Should Governments Encourage People to Eat Less Meat ?
by Duluth1234 on September 12, 2016 - 9:42pm
Adam summarizes the real problem of eating meat, which is the consumption of all the world resources. Producing meat consumes 70% of the water used by humans and uses 30% of the land on earth (The Guardian). Humans are over consuming meat, and it became a problem due to the maximal capacity that earth can afford. This means that the humans are cutting more trees than they grow, producing more greenhouse emissions than nature can absorb it. The problem is real, and it is the duty of humans to solve it. The author expresses that as humans, we should take responsibility of our acts, but it is not the problem of government.
There are two sides to the issue presented, but the “yes” side of it will be explaining first. Governments should present some rules in their countries to limit the over consumption of meat because it brings huge environmental problems. Some persons are suggesting to imposing more taxes on meat than on regular tax items, which will decrease the demand of this product due to its costs (The Guardian). Others say that we could add a course about consumption of meat and the environment to educate the young, because for what human species know, they are the future. In some countries, the kids are more informed about the environmental impacts that we have, and they are taking bigger acts to help earth. For the younger, environmental is one of their fundamental value, and therefore, it is part of our moral standard as a western civilization. It is important to keep that in mind because one person act can changes many others, and this is why the government should help this situation. Another point is that the average meat that humans eat is way too big, which implies that it is dangerous for the health. This is an important aspect, and it would probably encourage more people to decrease their consumption of meat. The reason for this is that health is a really important value of us, and therefore, we tend to make decisions that take care of us (The Guardian). There, we can observe the phenomenon of moral egoism, where the person decides to stop eating meat once there is something of him, which is, in this case, his health.
The other side of the issue is that governments should not encourage the population to eat less meat. The main idea here is that the population should take their own decisions based on what they know about consumption of meat (The Washington Post). They have to be motivated to help the earth, and not be imposed to do so. As human, we do not tend to like rules, and when something is imposed on us, we get frustrated. If governments encourage the population to eat less meat, it would be like imposing something on personal desires. This case is different than normal laws because it restricts a fundamental need, which is eating. It is not morally acceptable to give restrictions about what humans can eat or not. However, there are some things that are not ethically correct to eat, such as humans. Also, others say that if the government takes a position on this issue, it will encourage people to stop, but the problem with that is that it will decrease the Gross Domestic Product because the economy might fall due to all the meat that is sold during a current year (The Washington Post).
In my point of view, western countries really like meat. In the past years, meat was a symbol of money, and it stayed in the culture of these countries. It makes it harder for these persons to stop eating meat, or at least reduce their consumption. Also, the problem is not enough shared/expanded, and it is hard to know that this is a real problem. Last semester, my boyfriend had a humanities course called “Green Living”. For one of his project, he had to listen to a documentary, and we watch “Cowspiracy”. This is where I realized that I had to take actions. However, before I was not even aware of this problem. For these reasons, I think that governments should be taking big responsibilities with this, and explain to everyone the cause of overconsumption of meat. Plus, I think that the human value too much money, and it is not because eating less meat would slow the economy that we should not do it. Once the world is really dying, money will have no more significations.