Researchers have linked dietary data from over 55,000 individuals with data on the environmental impacts of the foods they eat. The team, from the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) project at the University of Oxford, found that the dietary impacts of vegans were around a third of those of high meat eaters. They also saw a 30% difference between high- and low-meat diets for most of the measures of environmental harm.
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I think this is the right attitude to have (even if the oil spill would be worse then the oil delivered), the idea that you should take personal responsibility for environmental impact just glosses over how something like 4/5ths of all pollution is caused by large corporations manly in heavy industry. I don’t think this is a bad paper, just a bit thin on core work (it was all survey based, and assumes impact from other studies).
People should be aiming a bit higher to make the changes they are stating.
I agree with you one hundred percent on the balance between corporate and individual responsibility (and that balance falling basically all the way on the corporate side), but I also think it helps to know just how much worse meat eating consumers are for the planet than vegan consumers so we know how thoroughly to blame the dairy and meat lobby, the advertising industry, the fast food industry, and anyone else who puts their thumb on the scale of what could be healthy consumption habits otherwise. Your observations on the methodology sound pretty reasonable too
Yes I am on the same page mostly but this paper does not actually cover the impact of a vegan diet nor all the situations that can arise. There needs to be a lot more work on the large scale impacts of many diets to really get the best dialed in. I think the huge factory farms are the main issue, but what is not mentioned are the huge factory farms are not all raising meat and that depending on location the transportation impact is larger then the damage done when producing (think of bananas for example). I have worked on large cash cropping operations (canola, soy and some corn) and was frankly shocked at how little thought was put into any sort of environmental impact.
In contrast I have a neighbor who turned an old abandoned property (less then 5 acres) into a small homestead for their family. They have some of trouble growing much of anything on that land (they had to bring in soil and build cold frames), but they have no issues grazing with their goats, sheep, chickens and one cow (whose name is Daisy and was raised like a dog). They seem to have drastically reduced the environmental impact of the family and may have even reduced below say a vegan living in a large metro center, but this would not work for most of the worlds population and is not scale able. I guess I just think more work has to be done to figure this out.
Your math is flawed:
A plant based diet reduces the impact by -3/4, your solution by -1
If i convince 4 others to do the same, or 8 to reduce it by half my impact is -3 not counting cascading effects.
That is if you would follow trough with your suggestion which I have doubts. So not only is your solution not better, it is worse and you don’t act the way you propose.
What if I, like above, convince 4 others to do the same?
(oh do we do that whole /s thing here?)
How big is your suicide cult right now? I have been vegan for over 5 years and made a impact on many others while you talk smart on the internet. You just justify not taking responsibility with a stupid hyperbolic example you don’t follow trough. I can advocate going vegan because I follow trough. You, you are just pathetic.
ahhh, I get it now. Here I can perhaps help this misunderstanding a little; not everything has to be a cult or cult like. Sometimes I like to make a little joke on the math provided but that does not mean I am inactive or not taking responsibility.
Sure, most responsible murder suicide cult ever.
this is only true if you believe the myth that you’re responsible for your"carbon footprint" instead of the people who are actually making the emissions.
Just because one is paying someone to create emissions does not make them responsible because someone else did it?
they create the emissions without being paid.
ah, they use their private money to burn oil in their backyard. alright.
the animal industry would just keep breeding and abusing animals despite no one buying their stuff. OK.
you don’t seem to understand how linear time works. polluters pollute before anyone buys their product. whether anyone buys the product or not, the pollution has already happened.
Ah, the “the damage is already done” argument. Has anyone told you that you pay for the next victim of the industry? Buying the product supports the industry and keeps it alive.
Maybe you have no concept of future.
no, i don’t.
you seem to have a loose grip on causation as well.