1. Vegetarian, living in a McMansion in an USA suburb in a desert, driving big SUV everywhere and flying for work every month to the other coast.
2. Meat eater, living car free in a small flat in London, taking subway everywhere and train to travel for work to Manchester.
Is meat eating part most impactful life choice they’re making?
# Own and drive an SUV everywhere
# Flying for work every month
Think how much factory farmed meat is consumed. We kill and process ~80B animals per year.
For most folks meat is more affordable than buying an SUV or flying every month.
Getting people to heavily reduce or cut out meat & dairy and move to a more plant based diet will have a greater impact in reducing environmental impact.
This is based on an Oxford Uni study and also recommended by the IPCC. I’ll add sources later.
But it’s not an either or.
We need to do both and more.
It’s a tough challenge and we should have started yesterday.
Interesting times ahead… I wonder what the world will be like in 30 years.
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Edit: adding some sources
1) https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
2) “In addition to climate mitigation gains, a transition towards more plant-based consumption and reduced consumption of animal-based foods, particularly from ruminant animals, could reduce pressure on forests and land used for feed, support the preservation of biodiversity and planetary health, and contribute to preventing forms of malnutrition (i.e. undernutrition, micronutrient deficiency, and obesity) in developing countries. Other co-benefits include lowering the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and reducing mortality from diet-related non-communicable diseases.”
From: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg3/
3) “Imbalanced diets, such as diets low in fruits and vegetables, and high in red and processed meat, are responsible for the greatest health burden globally and in most regions. At the same time the food system is also responsible for more than a quarter of all greenhouse gas emissions, and therefore a major driver of climate change.”
From: https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/news/201603-plant-based-di...
Reducing amount of meat can be, but you can give a shit and reduce your impact much more while still eating a lot of meat.
People screaming that unless you reduce meat intake you’re killing earth are as narrowly minded focused on single issue as people screaming that unless you buy an EV, you’re killing earth.