Thank God for trees. Amirite?
Eating the rich is by far the most eco-friendly approach as it can dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
Jeff bezos probably tastes like drywall and hooker spit.
Compost them first then you can eat the rich while also being vegan = Billions and billions of carbons.
Hooker spit. Lol. Imagine Jeff Bezos paying you hundreds of thousands to spit on him while trying to hide the fact that, you would gladly do it for free.
I vehemently disagree with this statement.
We need to compost the rich and use that as a soil amendment to grow heirloom vegetables.
One Elon musk can feed a family for a year.
One farm fertilized with musk mulch can feed a city block!
Ok, are actively working on this? Is your work on it so horrendously demanding of all your attention of every single day, that you couldn’t ALSO go vegan, or vegetarian, or just eat less meat? Eat the rich is just a fun day dream and a lazy excuse to not do what you can (like going vegan).
Eating the rich would also vastly reduce racism, sexism, classism, and worker exploitation. Can I therefore ignore my negligible personal impact, and keep being racist, sexist, classist, and buy only the cheapest clothes crafted by the most exploited third world toddlers?
You sound like you are fun at parties. This was obviously a joke. Also, Why can’t we do both?
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Spoken like a true conservative, I agree with you, we also need to reduce tax for the rich and raise the retirement age to at least 97 years otherwise the economy will crumble.
Yeah, twisting everything into class conflit babble is the balanced way to think.
Yes, it is!
Found the ecofascist.
This crucially important caveat they snuck in there:
“Prof Scarborough said: “Cherry-picking data on high-impact, plant-based food or low-impact meat can obscure the clear relationship between animal-based foods and the environment.”
…which is an interesting way of saying that lines get blurry depending on the type of meat diet people had and/or the quantity vs the type of plant-based diet people had.
Takeaway from the article shouldn’t be meat=bad and vegan=good - the takeaway should be that meat can be an environmentally responsible part of a reasonable diet if done right and that it’s also possible for vegan diets to be more environmentally irresponsible.
That’s both absolutely true and a massive distraction from the point. An environmentally friendly diet that includes meat is going to involve sustainable hunting not factory farming. In comparison an environmentally friendly vegan diet is staples of meat replacements and not trying to get fancy with it. It’s shit like beans instead of meat, tofu and tempeh when you feel fancy. It means rejecting substitutes that are too environmentally costly such as agave nectar as a sweetener (you should probably use beet or cane based sweetener instead).
So in short eat vegan like a poor vegan not like a rich person who thinks veganism is trendy
Yes, I think it’s vital to avoid thinking in absolutes over carbon footprints if we are to make real progress. We can argue endlessly over the “necessity” of consuming meat, but that becomes a distraction. Many things are not “necessary”, but most people are not realistically going to live in caves wearing carbon neutral hair shirts.
We need to continue increasing transparency on the impact of different animal products, so consumers can make informed choices. While also accepting they may not always be perfect.
The only way to stop people from eating meat is to make a vegan food that tastes better than a bacon cheeseburger.
They haven’t gotten the cheese yet but impossible whoppers are a damn good burger and lately they’ve been cheaper than regular ones
If I source my beef or lamb from low-impact producers, could they have a lower footprint than plant-based alternatives? The evidence suggests, no: plant-based foods emit fewer greenhouse gases than meat and dairy, regardless of how they are produced.
[…]
Plant-based protein sources – tofu, beans, peas and nuts – have the lowest carbon footprint. This is certainly true when you compare average emissions. But it’s still true when you compare the extremes: there’s not much overlap in emissions between the worst producers of plant proteins, and the best producers of meat and dairy.
https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat
Plant-based foods have a significantly smaller footprint on the environment than animal-based foods. Even the least sustainable vegetables and cereals cause less environmental harm than the lowest impact meat and dairy products [9].
yes. when you look at charts and such. Someone who exclusively ate meat for some reason who moved to chicken would have a greater impact than someone who exclusively ate chicken and went vegan. Sheep did not show up so well either so im guessing ruminants in general are not going to be so hot. Anyway I would encourage folk to keep it in mind and do what they can. I realize go vegan results in many. Well eff it all then but man just avoiding beef is big impact.
Someone who exclusively ate meat for some reason who moved to chicken would have a greater impact than someone who exclusively ate chicken and went vegan.
But that first person could have an even bigger environmental impact by becoming Vegan instead of only eating chicken.
yes but if you actually convince someone who eats just chicken to go vegan it will have less of an effect if you actually convince a big red meat eater to limit to chicken.
You’d have a bigger impact by convincing 30% of the population to only have chicken, vs convincing 15% to go vegan.
Sure, and if we could only do one, we should choose accordingly. We can do both, simultanously. Exactly like how we don’t have to choose between eating less meat and driving less cars.
Or an even bigger impact by having fewer children.
This is true, however, not realistic in some parts of the world. For instance, in the United States, Republicans have waged a war on bodily autonomy, which includes the Roe v. Wade ruling and states creating departments to hunt down citizens who go out of state to have abortions. There are also countries where sex education is not prohibited. So, take these things into consideration while thinking about potential solutions. That being said, you are right, and you can do something about it by voting, if you are able to, wherever you live.
Do you remember a source for that info? Or at least suggestions? I’m interested to read into it, but I’m not really sure what to even google for that
Our World in Data has a decent article about it: https://ourworldindata.org/food-choice-vs-eating-local
This and the article seem like a great breakdown, thank you very much. I would have guessed chocolate would be somewhere in the middle, and I’ve never really thought about cheese in this context at all. I was surprised to see both of them so high up there.
This would suggest my sweet tooth is my biggest problem, at least, since beef is too expensive to be a common occurrence anyway
So nice to read a sensible comment in a sea of crazy talk.
The real takeaway should be that the Independent is complete garbage
Yeah I barely eat beef anymore, mostly chicken. I don’t want to give up on eating animals, especially since I’m trying to get into shape right now and it would be hard to eat healthy and get enough protein to build up muscle mass.
Do whatever you want but just so you know Arnold Schwarzenegger is a vegetarian now. It’s much less difficult than people think to get enough protein to bulk up without meat unless you’re doing hardcore body building. Beans and rice is a high protein dinner. Peanut butter is amazing for bulking.
80% vegan. He still eats fish, eggs and chicken. https://www.insider.com/how-arnold-schwarzenegger-gets-protein-on-mostly-vegan-diet-2023-6
I know and if everything goes as planned soon my dietary needs will change that this is a thing I will greatly reconsider. As of now I still have some fat reserves so I try to avoid too many carbs or fat. My theory is that I’m still capable to gain muscles while maintaining a small deficit as I have enough reserves to feed my muscles before my body decides it’d rather burn protein for energy. At the end of summer I’ll go back to focus on weight loss until I’m forced to bulk because I won’t be as much outside for weather and daylight reasons. I’ll rethink my relationship with animal products at those points.
I keep half a dozen of my own chickens in my backyard…which means about half my daily protein intake comes from eggs (which is a great source, btw). And my chickens free-range in my backyard and largely take care of and feed themselves (supplemented with chicken feed but they get most of their daily intake from the bugs/plants in the yard). I still do eat meat almost daily, but the quantities are a lot less than what I was doing a decade ago, and beef is less than a once-a-week thing for me. Like you, I’m trying to get back in shape and watching macronutrients (like protein) very carefully and trying to hit certain daily minimum numbers.
A couple of people have spoken to me before about wanting to cut back on, or completely cut meat from their diets, but didn’t know where to start. If anyone reading this feels the same way, here’s some fairly basic recipies that I usually recommend (Bosh’s tofu curry is straight up one of the best currys i’ve ever had - even my non-vegan family members love it)
Written:
- ‘Butter’ Tofu Curry (Written Recipe)
- Lentil Soup (Written Recipe)
- Caribbean Stew (Written Recipe)
- Sweet Potato & Cauliflower Curry Pies (Written Recipe)
- Afghan Kidney Bean Curry (Written Recipe)
Videos:
- 5 Minute Vegan Pasta Sauces (YT / Invidious)
- Ultimate Vegan Chilli (YT / Invidious)
- Enchiladas Verdes (YT / Invidious)
- Ultimate Plant-Based Fried Chicken (YT / Invidious)
- Mac & Cheez (YT / Invidious)
- Wicked Lasagna (YT / Invidious)
- Smash Tacos (YT / Invidious)
Tofu is also super versatile and is pretty climate-friendly. there’s a bazillion different ways to do tofu, but simply seasoning and pan frying some extra/super firm tofu (like you do with chicken) with some peppers and onions, for fajitas, is an easy way to introduce yourself. Here’s a little guide for tofu newbies: A Guide to Cooking Tofu for Beginners - The Kitchn. If you wanna level up your tofu game with some marinades here’s six.
Lentils and beans are also super planet friendly, super cheap, and super versatile! You’ll be able to find recipies all over that are based around lentils and beans so feel free to do a quick internet search.
Sorry for the huge, intimidating wall of text! I do hope someone interested in cutting back on meat found this useful though :)
In this thread: Shit loads of people who will say they care about the climate crisis on one day, then say they don’t care about the 18.5% of global carbon emissions that the meat industry causes the next day because they can’t get over the decade worth of anti-veganism jokes and memes that they’ve constantly repeated uncritically.
Individual habits MUST be changed to solve this part of the problem, there is literally no way around that. Getting triggered and writing screeds because you’ve spent decades getting caught up in hate over food choices won’t stop the planet burning.
OK, but what if instead of going vegan, I just don’t have kids. Because adding more people to the world also creates more greenhouse gasses.
The problem is not the amount of people but how much each individual consumes. Getting meat out of your diet is a simple and a small sacrifice. Besides the health benefits there is also the fact that you don’t contribute to the culling of 70 billion animals per year (of which 40% is probably not eaten and thrown in the trash). Not only that but you don’t contribute to the greatest cause of deforestation, antibiotics resistance, decline of biodiversity, water waste, …
Besides the global population is steadily stagnating (Africa is still booming) as a lot of countries see population decline (less than 2 children per woman).
You don’t even need to cut it out entirely. Just not eat such a ridiculous amount of meat.
Stuff like this isn’t helping. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH9VLihKm2g
Couldn’t we just stop food waste? Most food is discarded before even making it to the store. Seems to me being more efficient with how we distribute food is more realistic that trying to convince everyone to go vegan.
Because I’m not going to stop eating meat and the amount of ppl like me is larger than you think
Many people will also not reduce food waste, for exactly same reasons you won’t stop eating meat. Convenience, habit, cost, time investment.
Except those two things are not the same. We already have regulatory organizations that determine how food is handled and distributed. We can’t regulate veganism, we can regulate food waste
We could absolutely regulate veganism. Hell, it’s the other way around at the moment. For pretty much every animal rights law, there’s an exception specifically for farm animals. Just removing those exceptions would make factory farming (and therefore like 90% of meat production) illegal.
And in a more general sense, we absolutely can regulate carnism (aka the opposite of veganism), exactly how we regulate a million other moral questions.
If only we had other examples of bans on certain goods and substances based on minority groups crys about morality. Im sure none of them resulted in billions of wasted dollars, mass incarceration, and the creation of a new black market
Both are true: reducing waste and adopting a plant based diet are great ways of reducing your footprint.
The number of vegetarians/vegans is growing quickly. I’m not convincing you of going vegan. You are convincing yourself to keep on eating meat despite the scientific facts and moral consequences.
Right there with ya
How bout both? :)
What if you don’t have kids and just make an effort to reduce intake of animal products knowing it contributes to global collapse and also represents a modern holocaust.
Animal products don’t have to be as all or nothing as having kids.
100 corporations contribute 71% of all emissions, and I’m supposed to stop eating the pork I bought from a local farmer? Fuck that noise!
Those 100 corporations make materials that everyone else uses (mostly O&G) and the consumption and use of those materials (by we the consumers) is responsible for 71% of GHG emissions.It’s not just 100 companies burning coal for funsies
I’ve argued both angles before, and I think reality is somewhere in the middle. Companies produce things because people want those things. But that doesn’t mean companies are producing them in the most sustainable way possible. Electricity from coal has a significant difference in emissions if you scrub the flue gas vs if you don’t change it at all. We can force companies to be more sustainable while providing their product.
That moment when your veganism goes so hard you commit a hate crime on the internet implicitly comparing Jews to cattle
Edit: I’m from Poland, the country where most of the Holocaust happened - this is where the Jewish population was the highest and where Germans build their death camps. We read about it extensively at school, including eyewitness accounts describing the atrocities involved in this horrific campaign of human extermination, from the home of the Jew, to the ghetto, to the transport train, to the camp, to the gas chamber and to the furnace. Many of us heard those stories from our grandparents, of their neighbors being humiliated and taken away, ghettos liquidated, and public executions. I don’t know what kind of deplorable scumbag one has to be to equate factory farming with the Holocaust.
implicitly comparing Jews to cattle
Yes, it’s a tasteless comparison. I’m a German. Hello neighbor, nice to live in peace.
The comparison also falls flat because while the Holocaust was a genocide, meant to eradicate, factory farming is the polar opposite.
The population size of factory farmed animals is usually way above natural levels, because we farm them. A philosopher even called it an evolutionary win for the farmed species (which does not justify any harm done to individuals).
There are more ways to express ‘very bad’ than comparing to the Holocaust, and many reasons not to, if you understand it.
Here are some quotes for you. From holocaust survivors and their relatives.
“I totally embrace the comparison to the Holocaust. I feel that violence and suffering of innocents are unjust. I believe that the abuse of humans and animals and the earth come from the same need to dominate others. I feel that I could not save my family, my people, but each time I talk about cruelty to animals and being vegetarian I might be saving another life. After knowing what I know about the Holocaust and about animal exploitation I cannot be anything else but an animal rights advocate.
-Susan Kalev, who lost her father and her sister in the Holocaust
“I believe in what Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, ‘In their behavior towards creatures, all men are Nazis.’ Human beings see their own oppression vividly when they are the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” [tweet this]
-“Hacker,” Animal Liberation Front member & Holocaust survivor
“What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [the animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.” [tweet this]
-Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish author, Nobel Laureate, & Holocaust survivor
“I spent my childhood years in the Warsaw Ghetto where almost my entire family was murdered along with about 350,000 other Polish Jews. People sometimes will ask me whether that experience had anything to do with my work for animals. It didn’t have a little to do with my work for animals, it had everything to do with my work for animals.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“When I see cages crammed with chickens from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul, the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced onto trains leaving for the death camps). When I go to a restaurant and see people devouring meat, I feel sick. I see a holocaust on their plates.” [tweet this]
-Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
“I dedicate my mother’s grave to geese. My mother doesn’t have a grave, but if she did I would dedicate it to the geese. I was a goose too.”
-Marc Berkowitz, Animal activist & survivor of Josef Mengele’s “twin experiments”
“In 1975, after I immigrated to the United States, I happened to visit a slaughterhouse, where I saw terrified animals subjected to horrendous crowding conditions while awaiting their deaths. Just as my family members were in the notorious Treblinka death camp. I saw the same efficient and emotionless killing routine as in Treblinka, I saw the neat piles of hearts, hooves, and other body parts. So reminiscent of the piles of Jewish hair, glasses and shoes in Treblinka.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“Jews have been, while animals still are, treated like nothing, as if their lives don’t matter. You can also compare the two holocausts this way. […] Go to the nearest cow or pig slaughterhouse and remove the animals and replace them with humans. You have now re-created Birkenau.”
-Gary Yourosky
holocaust
hŏl′ə-kôst″, hō′lə-
noun- Great destruction resulting in the extensive loss of life, especially by fire.
- The genocide of European Jews and other groups by the Nazis during World War II.
- A massive slaughter.
This is just dishonest. The comparison is made specifically because of #2. It’s the attempt to connect emotions and judgements people have about Nazi atrocities with animal slaughter. That’s also why you quoted a Shoa survivor in defense of this wreck of a comparison.
May I invite you to watch this video of Alex Hershaft. He is probably one of the first, if not the first, persons who made the connection between the Jewish holocaust and what he himself calls the animal holocaust. In this talk he talks about his experience in the Warschau ghetto, his family in Treblinka and his later experience with slaughterhouses. Drawing quite a few parallels between the two.
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*implicitly comparing the treatment of Jews during the holocaust to the treatment of cattle today
also, you can compare two things without equating them
I think if you actually cared about the words you wrote, you wouldn’t have used them as the basis of a lazy strawman to win an argument on the internet against veganism
The problem is agribusiness. They treat animals with no respect in a terrible a terrible manner, unlike most small-scale farms where the farmers often have a personal relationship with their livestock.
Factory farms whether it be chicken, hog or cattle often end up putting the animals on a feedlot or in a high density chicken farm with literally millions of birds under one roof. This leads to a slaughterhouse that is a horror show. It was a book written a hundred years ago called The jungle, look it up. It’s been an issue for a long time and it is inhumane.
It’s not to say that killing animals is pretty, but it can be done in a more humane fashion starting by respecting the lives of the animals while they are alive.
The flip side is that if we were to actually close down all of the farms and raise no livestock for me, there’s a good chance that these species will functionally go extinct.
Small-scale farms still needlessly kill animals for profit.
We can just eat plants.
I don’t care about arguing about veganism. Just stop bringing up stuff like this. Also, do you think calling something a “modern holocaust” is not a comparison in terms of scale of harm? As opposed to every other time those words are used?
Edit: If you want to argue for veganism, stop bringing up Shoah. It’s disgusting, downplaying the severity of the genocide, and earns you no favors with the general population. It has negative convincing power.
It’s 90 billion every year. If their suffering is 15000 less significant, that’s one holocaust a year, every year, since many years. Why are you using Shoah, if holocaust is so obviously only one thing? And why are the voices of holocaust victims/survivors/relatives totally fine to silence? Many have made that comparison, shouldn’t they know best whether it’s comparable???
You are correct however that this argument is utterly stupid and useless to make, esp. online, where there is zero context.
is not a comparison in terms of scale of harm
I’m still missing the part where it’s equating Jews to farm animals.
That their suffering matters as much as that of farm animals? That’s a disgusting preposition. If you compare those two things in the scale of harm, that’s an obvious conclusion.
You’re the one putting scale in there
Here are some quotes for you. From holocaust survivors and their relatives.
“I totally embrace the comparison to the Holocaust. I feel that violence and suffering of innocents are unjust. I believe that the abuse of humans and animals and the earth come from the same need to dominate others. I feel that I could not save my family, my people, but each time I talk about cruelty to animals and being vegetarian I might be saving another life. After knowing what I know about the Holocaust and about animal exploitation I cannot be anything else but an animal rights advocate.
-Susan Kalev, who lost her father and her sister in the Holocaust
“I believe in what Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, ‘In their behavior towards creatures, all men are Nazis.’ Human beings see their own oppression vividly when they are the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” [tweet this]
-“Hacker,” Animal Liberation Front member & Holocaust survivor
“What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [the animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.” [tweet this]
-Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish author, Nobel Laureate, & Holocaust survivor
“I spent my childhood years in the Warsaw Ghetto where almost my entire family was murdered along with about 350,000 other Polish Jews. People sometimes will ask me whether that experience had anything to do with my work for animals. It didn’t have a little to do with my work for animals, it had everything to do with my work for animals.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“When I see cages crammed with chickens from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul, the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced onto trains leaving for the death camps). When I go to a restaurant and see people devouring meat, I feel sick. I see a holocaust on their plates.” [tweet this]
-Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
“I dedicate my mother’s grave to geese. My mother doesn’t have a grave, but if she did I would dedicate it to the geese. I was a goose too.”
-Marc Berkowitz, Animal activist & survivor of Josef Mengele’s “twin experiments”
“In 1975, after I immigrated to the United States, I happened to visit a slaughterhouse, where I saw terrified animals subjected to horrendous crowding conditions while awaiting their deaths. Just as my family members were in the notorious Treblinka death camp. I saw the same efficient and emotionless killing routine as in Treblinka, I saw the neat piles of hearts, hooves, and other body parts. So reminiscent of the piles of Jewish hair, glasses and shoes in Treblinka.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“Jews have been, while animals still are, treated like nothing, as if their lives don’t matter. You can also compare the two holocausts this way. […] Go to the nearest cow or pig slaughterhouse and remove the animals and replace them with humans. You have now re-created Birkenau.”
-Gary Yourosky
You can find any representative of any group with any belief. It proves nothing - it’s just one guy, and plenty of Jews eat meat everyday and would consider his words insulting, the majority of Holocaust survivors included.
I feel like a holocaust survivor should have a way better idea of whether these things are comparable, rather than a non-vegan, non-holocaust survivor on the internet, no? Anyway, here’s more voices: Here are some quotes for you. From holocaust survivors and their relatives.
“I totally embrace the comparison to the Holocaust. I feel that violence and suffering of innocents are unjust. I believe that the abuse of humans and animals and the earth come from the same need to dominate others. I feel that I could not save my family, my people, but each time I talk about cruelty to animals and being vegetarian I might be saving another life. After knowing what I know about the Holocaust and about animal exploitation I cannot be anything else but an animal rights advocate.
-Susan Kalev, who lost her father and her sister in the Holocaust
“I believe in what Isaac Bashevis Singer wrote, ‘In their behavior towards creatures, all men are Nazis.’ Human beings see their own oppression vividly when they are the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought.” [tweet this]
-“Hacker,” Animal Liberation Front member & Holocaust survivor
“What do they know—all these scholars, all these philosophers, all the leaders of the world? They have convinced themselves that man, the worst transgressor of all the species, is the crown of creation. All other creatures were created merely to provide him with food, pelts, to be tormented, exterminated. In relation to them [the animals], all people are Nazis; for the animals, it is an eternal Treblinka.” [tweet this]
-Isaac Bashevis Singer, Yiddish author, Nobel Laureate, & Holocaust survivor
“I spent my childhood years in the Warsaw Ghetto where almost my entire family was murdered along with about 350,000 other Polish Jews. People sometimes will ask me whether that experience had anything to do with my work for animals. It didn’t have a little to do with my work for animals, it had everything to do with my work for animals.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“When I see cages crammed with chickens from battery farms thrown on trucks like bundles of trash, I see, with the eyes of my soul, the Umschlagplatz (where Jews were forced onto trains leaving for the death camps). When I go to a restaurant and see people devouring meat, I feel sick. I see a holocaust on their plates.” [tweet this]
-Georges Metanomski, a Holocaust survivor who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
“I dedicate my mother’s grave to geese. My mother doesn’t have a grave, but if she did I would dedicate it to the geese. I was a goose too.”
-Marc Berkowitz, Animal activist & survivor of Josef Mengele’s “twin experiments”
“In 1975, after I immigrated to the United States, I happened to visit a slaughterhouse, where I saw terrified animals subjected to horrendous crowding conditions while awaiting their deaths. Just as my family members were in the notorious Treblinka death camp. I saw the same efficient and emotionless killing routine as in Treblinka, I saw the neat piles of hearts, hooves, and other body parts. So reminiscent of the piles of Jewish hair, glasses and shoes in Treblinka.”
-Alex Hershaft, Farm Animal Rights Movement founder & Holocaust Survivor
“Jews have been, while animals still are, treated like nothing, as if their lives don’t matter. You can also compare the two holocausts this way. […] Go to the nearest cow or pig slaughterhouse and remove the animals and replace them with humans. You have now re-created Birkenau.”
-Gary Yourosky
Try reading the article.
“What I’m asking them to do is change their lifestyle three times a day,” he explained. “It’s not like supporting gay, women’s or civil rights, where all they have to do is stop discriminating.”
“There aren’t that many people willing to listen to this kind of presentation because it doesn’t leave them indifferent,” he said. “It’s not something you just do casually, like your typical TED talk.”
Even in his own view of himself he isn’t well received and his views are controversial and difficult to accept.
So? Does that proof him wrong?
Here you have a holocaust survivor who compares what the Nazis did to the jews to what we do to animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. His words. Never does he equate a cow to a Jew, but he recognizes that both are living breathing beings who don’t want to suffer and who want to live. He gets that it is hard for you to accept that, because if you would fully accept it you would probably have to give up consuming animal products in order to not feel like a massive hypocrite. Is he wrong though?
Vegans try not to compare agriculture to genocide challenge +don’t compare poc to animals bonus round (IMPOSSIBLE)
I’m not even vegan… I just dislike evil a bit more than you.
Cherrypicking examples doesn’t prove your point. I can find trans terfs people who think protecting trans kids makes you a groomer, that doesn’t make it any less awful of a take. Stop being an obnoxious racist vegan on the internet pls
Ok but try actually reading the arguments before you dismiss them? It’s not bad takes.
Comparing two bad things doesn’t take anything away from either, it’s just a comparison.
So it’s fine to say your comparison is like Trump spewing nonsense on social media? Since I didn’t take anything away from either, it’s just a comparison.
While technically you are correct, I think it is important to notice and respect meaningful differences. Good comparisons have similarities in prominent attributes. Comparisons with dissimilarities in key aspects show something in between thoughtlessness and dishonesty, depending on the degree of awareness.
Sure you can make that comparison, it seems a bit nonsensical to me tho.
There are similarities, that’s the point, try reading the article.
Kindly fuck off with your spammy “relevant” links and your sanctimonious “oh you’re almost there, sweetie” attitude.
We get it, you’re vegan and you think everyone should be. Unfortunately, that’s never going to happen, but what can happen is that people reduce the amount of animal products they consume, which would have a MASSIVE impact relative to how things are now.
That said, your attitude is actively harming the cause that you espouse. Nobody’s gonna want to go vegan if this is how you act about it, jfc.
Why are you so angry at someone simply providing sources and advocating that we stop harming animals?
You make it sound like I’ve been rude and condescending but I haven’t.
You’ve absolutely been self-righteous about it. I think this comment is a good example, as is spam posting the same links without really saying anything other than “or…you could go vegan :) tee hee!”
It’s not productive, and actively turns people off in a time when many of those same people are, for the first time, reconsidering their dietary balance.
It’s like criticizing an out-of-shape person at the gym. Maybe they’re not doing it the way you think it should be ideally done, but they’re at least trying and doing something rather than giving up entirely.
I don’t see what’s self-righteous about that comment.
The links provide context to the discussion, giving people the data so they can verify is a good thing.
It seems like you feel attacked, I haven’t attacked you.
Were you totally going to have children before you found out how bad they are for the climate? If not, you’re resting on literally fictional laurels. For example, maybe you planned a genocide of all black people, but then chose not to do it when you heard racism is bad. Therefore, by your logic, you prevented millions of deaths. You’re basically an anti-racist hero!
But finally, as a childfree, carfree vegan myself, I don’t understand why you can’t just do your best
Here’s a list of things I didn’t do, just to save the planet:
- Have 200 children
- Eat an entire cow every day
- Drive 10 gas-guzzling, coal-rolling cars SIMULTANIOUSLY via remote control 24/7, 365 days a year
- Invent the Globarzinator, a device that produces 5 BAJILLION MEGATONNES of CO2 every Planck time unit
The environmental impact was not the ONLY reason I’m child free but it was definitely a factor in that decision. Same with being carfree. In fact I do a lot of things for not than one reason.
The point is that even without that reason you wouldn’t have any kids. It’s not the cornerstone of your childfree-ness. Neither is it for me, which is why I recognize that it’s morally lazy to rest on the imaginary laurels of not birthing children.
By that logic, every parent could ALSO claim they are doing their part for the earth. Simply by not having EVEN MORE children. Hell, maybe they are better than you because you only didn’t have 2 kids, but they didn’t have 4 additional kids. Thats twice the savings, twice the reason to not make the world a better place and blame everyone else!
The average family has 1.6 to 2.4 children depending on the region. The “even more” argument doesn’t really hold up because that’s not the societal norm.
I also don’t own a car and cycle/bus everywhere. My girlfriend and I made the choice not to have kids, and we try not to be wasteful. It’s not about sacrifice, it’s about being aware of what you do.
While that reduces greenhouse gasses, it’s not sustainable.
God forbit we actually end up in something.
Instead of going vegan or not having kids, I died when I was 5. Because living also creates more greenhouse gasses.
In fact, having a small footprint is just a matter of choosing how miserable you’re willing to make your life.
Unfortunately the Earth cannot sustainably support so many people living COMFORTABLY, and eating WHATEVER WE LIKE. The more people, the more miserable is the globally sustainable way of life.
Curbing population growth - not Thanos-like, but through education and availability of contraceptive methods - is the only way we can all have the cake (and the meat) and eat it.
Many wealthy countries have their population declining. Maybe if we get to the same level of wealthiness everywhere, less people would engage in procreation.
In any case, if we just do nothing and the doomsday evangelists are even nearly right, extreme weather, plage and famine caused by climate change will indeed curb the population. Eventually it reaches equilibrium.
In this case, the faster we get to the edge of the abyss, the quicker the situation will solve itself.
Be careful, you’re wandering awfully close to eco-facist talking points
having a small footprint is just a matter of choosing how miserable you’re willing to make your life.
In many areas yes, but not when it comes to food. A plant based diet is in no way miserable. There are still too many places with bad kitchens making it seem that way, but that’s just a lack of skill on their part.
I’d say my food experience rather became less miserable when I stopped eating meat, and my footprint decreased by a lot.
Eventually it reaches equilibrium.
In this case, the faster we get to the edge of the abyss, the quicker the situation will solve itself.
If you open the window to ventilate for 20 minutes that’s different from replacing the air in your room in 2 nanoseconds. The violent shockwave of the latter will probably damage your stuff and harm your health.
Similarly, the speed of climate change matters a lot. It is required for plants and animals to migrate and adapt, for people to migrate and adapt, for infrastructure to be built. It makes all the difference between a devastating blow and adaptation, while the reached equilibrium is the same in both cases.
Because if we don’t have children then who are we saving the planet for? There are very clear and achievable ways to massively reduce our individual and collective emissions which we can pass onto our descendents for a sustainable future.
Because if we don’t have children then who are we saving the planet for?
Because someone else will have children. Not every human needs to procreate to keep our species alive. We’re at 8 Billion and going strong.
So if you’re not going to have children anyway then it’s irrelevant and why not go vegan?
So someone should only care about their progeny, everyone else is ‘irrelevant’. That’s certainly a take.
The previous poster was suggesting that they could make a choice between going vegan and remaining childless, implying that they’re both difficult to live with. Since one option was irrelevant, there should still be the capacity to take the other.
I don’t believe my lacking of kids means anything with regards to my eating habits. If I want to go Vegan or Vegetarian, then I will, whether I have kids or not.
Then why did you present children as an alternative?
I didn’t but you feel I did, feel free to quote the text you have a problem with.
I do apologise, it was someone else whose comment I attributed to you.
Exactly. Not having kids covers my any excess from meat and driving easily.
We’ve been eating meat for millennia, while climate change has only been an issue for a century, yet somehow meat eating is the problem, not the billions of people we have added.
Meat production has also skyrocketed in the last 100 years: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#global-meat-production
And you don’t think the population also skyrocketing contributes to that?
For sure it contributes, but meat was considered a luxury item before humans industrialized farms and slaughter houses. The main reason we are eating so much meat today, is because it was made dirt cheap and omni-available. And in fact, it is still kept artificially cheap with subsidies in most places today. Don’t forget that half the world is living in what we would consider poverty. The world bank reported in 2019 that “half of the global population lives on less than US$6.85 per person per day”.
I am not saying over-population is not a problem, but it is also not the problem. Yes, 8 billion people is too much, but only because of the way we’re using our resources. It is like having a cake for 8 people and then 4 taking 7/8th of the cake and then throwing up their hands and saying: “Sorry guys, we’re with too many people! Better not have children anymore!”
It’s not like we don’t have the know-how or technology to live with 8 billion humans on this planet. It is that we’re unwilling to use it, because it would require some sacrifices.
Perhaps that’s why you find yourself arguing on the internet against veganism. You don’t want to change. Perhaps you’d like there to be a single root cause to a complex situation that is unlikely to have a single solution. Over-population is a problem, but so is meat consumption and so are coal power plants, etc. Sorry, life isn’t that simple.
Lots of food is subsidized. And I am certainly not arguing in favor of subsidizing meat.
Earth produces fine resources. We cannot just keep increasing the denominator and then wine that people just trying to live are consuming too much.
Tell me, how many resources can each person use (or pay a corporation to use for them) and not overshoot our resources?
I am not saying overconsumption is not a problem. It is among the super rich. But I’m tired of the wealthy flying private jets to board their yachts, while people are saying people eating meat or driving cars is the problem. You need a reasonable degree of comfort. If we have to live the life of an acetic, what is the point of living at all?
I am not saying that each person should stay within the boundaries of what the planet can currently afford while keeping everything the same. The pie is clearly not big enough. That would surely put a lot of us back in the stone age and therefore is simply not a realistic option. I am saying that we should make more efficient use of our resources using the best of our knowledge (grow the pie). And yes, we should make some sacrifices too (be less greedy). The ones we can reasonably make without losing anything of moral significance. The Paris agreement is proof that there are plenty of people who have looked at these issues in depth and belief that this is doable.
For example, only a small percentage of our energy consumption is powered by solar, wind and nuclear, while the vast majority still comes from coal, gas and oil. It is not like we simply don’t know how to change that. We just don’t want to. It is uncomfortable to change, but we could theoretically make that change a lot faster than we’re doing it now without cutting back much on consumption or sacrificing anything of moral significance.
Likewise, and admittedly on a much smaller scale, you don’t want to change to veganism, which could reduce your carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent. And just like switching to clean power sources would not put us back in the stone ages, you’d not end up living like an ascetic if you’d switch to a vegan diet.
But you’re not off the hook just because you’re not the major cause of the problem. We’re all in this together and we’ve all got to act responsibly within our means. How can you expect others to change if you won’t? Should all small countries only change when the big countries change? Should all small cities only change when the big cities change? Should the rich only change when the super rich change? Etc.
And are you even aware where you sit in terms of your income/wealth compared to the rest of the world though? I’m betting that the majority of the world thinks you’re rich. The majority of the world points at people like you and me, you’re pointing to the super rich, the super rich point to the politicians, the politicians point at industry, industry points at the share holders, the share holders point at the consumers, etc.
The largest thing you can do is have fewer kids: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/jul/12/want-to-fight-climate-change-have-fewer-children
At least you get it, though. There is no path forward to be resource neutral. Few want to acknowledge that. Even the most resource-conscious person in a wealthy country uses too much one way or another.
And to me, a vegan diet is asceticism. That’s just my tastes. You are free to like vegan food, I don’t. I’m sorry I’m not you.
I never asked to be born. Not a day goes by I don’t wish I wasn’t. My parents wanted a play toy, so here I am, forced to pay bills on a collapsing planet. But now that existence has been thrust upon my, I want to enjoy what I can. Sorry that apparently makes me an awful person.
Fossil fuels are the problem, but not eating meat is a juicy, very low hanging fruit.
There is no other way to prevent that much emissions for basically not changing anything. You will still eat 3 meals a day for a similar price.
There is no other way to prevent that much emissions for basically not changing anything.
Not having kids prevents far more emissions than not eating meat, and changes my life even less then a diet change.
Not having kids prevents far more emissions than not eating meat, and changes my life even less then a diet change.
Only if you didn’t want to have kids anyways. In which case it should not be counted as a saving.
If you want to have kids but don’t because of climate, that’s probably tougher to stomach than a slight composition change on your plate.
I’m thinking of changing my life as a change to what’s happening now, not what may happen in the future.
It’s not nothing to me. Eating isn’t a mere chore, I eat because it is enjoyable. Vegan entrees just are not consistently palatable to me. Take away meat and I’m sorry, but my list of reasons to live will dwindle.
And besides, I’d argue not having kids is an even lower hanging fruit by your reasoning. That even saves money. A lot of money.
Take away meat and I’m sorry, but my list of reasons to live will dwindle.
Seems you haven’t had a good veggie dish yet. I totally get how enjoyable food is central for a happy life, but you don’t enjoy it because it was killed instead of harvested. I’m pretty sure you have a few veggie foods you enjoy, maybe without realizing they don’t contain meat.
And besides, I’d argue not having kids is an even lower hanging fruit by your reasoning. That even saves money. A lot of money.
As said in a nearby comment: Only if you didn’t want to have kids anyways. In which case it should not be counted as a saving.
If you want to have kids but don’t because of climate, that’s probably tougher to stomach than a slight composition change on your plate.
Seems you haven’t had a good veggie dish yet. I totally get how enjoyable food is central for a happy life, but you don’t enjoy it because it was killed instead of harvested. I’m pretty sure you have a few veggie foods you enjoy, maybe without realizing they don’t contain meat.
Or maybe I have different tastes than you.
I really hate that attitude that because it isn’t much of a sacrifice for you, it isn’t for anyone else. People are different.
Heck, even if I found your one magical dish, I’m not going to eat it for the rest of my life. Even with meat, I choose variety.
As said in a nearby comment: Only if you didn’t want to have kids anyways. In which case it should not be counted as a saving.
If you want to have kids but don’t because of climate, that’s probably tougher to stomach than a slight composition change on your plate.
Oh, so personal preference suddenly matters? Seems you haven’t found the right hobby yet. I totally get how kids are central for a happy life, but you don’t enjoy them because they are your kids instead of pets. I’m pretty sure you have a few activities you enjoy, maybe without realizing they don’t contain kids.
See how you sound?
How about this, you don’t eat meat, I’ll not have kids? We’ll see in 100 years who had a more meaningful impact on climate change.
Tax meat, subsidize healthy meat alternatives.
This has been known for eons, hasn’t it?
Oh look, another article pointing the finger at the meager consumption habits of citizens and completely ignoring the massive ocean of CO2 production by large companies.
Don’t people get tired of seeing this same argument being made? The amount of carbon produced by barges carrying cargo over the Atlantic so far greatly exceeds the consumption of many millions of people every single day but I’m supposed to feel guilty for eating a piece of steak today instead of some semi-edible “impossible meat” bug protein?
ETA: Nice, my first blowup since leaving reddit. Very refreshing to see some people arguing passionately. I appreciate the vigor and the quality of argumentation, everybody. The quality of discourse here is so much better than on reddit.
I’m willing to admit the “semi edible impossible meat bug protein” gamut was a bit tongue in cheek, but I recognize how it can sound genuine. I do think Impossible Meat is disgusting, but that’s neither here nor there.
I eat plenty of plant matter and I regularly forage in the local forests to learn about edible plants. But I’m not going to stop enjoying steak just because it might put a bit more CO2 (why do people keep writing it as C02 online?) into the atmosphere. If removing subsidies and putting more pressure on the meat industry to be less wasteful, less environmentally impactful and more ethical towards animals causes steak to rise to $40/lb as some here have stated I’ll gladly pay.
FWIW, I get my steak from local farms that are free range and grass fed. Grass feeding is healthier for the cow than the typical grain, it produces less CO2 and the steak is better quality. Plus the cows are better taken care of. Again, thanks for the great messages (generally).
Well that’s no surprise. Raising animals for meat is horribly inefficient compared to plants.
And the type of meat changes the math significantly. Beef is notoriously inefficient and produces an insane amount of GHG emissions compared to more efficient meats like chicken, pork, and farmed fish.
Haven’t we known this for a long time? With good peer reviewed studies?
I upvoted because this message still didn’t reach everyone, but I guess it’s just that people are in denial… like, isn’t this obvious? And weren’t there already dozens of studies proving it?
I’ll go completely meat free when the super rich go private jet free.
Well, if everyone thinks like that nobody does anything ever… even the richest of the rich can say “it’s not because of me”, because it really isn’t. This is a man made disaster, but not by any single man. Some contribute more, others less, but the idea that only the rich polute is complete bonkers.
I think that’s the point. People don’t want to change, so they say: “I’ll change when they’ll change.” Knowing full well that it is a deadlocked situation.
Other people doing bad things doesn’t justify you doing bad things.
Agreed, but it’s too easy to come after plebs like me and my eating habits when comparably private air flight is responsible for orders of magnitude more co2.
Me turning down my heating or eating less bacon is not going to have the kind of impact that big corporations, government, and super wealthy could have if they curbed their destructive habits.
private air flight is responsible for orders of magnitude more co2.
Aviation worldwide creates 2% of man made GHG, food production 25% and could be reduced by 75% with a plant based diet.
How do we hold evil corporations accountable if not refusing to give them our money?
We can do better in our own lives while advocating for bigger change.
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Humans evolved to eat animals.
humans also evolved to die from cholera before the age of 3 what’s your point
B12 is an essential vitamin whose primary source is meat and dairy
so add b12 to foods, or take b12 supplements
I am child free
not having children because you never wanted children isn’t an argument unless you avoided having them specifically for the climate
you’re allowed to eat meat, but can we please stop with all the limp-wristed excuses for why it’s actually morally justifiable and just own it?
You can do more than one thing to help the climate.
Sure, humans evolved to eat meat. Let’s just assume that’s correct, and you have the right interpretation of it.
But that doesn’t mean we have to.
Humans didn’t evolve to type things on a cell phone, yet here we are.
I eat meat myself. But I reduced a lot my consumption, most people in Western countries consume far too much, even for their own health. We should consume less and better, chosing meat from sustainable farming instead of cheap meat from pastures where there should be the Amazon…
We’re omnivores which means we can thrive with or without meat, B12 is simple to supplement.
people ate meat for MILLIONS OF YEARS with negligible global warming effect from the animals
vegans going start blaming the Assyrianz for inventing husbandry before blaming Exxon Mobile BP
like dude pick your battles
People did not consume the amount of meat they do today. Meat used to be a serious luxury most people couldn’t afford at all.
You should educate yourself instead of knee jerk reacting to bash on vegans.
So if we just stop subsidizing it so ridiculously it should go way down to sustainable levels then right?
Certainly if we also stop indirect subsidies like the failure to internalize externalities. Include the climate damage caused in the price tag, and people will love a veggy curry instead.
I am a vegan bro I hate meet Because I don’t like the taste. I hate vegans trying to turn a food PREFERENCE into a snobbery high horse thing. dude eating Factory Farm Veggies is just as bad if not worse (see Monsanto)
Maybe Boop A Pipeline if you are truly morally superior
That’s nice. I’m not vegan, actually, and I encourage veganism/vegetarianism but don’t consider eating meat a moral failure.
You are making prejudice assumptions and being a bit of a dick about it which is ironic since your whole supposed complaint is some fantasy vegan that fits the stereotype in your head (probably placed there by meat industry propaganda).
Also, factory farmed veggies are obviously not as bad as the meat, that’s just you being a silly twat.
your right I’m sorry
It’s alright, I do the same thing sometime. It just means you’re passionate.
Veganism is not a food preference, you are not vegan.
Veganism is a stance to avoid harming non-human animals.
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dude people will never change because you tell them too if yall actually cared you would talk about the end of factory farms (which also incudes Veggies) the corruption Comes from the system itself. you are absolutely naive if you thing a a capitalist run Vegan Diet Enforced by Law would Help the environment
mate the cut down the rainforest to grow all kinds of food. growing Veggies with Monsanto juice literally gave millions of people cancer 🙄
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You have no idea of the scale we are dealing with.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aba7357
Vegans still care about the ban of oil and many other topics like zero waste, it is not exclusive.
Due to the current infrastructure not everyone can just stop using fossile fuel based transport, but we all can go vegan. So yes, we pick battles, those we can win now and we still fight against what we cant change as individuals.
the whole world can choosd to be a Catholic mate. and it would be a good thing
thats what you sound like. a fascist. People have the RIGHT to choose what they eat
It’s not really suprising, is it? Just take two people and give them the same basics, but swap everything non vegan with the stuff those animals got to eat for one of them. Not only did he save the middle man to save on emissions, he also ended up with way more food. So you could save a lot more emissions by cutting down the vegan pile to the same amount of calories.
Replacement products bring down the comparison, but making stuff out of soy will always be more efficient than feeding soy to animals and then eating those. So with otherwise equal lifestyles a vegan will always produce less emissions.
It amazes me how people can wail about the record breaking heat on one hand and the effects of climate change, and sit in these comments and rationalize that eating meat isn’t contributing. Of course it is.
Going vegan was the best decision I ever made for myself.
