
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2) Correct Swedish study not include deforestation, but irrelevant: I don’t use the study’s estimate of going vegetarian (though it falls right in the middle of meta-study’s interval at 389kgCO₂e) I use Swedish study for rebound. Deforestation has *nothing* to do with rebound
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3) They cite Swedish study’s very honest description of limitations to estimates of CO₂e reduction from going vegetarian“ (similar arguments would apply to all the studies in metastudy) But again, this has *nothing* to do with rebound
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Indeed, the Swedish study explicitly shows how *any* realistic modeling of rebound means a diminishment of the reduction from going vegetarian. My critics simply chose to ignore this
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Ironically, my critics’ favorite article, Hoolohan, explicitly backs up the rebound point: Instead of the Swedish finding that going vegetarian reduces costs by 1.89%, Hoolohan finds it reduces costs by 3%, allowing for 3% other purchasespic.twitter.com/0dDgFZajJM
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The rebound effect of 3% more spending on everything else is estimated by assuming proportional spending on all other products (Swedish article shows this is likely a slight underestimate), approximately 373kgCO₂e (=3%*12440)
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So their own, favorite article indicates a *higher* rebound effect than what I show But despite a lot of verbiage, they simply ignore the rebound effect
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tl;dr: Going vegetarian cuts your greenhouse emissions ~2% Critics cherry-pick studies and ignore economics, hence exaggerate impact of going vegetarian about 5xpic.twitter.com/ZMwadmWy24
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Addendum: This discussion question of likely size of impact – unlikely 2.1% exactly correct answer. But based on best estimate from meta-study along with best estimate for rebound Picking the absolutely highest number and ignoring rebound is extremely likely to be exaggerated
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Publisher
@ConversationUK wants to be “a place for intelligent discussion.” Surprisingly, they never approached me before distributing this questionable analysisNäytä tämä ketju
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