I’m not a vegan, but it’s a goal for me, and it should be for anyone who cares about climate change. People don’t want to make the personal sacrifices necessary to do it and can’t handle admitting that, so instead of saying it’s a goal that we should be working towards, we get defensive posts about vegan strawmen.
This is mainly in relation to US statistics, but I’m sure it’s applicable to most countries, if people care to look up their own numbers.
1) Combining enteric formation and manure management, animal agriculture in the US accounts for 36% of human-caused methane emissions. The comparative pound for pound impact of methane is 28x that of CO2. This information is available from the EPA. https://www.epa.gov/ghgemissions/methane-emissions
2) The US imports 3.0-4.4 billion pounds of beef annually. This information is available from the USDA. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/charts-of-note/chart-detail?chartId=111038
3) Beans and rice are cheap as fuck. Chickpeas, too. A vegan diet is on average LESS expensive than a standard American diet. https://www.pcrm.org/news/news-releases/majority-us-adults-misinformed-about-cost-eating-plant-based-diet
“a low-fat vegan diet cut food costs by 19%, or $1.80 per day, when compared with a Standard American Diet” (Kahleova et al., 2024)
“eating a vegan diet could cut consumers’ food bills by up to one-third” (Springmann et al., 2021)
“plant-based consumers spent less on food than any other consumer group” (Pais et al., 2022)
For the vast majority of people, personal preferences are preventing the switch, not finances.
4) In 2005-2016, 95% of adults in the US were deficient in at least one micronutrient (Reider et al., 2020). B12 supplements are available at Target for less than $5 a bottle.
5) Are vegans NOT advocating to end human rights abuses for farm workers? I’ve never seen someone who brings up this point give a shit outside of responding to made-up vegans online, so I do, in fact, think it’s a “gotcha.” Over 90% of US soybeans are used for animal feed (https://soygrowers.com/key-issues-initiatives/key-issues/other/animal-ag/). Farm workers are already growing and harvesting soybeans, they’re just being fed to animals that are then processed by another set of workers, who happen to be subject to higher rates of mental health issues than the general population (Slade et al., 2021).
6) Considering again that >90% of soybeans go toward animal feed, land use (e.g., not all places can sustain crops) is not a valid argument outside of a few specific biomes. Other land is already being used, and the crops are being indirectly imported as animal feed, we’re just using additional significant amounts of land for animal agriculture.
7) A short supply chain is good, but we should be working towards a short supply chain without animal products, which is ideal for all the reasons above.
I have to go to work, but here are a couple more resources on environmental impacts:
Livestock production drives 14–18% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Learn how meat affects climate, water, and biodiversity — and what so
Most cultures in the world have embraced a meat-eating lifestyle, as has been the case since agriculture became a prominent food supply thou
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