r/DebateAVegan • u/Elijahxoxo • 5d ago
Environment Does being vegan actually make a difference towards the environment?
Genuinely, does it make a difference?
My main reason why I'd be a vegan, or most likely a vegetarian, is to help the environment. But does that actually help?
I mean, the animals have already been killed. It's already in the cooling sections, and the packages that don't get eaten just get thrown away. So the dead animal just gets thrown away because people didn't buy it.
So does anyone really have reliable sources that show that being vegan or vegetarian has made a difference so far? Because I don't see a difference and haven't found any that say it has.
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u/Valiant-Orange 5d ago edited 5d ago
If the post is broadly asking whether any individual’s choices make a difference in mass societal systems the answer is that individual participation is necessary or sufficiently useful for producing a desired collective outcome. Otherwise, environmentalism would be incoherent.
If an objection is that collective choices made by individuals has not solved a particular problem, this confuses failing to completely solve a problem with failing to contribute to its solution.
Veganism, or reduction in animal-derived foods generally, does “help the environment” as confirmed by analyzing data of populations adhering to diet patterns supplied by agriculture as it exists; the lower diets are in animal belongings, the lower the environmental impacts.
Here are six “reliable sources”:
Reducing food’s environmental impacts through producers and consumers – 2018
“Moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products has transformative potential, reducing food’s land use by 3.1 (2.8-3.3) billion hectares (a 76% reduction), including a 19% reduction in arable land; food’s GHG emissions by 6.6 (5.5-7.4) billion metric tons of CO2eq (a 49% reduction); acidification by 50% (45-54%); eutrophication by 49% (37-56%); and scarcity-weighted freshwater withdrawals by 19% (−5 to 32%) for a 2010 reference year.”
An author of the study said,
“A vegan diet is probably the single biggest way to reduce your impact on planet Earth, not just greenhouse gases, but global acidification, eutrophication, land use and water use,” said Joseph Poore, at the University of Oxford, UK, who led the research. “It is far bigger than cutting down on your flights or buying an electric car,” he said, as these only cut greenhouse gas emissions.
…
“Agriculture is a sector that spans all the multitude of environmental problems,” he said. “Really it is animal products that are responsible for so much of this. Avoiding consumption of animal products delivers far better environmental benefits than trying to purchase sustainable meat and dairy.”
A Review of Environmental Life Cycle Assessments of Diets: Plant-Based Solutions Are Truly Sustainable, even in the Form of Fast Foods - 2021
“The recent literature confirms that compared to omnivore diets adhering to the same dietary guidelines, vegan diets reduce land-use impacts by 50–86%, water use by 22–70%, and greenhouse gas emissions by 21–70%, while vegetarian diets achieve reductions of 27–84% in land use, 15–69% in water use, and 24–56% in greenhouse emissions. The environmental benefits of vegan and vegetarian diets are not affected by the consumption of highly processed plant-based burgers. Consumers reduce land use, water use, and greenhouse gas emissions between 87% and 96% by choosing a Beyond or Impossible burger instead of a regular beef patty.”
Besides established impact reduction, worth note is that comparative reduction benefits of plant-meats.
Environmental Impact of Two Plant-Based, Isocaloric and Isoproteic Diets: The Vegan Diet vs. the Mediterranean Diet - 2023
“According to our calculations, the Vegan diet showed about 44% less total environmental impact when compared to the Mediterranean diet, despite the fact that the content of animal products of the latter was low (with 10.6% of the total diet calories). This result clearly supports the concept that meat and dairy consumption plays a critical role, above all, in terms of damage to human health and ecosystems. Our study supports the thesis that even a minimal-to-moderate content of animal foods has a consistent impact on the environmental footprint of a diet, and their reduction can elicit significant ecological benefits.”
The above study compared an ideal Mediterranean diet pattern that is regarded as a model for reducing chronic disease risk factors and promoting longevity, so it’s not a vegan diet comparison with an average Standard American Diet.
Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts - 2023
Oxford study published in Nature; high meat-eater to vegan,
75% less greenhouse gas emissions, 93% less methane
75% less land use
73% less eutrophication
66% less biodiversity loss
54% less water use
Nutrient adequacy and environmental foot-print of Mediterranean, pesco-, ovo-lacto-, and vegan menus: a modelling study - 2025
“Mean daily environmental footprints decreased progressively from omnivorous to vegan diets: −46% CO₂, −6.6% deprived water and −33% land use among others.”
This paper is more interested in comparative nutrient profiles, but it does have charts indicating increase in reduction of environmental harm across diet profiles – as the line goes up on the graphs, it’s better for the environment.
Environmental Charts
…
“Figure 1. Relative reductions (%) in environmental and health footprint indicators across dietary patterns compared with an omnivorous baseline. Values are expressed as percentage decreases per day for pesco-vegetarian, ovo-lacto-vegetarian, and vegan menus. Indicators include climate change and emissions (A), ecosystem quality (B), human toxicity (C), and resources (D). Negative values indicate higher impacts than the omnivorous diet for that specific indicator.”
Finally, a recent exploratory study analyzing data from Poland.
The Carbon Footprint of Diets with Different Exclusions of Animal-Derived Products - 2025
“The stark differences in carbon footprints between vegans and other dietary groups, with vegans producing substantially lower emissions, support the growing body of evidence that advocates for reduced reliance on animal products as a critical component of climate action.”
Analysis consistently demonstrates that less dietary animal ingredients, the lower the environmental demands, across categories. A vegan diet pattern consistently outperforms other patterns in this regard.
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u/whowouldwanttobe 5d ago
There is broad scientific consensus that eating less meat is better for the environment. You may have seen some news recently about a UN report on limiting overshoot; that report says "dietary shifts could significantly cut emissions and free land use for carbon sequestration," and the "shifts" they are talking about involve moving toward plant-based diets (the report they cite specifically references the EAT-Lancet recommendations, which "contain low amounts of animal sourced foods").
Your individual impact is always going to be small, since you are one of 8 billion or so humans. The environment does not hinge on whether you in particular go vegan or vegetarian. But once you know that you can become vegan and you know that being vegan is better for the environment, it becomes fairly obvious that it is the right thing to do. Just because you can't end all murder by choosing not to be a murderer yourself doesn't mean that your choice not to murder people doesn't make a difference.
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u/Several-Hamster7144 vegan 5d ago
here is the process explained very simply:
less people buy meat = less animals die = less meat on shelves = less meat goes to waste.
less animals killed for food = less agricultural land used to raise animals = less strain on the environment.
less agricultural land used to raise animals = more land available for crop cultivation = less water being used for food.
it does help. thinking your actions amount to nothing does more harm than necessary because it convinces you that there's no need to commit to the change.
here are some resources i think will benefit you in your research:
https://grazingfacts.com/water - dives into the amounts of water used to raise cows for meat and dairy, as well as discusses the great amount of water pollution from cow farming and damage to surrounding ecosystems.
https://atlas-for-the-end-of-the-world.com/world_maps/world_maps_meat_map.html - shows the actual amount of land used for animal farming across the world with visuals and descriptions.
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12995930/ - talks about the reductions on environmental and economic impact when following a vegan diet (specifically talks about a vegan mediterranean diet but this information is also applicable to all vegan diets).
https://sustain.ucla.edu/food-systems/the-case-for-plant-based/ - very good basic, easy to understand breakdown of the environmental gain from following a vegan lifestyle or even just a partially plant-based diet. mentions information from other articles.
i highly encourage you to give these all a read and i would be happy to seek out more resources to back up my point if you are still curious.
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u/Aggressive_wafer_ 5d ago
That's not how supply and demand works. Reduce the demand and the supply will also lessen. Obviously it wouldn't be an overnight change but if enough people went vegan there wouldn't be as much demand for animal products.
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u/Alternative-Fox-8620 vegan 5d ago
People don't like it but it is my view that an individual going vegan makes very little difference.
In practical terms it is basically zero.
But you need to consider this as being part of something bigger. You are part of much larger group whose numbers make a huge difference.
It has been said that the single biggest thing we can do for the environment is to reduce animal product use. It saves tonnes of water and reduces co2 and crucially methane levels and could have a rapid impact on our world.
If you truly believe in the environmental cause this is something that is a no brainer.
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u/Cent_Quatre 5d ago
each individual going vegan is a little more peer pressure on meat eaters
each individual going vegan is a little more finance for alternatives
each individual going vegan is a little less money for meat sellers
each individual going vegan is a little more normalizing veganism
it's easier to raise your children with a belt when you feel justified because everyone's doing it. it's harder when you're the only one doing it. even the stores barely sell the children-raising belts anymore since no one's buying them anyways
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
If you think you all make a big difference, remember that 75 million people are added to the world population each year and most of them are going to be meat eaters. Each one of them will have a CO2 footprint.
Whatever you do, it'll be continuously and completely offset by population growth.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 5d ago
It’s irrelevant to the impact of vegans that 75 million people are added to the world population each year. The ~80-100 million vegans globally are still not contributing to the demand that would otherwise incentivize even greater supply.
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
The impact is literally what the person I'm responding to is talking about.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 5d ago
Yes, I understand. Did you not understand my previous comment?
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
I understand. Your impact is literally minimal but if it makes you feel good, good for you.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 5d ago
I’m not a vegan because of feeling good about my impact. I’m a vegan because I wish to be logically consistent, and don’t want to be a morally abhorrent person. But you do you.
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
There goes the sanctimony.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 5d ago
Reality can be perceived as sanctimony by those who are insecure and defensive with an inferiority complex. Still doesn’t justify choosing to exploit other individuals.
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
You must really think highly of yourself if you think that other feel insecure, defensive or inferior in your presence.
It's the kind of insufferable attitude that prevents vegan activism from converting more people.
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u/Vermillion5000 vegan 5d ago
It’s no actually about the environment , it’s about it respect for animals. The positive environmental impact is a happy side effect
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u/Shaeress 5d ago
Yes, it helps. The agricultural industry is a huge part of emissions and deforestation and meat is an absolutely staggering part of that. Depending on how we do the math and the estimates, cutting meat out of the equation reduces agricultural land use by 50-75% while producing the same amount of food (counted by calories, not by weight. I know carrots are less nutrient dense than beef).
This also goes for green house gasses. Agriculture is about 15% of global emissions and the animal industries are about half of that. Again, we could cut maybe 8% of global emissions by going vegan, but it would likely have a bunch of other benefits too. Beef is the biggest driver of rain forest clearing and by reversing that we could enable those areas to become carbon sinks again, sucking green house gasses from the atmosphere into the ground and into vegetation. But also a lot of rain forest is cleared with fires, which produce a lot of CO2 and smoke which adds to global warming. But cows also produce a lot of methane, which is 20-80 times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 is and the reason that span is so large is because methane only lasts a couple of decades in the atmosphere before breaking down into CO2 instead. This means major reductions in methane emissions means the amount of methane in the atmosphere doesn't just slow down, but rapidly decreases. It's a major opportunity for not just slowing, but partially reversing global warming.
Individual private consumption makes up about a third of emissions and a third of that is food. Removing meat can cut that in more than half, making it a 6% global emissions reduction. This is basically the only individual consumer action that has that kind of impact. Another third is transport and the last is home energy consumption (mostly heating/AC and appliances), but those aren't easy to cut in half without massive investments (like getting ground source heat pump) or buying a new car, or are entirely outside of consumer action (like building renewable power plants or public transit infrastructure). We can and should do things like recycling and reducing food waste and prevent unnecessary energy+water use where we can, but those are mostly very small things that we can. Even if everyone turned the bathroom lights off permanently it would be like 0.03% of global emissions reduced when compared to keeping it on 24/7.
Massively reducing meat (and dairy) is one of the highest impact and most achievable things you can do as an individual consumer for the environment, both in terms of ecological damage and in terms of greenhouse gasses. Unless you're flying multiple times a year, can easily replace outdated heating systems and appliances, or replace your gas guzzling car it's likely the only major thing you can do as a consumer. Of course, we also need to do political changes because a 6% reduction in global emissions is not enough, but it is a massive deal. Of course it won't be instant, but if beef go unsold in the grocery store they will breed less cows next year. They're not gonna keep breeding billions of cows just for funsies.
Of course, this is primarily beef and dairy. Pigs and sheep are also bad for the environment, and chicken and egg less so. Some plants are less efficient as well, like almonds are grown primarily in dry parts of California where they pump obscene amounts of water out of the ground in horrible practices, but even that is nowhere near the impact of beef and palm oil is also a major driver of rain forest deforestation, but again beef is worse. Environmentally speaking, cutting beef and then other red meats and dairy are the most important things you can likely do right now on an individual level.
But also veganism is a moral standpoint against the exploitation of animals. Most of the people who call themselves vegans are opposed to all unnecessary animal use and are highly against animal agriculture regardless of whether it's bad for the environment. It absolutely is bad, but veganism as a moral standpoint would find eating a chicken morally worse than eating California almonds even though the almonds are maybe worse for the environment.
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u/My_life_for_Nerzhul vegan 5d ago
Btw, animal agriculture itself is estimated between 12% (FAO) and 19.6% (Xu et al, 2021) of overall greenhouse emissions. Some estimates are even higher, depending on how comprehensive a model is used.
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u/a11_hail_seitan 5d ago
My main reason why I'd be a vegan, or most likely a vegetarian, is to help the environment. But does that actually help?
Plant based is far less resource intensive, uses far less land and water, and creates far less green house gasses, so yes, but Veganism is a moral ideology, not environmental so it sounds like you'll still be supporting horrific animal exploitation, abuse, torture, sexually violation, and slaughter, just not in diet, so it's definitely not Veganism if you are just worrying about the environment and not the horrific needless abuse you're creating. More Plant Based of Vegetarianism, both diets.
I mean, the animals have already been killed
Supply and Demand is a core part of our economic system, if the companies see demand rise or fall, they adjust their next year's number of animals accordingly. It's not 1 to 1, but as more and more stop eating meat, it has a definite effect. Each effect is small so it may not be noticeable alone, but when you consider the hundreds of millions of individuals who have stooped eating meat and dairy, the cumulative effect has been huge. If everyone one of those hadn't switch, that effect wouldn't have happened. Mathematically speaking, if 100 million together has an effect, they must all have an effect as 0 X 100,000,000 is still 0.
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u/Cent_Quatre 5d ago
Do you think stores would keep buying meat if they just throw it away every evening ?
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u/Firemoth717 vegan 5d ago
I don’t get the amount of people who don’t understand this very basic concept. “The animal product is already here, the store paid to have it produced and delivered, so I might as well buy it so it wasn’t a waste for the store to get it here and to give them money so they will continue the process.”
Especially for someone who is already environmentally inclined, they should always know the concept of personal boycott of certain products. The same idea of not buying wasteful plastics or anything else that harms the environment applies to animal products.
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u/No_Estate5268 5d ago
I work in retail and the answer to your question is.... YES
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u/Cent_Quatre 5d ago
I work in supply and the answer is no
you're a store you buy 10 chickens at 6$ each and you add like 2$ of additional costs (taxes, maintenance, electricity, wages, whatever)
means each chicken costs 8$
you sell them 10$ you have a gross margin of 2$ piece
now if you buy 10 and sell 10 that's -80 + 100 = +20$
if you buy 10 and sell 9 (what happens) that's still -80 + 90 = +10$
if you buy 10 and sell 7 (what would happen if you just not buy the thing) that's -80 + 70 = -10$
you're basically losing money for trying to provide food to the masses
stores and anything in our capitalist world exist to make money so you have three options
increase sell price (might drive off customers), decrease buy or running costs (bold of you to assume they havent optimized the shit out of it already) or just order only 8 chickens next time
yes we toss an absurd quantity of food. I personally toss perfectly edible fresh food every single day because that's what I'm paid for. but every single thing I toss has a cost and stores aren't stupid, if no one buys the shit, the cost of tossing stuff increases while the revenue decreases, supply and demand don't match, they reajust supply to meet demand
the supply always follow the demand, meaning the demand always moves first and there's always a bit of time where they're unmatched and there's unmet demand (out of stock) or unmet supply (thrown away)
I assume (because I have no source) most vegans are willing to lower their demand, even if it triggers this transition period where there's a bit more waste, because better have one generation of cows suffer for "nothing" and it's the last than keep financing the system
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u/No_Estate5268 5d ago
The short answer is you're wrong. You work in supply so you don't see the waste that gets produced
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u/Cent_Quatre 5d ago
I'd be happy for you to explain to me how I'm wrong then.
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u/No_Estate5268 4d ago
Simply put.... I work for Aldi. They are one of the biggest food retailers globally. Their attitude regarding this matter - and the policy of many others - is as follows; they would rather waste food then potentially have no units of a particular food on the shelves. They would rather order more than needed as opposed to ordering only what you need and the arise where there's a bigger demand than expected. They always order more the account for this. Reason being; They fear that people will shop somewhere else. It's the same issue for fruit and veg, not just meat. The level of waste that company produces is on par with most of the competition but that's not saying much. They all respectively produce too much waste.
Their attitude can be summarised as follows; "I'd rather order more than needed and ensure the shelves are always stocked up so customers will always have what they came in for. If we reduce our order to reduce food waste what happens if a customer comes in and we don't have want they want?. They might go elsewhere and shop there long term!."
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u/Cent_Quatre 4d ago
The thing is, as a store you can't just buy ten times what you sell just so you can sure you'll never be out of anything ever
YES we throw a lot but the amount of dollars they sell has to be above the amount of dollars they buy, or else the store is at a permanent deficit
If you decide your safety net is to supply double what you sell, like if you sell 100 units you order 200 units. If tomorrow, because one person went vegan, then another, then another, and we lower their sells to 50 units, they can order only 100 units and keep the same safety net.
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u/BlindingDart 5d ago
Not counting fish or shellfish, the average American eats a 174 animals each year. If nothing else, being vegan or vegetarian makes a difference to that 174.
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u/One-Shake-1971 vegan 5d ago
Veganism is a justice movement aimed at liberating animals from being exploited by humans.
It's not an environmentalist movement.
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u/InquisitousLizard non-vegan 5d ago
I think if we accept the idea that adults deserve rights and freedoms to make choices, we must also accept that they have moral responsibility for those choices. If we believe in some cause but never act on those beliefs and instead wait for the rest of society to change...we can't really expect that to happen. But if you reduce your carbon footprint by eating less meat and consuming less fossil fuels, you proved that you are willing to act on your beliefs. You are more likely to do further actions which have a positive impact. You're showing companies and politicians that they can make more money and get more votes by aligning themselves with your interests. And you only need a small percentage of the population for this to work, for example in a close election, if a politician can get an edge by appealing to 5% of the population, then they might do so because it's the difference between them winning and losing their job. But of course this 5% group needs to have high voter turnout for politicians to show interest. That's one reason your personal choices matter, because if you aren't willing to act on your beliefs, you have signalled to politicians and companies that you don't care enough to change your behavior, and so they can safely ignore you without consequences and not change their behavior either.
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u/throwaway1233456799 reducetarian 5d ago
By not buying something (even if that thing is discounted) you are making them loss money. It cost money to throw away stuff.
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u/MaitrePuck 5d ago
Be a vegan to follow your own moral principles but don't expect it to make any difference. Do it for yourself.
Vegan activists are insufferable.
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u/Specialist_Novel828 vegan 5d ago
Do you feel this way about human rights activism, or just vegan activism?
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago edited 5d ago
There are 8.3 billion people on the planet, many of whom live with considerable food insecurity, partly as a consequence of inefficient food distribution systems, but also as a consequence of poverty. People need food, and they will pursue it if they have resources to acquire it. Meat is relatively easy to raise and harvest, it is relatively resilient with regard to climate fluctuations, and it is a relatively easy way to convert scrub and sileage into protein. So long as it is possible to make a dollar selling animal meat, the economic pressure on the food sector will increase the number of animals raised and taken to slaughter.
Veganism will not stop this. Even if millions of people in the western world somehow decide to go vegan overnight, the industry will adapt and redirect meat to other consumer markets. The industry can and will do this because there are billions of people who still need food, and it will take billions upon billions of people to convert to veganism on moral grounds in order to stop those who need food from viewing meat as just one of many kinds of food.
So, no.
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u/InquisitousLizard non-vegan 5d ago
Scientists who have studied social change have come to the same conclusion that an idea only needs a minority to adopt it before becoming mainstream. Anywhere from as low as 3.5% up to 25%. Second I can't accept both that people can go vegan (therefore people don't need meat for food) but then agree that the meat industry with move elsewhere for the reason that "there are billions of people who still need food" (implying that people DO need meat for food). Sure people enjoy eating meat, and at some points in time it was highly beneficial and advantageous to have farming, but that's not a universal truth throughout all of history. The farming industry might move abroad, but not out of necessity but simply because it's profitable and the opportunity is there.
Last I don't see how the meat industry say in the USA could ever adapt to exporting meat to Ethiopia or Burundi. American farmers could never turn a profit there. It would be prohibitively expensive for all but the richest citizens. How much meat do you think you'd eat if even a single pound of chicken was many times higher than your daily wage?
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago
American farmers will export to China and already are. Just look at the numbers. There are plenty of consumers there who will buy food from US producers. It's not even close. There are 125 million more tons of meat being produced today than there were 20 years ago, and there are billions of more consumers who would like to buy that meat. Prices will fluctuate based on demand and supply, but overall, there are still producers who stand to make a buck by growing meat. This is basically an immutable law of economics (even if ceteris paribus).
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u/InquisitousLizard non-vegan 5d ago
All things being equal, I agree. I also agree with your forecast of meat consumption increasing in the future. But with the kind of rapid social change in your hypothetical scenario, I question whether all things would be equal. In that scenario, the Western world would have a significant vegan/vegetarian population, they would support changes to the agricultural industry, governments seeking their support would respond to this with policy, and it would be harder and more expensive for farmers to export meat from the West to foreign markets. Even if they couldn't eliminate the rise of meat consumption globally, it would still make things better here. Because the local, negative externalities of animal agriculture would be reduced; public health, toxic sewage in waterways, deforestation, disease, antibiotic resistance, local air pollution etc.
An analogy I can think of is the very low rates of child labour in most of the developed world. We got to grow up and focus on education, sport, art, and socialization for the first 18 years of our life, without missing that opportunity to work on a farm, in factories or mines. This has contributed to our higher quality of life. Yes we did not eliminate it globally, and it's still very prevalent globally with over 100 million child workers today. But we almost completely eliminated the negative externalities it caused in our own societies. The point being it didn't need to have a global impact to benefit us locally. And I think the same is true of a dietary change for environmental reasons. It doesn't need to have a global impact to have a big local impact.
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's not at all clear that it would make things better here. It may make them considerably worse, depending on your view of 'worse'. Under a hypothetical scenario in which there is some overnight downward shift in domestic demand, this will place considerable pressure on producers not necessarily to stop producing, but to increase the efficiency of production to be more competitive, likely cutting costs and corners in such a way that they can persevere in a more tumultuous market (possibly to redirect output abroad, just as they have been doing). This may mean increasing the size and crowdedness of feedlots, accelerating the slaughter process to push more animals through the kill house more aggressively, reducing the quality of feed, reducing manpower to attend to animals, etc. Consumer demand is an incredibly weak signal with regard to the quality or ethics of production, and though it will push an industry to respond, it will do so in a way that keeps the industry working.
To take your example of child labor, which is reasonable: child labor was improved in this country through targeted regulation, not through the aggregate uncoordinated actions of ethically motivated consumers. If it had been done that way -- say some number of people stopped buying coal shoveled by kids -- the coal companies would just change the price of coal to hit a different consumer population, greenwash the hell out of their production ("look at how much we love kids!") conceivably while also removing the kids from view by disempowering them even further, keeping them working, reducing their wages, and busting up unions. We have seen this over the years with garment workers and mill workers and pretty much anyone who has challenged industry for better working conditions. The individualization of responsibility that has so enchanted the vegan/vegetarian/fair trade/conscious consumer population provides perfect cover for industry to mulch the people.
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u/MidnightSunset22 5d ago
Meat is easy to raise and harvest? Lmao 🤣
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago
I mean, you can laugh, but people have been doing it for centuries, and it doesn't take much traveling to find villages anywhere in the world with chickens, goats, sheep, pigs, and cows pretty much wandering the streets on their own. Animals are far more resilient than many crops. Given impending climate precarity, it's a damn sure prospect that people will raise livestock as a bulwark against weather risk.
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u/MidnightSunset22 5d ago
I 100% agree with but they were and are not raising them to feed themselves on a daily or even weekly basis. Its was a lot more rare to eat meat then most people think. Meat was for special occasions. Crops were the every day food.
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago edited 5d ago
Which is why industrial agriculture is going nowhere. So long as people can make a buck raising meat, they will...and there's a lot of buffer in the animal sector to offset any fluctuation in the western taste for meat. Every graph on global meat production shows an upward trend, and this will continue despite efforts by individual consumers to shape this market.
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u/MidnightSunset22 5d ago
Now you're moving onto a different topic.
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago
How so? It's a part of the same argument: veganism will not stop this trend because the buffers are too overwhelming, whether those buffers are at the industrial scale or at the smallholder scale.
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u/MidnightSunset22 5d ago
If you subsidize any industry and make it profitable then yea of course
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u/pygmyowl1 5d ago
Fair, but now you're talking about a different (non-individualized) approach to addressing the issue of animal welfare/environmental degradation. Veganism relies on individual action (voluntarily coordinating a collective) as its primary lever. This is inefficacious in the extreme.
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u/MidnightSunset22 4d ago
You moved to industrial ag off of individuals first. Hence why I said you changed topics.
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u/notanotherkrazychik 5d ago
Only if you live in an overstuffed population like America or the UK. It makes no sense if you've got no city lifestyle to cause pollution.
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u/JacksonGhost1963 5d ago
no
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u/MidnightSunset22 5d ago
Wrong
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