In the social media age, we love to make ourselves seem more important and knowledgeable than we really are. A particular favourite of these self-importance campaigns is veganism and the “saving the planet” argument. As we live in the superhero era of Avengers 12 (or whatever), Captain Vegan™ loves to think they are here to save the day.
This is untrue and vain. You’re a vegan—congratulations. You are doing your personal health a great service—lowering your risk of high cholesterol, for one. In addition to your own well-being, you are living your life in a much less cruel manner compared to your omnivorous counterparts. Sadly, there is one thing you are not doing, and that is saving the planet. No matter how many times you post outdated studies on Facebook, you’re just not saving the planet.
It is also not a moral failing on the part of meat eaters, and it is fallacious to say they hate the planet or are ignoring their responsibilities just because they enjoy a good steak. From an environmental perspective, it is dangerous and irresponsible for a person to claim that the global environmental crises are a result of personal moral failings.
A recent study by the Climate Accountability Institute (CAI) showed that 70 per cent of the world’s greenhouse gases are created by the top 100 polluting companies. Consumer-created pollutants come in at less than five per cent of total emissions. Agriculture created a large percentage of this. This study also claimed cutting out meat reduces your own carbon footprint by 30 per cent—that’s a drop in the ocean, people. That’s nothing; that’s undone every second 50 times by the environmental impact these major corporations are causing.
But, all this isn’t even asking the bigger question: are you really reducing your carbon footprint in doing any of this? Green spaces and agriculture are unequivocally impactful to the environment; deforestation and large pastures are what really change environments and ecosystems.
So, meat is bad because it requires a lot of green space. But, oh, those chickpeas you’re eating—I’m sure they just magically appear out of thin air and require absolutely no resources to make or transport. Leaving cows out to pasture is much less mechanically efficient, requiring a lower degree of mechanical efficiency, big diesel tractors used for crop mowing are gas-guzzling polluting machines. What if you are a vegan and want to have a diet high in protein? Well, then you probably will use a protein supplement, as it is very difficult to get enough protein in your diet otherwise.
If your protein supplement is soy-based, which the majority of vegan diets are, they are made in a manner that is massively disruptful to natural ecosystems. Increased demand in soy strains farmers. Soy is a nitrogen fixer meaning it absorbs nitrous oxide from the atmosphere to the ground but doesn’t release it. Farmers used to rotate crops to replicate the nitrogen cycle, but an increased demand for soy has limited their ability to do this. This disrupts the natural ecosystem, affecting biodiversity and thereby straining the environment.
These products are then mass-produced in factories using large amounts of water, and if they are coal-fueled, they cause pollution—pretty sure that’s not helping anybody. Then, before they even reach consumers, they must be mass distributed in a vast supply chain involving lots of transit and overnight truckers. Spoiler alert: those trucks aren’t hybrids!
It all goes back to the principle of land usage and climate forcing. Land usage is an environmental sustainability concept that says the best thing for the environment is using the land in the way that is most efficient. If that’s pasturing cows, that’s pasturing cows. If it’s growing lentils, it’s growing lentils. Climate forcing is when we grow too much soy, drill all the oil, and cut down trees just because we want more.
Most research shows the biggest thing you can do to reduce pollution and help the environment, in terms of eating, is shopping local, from smaller companies that emit less pollution. But, even then, really, how much is that going to change? Political involvement and lobbying for better global policies that will prevent climate forcing from large corporations is number one, not squabbling over personal percentages.
