What if we all became Vegan tomorrow?

These were an eye opening read for me because I was surprised that the carbon emission effect of the meat and animal product industry amounted to only 15.6%. I have always believed that veganism a more sustainable and environmentally friendly way of eating so I was disappointed to find out that the reason that humanity is unable to make these changes is due to a capitalist run society that focuses on profit. If anything I feel slightly better about the fact that I have actively reduced the amount of meat I eat by incorporating vegetarian meals into my day to day lifestyle. I struggle with the feeling that I need to do everything 100% or it is not worth it but as the BBC article explains, it is not necessarily an either or situation when it comes to eating meat. As consumers, we can do our part in a capitalist society to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases the products we buy produce. However, there is still a complete refocus needed by the government in the direction of funding that it provides. Rather than subsidizing the fossil fuel industries, Benton says “there is a way to have low productivity systems that are high in animal and environmental welfare – as well as profitable – because they’re producing meat as a treat rather than a daily staple.

I have compiled my highlights of the articles:

photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed

If we all became vegan tomorrow | New Internationalist

Many traditional and indigenous cultures surviving in relative harmony with natures have hunted meat sustainably long before the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. They’ve done so often with a profound respect for the animal and their role in the co-production of natures.

Changing your shopping list – no matter how radically – will not solve these systemic problems. Thatcher said ‘there is no society’. Individualist ‘solutions’ to climate change – like prioritizing veganism – support this myth. We need to restructure our economy away from fossil fuel reliance and improve livelihoods as we do it.

If everyone became vegan tomorrow, between 14.5 to 15.6 per cent of anthropogenic (human-made) global greenhouse gas emissions would be wiped out. That is huge. You would be forgiven if you thought it was higher, as a recent viral Guardian article, based on a new study out from the University of Oxford, sensationally reported that meat and dairy accounted for 60 per cent of agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, without stating the proportion of global anthropogenic emissions attributable to agriculture specifically.

85.5-84.4 per cent) of the remaining greenhouse gas emissions? There are two primary culprits. First, fossil fuel companies. They profit from the oil, gas and coal that we all know must stay in the ground, and frequently with disregard for human rights and indigenous land sovereignty. Exxon and Shell knew as early as the 1960s that their extractivism would cause devastating climate impacts like extreme weather events on the US’ east coast. Shell even predicted civil society uproar, and litigation such as that recently brought against them by Friends of the Earth Netherlands. They knew what they were doing. They predicted the consequences of prioritizing profit over people and planet. They continued nonetheless, with the support of governments.

Governments then are also equally responsible for their failure to regulate and for their enthusiasm to subsidize the fossil fuel industry. We’re not just talking about Trump’s deregulation and fossil fuel infrastructure bonanza. The UK continues to impose an unpopular fracking industry on Northern communities. Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Government in Canada is using USD $4.5bn of public money to rehabilitate the Trans Mountain tar sands pipeline without the prior consent of First Nations. The EU uses the European Commission’s Projects of Common Interest programme to lend political and financial support to the creation of an unnecessary new gas industry spanning Europe. Companies and governments are supported by banks. For example, HSBC and Barclays both spend billions underwriting companies leading on expanding oil, gas and coal extraction globally. Without their finance, these projects simply couldn’t happen.

In response, communities on the front lines of climate impacts are actively attempting to redress harms already occurring, whether from crop failure as a result of saltwater intrusion, sea level rise, or displacement to allow for dirty oil pipelines. Despite dangerous repercussions, activists in the majority world fight environmental and climate injustice daily.

The Paris Agreement (2015) recognized the grave risks climate change poses to people and the planet. It seeks to keep global warming below an average of 2°C and to ‘pursue efforts’ to limit the increase since preindustrial times to 1.5°C. Around this time last year, on 17 May 2017, scientists estimated that we were likely to have emitted our carbon budget for 2°C warming by 19 May 2037. But based on emission trends over the past 20 years, they now estimate that we will release a trillion tons of carbon dioxide a whole year earlier, by 2 May 2036, resulting in warming of at least 2°C. We’re speeding towards climate disaster.

Scientists have argued that it is possible to move towards 100 per cent renewable energy by 2030. We can ban all new fossil fuel extraction and infrastructure. Divest state subsidies from fossil fuels, and invest in renewable energy that is produced ethically, without displacing indigenous peoples or violating workers’ rights. We can invest in research and infrastructure to lock the economy into renewables (the opposite of carbon lock-in) and we can get countries in the Global North – responsible for more than three times as many greenhouse gas emissions between 1850 and 2002 than developing countries ( which host a much larger proportion of humanity, approximately 85 per cent) – to revise their mitigation targets upwards.

The Guardian’s headline reports on the Oxford study by stating that ‘Avoiding meat and dairy is “single biggest way” to reduce your impact on Earth.” But we disagree. Although cutting out meat and dairy from your personal diet would have an important impact on reducing greenhouse gases, the facts suggest that there are bigger and far more effective ways to make a difference.

These ways include: starting fossil fuel divestment campaigns and getting your employer, local authority and university to invest responsibly is one way. Organizing in your community for a cooperatively owned and operated municipal energy company to embrace renewables and eliminate fuel poverty. Becoming active in your trade union and developing policy supporting a just transition toward renewables. Making links with fossil fuel workers and getting them on side. Campaigning for banks like Barclays to stop providing corporate and project finance that enables further fossil fuel extraction. Joining the many front line resistances blockading new infrastructure like anti-frackers and resisting gas fields. Starting litigation or supporting those that have already brought challenges against complicit governments or companies.

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What would happen if the world suddenly went vegetarian?- BBC Future

No matter how much their carnivorous friends might deny it, vegetarians have a point: cutting out meat delivers multiple benefits. And the more who make the switch, the more those perks would manifest on a global scale.

But if everyone became a committed vegetarian, there would be serious drawbacks for millions, if not billions, of people.“It’s a tale of two worlds, really,” says Andrew Jarvis of Colombia’s International Centre for Tropical Agriculture. “In developed countries, vegetarianism would bring all sorts of environmental and health benefits. But in developing countries there would be negative effects in terms of poverty.”

Food production accounts for one-quarter to one-third of all anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, and the brunt of responsibility for those numbers falls to the livestock industry.

Marco Springmann, a research fellow at the Oxford Martin School’s Future of Food programme, tried to quantify just how much better: he and his colleagues built computer models that predicted what would happen if everyone became vegetarian by 2050. The results indicate that – largely thanks to the elimination of red meat – food-related emissions would drop by about 60%. If the world went vegan instead, emissions declines would be around 70%.

“The cultural impact of completely giving up meat would be very big, which is why efforts to reduce meat consumption have often faltered,” Phalan says.

The effect on health is mixed, too. Springmann’s computer model study showed that, should everyone go vegetarian by 2050, we would see a global mortality reduction of 6-10%, thanks to a lessening of coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and some cancers. Eliminating red meat accounts for half of that decline, while the remaining benefits are thanks to scaling back the number of calories people consume and increasing the amount of fruit and vegetables they eat. A worldwide vegan diet would further amplify these benefits: global vegetarianism would stave off about 7 million deaths per year, while total veganism would knock that estimate up to 8 million. Fewer people suffering from food-related chronic illnesses would also mean a reduction in medical bills, saving about 2-3% of global gross domestic product.

Certain changes to the food system also would encourage us all to make healthier and more environmentally-friendly dietary decisions, says Springmann – like putting a higher price tag on meat and making fresh fruits and vegetables cheaper and more widely available. Addressing inefficiency would also help: thanks to food loss, waste and overeating, fewer than 50% of the calories currently produced are actually used effectively.

There is a way to have low productivity systems that are high in animal and environmental welfare – as well as profitable – because they’re producing meat as a treat rather than a daily staple,” Benton says. “In this situation, farmers get the exact same income. They’re just growing animals in a completely different way.

”In fact, clear solutions already exist for reducing greenhouse gas emissions from the livestock industry. What is lacking is the will to implement those changes.