This seems to be neglecting the fact that animal agriculture absolutely requires a ton of energy production. It’s not just happening in a vacuum—it’s tied to things that you mentioned like transportation and fossil fuel usage. Also, as far as the point about transportation goes, just to be clear, the “local meat is more environmentally friendly than a vegetable that is transported across the world” take is not true.
The story’s subtitle declares that transportation costs of shipping foods to consumers is not a significant factor compared to whether those foods are animal-based (a lot of CO2 emissions from land use, farming, animal feed) versus plant-based. “The distance our food travels to get to us actually accounts for less than 10 percent of most food products’ carbon footprint.”
I was simply going by impact assessments of impact by industry types, obviously nothing happens in a vacuum. This is why I said there is room to reassess impacts. The stats that I was referring to try to take into account overall usage, pollution and other factors. Everything is linked in systems which is why it’s difficult to get perfectly accurate pictures of things yet it IS possible to have a decent set of data to guide decision making on how to best course correct. Moving to renewables, building housing made to last generations instead of 20 years, public transportation powered by said renewables, reducing/eliminating meat consumption, growing locally, banning single use plastics etc.
I know the ethical and moral considerations are important. I agree with animal liberation entirely. I just take issue with presenting animal agriculture as THE single most damaging environmental practice, which it just isn’t.
Being factually accurate is important and misrepresenting the issue is harmful to the overall cause of environmental justice.
Animal agriculture will undoubtedly be more costly to the environment than plant agriculture—that’s for sure. And who knows? Maybe I was missing something about other sources of energy production being more costly than animal agriculture, but especially with the sheer scale of it (over trillions of animals exploited and slaughtered every year), it is very destructive regardless.
However, irrespective of any environmental concerns about certain things possibly being worse than animal agriculture, the exploitation of animals ought to be condemned from an ethical standpoint anyway, and ultimately, even if there are concerns about environmental destruction in other ways, reducing our negative impact on the environment by doing what we can as individuals and finding solutions on a broader scale would not preclude going vegan anyway, so it remains a moral obligation.
Yes, the categories have crossovers and the stats attempt to take those into account, as difficult as they may be to separate entirely.
Transportation includes shipping across all categories and moving humans by car, plane, etc.
I am certainly NOT advocating eating meat or anything remotely like that. I DO want to make accurate statements and have others get accurate info.
This seems to be neglecting the fact that animal agriculture absolutely requires a ton of energy production. It’s not just happening in a vacuum—it’s tied to things that you mentioned like transportation and fossil fuel usage. Also, as far as the point about transportation goes, just to be clear, the “local meat is more environmentally friendly than a vegetable that is transported across the world” take is not true.
This table covers environmental impact of many factors.
Here is an actual high quality version of the image.
Edit: I misinterpreted IncorrigibleDirigible’s comment. My bad, G.
I was simply going by impact assessments of impact by industry types, obviously nothing happens in a vacuum. This is why I said there is room to reassess impacts. The stats that I was referring to try to take into account overall usage, pollution and other factors. Everything is linked in systems which is why it’s difficult to get perfectly accurate pictures of things yet it IS possible to have a decent set of data to guide decision making on how to best course correct. Moving to renewables, building housing made to last generations instead of 20 years, public transportation powered by said renewables, reducing/eliminating meat consumption, growing locally, banning single use plastics etc.
I know the ethical and moral considerations are important. I agree with animal liberation entirely. I just take issue with presenting animal agriculture as THE single most damaging environmental practice, which it just isn’t. Being factually accurate is important and misrepresenting the issue is harmful to the overall cause of environmental justice.
👍🏿
deleted by creator
Animal agriculture will undoubtedly be more costly to the environment than plant agriculture—that’s for sure. And who knows? Maybe I was missing something about other sources of energy production being more costly than animal agriculture, but especially with the sheer scale of it (over trillions of animals exploited and slaughtered every year), it is very destructive regardless.
However, irrespective of any environmental concerns about certain things possibly being worse than animal agriculture, the exploitation of animals ought to be condemned from an ethical standpoint anyway, and ultimately, even if there are concerns about environmental destruction in other ways, reducing our negative impact on the environment by doing what we can as individuals and finding solutions on a broader scale would not preclude going vegan anyway, so it remains a moral obligation.
deleted by creator
Yes, the categories have crossovers and the stats attempt to take those into account, as difficult as they may be to separate entirely. Transportation includes shipping across all categories and moving humans by car, plane, etc. I am certainly NOT advocating eating meat or anything remotely like that. I DO want to make accurate statements and have others get accurate info.