
Is going vegan actually helping battle climate change? - plantbasedeng
https://medium.com/the-mission/is-going-vegan-actually-helping-battle-climate-change-733d946b5226
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herbst
IMO this is a lot harder than just looking at the current numbers. It is
relevant to see the individual differences and impacts as well.

A lot of the commonly sold 'vegan' alternatives from the hipster food section
in our super markets are produced by big corps and shipped around the world. A
lot of the popular super food here in Europe comes from south America. More
and more fruits and vegetables either from Asia or some huge (essentially
slave holding) agriculture areas in Spain or Italy.

On the other side I consume Mostly local food. I love to waste time in meat
areas to find the single most ecological variation I can buy. Rarely eating
beef. Except for pure luxury import stuff (mango, pineapple, nuts) I eat my
vegs and fruits seasonal.

If you account for all the transports, cooling, storage of imported super
foods it could very well be that the local meat eating approach still is a lot
better purely based on your ecological footprint.

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kmmlng
While I agree with you about the complexity of the issue, it doesn't seem fair
to compare local meat to imported plants. What about local meat vs local
plants? Local plants vs imported meat? Imported meat vs imported plants? By
cherry-picking a single one of these combinations, you can make either side
look favorable.

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esrauch
Local plants vs imported plants is counter-intuitively not always
straightforward. Inefficient farming in worse climates can sometimes use more
fuel than farming it elsewhere and shipping it, transport only accounts for a
small portion of greenhouse gas emissions in the production of the food.

[http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/09/04/how-green-is-
local-f...](http://blogs.ei.columbia.edu/2012/09/04/how-green-is-local-food/)

[http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-
local...](http://freakonomics.com/2011/11/14/the-inefficiency-of-local-food/)

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yosito
It's awesome that going vegan is becoming trendy. Companies are starting to
see that creating products that are environmentally friendly actually has a
positive effect on their bottom line.

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ktpsns
I like scientific studies about this, but this won't make meat eaters change
their mind. Instead, they will feel attacked. Convince them with cool things,
not science.

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ffsc
If meat eating is bad for the environment then people should be aware of it.
It's patronizing to try and woo people into veganism or something else with
"cool" stuff, whatever that is.

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hackerman12345
There's a story on the front page right now about how sea weed reduces methane
from cows.

