Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
bloomberg.com
Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
1–10 of 119 posts
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#2The article title is obviously click-bait-y.
I don't disagree with any of the technological solutions discussed: I think vertical farming seems neat, and hopefully promising, and I believe local farming with special care given to rotating crops and maintaining soil health is also important.
Given that I personally eat eggs and honey on a semi-regular basis, and am not fully vegan like my wife, I also agree with the idea of buying local eggs. But the article's actual contents do very little to support the title, since everyone knows no one thing is going to save the planet.
TL;DR Not just one change is going to magically save the planet, but let me take this technicality as a chance to call out veganism for more clicks.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#3> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals
This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed.
The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans.
This is why eating plants directly is much less wasteful and more resource-efficient. If more people eat plant-based, much less land will be needed for crops, that's the point.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#4Okay article, terrible headline.
No single action in isolation will save the world from climate collapse. The problem stems from countless actions taking place today that do not pay for the external cost of emitting carbon into the atmosphere. The defeatist attitude that something should not be done because it doesn't solve the entire problem need to stop in order for us to begin to make progress.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#5> Undoing this damage [...] includes less meat, less intensive and more intelligent farming, and the application of new technologies, including ways to produce high volumes of food for cities.
So “going vegan won’t save the planet” by itself, but it plays a major role in doing so. Makes sense, especially if one considers that the production of meat presupposes the production of plant-based fodder worth about 10 times the energy.
The title is misleading, or simply clickbait. Then again, it helps tricking your meat-loving friends into clicking on it...
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#6Electricity, transportation, and manufacturing add up to about 80% of all GHG emissions. If you want your diet choice to have the biggest impact purchase locally produced and unprocessed foods.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#7Obviously one solution isn't going to solve the problem, but we'd get a lot further if the single solution people adopted was eating less/no meat instead of (say) not using plastic straws.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#8> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#9> farms growing crops have been just as destructive as those raising animals This comparison does not make sense. What this reporter and the public, in general, fail to realize still in 2019, is that most of the farms producing crops are doing so to produce cattle feed. The majority of agricultural fields are planted to feed livestock, not humans. Only a relatively small amount of crops goes directly to humans. This…
It's a lot less efficient to grow almonds than livestock-grade soybeans, so perhaps almond milk is worse for the environment than cow's milk? The article doesn't really go into that sort of analysis though, and it's difficult to imagine that the average vegan has a bigger ecological impact.
Soy crops are a good example, the majority of them are to feed livestock but they are a great crop to feed humans instead, and without all the waste involved in having to feed a cow first and then eat parts of it.
You can make plant milk with soy too, its a very versatile crop. With it, you can feed the same amount of people with a fraction of the land, water, and pollution.
Re: Going Vegan Won’t Save the Planet
#10Going vegan is missing the point. There are too many people on this planet, period. Im not going to eat an unhealthy diet just so we can squeeze 3 billion more consumers into the economy. We need reproductive freedom and education in any countries that are above replacement rate.