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For the most part, not only does vegansim have the biggest positive impact on the environment that can be made with a personal choice, the animal products industries are like the third biggest contributor to climate change after energy (coal, oil, gas, etc) and manufacturing. Plus, as most farm land in the world is used for animal feed, it would free up land for reforestation.
P.s When talking about GHG emissions, it's a really bad idea to use % of total emissions as an indicator of impact. Livestock produce plenty of methane, which is roughly 84 times more impactful than carbon dioxide on the short term (20ish years) but carbon dioxide is more impactful over the long term (centuries) as it does not break down as quickly.
we have a tool for mitigating your concern: we rate greenhouse gasses by their co2-equivalence. the co2e of methane is 28.
Absolutely brilliant. Not that it matters. We need to be carbon(equivalent) neutral by 2050. (well, earlier, really) and on that timescale, the gwp of methane actually is, as stated by @Alvaro@lemmy.blahaj.zone 83/81.
As you have not provided a source, i shan't either.
Avoiding one long flight probably saves more carbon than a year of switching from eating meat to eating vegan. Also as others pointed out, not having kids would be by far more impactful by default.
I already fly only if there's no alternative, and usually once a year to see my family. I know a lot of people that basically also make one trip per year. For these people, going vegan would be much easier than further reducing flying.
I don't like the anti-kids arguments. Even better for the environment than not having kids is suicide but no one goes around suggesting that. Having kids is a very personal choice and someone has to do it, or we'll be in a very bad place soon.
(virtually) No one is suggesting suicide. The "kids argument" is just something to consider. It's one of several reasons I chose not to. I find it highly dubious that one datapoint is going to tip someone over the edge that will later regret it.
Yes, flights are a huge deal. One really long flight (like to the other side of the planet) should still be less co2e pollution than a non-vegan diet for a year, but not by much.
No doubt that flying often is the biggest impact, but most people don't fly often.
there is no reason to believe the land would be reforested instead of being further developed.
Lol, do you realize how much land that is? We wouldn't have the resources to develop it, plus most of it is remote.
Also, even if we do develop it, that is a completely different story than using it to feed animals to eat them. It produces a different value to society with different GHG amounts and kinds.
there simply isn't any reliable data to support this claim.
There is:
https://www.wri.org/insights/climate-impact-behavior-shifts
Other than going car free (not possible in many countries where roads are just not bikable or walkable) not flying (yeah, you probably shouldn't and personally I rarely ever do) and switching your home to green energy (again, not really possible in some countries plus high up fron costs keep it impossible for many) the biggest impact is achieved through veganism.
Having fewer children is the biggest https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/aa7541
Yeah, I guess that makes sense even without needing a source
i don't find this paper compelling evidence that being vegan has significant impact. it relies heavily on ivanova(2020), and additionally cites poore-nemecek(2018). ivanova, themselves, rely heavily on poore-nemecek for the data about food impacts.
so the question is: do you trust poore-nemecek 2018? i don't. meta-analysis of LCA studies is bad science, and poore-nemecek not only designed a poor study, they didn't bother acknowledging the problems their methods could incur.
Why don't you bring a source to contradict?
This is absolutely not the only paper to support my claim
the rational thing to do, if there is insufficient evidence for a claim, is just to suspend judgement. it's possible their conclusion is correct, but the evidence used to support it is insufficient.
dismissing your source doesn't require a contradictory study.
there are probably a thousand other things people could do. this study, for instance, didn't account for the impact of sabotaging fossil fuel extraction, refinement, or transportation infrastructure. almost anyone can turn a valve. by limiting the scope of this study to consumer choices, they have chosen to artificially limit the possibilities.
That is illegal. while you can choose to do illegal things, it just makes you look like a troll to suggest it as a viable option.
there are still probably thousands of options besides the four proposed.
Wow you really want to justify eating meat.
this accusation of bad faith is, itself, bad faith