Why Veganism destroys the planet
Your new-found love for quinoa means higher prices for South America’s staple food. Locals can no longer afford the quinoa you’re tossing into your rainbow salad.
Haven’t you heard of Mexico’s ‘Blood Avocados’? The 200 million avocados shipped to America every year. That’s right, to fuel your morning smoothie. Besides, what’s movie night without guacamole?
While avocados help your diet, it doesn’t help Mexican farmers who pay extortion money to drug cartels cashing in on the craze.
Your love for palm oil over butter to save cows costs us our forests. And over-harvesting destroys the very habitat that keeps animals, insects and the entire ecosystem ticking.
It’s for the same reason, soy and maize fields are criticized the world over. Over-farming strips the soil of nutrients. How do you correct that? Add fertilizers which then flood our lakes, rivers, and oceans killing the fish you’re trying to save.
How are factory-farmed meat and dairy any different from over-farmed fields of soy and maize? It’s the same thing.
What we should do is eat far less meat, way less than we currently consume. The human body does not need 222 pounds of meat a year. And yes, we should put a stop to industrialized grain-fed meat production.
Abstinence is not the answer. In fact, the odd grass-fed steak may help save the planet, after all.
Western demand for Quinoa is not pricing out locals, this myth was based on a single, unsourced article and has been thoroughly debunked several times. See my own (sourced) article on the topic.
The soy argument, again, has been debunked many, many times. Again, see my article on the topic.
Pointing to palm oil and avocados is a complete fallacy for the exact same reason as “but soy/quinoa” tho. Laying the blame for the consumption of palm oil and avocados at the feet of the tiny minority of vegans rather than the billions of meat eaters eating both (as well as meat) is bizarre and transparently self-serving. This is a problem with capitalism, not veganism.
No informed vegan is claiming that our diet is completely devoid of harm, but this entire argument is one giant tu quoque fallacy. That our diet lifestyle is not perfect is obvious, and it is also not a valid defence for eating animals.
If you want to talk about industries “destroying the planet” though, we can absolutely do that. Even the most conservative estimates hold that animal agriculture is responsible for 14% of all human caused greenhouse emissions, with the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation estimating as high as 18%. According to even the lowest of these estimates, this means that animal agriculture accounts for more greenhouse emissions than the combined total of every car, plane and other form of transport put together. In case it isn’t obvious, it’s also more destructive than soy, avacados, quinoa and palm oil put together, as well.
