OK, but what if instead of going vegan, I just don’t have kids. Because adding more people to the world also creates more greenhouse gasses.
Were you totally going to have children before you found out how bad they are for the climate? If not, you’re resting on literally fictional laurels. For example, maybe you planned a genocide of all black people, but then chose not to do it when you heard racism is bad. Therefore, by your logic, you prevented millions of deaths. You’re basically an anti-racist hero!
But finally, as a childfree, carfree vegan myself, I don’t understand why you can’t just do your best
Here’s a list of things I didn’t do, just to save the planet:
- Have 200 children
- Eat an entire cow every day
- Drive 10 gas-guzzling, coal-rolling cars SIMULTANIOUSLY via remote control 24/7, 365 days a year
- Invent the Globarzinator, a device that produces 5 BAJILLION MEGATONNES of CO2 every Planck time unit
The environmental impact was not the ONLY reason I’m child free but it was definitely a factor in that decision. Same with being carfree. In fact I do a lot of things for not than one reason.
The point is that even without that reason you wouldn’t have any kids. It’s not the cornerstone of your childfree-ness. Neither is it for me, which is why I recognize that it’s morally lazy to rest on the imaginary laurels of not birthing children.
By that logic, every parent could ALSO claim they are doing their part for the earth. Simply by not having EVEN MORE children. Hell, maybe they are better than you because you only didn’t have 2 kids, but they didn’t have 4 additional kids. Thats twice the savings, twice the reason to not make the world a better place and blame everyone else!
The problem is not the amount of people but how much each individual consumes. Getting meat out of your diet is a simple and a small sacrifice. Besides the health benefits there is also the fact that you don’t contribute to the culling of 70 billion animals per year (of which 40% is probably not eaten and thrown in the trash). Not only that but you don’t contribute to the greatest cause of deforestation, antibiotics resistance, decline of biodiversity, water waste, …
Besides the global population is steadily stagnating (Africa is still booming) as a lot of countries see population decline (less than 2 children per woman).
Couldn’t we just stop food waste? Most food is discarded before even making it to the store. Seems to me being more efficient with how we distribute food is more realistic that trying to convince everyone to go vegan.
Because I’m not going to stop eating meat and the amount of ppl like me is larger than you think
Many people will also not reduce food waste, for exactly same reasons you won’t stop eating meat. Convenience, habit, cost, time investment.
