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52 points laurex | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.252s | source
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telesilla ◴[] No.45899803[source]
I've been enjoying many fake/replacement things for years: vegan ice-cream, beyond meat, quorn, vaping.. I'll be happy if we can move away from damaging products relying on unsustainable cocoa production.

Nice mention of Tony's Chocolonely, if you pass through the Netherlands it's one of the great gifts to pick up to take home.

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1. lanfeust6 ◴[] No.45901085[source]
Globally, people are getting richer (particularly east Asia), and consequently using more energy and resources. Sustainability is really contingent on demand versus innovation and land encroachment; some products use more than others, but basically all will use more land/energy if demand grows enough. There's no agreed-upon benchmark for what constitutes sustainable, it's vibes. You could just as easily say that a perpetually growing global population is not sustainable, but thankfully it is projected to stall. In a scenario where the population doesn't grow (or not much), no product can be considered unsustainable.

You can yield improved efficiency for almost anything. In China, fossil-fuel use has plateaued despite growing demands for energy, because they have so much solar. Their emissions growth is finally projected to stall, but the coal mining has hindered that somewhat.

The U.S. hasn't seen significant land-use increase for agriculture over the years, in fact there's been less. Some of that is innovation, but some is also cruel commercial practices. As the States move away from that animal products will get yet more expensive in the short-run, and consumers will more readily look to alts. Actually the subsidies have been driving down prices for those, but everyone seems quick to defend them as though farmers couldn't possibly do without. Animal products are cheaper in the U.S. than many developed countries. If you really wanted to scale back that consumption, all it would take is to allow the products to be more expensive; simple.