• Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
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    3 days ago

    Unfortunately, The beef industry isn’t going away anytime soon. What do we do with the hides if we don’t use them to make Leather boots etc. ?

    It’s hard to believe that using (likely petroleum based) alternatives, has less of an environmental impact than using something that would have gone into the trash.

    Sure leather supports the beef industry, but if it didn’t we’d still have the beef industry, and what do we do with that leather?

    Edit: I thought about it a bit more, the less people use leather the cheaper it will become. It will still be used, because it’s so useful, profits will just go down a lot, so less money for the beef industry. So that’s a win.

    • troglodyke@lemmy.federate.cc
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      3 days ago

      Leather isn’t a free byproduct, in many cases less CO2 is emitted by not using the hide and just producing an alternative instead

      • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
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        3 days ago

        Sure but that leather could have been used to make leather boots, that could last decades. Instead petroleum based alternatives will be used, it needs to be weighed against those emissions.

        • Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.caOP
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          3 days ago

          Thousands of people are going vegan every year thus the force of supply and demand would require the beef industry to scale back operations.

          • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            3 days ago

            supply and demand is a theory about price discovery. it doesn’t dictate production levels

            • Honytawk@feddit.nl
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              3 days ago

              Of course it does. That is the “supply” side.

              Supply is directly linked with demand and price. It is a triangle of commerce. If either of those lowers, then it is prudent to lower supply as well or face overhead.

              • commie@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                2 days ago

                supply and demand is a theory about price discovery. it does not dictate production. if you have some other theory, I’ll be happy to read it.

            • Sunshine (she/her)@lemmy.caOP
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              3 days ago

              However meat consumption is increasing in certain segments of the population. There is no guarantee this trend will continue especially since it’s unhealthy to eat so much of it.

              The meat industry is heavily subsidized by governments of the world and is not sustainable with our planetary resources, we cannot keep clearing Amazonian forests for cattle ranching.

              It’s important to note that the use of fur has dropped dramatically in recent years.

              • Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social
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                3 days ago

                Eating meat is not unhealthy.

                Eating too much of anything is unhealthy, but having chicken and eggs in your diet is certainly not unhealthy.