RE: “Letter: Vegans can’t stop climate change,” Nov. 1-Nov. 7
Tim Austen’s opinion piece “Vegans can’t stop climate change” does do one thing right—it boldly and unequivocally refutes the idea that vegans can single-handedly stop climate change. This is surely going to cause a stir amongst the three vegans who believe this.
Besides this important contribution to this debate, Austen’s article does some things wrong. It paints an inaccurate picture of how veganism reduces greenhouse gas emissions, it is misleading when it comes to how veganism and land use interact, and it is irresponsible with regards to our ethical obligation in combating climate change.
As Austen acknowledges, the production of animal products contributes significantly to greenhouse gas emissions. The livestock sector is responsible for a large percentage of greenhouse gas emission in carbon dioxide equivalent. This is higher than the entire transportation sector combined. While this number seems shocking, it is actually somewhat humble. This is because the greenhouse gas emitted by agriculture, including cattle farming—methane—is 34 times stronger than carbon dioxide when compared over a 100-year period, due to the lack of sun-blocking particles methane creates.
If we want to stall the effects of climate change in the near future, it is especially important that we prevent methane from being emitted. There is no better way to start controlling methane emission than with the rejection of products using cattle. In other words, the greenhouse gasses produced by livestock are not “drops in the ocean,” like Austen said.
The article takes pains to demonstrate that the vegan diet disrupts biodiversity and uses up as much land as livestock. “Those chickpeas you’re eating,” Tim muses. “I’m sure they just magically appear out of thin air.” No, but they appear out of something thinner than meat and dairy products.
Without the consumption of meat and dairy products, farmland could be reduced on a massive scale. In addition, we would still have more than enough food to feed the entire world.
This isn’t a surprise. We have long known that eating animal products is an inefficient method of getting nutrients. The same study found that animal products take up 83 per cent of farmland space, while only providing 18 per cent of produced calories and 37 per cent of produced protein. Of course, this use of space has consequences. The mass extinction of wildlife isn’t caused by chickpeas—the greatest cause is the loss of wild areas taken for agricultural use.
So, now that we know that a vegan diet not only is a simple and incredibly effective way of combating climate change, what are we to do?
In Austen’s opinion, not much. There is a fairly irritating trend among members of generation Z—when people are simultaneously outraged by social and environmental issues, but are totally unwilling to do anything about it themselves. Instead, they place blame on some unnamed “structure” or “corporation,” and individuals are cleared of all responsibility. In this case, Austen says that claiming individual responsibility for the climate disaster is “dangerous,” while laying all blame on the feet of the top 100 polluting companies.
Let’s ignore the fact that these companies would not exist without our financial support. Even if these companies were immediately shut down, the lifestyle of most Canadians still need to be dealt with. The average world biocapacity is 1.73 global hectares (gha) per person. The average Canadian ecological footprint is 8.17 gha. Need I say more?
It is obvious that companies that pollute more than their fair share need to be held accountable. But, Canadians individually pollute far more than our fair share as well. If we want to combat climate change, we need to do everything we can, and that means radically changing our lifestyles. Veganism is one way—if not the best way—of getting started on this change. Can vegans single-handedly stop climate change? Of course not—but nobody will stop it if we continue to ignore our own wretched impact on the environment.
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