One of these days I'm really gonna have to tackle editing the wikipedia pages for climate change and the Holocene extinction, because there is some really questionable shit on there
I'm sorry but if you don't mention or discuss capitalism and colonialism at all as causes of global extinctions and biodiversity loss, your argument is intellectually dishonest to the point of malice
I'm starting to get really weirded out by how hard "plant-based diets" are being pushed as The one and only solution to biodiversity loss
Like I hear "meat production" referenced as THE main cause of mass extinctions worldwide constantly now, but when you look at the data being cited, it's specifically beef that's causing destructive changes in land use, and the impacts it's having don't explain a lot of the biodiversity loss that's happening.
Meanwhile things like palm oil plantations and insecticides are barely mentioned, and when the impacts of plant agriculture are referenced, it's in a weirdly evasive way. Like...the wikipedia articles use "intensive agriculture" "factory farming" "meat production" almost as synonyms and then when the impacts of something like insecticide use are being discussed, it references it using something vague like "intensive agriculture"
And the solution is always, always, always "individuals should change their diets" like it's this very neatly defined matter of individual choice
Plant agriculture in the USA is on the brink of collapse and is causing enormous amounts of pollution, obliterating topsoil, killing insects in mass numbers, but no one shuts up about the cows long enough to mention it.
The vast amount of land being used to farm cattle is a nightmare, but "switch to a plant based diet" is like, 15% of a solution.
I like vegans and vegetarians because, whatever happens, when we fix our food system the volume of meat in the western diet is just going to have to drop significantly, at least for most of us in most places (always context). So it's really great that the plant based stuff is taking off at the moment.
But it is definitely telling when people just sort of... stop there. Like everyone has a limited amount of energy, you can't do everything, but you also can't keep the activism you're focused on in a silo with no connections to all the other vital work that needs doing. that's just got real strong "not expecting to actually succeed" vibes idk