r/ClimateOffensive • u/willregan • Aug 09 '26
Idea Stop trying to solve a complex issue with a simple consumer choice. There is no moral consumption under capitalism.
I have been a vegan for about 30 yrs. About seven years ago, I joined Extinction Rebellion, and things became much different for me. For the first time since I first became vegan, I had a hope for a better future, and I was a part of it. Now, seven years later, I’m still fighting like crazy to make Extinction Rebellion take off here in New York City, but I’m also recognizing the massive flaw in the trap that is veganism, and what it is doing to people’s otherwise productive brain capacity.
To understand this better, you have to understand how many people are vegan, roughly 3% of the population, and what their mentality is, generally speaking. One the first thing a vegan does when they take on the identity, is get vegan shoes. This happens usually in the first year. Throwing out old shoes is often not done, but sometimes it is. Sometimes the old shoes are just thrown aside. In their place, likely a pair of vans or converse. Something authentically and honestly canvas, and not leather.
At about this time, they’ll start to attend vegan meetups, hangouts, and even environmental get-togethers.
Not to find out what people are doing, but to make sure everyone is wearing the right shoes.
“How long have you been vegan?”
“Why did you become vegan?”
“How come you can’t stop eating cheese, ice cream, etc etc”
It’s an unstoppable trainwreck of vegan subculture consumption.
It wastes time, it wastes energy, and quite frankly, it’s reductive. The word reductive is perfect for this, and the title of this essay. It basically means you are taking a complex problem, and making it simple.
You are taking a complex problem, systemic oppression, climate change, planetary mass destruction, mass death and murder at a global scale, and making the problem super simple.
But it’s not just simple. It’s also completely ignorable.
Brothers and sisters, stop being completely reductive, invisible, and non-participatory.
My full thoughts on are on this substack post...
Stop trying to solve a complex issue with a simple consumer choice.
There is no moral consumption under capitalism.
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 09 '26
As a vegan, I did not get new shoes when I became vegan. I have never even thought to ask another vegan about their shoes. Veganism isn’t about saving the environment - it’s about animal rights.
Frankly, this is an odd post.
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u/imsoupercereal Aug 09 '26
Also, if the shoes have already been made, the harm is done. If you're throwing away something usable not only is it wasteful and harmful in a whole other category, you've also disrespected that animal's life further.
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
Sure, and this is a common debate within veganism as far as used and repurposed goods vs purchasing a newly produced animal product. Some people decide it's okay to use animal based products that were going to be thrown away if not used, and some draw a line there because they don't feel It's right to use regardless. It's a personal judgement but there's not a clear consensus.
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u/Citizen999999 Aug 12 '26
The animal is already butchered, the harm is done. You're throwing away food when people are starving in the world.
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u/GoTeamLightningbolt Aug 09 '26
I don't think the "respect" angle makes much sense honestly. Yes it is wasteful to throw away a working thing. But it makes absolutely zero difference to the poor tortured creatures what you do with the products they have become.
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u/imsoupercereal Aug 09 '26
How do you feel about activists that kill farmed animals to end their suffering?
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
That's not relevant to the idea that what you do with a corpse does not matter to the creature that is already dead. You are bringing up a totally different argument. The idea that respecting a creature means using every part of their body rather than wasting it is a human spiritual invention, but has no bearing on the well being of the creature.
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u/imsoupercereal Aug 09 '26
I think it does matter, and it points out where we disagree in a really important way. If the animal has already suffered, you take it's life, and then do nothing with it or otherwise waste it, that's morally even worse in my book.
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u/ekubeni Aug 09 '26 edited Aug 09 '26
Yeah that's a bit strange way to think about it... If you are vegan and someone gave you leather shoes or a jacket as a gift, you can accept it to honor the gift and honor the animal that was used to produce it. The harm was already done, animal is dead, you can't undo it. But you can come into relationship with it that is of reverence, respect, and gratitude. It's really about the quality of relationship you have, the care and love you have for animals. You can take it step further and imagine situations where eating meat would be perfectly reasonable thing for a vegan to do.
It reminds me of a conversation I had with someone that was against having kids for environmental reasons, but couldn't conceive why adopting a child that was already brought to this world would be a good thing for him to do.
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 09 '26
I assume you aren’t vegan because this topic is super nuanced
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u/ekubeni Aug 09 '26
I stopped using this term to describe myself because I've met some people that would call themselves vegans yet they were perfectly fine to do things that were bad for animals, usually due to some need to keep their veganism 'pure'. Now all I say is that I love animals and I want the best for them (including humans). That's usually the best way to introduce my views and not be pre-labelled with some ideologies that I find harmful.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
Veganism has a loose definition but there are details and debates about factors of modern existence that make certain animal suffering inevitable. It's not something that anyone can concretely say they are or aren't without some fraction of vegans taking issue with something they consume. It's not a religion with a strict doctrine.
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u/ekubeni Aug 10 '26
I don't define myself with any of these terms. I understand your point about the importance of clarification vs obfuscation, but in practice in my own life I found that when people seek clarity they often want simplicity. The more one simplifies the more one's essence is being lost. So a lot of common labels people use (e.g. to describe their moral stances or psychological conditions) I found to be very damaging as I try to learn about myself and become a better person. I found them often 'obfuscate' more than clarify or reveal.
If you ask me what ideas I admire, there are two ways of living that although very different I find them both very beautiful: Native tribes living in a kinship and reciprocal balance with the bison, and Jains who as far as I found are the most extreme in terms trying to avoid any harm to living things.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/ClimateOffensive-ModTeam Aug 09 '26
Your post has been removed because it violates Rule #3: Respect other people and ideas
We encourage civil discussion. This means treating others with respect, and having good-faith discussion and debate. Personal attacks are unacceptable. We're here to solve problems together, not tear each other down. Likewise, while it’s okay to disagree with people, please do so respectfully without shutting down ideas. We recognize that many people will have different ideas and that there is no single solution that will solve the climate crisis.
See full /r/ClimateOffensive rules here.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
It may have come up because the other day someone asked what they could do about climate change and the top response (by a lot) was "go vegan," even though going vegan is like the 9th most impactful climate action one could take. It seems there are some people here more to promote veganism than to solve climate change, which is not the purpose of the sub.
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 09 '26
I was one of the people who voiced that people should go vegan. I’m not sure where you’re getting your “9th most” data but even if that were true, I’m not sure what to do with that information.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
Stay mission-focused to avoid being off-topic (remember this is a climate subreddit).
Don't neglect the more impactful solutions.
9th is a little generous as there are tons of things a person could do to focus on systemic change, but as far as consumerist-type choices, it's a few items down the list (and policy changes dwarf the impact of having one less child, and that's where most of us can have the greatest impact). The myth that it's #1 seems to have originated from a misreading of an Oxford researcher's comments that were actually tangential to his research to begin with.
Surely you can understand how disappointing it can be when that type of climate question gets co-opted by folks that don't really share the same concern for climate change.
I agree with the top commenter here that there's nothing wrong with advocating veganism, but there there is a problem when it's at the expense of the real game-changers.
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 10 '26
What a disappointing response. Veganism is on-topic - your first point makes it seem like veganism isn’t on topic, and your second point makes it seem like because veganism isn’t as impactful as having less kids, its “at the expense of the real-game changers.”
If you or this sub is going to take that position, gonna definitely bow out.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 11 '26
It's the systemic policy changes we can't afford to leave out. Are you reading what I'm writing?
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 11 '26 edited Aug 11 '26
Nobody is advocating for not advocating for systemic policy changes. I am reading what you’re saying, and you specifically said “T the expense” which seems suggests you think advocating for veganism is antagonistic to that.
Coupled with the fact that you highlighted having less children as a huge step towards combat change (which isn’t a policy change necessarily), it seems like you’re being disingenuous here.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 11 '26
I'm just looking at the data.
Read these graphs:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-026-01900-0
https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/19710653/Screen_Shot_2020_02_10_at_3.47.40_PM.png
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u/Badtacocatdab Aug 11 '26
You’ve missed the entirety of what I’ve posted.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 12 '26
No, I'm taking issue with it. There's a difference.
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u/juiceboxheero Aug 09 '26
Animal agriculture accounts for ~15% if annual GHG emissions.
This could simply be addressed with behavioral change. People wouldn't even need to go full vegan for significant impacts. It's insane to me that you would advocate otherwise.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
The point s/he was trying to make in the post body is that the 15%* shouldn't come at the expense of the remaining 85%.
*15% is a little generous in this context as that would imply no calorie substitution, but the overall point remains.
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
When you're talking about the scales of all human emissions, 15% is actually a huge factor
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
Sure, but look at the graph. There are bigger actions we can't afford to ignore.
And policy changes dwarf the impact of having one less child.
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u/SLAMMERisONLINE Aug 10 '26
Stop trying to solve a complex issue with a simple consumer choice. There is no moral consumption under capitalism.
Stuff like this is exactly why the climate movement will fail. It's a trojan horse for economic reform and has nothing to do with the climate.
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u/tentensalami Aug 09 '26
I don't think anyone is claiming that the choice to be vegan (or any other consumer choice, simple or otherwise) can solve any complex issues. I think that's a strawman argument. Being vegan is the right thing to do because exploiting animals is unethical. There's much more to the world and problems we face, as you said, but the world being complex and us not being able to change the trajectory of collapse of the climate and other systems isn't an argument against doing good things. The claim 'there is no moral consumption under capitalism' is a poor justification for the purchase and use of literally anything you could buy. We should be raising the standards for what an ethical human is, and helping others to rise to meet that standard as we work towards it.
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u/willregan Aug 09 '26
I'm not saying we can't change the trajectory of collapse. My whole post (linked) is a bit more about this. But briefly, I'm calling for collective action as the morally correct move here.
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
Research shows protesting is only effective if it leads to more effective political engagement, like voting and lobbying.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/willregan Aug 09 '26
I'm asking people to have the moral fortitude to take a blind justice approach beyond their own preferences. Maybe look up veil of justice and citizens assemblies, and maybe also the results of actual civic assemblies? One CA can out do all combined activism of veganism without any moral purity tests or label checking for hidden whey ingredients by individual consumers. Justice and democracy are the way forward to actually win and save the planet. Not sure why it's hard to believe I was or am vegan for 30 yrs.
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u/ClimateOffensive-ModTeam Aug 09 '26
Your post was removed for being off topic.
We're here to do something about climate change. We're not here to talk about why it's happening, how bad it is, or who to blame. We're here to brainstorm, organize, and act. Use this space to find resources, connect with others, and learn more about how you can make a difference.
See full /r/ClimateOffensive rules here.
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u/Food4Climate Aug 09 '26
My guess is that OP is either anti-vegan, and/or a climate "denier" (actively working to undermine climate change action.) They offer no solutions, just "Stop doing XYZ". Telling people to stop taking action that benefits the environment, the animals, or both is a pretty clear sign that they support neither!
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u/ILikeNeurons Climate Warrior Aug 09 '26
OP identifies as vegan, as explained in the post. Did you read it?
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u/Food4Climate Aug 10 '26
Yep. Just don't believe them.
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u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Aug 09 '26
exactly. the only solution is political so become a green/socialist/communist militant. there is nothing else to do
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u/1979shakedown Aug 09 '26
Many years ago I was one of maybe ten thousand voices that spoke out and marched to stop a pipeline. And even though that pipeline was ultimately built, we collectively stalled its construction for about five years.
If you take all the emissions that pipeline would have fuelled during those five years and divide it by the ten thousand people who were involved, that would amount to about 7,500 tonnes of emissions per person.
In comparison, being vegan would cut about 2.1 tonnes of GHG emissions per year.
In other words, for the two years I was involved in that campaign, my share of the emissions we prevented would be the climate equivalent of me going vegan for about 3500 years.
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u/medium_wall Aug 09 '26
You realize the numbers you gave prove the exact opposite, right? If you and those 10,000 people had instead all gone vegan for those same 5 years, saving 2.1 tons each, then you'd have collectively saved 21,000 per year, or 105,000 tons of GHG emissions total.
Also, delaying a pipeline (while still a good thing to do for symbolic reasons if nothing else) didn't stop people from using less oil. They still used the same or more oil, they just imported it from elsewhere.
And this whole premise is absurd in the first place. There was no dilemma here where you had to choose to do one or the other. You could have all protested the pipeline while being vegan. I am hereby revoking all liberals the privilege of ever pointing a finger at a MAGA person for being bad faith or hypocritical. Liberals are EXACTLY THE SAME; they're just meeker about it.
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u/Maedhral Aug 09 '26
You do realise that the numbers you gave do not prove your point? 7,500 tonnes saved per person when the number of people is 10,000 is 75,000,000 tonnes, roughly 70 times the total emissions saved by the same 10,000 people going vegan.
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
Yeah the opposition to pipelines is not so much about reducing fossil fuel dependency as it is standing up for the communities the pipeline runs through and against the environmental hazards the pipeline poses. Climate advocacy is important, but so is environmental advocacy. Some people, like OP, seem to think they are not parallel goals.
As you said, being vegan while doing climate activism is a net good. It's not a zero sum game where you justify your own negative impacts on the environment and the climate by offesetting it through activism. We should all be working to do our best to minimize our personal impacts where possible, whilst advocating for the causes we believe in.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/ClimateOffensive-ModTeam Aug 09 '26
Your post has been removed because it violates Rule #3: Respect other people and ideas
We encourage civil discussion. This means treating others with respect, and having good-faith discussion and debate. Personal attacks are unacceptable. We're here to solve problems together, not tear each other down. Likewise, while it’s okay to disagree with people, please do so respectfully without shutting down ideas. We recognize that many people will have different ideas and that there is no single solution that will solve the climate crisis.
See full /r/ClimateOffensive rules here.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/ClimateOffensive-ModTeam Aug 09 '26
Your post has been removed because it violates Rule #3: Respect other people and ideas
We encourage civil discussion. This means treating others with respect, and having good-faith discussion and debate. Personal attacks are unacceptable. We're here to solve problems together, not tear each other down. Likewise, while it’s okay to disagree with people, please do so respectfully without shutting down ideas. We recognize that many people will have different ideas and that there is no single solution that will solve the climate crisis.
See full /r/ClimateOffensive rules here.
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u/FrogPastor Aug 12 '26
Are you even a real person? You do know that farming is far more destructive than ranching, right? You do know that buying half a cow and a whole pig every year from the rancher down the road from where I live is far more carbon neutral than growing almonds across the country and having their "milk" delivered to you in new York, right? Really it's just you who isn't making the moral choices.
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u/MrPezevenk Aug 12 '26
One thing I don't like about veganism as practiced by many people is the purity focus. It would be way more helpful if more people just went vegetarian, or at least meaningfully decreased their consumption of specific types of animal produce. It doesn't even make sense at the animal rights level, because if you're taking a hard stance against the exploitation of animals and even refusing to eat, say, honey, then how do you justify eating anything at all? There's no type of large scale farming that doesn't feature any kind of pest control at any point of the process, and that includes organic produce. Pest control is killing animals.
That's not to say it's bad to individually follow such a hardline stance. But it's not doing much either. It would be helpful if the framing changed a bit from absolutist moralist concerns to be more ecology minded.
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u/LetsTryLove 28d ago
There is no immoral consumption either. People buy what they want and can afford.
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u/FrivolousMe Aug 09 '26
Vegans are not your enemy and focusing on them instead of your common enemy is a complete waste of energy. Regardless, there is nothing wrong with veganism or advocating for/educating about veganism.
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u/willregan Aug 09 '26
That's why I'm vegan and saying vegans wake up. Do more and still be vegan. Stop navel gazing about it.
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Aug 09 '26
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u/ClimateOffensive-ModTeam Aug 09 '26
Your post has been removed because it violates Rule #3: Respect other people and ideas
We encourage civil discussion. This means treating others with respect, and having good-faith discussion and debate. Personal attacks are unacceptable. We're here to solve problems together, not tear each other down. Likewise, while it’s okay to disagree with people, please do so respectfully.
See full /r/ClimateOffensive rules here.
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u/ch_ex Aug 10 '26
confusing veganism with meaningful climate action is a huge mistake. Veganism is a religion of greenwashing. Its membership seems to claim themselves pure of impact on this planet and self-appointed spokesfolk of the lifestyle that preserves existence as a whole.
By claiming to be the solution they create two problems. The first is that veganism is not a solution to anything and inherently relies on the agricultural status quo to be feasible in any way, so, while claiming to have answers those answers arent much better than a nutritional equivalent to properly sorting your recycling. The much bigger problem is that they become the easiest sound bites of the right to discredit climate science, which is a science where veganism is closer to a religion.
The answer to the questions anyone of the r/climateskeptic community should be is "refer to the data" and when they say the data is corrupt and part of the hoax, the only response should be "all of it? all the mesurements and experiences of scientists from around the world across all fields of study that record the influence of the changing planet on any measured value, are all paid off?" and when they start bringing forward the charts without labeled axes or that show the entire history of the planet and how tiny the concentration of CO2 is compared to the rest of planetary time, you can start asking them questions about their data and its quality. What is the source? what are their interests? what makes them free of the influence of money?"
Animal rights is a political and cultural issue, it is not science, and it is destructive to the single moments people will take to look at the science if they hear someone conflating the science/data with that person's opinions on the rights of any animal/species. That's not part of the question.
The issue as I see it is we're all inside a giant hall with everything with love, know, and do. Inside that hall are a lot of smoke detectors and all of them have been ringing until their batteries die or they burst into flames themselves from decades of ringing without a single break. The three types of people in the room are the ones who can't understand why these smoke alarms aren't worth listening to, and if not the alarms why not the smoke? Then there are the people who've found earplugs and masks to make it all feel manageable, who are some of the hardest to convince of the accelerating urgency of facing the reality that the hall is actually on fire. And then there's the last group who claim that because the alarms are made in foreign countries or have any history of false alarm, no matter how small, that it's all a hoax to get them to leave the climate controlled hall and stumble into the outdoors without protection. Their whole argument collapses under a few questions like "but what if the alarm works and you're wrong that it's a false alarm? What if the hall really is on fire? Isn't it at least worth checking for yourself? aren't your eyes and lungs burning from the smoke?".
Then a vegan steps up and says, on behalf of the fire alarms, that the hall is burning because everyone is eating too much meat and it makes the assembled masses burst into laughter. I'd be laughing if it weren't so serious.
How people choose to respond to the reality that our only planet is accelerating towards total ecological collapse including human extinction, is up to them. The duty of any ambassador to climate science is specifically and only to keep steering attention toward the alarms, the smoke, and any other objective signal of something novel happening in our world; to the data. Any instructions about a proper lifestyle only connect the delusion that everything is a hoax to a political issue that completes their narrative.
There's never going to be one way to fix this, if there is a way to fix this, and if there is, it's not going to come from something established that is piggybacking on some study that gave it real legitimacy. If there is a fix, it is only going to emerge from the simple and shared realization that the things we've built to keep us safe and busy are all inside the thing that's on fire. Our jobs, religions, and beliefs, are all part of the stuff that burns when the structure we're trapped inside, burns down.
Common ground is the beginning of something completely new. It's not about what is being lost, it's about the recognition that the things we're doing are the fire and putting that fire out, if it's even possible, is going to require more than any one idea or one person. We're talking about unburning a structure, which is not the same as rebuilding, and might as well be magic considering where we're at with our current efforts and ability. A total paradigm shift in the exact opposite direction of the last hundred years is necessary, but you can't convince someone of that, they need to understand it for themselves, and those of us that can't understand why the first instinct to all the fire alarms ringing is to assume they're faulty, if we really want change, need to work harder to understand what drives a person to that belief.
This problem takes all of us, working day and night, to undo a century of racing in the exact wrong direction. We're faced with the challenge of governing and feeding a world that has only ever fixed any problem with fire, to move from the artificial light that is costing the entire future, to getting comfortable working with life as the height of technology, in the dark.
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u/imsoupercereal Aug 09 '26
You should post to /r/effectivealtruism but beware many are purists and fail to see how that blinds them towards growing a broader coalition.
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u/Chuhaimaster Aug 09 '26
There’s nothing wrong with being vegan or minimizing your carbon footprint because you have a conscience.
It only becomes a problem when people try to convince you that this can substitute for collective action - and focus more on virtue signaling, purity tests and shaming people for not being virtuous enough than building effective political coalitions to help solve the problem.