And while you say this, this thread is full of people claiming it is actually very simple. sigh

Correlation is not causation my friend.

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Even if media agencies are not setting out to portray someone like a caraciture they can not help it. That is just how the media is organized nowadays. If Greta shouts something angry in a microphone and they have 7 seconds for a segment about her, then they will use that outburst.

Greta is very scientifically minded and rational, unlike how the media likes to portray her. They use the emotional sound bites and almost never show her referring to paper after paper.

How fragile their ego’s must be. Can’t have anyone being different!

I do. Tell us

Okay, it’s an example, but as far as I can see from that second article beyond is just not disclosing. Nevertheless in general plant based foods are way more environmentally friendly than animal based foods. Even the so-called sustainable ones:

https://ourworldindata.org/less-meat-or-sustainable-meat

I think we understand each other.

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.

Can’t argue against that. Tastes differ for sure. Except for to say that you’d be the first person who I haven’t blow their socks off with my awesome vegan cooking skills. You’d be seriously surprised with what’s possible :) Most people have not a single clue. Tastes differ, but if I’d be a betting man I’d bet you that you don’t know vegan food nearly as well as you think you do.

And from a climate perspective reduction is always an option. In many cases there are vegan or vegetarian options that are nearly indistinguishable from the original. I mean are you really going to taste the difference between a Thai massaman curry with chicken or with tofu? A spaghetti bolognese with ground beef or with beyond ground beef? The flavor doesn’t come from the meat; it comes from the herbs. And you could consider: do you really need dead pig flesh on your pizza or are there other pizza’s that taste just as good or are there entirely different things that you could eat that would be even healthier and just as satisfying?

When it comes to ethics, veganism is a pretty black and white thing. When it comes climate it’s all gray scales. I have not forbidden myself to fly ever again, but I’ve been taking the train through Europe the last couple of years even though that cost me nearly twice as much time and money each time I did it. Flexitarian, purely from a climate perspective, makes a lot of sense.

Fair enough. But sometimes a minority can be right and a majority can be wrong. That is why we understand arguments based on number of believers to be a fallacy. So are you saying that this guy’s comparison makes no sense? Or are you just making an argumentum ad populum?

Furthermore, Dr. Alex Hershaft isn’t some whacko fringe lunatic. He’s had a pretty impressive career. Please just listen to what he has to say and I’d be happy to hear if you have any substantial counter argument to the comparisons he draws.

Dude, read my comment in full. Emphasis on the word today. I am not saying researching pills is pointless. I am saying that if you really care about the climate, you should refrain from animal consumption until that magic pill has been invented that makes animal consumption okay again in terms of the climate.

Haha, yeah, unlike real estrogen which @Classy@sh.itjust.works probably consumes on a daily basis.

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.

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.

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.

Meat production has also skyrocketed in the last 100 years: https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production#global-meat-production

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?

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.

Have a close look at this graph: https://ourworldindata.org/land-use#half-of-the-world-s-habitable-land-is-used-for-agriculture

“livestock takes up most of the world’s agricultural land it only produces 18% of the world’s calories and 37% of total protein”