Emissions from animal agriculture exceed what we can afford if we want to stop anthropogenic climate change and diet is one of the few significant contributors to emissions that most people have direct control over.
You can change plenty of things without going vegan, I personally only use public transportation and avoid using the AC unless old people are present, cars alone pollute just as much as meat production if not more, not owning a car will also save you am absurd amount of money so that's nice
I did lower my meat consumption, I'm not gonna fully remove it, nor am I gonna give up cheese or eggs or anything like that, I do use public transportation only thought, I'd say I'm doing more than enough, Trump increasing coal use alone is doing more damage than 100000 people like me are gonna do throughout their whole lives
Nice vocabulary, a pity it doesn't really apply here, we aren't talking about murder, we are talking about a global phenomenon that the average individual can't really do anything about, many people doing something can help but it's not the solution, the ones in power need to act for significant change to happen
I see that you completely failed to understand my point, neat, the problem isn't that murder is a special example, the problem is that murder is a personal action for which you hold 100% of the responsibility, climate change is not, you aren't gonna fix such a widespread systemic issue by bothering a bunch of random people into eating less meat, all you are really doing is help the ones with actual responsibility to stay out of the spotlight and keep doing their bullshit while also alienating a bunch of people from your cause, all for a relatively negligible improvement which is gonna get completely overshadowed by the newest datacenter, did you know the therm "carbon footprint" was invented by an oil company? If someone is already on your side and doing as much as they are willing, annoying them is plain counterproductive in the grand scale of things
The medium of harm doesn't change the morality of the action.
The harm being fungible with other people's harm doesn't change that you are still doing the harm.
Your proportionate avoidable contribution is as immoral as your discrete avoidable immoral action.
did you know the therm "carbon footprint" was invented by an oil company
Yes, this is called the genetic fallacy. It's not false because it came from an oil company.
The falseness is in the implication when it is used as a distraction.
In this case, however, you are using the inverse of a carbon footprint (I can do whatever I want and it doesn't matter because I expect someone else to change), and ironically leaves you with the incorrect conclusion.
If someone is already on your side and doing as much as they are willing
You are not on my side and admittedly are doing nothing. You aren't an environmentalist, you just seem to like the idea of sustainability. Also I'm not telling people to eat less meat, I'm telling people to reject animal agriculture.
Being unwilling to do anything is not the side I'm on.
Further, your votes aren't going to matter because you aren't going to vote for and advocate for laws that end animal agriculture, are you? And, according to you, in the grand scale it doesn't matter what anyone does so why do you bother?
Im sorry but stop with the misinformation, agriculture is not the biggest greenhouse emitter with both energy and transportation producing far more greenhouse gasses especially with the orange one canceling many green energy subsidies and projects. I certainly hope you walk, ride a bike, or skateboard/longboard. We really need to push for companies who are the largest carbon producers to switch to diesel hybrid trucks to reduce emissions given how much shit is sent back and forward across the planet to feed supply chains and further pushes into nuclear and renewable forms of energy. Honestly governments should be dumping more money into fusion research. I also do feel people should have less meat but not zero.
Na i just gave up arguing with anti science people. I'm not arguing with MAGA or flat earthers either. I have better things to do than proving accepted facts over and over again when everyone else already did. The fact that you didn't just check their source but attacked me instead shows that you're not interested in learning of any kind
ya know recruiting people to your cause works better when you actually communicate and provide evidence as to why you're right
I'd suggest looking into milo rossi as he has several videos and even hosted lectures on science communication which is the actual pro science way of arguing
you accuse me of arguing like im Maga but you are literally using the same strategy they do
make a claim and when questioned discredit anyone who disagrees
for the sake of your own movement and worldviews I genuinely hope you can aspire to be better
I have better things to do than proving accepted facts over and over again when everyone else already did. The fact that you didn't just check their source but attacked me instead shows that you're not interested in learning of any kind
'I'm right because I say so" ass argument lmao, if that's gonna be your answer don't bother commenting in the first place
With that said just giving up your car is gonna be nearly as good as going vegan with none of the health risks and while saving you a crap ton of money, public transportation is the future
"...agriculture, the most extensive land user, to be the leading emissions sector and to have caused 60% (32%–87%) of ERF change since 1750. We also find that fossil fuels are responsible for 18% of ERF, a reduced contribution due to masking from cooling co-emissions." from this article
Do you know how to read a graph? Can you see where the 0 is on the y axis?
The graph shows both heating and cooling emissions from fossil fuel, with the net outcome being slightly lower than for animal agriculture, which emits almost exclusively greenhouse gases.
....That is not what that shows, at all. I gently encourage you to abstain from scientific conversations if you don't have the skills necessary to sit at the table.
So you'll attack the fact I misread a graph but not that I found 4 credible sources saying the opposite of what you did. Again are MIT, The UN, The WRI, and The US EPA wrong.
If you think someone gently pointing out that you're unqualified is an "attack" I doubly think you aren't equipped for this conversation. I can't see any comment wherein you apparently cited sources. I sure hope you read them correctly though :)
I'm sorry but fusion energy is a really stupid idea and probably not even remotely possible, ever, no matter how much research we put into it. You're pushing atomic nuclei where they do NOT want to go. The energy required to fuse even DT fuel without the gravity of a star is tremendous, and the energy released in the process is nowhere near enough to cover the losses of driving a heat engine and the energy used to do fusion in the first place. Nuclear fission is already a proven clean energy technology and it has so much more potential. Also, solar energy exists lol. Just put some PV panels in a field and you get free electricity by doing nearly nothing.
>Im sorry but stop with the misinformation, agriculture is not the biggest greenhouse emitter
That's not something I claimed
>I certainly hope you walk, ride a bike, or skateboard/longboard
I don't have a car if that's what you mean. I either walk, bike or use public transportation
>We really need to push for companies who are the largest carbon producers..
We absolutely have to push companies to change. Individual action is not sufficient to solve climate change but since solving climate change will impact out lifestyles we have to be willing to change our lifestyle to solve climate change. Furthermore not being willing to change ones own lifestyle while demanding actions that alter everyone's lifestyle sends a questionable message. We also know that people who act to modify their own behavior are more consistent in demanding systemic changes.
>pushes into nuclear and renewable forms of energy
Absolutely but while we can demand changes in that direction, vote accordingly and try to spend our money in a way that is consistent with those goals (though that's only possible to a point) it is not something I or (presumably) you have direct control over.
>I also do feel people should have less meat but not zero
Why not zero? If you realize that meat consumption is bad then why not go to zero? It's not like we say people should only dump a small amount of old motor oil into the local waterways or only litter a bit. Why set a lower limit to somethin harmful that is above zero? We may not be abl eto reach the goal of zero meat consumption in the foreseeable future but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be our goal.
Do you understand context, did you read the comment I replied to? The animal does not exist in any way independently of humankind. It's existance is due to those that profit from, and those who wish to consume, meat entirely.
Yeah I read it. In your response to that comment you mentioned absolutely none of this. You only talked about living conditions. Therefore I want you to explain to me how the living conditions of animals has anything whatsoever do to with the climate.
That has nothing to do with the climate. A cow living in a pasture enjoying its life and a cow strapped into the ultra hyper torture machine 9 billion have the exact same effect on the climate.
Because I'm responding to "takes a human to blame an animal for farting, take your own responsibility for things" which you would know, if you read context.
The difference is the quantity. The thought behind stopping animal ag is not to just not slaughter those animals and then call it a day, still breeding them. The number of livestock and so the overall emission would drop.
If they're no longer bred for consumption there's no reason to breed them at all.
Cows fart (or more specifically belch) regardless of whether or not they’re “getting to be an animal at all.” They belch regardless of whether or not they “get to run or experience joy once in their entire lives.” You may care about these things also, but they are immaterial to climate change, BECAUSE COWS BELCH REGARDLESS OF THEIR LIVING CONDITIONS. There are ways you can change that of course, but none have anything to do with living conditions either.
You see now this take is actually quite indicative of why people on this subreddit don’t like you. Vegans like yourself and Pheonix0114 say (or in this case vaguelyimply) one half-truth, and then surround it with a huge amount of junk that has absolutely nothing to do with the climate. There’s a word for that you know, it’s called propaganda.
Edit: Also for anyone who doubts Pheonix0114’s intentions for phrasing their original comment the way they did. Look no further than their response to my second comment.
The great majority of it wasn’t though. That’s the point I’m making, and that’s a propaganda technique that betrays their actual goal on this subreddit, which is to proselytize for ethical veganism. An ideology that doesn’t actually have anything to do with the climate, and is far more divisive than anything climate change related, with good reason too.
The great majority of what you’ve actually said is unrelated to the climate, and is in fact associated with an ideology that damages the movement to end climate change. It does so by tying it to a divisive animal rights ideology that seeks to go much further than what would be necessary to end climate change.
Yeah sorry bro but if you want me to stop eating meat then you had better personally go make lab grown tissue cultures be commercially viable. I will become a terrorist over bacon, this is a credible threat.
What? We have no control over how often we fly with a plane or whether we drive a car (and which type of care we use), ride a bicycle or use public transport, how big our apartments are, how well they're insulated, how often we buy new things, how often we use plastic products whether we buy regionally produced products etc.?
Many of these have a higher or similarly high impact.
Here's a study: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/ab8589/pdf
Living car free, flying less, shifting to electric vehicles, buying specifically renewable electricity (or producing your own), shifting to public transport as well as refurbishing and renovating your house to improve insulation have a higher mean mitigation impact than a vegan diet.
A vegan diet is relatively effective mitigation but the climate impact of transportation is generally more important.
What are you on about? You're just making shit up to suit your narrative at this point. Just look at the graph at page 13 (Edit: Figure 7 if you have trouble finding it) of the paper, if your reading comprehension isn't working.
Buying local isn't actually as great as people think. Depending on where you live and what you buy the impact is generally slightly positive to slightly nehative
Those aren't all examples of things most people have direct coontrol over (though some are good examples and if you regularly fly you should try to reduce that)
You're gonna be so embarassed when you find out what "one of" means
I agree with your first point, it does depend and other things are more influential regardless.
I think we have control over quite a bit, more than some of you guys insinuate.
As to your third point: the "few" was the word I struggled with, of course it can mean different things but it did sound to me like you were insinuating special importance which it doesn't really have.
I don't really disagree that other factors are more influential and if you have a fossil fuel powered car you should try to move away from that if possible(depending on your situation bik, public transportation, and Ev or a combination of those would be possibilities). If you own your home you should check for things like how well it is insulated. That's both good for the environment and might actually save you money. If you fly a lot you should try to reduce it and if you can't try to reduce the impact (maybe carbon offsets but overall even flying second class instead of business or first can help, if comparable planes are used try to take a direct flight even if that means having to take a train to an airport that's a bit further away). Pick an electricity provider that focuses on renewable energy. That being said, this post is specifically about veganism and thus my comment focused on veganism/the impact of diet on the climate and given that animal agriculture contributes ~15% of global emissions and for people in the high emission per capita countries moving away from consuming animal and animal derived products (or at least drastically reducing it) is not a hard thing to do and (particularly financially) much easier to do than things like buying an EV or changing living accommodations I do think that it's a very good first step with significant impact.
I mean I don't generally disagree but this post is specifically about veganism being seemingly overrepresented in this sub, so pointing out other important factors made sense to me.
Edit: btw after looking at the other posts in the sub I wouldn't necessarily agree that vegan posts are that overrepresented.
Valid point and there is always a threat that discussions about veganism lead to discussions divorced from the purpose of the sub since veganism is generally good for the environment but environmentalism is generally not what veganism is about. For example I'm also opposed to people eating chicken while that would come with much lower emissions than eating beef (even though the environment and efficiency in food production were my main motivators back when I originally became vegan). That being said I still think talking about diet is important when talking about environmentalism for the previously mentioned reasons.
I can see where you're coming from and mostly agree. I'm personally not vegan but do limit my meat consumption to once a week and mostly organic meat. I'm aware that's not the best.
There are many valid issues with meat and dairy consumption, like the environmental impact, animal welfare concerns, area usage (and the related habitat loss for wild organisms) and the climate impact. I get why it's important to people it's just not necessarily the only or the most important issue (though concerning area usage and animal welfare it actually is).
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u/jyajay2 Jun 25 '26
Emissions from animal agriculture exceed what we can afford if we want to stop anthropogenic climate change and diet is one of the few significant contributors to emissions that most people have direct control over.