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this post was submitted on 19 Feb 2024
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The memes of the climate
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Veganism isn't better for the environment than significantly reducing the total amount of consumed meat. Animals play an important, difficult-to-replace role in making agriculture sustainable. Animals can be herded on land that's difficult to farm on, animals can consume parts of farmed plants that humans cannot, and animals produce products that humans cannot replicate without significantly more work.
Edit: I see a bunch of vegans who aren't really engaging with the argument. To be clear, anyone who makes statements about how things are right now to try to disprove this is probably arguing in bad faith. I'm not responding to comments anymore because, while it's entirely possible that I'm wrong, y'all aren't making any good points.
Furthermore, I'm not anti-vegan, but now I'm tempted to be. So many people I've engaged with have displayed all of the worst vegan stereotypes I've heard about. I've always assumed it was chuds making shit up, but no I just hadn't met any of the terminally online creeps in the vegan community yet OMFG.
Veganism is good for climate, biodiversity, health and animal welfare. We really don't need to eat animals or animal products to have good meal and live a happy life. The good thing is that humans are omnivores, with a free choice of what to eat. Please choose wisely, not only for your own mental and physical health, but also for others, living now as well as in years to come.
Not everyone can eat a pure vegan diet. We are omnivores. We don't get to pick, we must eat it all to stay healthy.
So do it. While some people would argue vefpganism is ideal, the important part is “less meat”, especially less beef. I’d give kudos to anyone who eats one less beef meal per week: chicken is much easier in the environment than beef, or ne less meat meal,
The word Ideal is very generic. Ideal to who? What is ideal? Your health? The climate? Your bowel movement?
Meat contributes a ton of CO2. 15% of global output in just beef alone. Pork and Chicken is better.
Instead of pickering over words we could just acknowledge the underlying facts.
Those who can, and most people in western industrialized countries can, should reduce their meat consumption. For most of them veganism is a viable option, especially as there is easy access to doctors checking as well as supplements if there is difficulties.
There is no intrinsic need for animal protein or fats for a healthy diet.
The reduction of meat or even the total mandatory switch to all vegan diet won't stop climate change since it's such a small % in the total carbon footprint compared to our energy needs.
Your tribalism thoughts should be better focused on things like our need for clean energy like nuclear and solar.
I am neither vegan nor vegetarian, nor do i propose a mandatory switch to such diets. I also don't mind people who primarily eat meat, as they are still traditional herders or hunters like in Central Asia or parts of Africa. But you know what these people don't do? Fly on vacation twice a year, go on cruises, drive 20.000 km or more a year, consume 5 MWh of electricity per person and year...
The current way of animal farming with the current meat consumption results in about 10-17% of global GHG emissions. That is about the same emissions like all road traffic.
And unlike cars, where you could reduce the emissions effectively by using EVs, you simply cannot change a cow from emititting substantial amounts of methane, and the effects of the land conversion necessary for it's feed.
Finally the argument, that X source of emission would be irrelevant to target since it is so small on the global scale is the prime whataboutism argument to not adress any emissions. "Oh our country is only making 1% of global emissions, we don't have to change." "Oh our industry could cut emissions in half in three years, but what about the other industry?"
People in western countries eat way too much meat. Any reduction to that is good, be it by reducing your meat consumption significantly or by switching to a vegetarian or vegan diet.
Vehicle emissions are closer to 25-30% of the total emissions. The mass majority of it is in passenger/truck vehicles. https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions
I want to point out that cruises are not the problem. While it is a problem, it's not significant enough to warrant mentioning.
Aviation contributes around 2.7%. Again, it's a problem. I get it. But we need to focus the biggest polluters here first. https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-from-transport.
That is energy production. Its literally the primary problem. It's 79% of the world's pollution. Everything starts here. Focus your anger here. Talk to your local representatives about this core problem. We need cleaner energy production, like nuclear, solar, wind or whatever magic shit smart inventors comes up with. We also need better battery technology to store said energy. We needed that yesterday. https://www.wri.org/insights/interactive-chart-shows-changes-worlds-top-10-emitters
If today we banned all fossil fuels, it would *instantly *fix climate change. While changing nothing else.
Can't be said about meat production. Your effort quite literally does nothing for our climate. It's the fossil fuel industry switching the blame from them to us, the people. We are not the problem. Our diet is not the problem.
Your rhetoric only divides us. Focus on banning fossil fuels.
I am absolutely not against getting away from fossil fuels. If it was for me, we would put 5% of every countries GDP towards building renewables and updating the grid to handle them.
But while this is something that has to be done on a larger and organized scale, and while your alternatives for mobility might be limited, an easy choice for people is to eat less meat. Or at least substitute beef with lamb or chicken.
One of the difficulties of climate change is that it os a complex problem requiring many approaches at the same time. But we can and should take the approaches within our reach and demand politics to take the approaches that have to he taken on a societal level.
Food spans social, religion, race, culture, countries, regions and a ton of other things I can't think of. In your little American bubble, you probably can survive perfectly fine if you choose to be a vegan. I live in Taiwan and don't eat sugars/carbs. It's so difficult to survive here with this simple restriction and I live in a 1st world country. China is the highest producer of emissions, and they are a 3rd world country.
Sometimes it's not a simple choice to eat less meat. Maybe it's your culture to mostly consume meat. Again, even if you made everyone in the world to stop eating meat, nothing happens.
It's a complex problem. We need complex solutions. Stop focusing your efforts on non-needle moving strategies that might work in an extremely narrow use case. It will only divide us since it shifts the blame from fossil fuels to the people.
I'm not american, what are you talking about?
And quite frankly it would have tremendous impact if everyone would stop eating meat, because that accounts for about 10-20% of global ghg emissions.
I'm sorry, but it is apparent that you are not arguing in good faith, if you are so hellbend on ignoring one major source of ghg emissions. It is scientifically well established, that changes to food consumption are one of the lowest hanging fruits and the meat overconsumption in the western countries does not only harm the climate but also is detrimental to peoples health. Restricting carbs is also not a "simple restriction". It eliminates most plant based foods and then of course i understand why you are irrationally defensive against a simple statement of reducing meat consumption, since that must be your main source of nutritions.
Finally, i don't want to get too much into your beef about the one true China, but claiming China to be a third world country is not only historically incorrect as China was part of the "second world" as it is in economic terms today, since China is one of the strongest global economies and not at all comparable with countries in Subsaharan Africa or South America, that are considered "third world countries".
Everyone needs nutrients they can digest. The source doesn't matter under these conditions. Excluding rare medical cases, everyone can get all required nutrients from non-animal sources, ergo everyone can have and live a perfectly healthy life on a vegan diet.
Meat has more than just protein. It has so many micronutrients that your body needs that you would have to take a shit ton of supplements to just come close to it. Sure, you can survive without those micronutrients. But why go through all the trouble?
If you would've taken a dive into healthy vegan diets, you would know that this isn't true.
I thought we already established that in the comments here.
I don't understand veganism enough to speak about it and don't care enough to look into it. I'll take your word for it though.
Meat production is in the single digits in actual global pollution. The problem isn't our diet. The problem is the fossil fuel industry which contributes to 79+% of the world's pollution. If I had a light switch that can turn off all meat production, nothing would change. If I did the same for fossil fuels, it would instantly stop climate change.
Focus on who the enemy is here. It's not us, the people. It's the fossil fuel industry. Demand change from your government. We need clean energy from things like nuclear, solar, wind and whatever new innovation comes from government investments.
https://www.wri.org/insights/interactive-chart-shows-changes-worlds-top-10-emitters#:~:text=Since%20reporting%20began%20in%201990%2C%20the%20energy%20sector,sector%2C%20representing%2076%25%20of%20global%20emissions%20in%202019.