On the Reducetarian Foundation, and what really pollutes
Brian Kateman, co-founder of the Reducetarian Foundation, had reached out about a matching fund to support outreach encouraging Americans to eat less meat — a softer pitch than full vegetarianism, on the theory that small reductions across many people add up. The reply below grants the environmental case against meat but argues that household-level moral persuasion is the wrong lever; almost all American pollution, including most meat consumption, is locked in by zoning and land-use law that forces people into high-emissions lifestyles whether they want them or not.
It’s really great that the Reducetarian Foundation is taking initiative, but in the United States, I must admit that I’m moderately skeptical of the cost-effectiveness of this type of advocacy. As Brian himself said in his talk, the data is very clear: Americans like to eat meat, and even after decades of animal activism, only a few percent of Americans are really vegetarian. Of course, that has all kinds of negative consequences for the environment — pollution, global warming, forest clearing, and so on. But to change that, you’d have to get hundreds of millions of people to do something they’d rather not do (eat less meat).
However, there’s actually another country where vegetarianism is extremely popular. Not everyone likes it, of course, but a lot of people would actively prefer a vegetarian diet. But in order to subsidize the politically powerful meat industry, the government has heavily restricted the amount of food that can be sold without meat-based ingredients. As a result, vegetarian and especially vegan foods are extremely expensive — there’s way too much demand, and not enough supply. Any one person can still be vegetarian, but in aggregate, the population is de facto legally required to eat lots of meat. Since vegetarian food is limited, right now the only way for one person to become vegetarian is for someone else to start eating meat again — if one person gets more, someone else has to get less. So all you’d have to do is get the laws changed, and you wouldn’t have to advocate or convince anybody of anything — the problem would just magically fix itself. That sounds… well, still pretty hard, but a lot simpler to me.
Unfortunately, it turns out that I lied — there isn’t really any such country. However, for almost every kind of pollution except meat consumption, the United States is exactly like the country I described above. A lot of people would like to not live in big, polluting houses, next to acres of pavement that used to be forests, but they’re forced to. They’d like to not drive long distances in big, polluting cars, but they’re forced to. They’d like to not have large, high-maintenance lawns that soak up tons of water and fertilizer, but they’re forced to. They’d like to use less electricity, less water, and less natural gas, but they’re forced to use more, and so on. Any one person can choose to pay lots of money to not pollute, but they’re bidding on a limited number of slots — if one person stops, another person has to start. So, in aggregate, the population is forced to pollute. If 20% of CO2 emissions are from meat, legally mandated pollution is probably the majority of the remaining 80%.
You might not believe me — stories on the environment and global warming practically never mention this, so most people haven’t heard of it. But as proof, when you have some spare time, take a minute or two and Google “<name of city where you live> zoning map”. Unless you’re rich enough to afford Manhattan or downtown San Francisco, you’ll almost certainly find that: It’s illegal to build housing within walking distance of stores, offices, or other employment centers. Therefore, people are forced to drive long distances to work — they have no choice, unless they want to lose their job.
It’s illegal to build housing densely enough to make public transportation practical. The usual euphemism cities use is “FAR”, or floor-to-area ratio. You can’t build more than X amount of living space per Y amount of land. So people are forced to live far apart, which means they also have to drive long distances to do anything else — see a friend, watch a movie, even just buy a gallon of milk. This also forces housing developments to take up lots of space, which means fewer forests, more concrete, more urban heat island effect, etc.
Building smaller, less-polluting houses is illegal, or strongly discouraged. Sometimes you can technically do it, but you’re always legally required to have a minimum “lot size”, ie. you can’t buy or sell land in chunks smaller than X acres. So if you have one acre of land, you can’t split it in half, and build two smaller houses on it. You can only build one house, whether larger or smaller. And since larger houses sell for more, of course you build the larger (and more polluting) one. Larger houses use more of everything — more electricity, more water, more heat, more wood to build the house, more maintenance, more furniture, and so on.
In over 80% of the city, and often 100%, apartments will be illegal. Most of the city will be reserved for detached, single-family housing, which is the least environmentally friendly type. Of course, it’s illegal to build high-rise apartment towers, but you can’t build anything else either. Townhouses are illegal. Combined live/work spaces are illegal. Duplexes are illegal. You might try to get one house and share it with roommates, but in many places, even that’s illegal — each house must have one family only, where “family” is defined as a group of blood relatives.
Lawns under a certain size are illegal. The technical term is “setback”, which means the house’s distance from the property line. The law might require (eg.) at least 20 feet for a front lawn, plus 50 feet for a back lawn, plus 30 feet on each side for side lawns. Those lawns require maintenance, of course, and not maintaining them is illegal. Some people try to grow food on their lawns, but in a lot of places that’s illegal too — last year California tried to pass a bill letting everyone in the state grow food on their own land, but the provision was stripped by a last-minute amendment.
It’s illegal to not surround a building with lots and lots of free parking. So even if, in spite of all the above, you’re doggedly determined not to drive everywhere, it’s often very dangerous to do so. The only way to get to any building is to dodge through a maze of speeding cars. Over your lifetime, you’d have a roughly 1% chance of being killed this way. And if you are killed, no one will be punished, and your death will not be investigated. Of course, subsidizing driving with mandatory free parking creates a higher risk of death for everyone else too. My friend (and former MIRI visiting fellow) Shaneal Manek was murdered by cars. My other friend Morgan Wang, a core member of the New York meetup group, was seriously injured and is now permanently disabled. I could be next.
If things were like this because 98% of Americans wanted to pollute, then environmental activism and vegan activism would be (IMO) roughly equivalent. You’d have to try convincing people to change, to make sacrifices for the greater good, one person at a time. However, a large fraction of Americans already don’t like living this way. We know that because the US has a few cities built before the 1950s and 60s, when these laws were enacted, and these cities are extremely expensive because of the huge unmet demand. The densest metro area in the US is New York City, and it’s also the most expensive. The second densest is San Francisco, and it’s the second most expensive. Third densest is Boston, the third most expensive, and so on. A ton of people would be more environmentally friendly if they could, but they can’t, they aren’t allowed to.