Dutch City Harleem bans advertisement of meat and other polluters

A Dutch city of a population with 160k people living in it becomes the first city in the world to ban advertisement of meat in public spaces. Which includes busses, shelters and screens. Other things affected by this ban include flights, fossil fuels and fossil fuel driven vehicles.

This ban is done following environmental concerns, with the goal being to reduce consumption and emission of greenhouse gases.

The ban will not take affect until 2024 however, which at that point the current contracts will expire.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/06/haarlem-netherlands-bans-meat-adverts-public-spaces-climate-crisis

Interesting policy I must say.

On one hand, this can be seen as a blatant violation of free speech. But at the same time, the precedant was already there with Tobacco and alcohol advertising bans.

Will other cities follow suit? Will this become more of a global trend across the EU?

Only time will tell. Either way, I have no sympathy for the meat and animal product industries. But I am not sure, this ban will achieve what they are trying to achieve. As a society we are too conditioned into meat eating. But the Netherlands quickly adapted before when they phased out their car culture, so I could be wrong. If this helps reduce the consumption of red meat, this legislation could do some good. Still, way too early to tell.

And for the partisan hacks out there, this is an example of 'Left Wing Censorship'. But I prefer to look at politics through the eyes of interest groups rather than partisanship. Hence I didnt feel a need to mention it.

If it results in less advertising overall I would consider it a win.

Seems a bit much TBH.

It certainly is bad optics.

I feel very mixed about this, on one hand, I have no sympathy for the animal farming industries. But at the same time, this might be an ideological motivation for restricting free speech. Which I am not a fan of.

If society wants to cut on meat consumption, a better move would just to be to end all meat subsidies, which is both a pro-free market and doesnt result in any form of... censorship.

Or they could subsidize the animal farming industries that keep harm to the environment to a minimum. Humans are omnivores.

Even livestock raised and slaughtered locally. Contribute more to CO2 than produce and crops shipped all over from another continent does.

No matter how one tries to handle livestock, it is unsustainable. Which is why scientists urge that we eat less meat, with 30% less being a very conservative estimate (because asking for more is completely unrealistic given the current culinary culture).

We should subsidize industries that go in the direction we want to go as a society. Investing in unsustainable stuff like fossil fuels and the Western Pattern Diet makes no sense. Even without subsidies, humans will still eat meat, eggs and dairy, we ate meat before we subsidized animal products like we do today, and most will after the are no longer subsidized. However, the meat consumption will be reduced, which will be better for both our health, our economy and our environment.

Eh I don't eat that much meat but I wouldn't want it to be unattainable when I do want it.

Seems a bit extreme to me. Animal protein is a renewable, available, sustainable source of protein for a lot of people. While resource intensive and often detrimental to the environment, there are ways to raise animals without doing harm.

We should not ostracize meat and people that raise animals.

Yup. I don't why people complain about the Chinese and other Asians eating dog. It's a cheap source of protein for people.

I wouldn't go that far..........

Naaah. Don't eat them because they're cute isn't much of a defense of being against it.

It is here when some restaurants have stolen pets and served them as food...........

Replace the meat advertisement ban with a personal injury lawyer advertisement ban and I'm game!

Next step is banning meat entirely. Go vegan or go to jail.

@mrbojangles25: Renewable, yes? Sustainable? No, not at the level we have been doing it. Which is why scientists have been arguing we must cut down on meat consumption quite dramatically. While I still think we should allow people to eat meat, the rate at which we are doing so is incredibly unsustainable, both for our economy, health and environment.

I do agree this probably goes a bit too far though. Protecting the environment is well and good, but Free Speech is also very important. While this is more defensible than say... recent book bans that reference concepts people don't like. This is still censorship in the name of an ideology. Two wrongs don't make a right.

Now, why would I, a Green create a thread calling the greens out?

Reason I created this thread was because we need to also call out our own representatives and hold them accountable. It is easy to call out Republicans or Sweden Democrats on their crap. But if we look the other way when our favored representatives go too far, we run the risk of letting them fall into extremism.

They got a point though.

There is no moral justification over eating pigs over dogs. And if you go by the intelligence argument, pigs are in fact smarter than dogs.

(Both are wrong)

Regardless of how serious you are. This makes me curious, tell me more.

I don't know if bringing down meat consumtion is a good way to battle pollution or not. On a huge scale maybe? But I'm pretty sure removing meat ads for 160k people wont have any effect on anything. But I guess it could act as a message for other nations.

Absolutely.

I think this is the point.

Environmental trends that start in one city, ultimately end up spreading all across europe. It will be interesting to see where this initiative goes.

@Maroxad: honestly I think insect protein needs to become widespread. From what I've read you get about 9 pounds of insect protein per 10 pounds of feed, whereas beef is like 1 to 10. Water is also less.

A lot of people will turn up their nose to that and I get it, not very appealing, but it's an amazing source of protein and a lot of cultures across the world use it.

It can easily be processed into a meat substitute that will actually taste like meat. I've eaten some before and I'm not big on like eating a whole giant beetle or anything but some of the smaller insects like meal worms or crickets and such are not bad. Stir fried on rice with veggies.

Guarantee you could process that into a chicken nugget and put it next to a veg-protein nuggets and a real chicken nugget and people wouldn't be able to tell chicken from insect like you can veg to chicken.

Also I know lab-grown meat is a thing. Not sure what the state of it is now but I am sure it has to be commercially viable at some point in the next 20 years.

Netherlands is always a trend setter, not following trends. I respect them immensely.

Most of these ads come from fast food chains, so there is definitely a problem from a health perspective there.

Yeah I don't inherently disagree with taking the ads down because fast food sucks and people do eat too much meat, it's just a "I don't agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to say it" kind of deal for me.

I had actually not thought of that...

That actually changes everything. Fast Food and other forms of highly processed junk food are actually more damaging to Human health than smoking is.

If we banned the advertisement of smoking for human health concerns, it would make more sense banning the advertisement of the more harmful product.

Like the thing is: meat is dirt cheap, and fast food is dirt cheap. So I don't feel these things need to be promoted more, they are already present in our day to day use. And people know about them and where to get them.

On the other hand, this could be the first step towards a prohibition (I'm thinking out loud here) so in that case it would be a bad evolution :p

Well, meat was cheap. Now I have literally people asking me for help in plant based cooking. Because of how expensive meat has gotten since the inflation. :P And that is despite of the subsidies.

As I see it now, this is just following a precedant we have in europe. In europe we heavily encourage people to live a healthy life style, this means we ban a lot of advertisement for unhealthy products. While one can argue that meat this does infringe on free speech, this also has had a tremendous boon of a healthier populace, which means lower taxes from healthcare spending and other boons.

One reason Universal Healthcare is affordable here is because we dissuade people from unhealthy lifestyles. We even have things like "Fat Taxes".

And I agree, Prohibition is definately wrong. While as a society we should DEFINATELY dissuade the consumption of meat and fast food. We should not ban it.

On a side note,

Seriously, I have negative respect for the animal farming industry. They make up a third of our pollution, they decimate environments, they treat their animals horribly, the health effects from eating their food is a leading cause of death in the west, and if that wasnt bad enough, they are the ones overconsuming antiobiotics which will mean they are directly responsible for the Superbug pandemic. And if that wasnt bad enough, these very industries rely on corporate welfare, and what do they do with some of this money? Lobby governments to sabotage plant based alternatives. Banning fortification of calcium in some plant based milks, banning the words such as Oat Milk and Veggie Burger from being used to sell products.

@Maroxad: I think the problem is the industry as a whole not meat farming vs plant farming (maybe insects are a solution? Maybe not).

How much rainforest has already been lost to turn them into palm plantations?

@R4gn4r0k: Insects are certainly preferable to cattle. And irresponsible farming practices happens in plant based agriculture as well.

However, If we stopped eating meat, dairy and eggs we could free up around 75% of our farmland. Insects could reduce farmland usage a bit, but I have no data as of now on this.

Even if we say that cattle is responsible for X % of global CO2 emissions, it's still industry that is the worst offender, as they even polute the air with toxic gasses, polute the water, basically polute anything with chemicals that stay around for several generations on top of their CO2 emissions.

I'd personally like to see industry gone before we stop eating meat, diary and eggs. That is if we want a cleaner earth, because I see no global political movements that we indeed want such a thing, in the contrary.

I agree, the industry as a whole has problems. I adressed it in my edit but you caught it before that :P

Palm Oil in particular, as you mentioend, has had a horrible impact on the planet. The food industry would ideally need to be quite shaken up. As far as I am concerned, eating less meat is but one of many things we need to do to eat more sustainably. Another plant based food that is not sustainable are almonds.

Edit: And yes, I want the food industry shrunk down, or heavily reformed.

@Maroxad: There are times you probably can't drive more than a block without seeing an advertisement for a personal injury lawyer on a billboard, bus bench, side of a train, side of a bus, on a taxi, etc. It's practically spam, plus not a fan of lawyers to begin with. :P

I see a lot of individuals making individual actions, and I applaud them for that;

But we are not stopping global warming, we are not making a dent, as long as companies and politicians still go for a next paycheck.

This news about the Netherlands is a step in the right direction, but while the West has spent the past decades bickering about Paris and Kyoto agreements, the world has evolved, and industry (around the globe) has been poluting more now than ever.

I fear, hope I'm wrong, that we will reach a point of no return sooner rather than later.

All-in on the zealotry this morning I see.

That sounds obnoxious, I definately agree we need to cut down on advertising as a whole, especially on YouTube :P

@eoten The food industry stays afloat large in part due to a government interference. I thought you were in favor of capitalism and not in favor of big government.

Yup,

I work in Computer Science, but I am looking to transition into a renewable sector. I believe the only way to defeat the fossil fuel industry is to make cleaner alternatives more favorable to the average consumer. Same with food. Vegan culinarians have been pulling off miracles, in many cases the food I make now as a vegan is significantly tastier than it did when I was a carnist, while also being healthier (yes even the fake meats). But the stigma is still there towards plant based food.

As an individual, I will cook for anyone who asks, and while I am at it, I also decided to cook food for the homeless, so they get to eat more than just soup.

Individual actions are great, but countriers like Sweden and The Netherlands alone will not be enough, but what we can do is to lead by example.

@Maroxad: Yeah people need to realise that what we are doing right now is unsustainable. Eapecially because there are 8 billion of us.

Good on you for doing altruistic actions! Love seeing that in other people too :)

I don't need an advertisement for meat I'm going to eat it regardless. The only thing that scares me are the zealots that would try to ban it all together.

I'd ignore the rule and advertise anyway.

That's a stupid rule.

Like saying you can't advertise anything.

You can make a case for almost everything being bad for the environment.

So stupid.

Dutch farmers are already protesting regulations to try and put them out of business. This is more salt in the wound.

At some point people will realize, they are unsustainable.

Just let them starve easy.

Thanks and yeah. I lead by example and hopefully get people to follow, so far, it has been pretty successful.

The dangers of meat, especially red and processed meats are well known. Fish are for most of the part, the only meat I can recommend people to consume from a health perspective. Even synthetic meats have been demonstrated to be healthier than real meat.

And you too! :)

Banning advertisement for junk food (which is where most of these ads are), wont make people starve, in fact, it might encourage people to eat healthier.

More meat for me.

But Maroxad knows what's best for you, even more than you do. He read something on the internet about it once.

Are you trying to imply that a Junk Food diet (mostly processed red meats) isnt tremendously unhealthy?

There *is* a reason Japan and Israel spends so much less on healthcare and still enjoy a much higher life expectancy. Part of that is a lower alcohol consumption, but there is also the fact that what they put in their mouths is considerably healthier than the Western Pattern Diet (aka SAD diet). In fact there is data suggesting that consistant consumption of Junk food kills more people than smoking does.

Edit: Some junk food occationally isnt too bad, to be fair. But at the rate we consume them here in the europe, is far from ideal. Likewise the recommended meal would depend on a person's personal health. But that doesnt change the fact that what we eat as a society is making us sick.

And read on the internet? Oh please? I am friends with 5 medical doctors. I have access to the peer reviewed papers too. Which is much better than the YouTube Nurse that gave you your COVID disinformation.