>You mean, like, switching to a vegan diet, using public transport and stop flying? Those seem radical enough for most people in the Northern Hemisphere.
One of these things is not like the other.
Vegan diets — and I support them in principle — do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
Vegan diets just don't deliver enough calories and essential nutrients without (industrial) supplementation, and veganism depends on broadscale monoculture crops with massive fossil-fuel inputs to grow, harvest and distribute, and exist in places largely that used to be healthy ecosystems supporting animal life.
Nice idea, and I'm cool with the overall philosophy and principles of veganism, but yoking it to climate activism, conflating it with strategies to "save the planet" is misguided.
Such a load of bull. I'm sick of people ignoring the science. Educate yourself before writing anything next time. It's clear as day you're wrong. It's the most impactful thing you can as an individual do.
We need to stop fossil fuels asap, stop animal ag (deforestation, pollution, biodiversity loss, etc.), reform agriculture (soils, biodiversity, poisons) and start reforesting/afforesting.
There are tons of studies that show it's the best way to stop the climate crisis.
How Compatible Are Western European Dietary Patterns to Climate Targets? Accounting for Uncertainty of Life Cycle Assessments by Applying a Probabilistic Approach
If the world adopted a plant-based diet we would reduce global agricultural land use from 4 to 1 billion hectares. The expansion of land for agriculture is the leading driver of deforestation and biodiversity loss.
Rapid global phaseout of animal agriculture has the potential to stabilize greenhouse gas levels for 30 years and offset 68 percent of CO2 emissions this century
Animal ag. is the leading culprit of the mess we're in (together with fossil fuels, ofc). The reason nobody at political level talks about it is because they feel it's a political suicide.
If there was a significant portion of the population with changed habits (and numbers of vegans and vegetarians are rising fast in the last few years, so much that it's affecting sales of meat and dairy already), the abolishing of animal ag subsidies will be much more probable.
Then without subsidies the reduction in consumption is automatic - the price would take care of that. 90% (IIRC) of corporate profits in animal ag comes from subsidies.
Otherwise ... to quote the poet ... "You'll get what you don't want".
> If there was a significant portion of the population with changed habits
It’s exceedingly hard to get people to change habits. That’s why people in this thread don’t believe it will be a realistic (timely enough) solution if left up to mere individual decisions and not forced by systemic changes.
Points that Agriculture is 18.6% of total CO2 emissions. Out of which plants related emissions make like 4%. Granted, part of that is animal feed, but you'll have to replace meat calories with something else.
Check this thread, I've already provided some of the sources.
All those sectors you've mentioned are absolutely problem too. Animal ag is 15-26% of our carbon budget, depending on which source you'll pick. That's already bigger that cement, and almost all of transport.
But animal ag is not just the emissions alone, and not only cows. Just with afforestation potential (land use change of pastures) we'd be able to store our entire 1.5C carbon budget.
This is a short (and incomplete) list of impacts of (animal & industrial) agriculture. It's imho clear from this list that animal ag (which is 75-80% of all ag) is the major culprit.
- Greenhouse gas emissions
- Deforestation (40+% of pastures used to be forests)
- Land degradation
- Water pollution
- Water overconsumption
- Loss of biodiversity
- Antibiotic resistance
- Ocean dead zones
- Inefficient land and resource use
- Ethical concerns regarding animal welfare
- Zoonotic diseases
- Air pollution
- Eutrophication
- Soil erosion
- High energy consumption
- Chemical runoff from pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers
- Destruction of habitats and ecosystems
- Inequality in global food distribution
- Public health risks from foodborne illnesses
- Nutrient pollution
- Strain on waste management systems
- Overfishing (40-70% of plankton gone, sharks 90% gone, fish almost gone)
One of these things is not like the other.
Vegan diets — and I support them in principle — do little or nothing to reduce carbon emissions.
Vegan diets just don't deliver enough calories and essential nutrients without (industrial) supplementation, and veganism depends on broadscale monoculture crops with massive fossil-fuel inputs to grow, harvest and distribute, and exist in places largely that used to be healthy ecosystems supporting animal life.
Nice idea, and I'm cool with the overall philosophy and principles of veganism, but yoking it to climate activism, conflating it with strategies to "save the planet" is misguided.