Climate vegans: speak up, be heard and be counted!
The blog post #NotAllVegans is one of the most unfortunate, ignorant and misguided pieces I have read on this subject, and that too written by someone who says he’s a vegan! The writing smacks of territoriality and turf-consciousness, and it seeks to introduce a divisive agenda where none should exist. Especially not now! Perhaps it is not entirely his fault, but that of the organization he belongs to, and especially that of the leader himself?
And in his attempt to “respond to some of the criticism, and clear some things up”, he essentially doubled down on his previous arguments, and is just as territorial. This response of mine is going to be VERY LONG, but hopefully those who care enough on this subject would read it. I feel it’s best to respond to both of the posts here together, rather than separately.
Cam Fenton says upfront that he’s a “climate organizer” and adds,
“I, unequivocally, do not believe that my vegan diet is doing much when it comes to stopping climate change. Not only this, I’m really getting tired of reading emails and Facebook comment threads about veganism being the key to cooling down this world.”
It’s good that he makes this argument explicit, because that really is the crux of the matter here. A plant-based diet will actually have a huge positive impact on climate change mitigation when a large number of people make this switch. It is most unfortunate that his organization, 350.org, has not officially adopted this as a logical choice that is necessary, but perhaps not sufficient, to fight climate change.
Mitigation — it’s what we are after, and let’s not forget that for a moment!
So let’s look at this issue. But we must remember that
- we are talking of climate change mitigation. As in, taking urgent, meaningful action that has a chance of making a difference by averting the worst effects of climate change, and giving a chance for humanity to move towards a sustainable, safer world;
- we are not talking of meaningless, symbolic actions, and we are not talking of actions that will not have a quick effect; and
- we are certainly not talking of actions that would require enormous amounts of resources and a lot of time to implement. We do not have much time — let’s not forget that!
From the article “What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change — Today’s renewable energy technologies won’t save us. So what will?” by Ross Koningstein & David Fork, who are “engineers at Google, who worked together on the bold renewable energy initiative known as RE<C” in the IEEE Spectrum magazine, November 2014,:
“As Hansen has shown, if all power plants and industrial facilities switch over to zero-carbon energy sources right now, we’ll still be left with a ruinous amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. It would take centuries for atmospheric levels to return to normal, which means centuries of warming and instability. To bring levels down below the safety threshold, Hansen’s models show that we must not only cease emitting CO2 as soon as possible but also actively remove the gas from the air and store the carbon in a stable form. Hansen suggests reforestation as a carbon sink. We’re all for more trees, and we also exhort scientists and engineers to seek disruptive technologies in carbon storage.”
So, rather than waiting for some new energy technology or some “disruptive technologies in carbon storage”, wouldn’t it be prudent to pursue the option of reforestation right now? And that cannot happen without a major worldwide switch to a plant-based diet, simply because of the land requirements. And it does not require any new technology and not much expenditure!
Most of all, what switching to a plant-based diet (and the resultant reforestation on land previously used for livestock operations) will do is that this would “buy time” for humanity to transition to an all-renewable energy system. The window of opportunity to avoid catastrophic effects is said to be only a few years, and is shrinking fast.
While the push for an all-renewable energy system along with efficient transit systems, energy-efficient buildings, etc., must continue and escalate, one cannot ignore the time, money and resources that would be required to achieve this objective. But switching to a plant-based diet would present much smaller technical challenges and can be achieved in a shorter timeframe. The hurdles would be political, and not technical.
The most dangerous thing now would be to do anything that ends up supporting business as usual on the dietary front, which would also result in more deforestation. And blog posts such as this only go on to support the status quo. And does nothing for climate change mitigation! And that is what prompted me to write this response. And I am also asking all climate vegans to speak up, be heard and be counted!
Reforestation requires land. And lots of it. Duh!
To those who are serious, I would recommend the Worldwatch Magazine paper by Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang as a good place to start, which put the share of livestock operations as 51% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions. (That link also contains a response by the authors to comments and criticisms to their paper, as well as some related articles.) I am aware that some people refuse to accept this figure. But the methodology of this estimate is spelled out in that paper, using the 2006 UN FAO report, ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ as a starting point, which put the livestock operations’ share at 18% of all anthropogenic GHG emissions.
The most vocal opponents of both the ‘Livestock’s Long Shadow’ report as well as Goodland and Anhang’s estimate are the meat industry folks and the carnists. (To those who are not familiar with the term carnism, it’s a belief system or an ideology that actively defends meat consumption, and is therefore quite potent as a factor resisting change.)
If one looks at the credentials of the late Robert Goodland, one can see that they are impeccable, and he had absolutely zero conflict of interest! Even a desire to defend meat consumption would be a conflict of interest, so that is something to keep in mind when reading the “rebuttals” for this paper. Another conflict of interest could be turf consciousness as exhibited by this 350.org organizer. More on that later.
The main significance of this paper by Goodland and Anhang is not the “51%” figure. It’s the mitigation potential of a worldwide switch to a plant-based diet. And that significance would not change if this percentage turns out to be different in a rigorous assessment!
As much as 45% of the planet’s land area is used for livestock operations in one form or the other: for grazing animals, to grow animal feed, etc., according to the International Livestock Research Institute. (pdf file, via via http://go.nature.com/wYaVA6)
So right off the bat, one has to ask this question: an activity that occupies so much of the entire planet’s land surface, and one that consumes so much resources (fertilizers and pesticides, fuel for farm machinery, transportation of animal feed as well as meat and dairy products, for refrigeration, freezing, cooking and so on) — how is it possible that this would not also be responsible for a humongous share of the GHG emissions? And more forests are being cut down as we speak, for the purpose of growing soy and grazing cattle. A cut down forest area turns into a net carbon source, whereas a living forest is an active carbon sink! Again, duh!
Is it the vegans who are eating all that soy? It’s time to get some facts straight!
These two lines by this author in his “response” are a dead give away that this person does not know what he is talking about on this point, but he just couldn’t help going after the climate vegans!
“I agree that big agribusiness is a huge problem for the climate, but going vegan doesn’t hurt big agribusiness, it just means people are buying more rainforest destroying soy and less rainforest destroying beef.”
And he is wrong, in a big way!
It is not the vegans and vegetarians who eat most of the soy, but the meat and dairy consumers, indirectly. Most of the soy is used as animal feed. And the soy farmers and the soy processors are absolutely dependent on the downstream consumption of meat and dairy for their business!
The soy industry is dependent on the meat and dairy industries. And they are watching warily for any potential loss in revenue as a result of people’s dietary change. And they are also looking for new markets for animal feed, such as in Asian countries, and are even trying to get the fish farms to use the soy meal as fish food. More vegans are actually bad for business for Big Ag. Ever thought about that?
(Also see footnotes 1, 2 and 3.)
What is so special about a plant-based diet?
Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang’s expertise is in environmental impact assessment. One of the items in such assessments is to look at alternatives, and asking the question,
can the same objective be achieved using another option that has a much smaller impact on the environment?
The objective here, of course, is to provide nutritious food in adequate quantities to all people, all over the world. And it just so happens that a plant-based diet also has huge implications for climate change mitigation.
I would imagine that this question would be asked before carrying out some major project. What Goodland and Anhang have done, from what I understand, is to ask this question when livestock operations are already having a major environmental impact. But suppose they do not exist at such huge scales, what then? Would that make a difference or not? The challenge now is of course to start rolling back the livestock operations to reduce their impact, while also enabling reforestation in those lands.
We are at the point in human history where we need to be asking this above question about all the major activities that leave a big impact on the environment. And we need to be asking this question in a fundamental manner and evaluate the options honestly.
What about the Indigenous people?
This comes close to being demagoguery that feigns concern for Indigenous people:
“If you show up in a climate justice space and tell an Indigenous person that the best thing they can do for the climate is go vegan, that’s racist.”
Has any vegan actually said that to an Indigenous person? This is how some politicians talk because they are used to such dirty tactics. It is unfortunate that a “climate organizer” has to resort to such cheap tricks.
We should not let urbanites living in affluent societies (or affluent people anywhere) hide behind the culture or tradition of some poor people, or their feigned concern for the Indigenous people, unless and until these claimants reduce their own ecological footprint to the level of those poor people. We should not let clever demagoguery on this point go unchallenged.
The people who talk about switching to a plant-based diet as a way of taking action on climate change are not targeting those poor people. We are talking about YOU, the majority who live in affluent societies, and affluent people everywhere, with a much larger ecological footprint. So let us stop wasting our crocodile tears and feigning concern for Indigenous people, shall we?
And while we are on the subject of caring for the Indigenous people, let us recall that cattle (and sheep and pigs) are NOT native to the Americas and Australia/NZ. They were brought there by the settlers. And to make way for these livestock animals, many native animals were practically wiped out, especially the native predators. The land grab that took place contributed massively to the genocide of the native people.
So those who are serious about addressing (and redressing) this historical wrong must start with the history of conquest and colonization. The conquest and colonization of the ‘New World’ is what has allowed so many people in these countries (as well as in Europe, and lately, also in Asia) to have such large ecological footprints and to live in such an unsustainable manner. And livestock-motivated land grab is an integral part of this history. And now this land grab is taking place in other developing countries in Africa and South America to grow animal feed for richer countries in Asia and Europe. As long as meat and dairy consumption continues in such scales, such injustices will continue. Why is this so hard to understand?
System change, sustainability and ecological footprint
Before people talk about system change, they must understand this history of conquest and colonization, and understand what true sustainability would mean in practice. Because we should aim for a system that is clearly better and more sustainable than what we have today. One way to look at sustainability quantitatively and to evaluate different options is using the concept of ecological footprint, which has the unit ‘global hectares’. And the related concept of ecological overshoot.
It is said that for human activities to be sustainable, their per capita claim on the planet’s land would be only about 1 hectare per person! (If we are arrogant and speceisist and refuse to allow room for other species and the rest of nature, then that leaves 1.72 global hectares per person).
Now look at this table that lists the per capita ecological footprint of various countries. Most of the rich countries are at far above the sustainable limit, and naturally far above the global average, and far, far above the poor countries in terms of their claim on nature’s resources and the planet’s capacity.
And what we choose to eat has a huge impact on our carbon footprint. And water footprint. Of course, we also leave our impact through our other activities. But without addressing food choice, we will never be able to shrink our ecological footprint sufficiently that would make a difference. And without shrinking our ecological footprint, it is hypocritical and deceitful to talk about caring for the indigenous people.
So let’s get this clear: we are asking YOU, those living in the affluent countries, and affluent people everywhere, to choose a more sustainable food option. And no, grass-fed beef is not sustainable. It’s worse than factory-farmed beef. Take a close look at how much land, water and other resources it would take for each person who eats an omnivorous diet as compared to a wholly plant-based diet. Be honest in this exercise and the answer will become clear.
Again, if we are clear at all times that the “system change” we talk about is clearly aimed at producing a more sustainable, more just and equitable system, our efforts could be more focused and coherent.
(In this context, it may also be useful to consider the concept of “relative sustainability”, a term used by Richard Oppenlander in his lectures and writing.)
The land connection
Now, back to the issue of land and why it is crucial to understand this connection if we are serious about mitigating climate change.
Even if we can stop burning all fossil fuels today, the CO2 that is already there in the atmosphere will likely cause serious damage in the years to come, unless we also do something to draw down what’s already there. It is amazing that an organization that has “350” in its name is not adequately focused on this critical aspect — of drawing down the CO2 that’s already there in the atmosphere, and not merely stopping the burning of fossil fuels. It is unbelievable! How are we ever going to reach 350ppm of atmospheric CO2, except by drawing down what’s already there in the atmosphere? Decreasing the source of GHG emissions is only one side of the story. We also need to massively increase the sink capacity!
But the existing sink capacity of the forests and oceans is simply not enough to go from 400+ to under 350ppm soon enough! And this is where climate vegans come in. And this is where a worldwide switch to a plant-based diet comes in, because such a switch would free up massive amounts of land, some of which can be reverted to forests and wilderness, for carbon absorption and sequestration. This is the only safe and technically feasible option that can yield a result in a reasonable time. All other geo-engineering schemes can be dangerous with unintended consequences, not to mention being expensive and resource-intensive.
Now, what would prevent people from taking this simple, elegant step to mitigate climate change? Think about it. And this is where carnism comes in. And there are obvious economic interests involved (aka, vested interests). The addiction to meat and dairy, and other vested interests can lead to fierce attempts to thwart any suggestion to give these up. And some of these attempts could take the form of putting out data, graphs and charts with the sole purpose of confusing the general public.
But let us understand one thing: photosynthesis is a slow process. It can take anywhere from 6 years to 100 years for a freshly-planted tree to absorb just one tonne of carbon (net basis). And to reduce just 1 ppm of atmospheric CO2 would require the net removal (“net” is the operative word here, please note!) of 2.1 billion tonnes of carbon, or about 7.8 billion tonnes of CO2. And we need to go from 400+ ppm to under 350 ppm, and soon. The math is clear. Unfortunately, some people seem to have chosen willful blindness over this particular aspect of the math of climate change mitigation. It is tragic, and it is wrong to insist on blocking any conversation on this particular math!
The real elephant in the room that no one talked about until recently…
This blog post by Cam Fenton contains a few fallacies. Let us look at the term “elephant in the room”.
Now do this experiment: Ask 10 people (or 20,or 50 people), about their take on climate change action, and ask them about the biggest factor in climate change. And see how many of them mention fossil fuels and how many mention the livestock industry. And look up some dictionary that lists the meaning for the idiom, “elephant in the room”. It is the one item that most people do not see, or pretend not to see. And it ain’t the fossil fuel industry! Anyone who knows something about climate change would list the fossil fuel industry at the top of their concerns! Al Gore’s ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ was totally silent on the livestock connection, but talked a lot about fossil fuels.
And now when finally some attention is focused on this issue, thanks to the efforts of Robert Goodland & Jeff Anhang, Richard Oppenlander and others, and the recent film, ‘Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret’, there comes this blog post from a vegan, on top of all the other attacks from others with vested interests. And for what exactly?
Being territorial and turf-conscious — was that the real motive?
If one reads this blog post by Cam Fenton again carefully, it would be hard to miss the turf consciousness and the urge to defend one’s territory. It also comes through in the ‘response to criticisms’ post. And it is also an arrogant way of talking about climate vegans. Not to mention, needlessly divisive!
Being territorial and turf conscious is perhaps the worst way to go about doing activism on such a vital matter that concerns the future of all life on this planet. There are all kinds of vegans who have chosen to eat a fully plant-based diet for various reasons. But as they discover the connection with climate change, some are becoming vocal about using this choice as a way of fighting climate change. What is so wrong about that? Look at this line:
“Ok, I will own that I wrote what could be considered an incendiary blog post challenging what I perceive to be a problematic way that a lot vegan activists are showing up in climate spaces–but I did not start this fight.”
Really, now? “Climate spaces”? And is that some space that is off-limits to vegans? Even if they understand the connection of food choice to climate change?
And look at the section that starts with “Here is a list of things I have not done.” And tell me if that doesn’t smack of being territorial and turf-conscious!
The article and the “response” are also misguided and ignorant in other ways:
What about the big agribusiness?
Let us look at “a strategy that actually takes on big agribusiness.” Go and download the annual report of Monsanto for the last few years. And go through their biggest revenue items. It does not take too much intelligence to figure out that the largest share of their revenues and profits are dependent on the downstream production of meat and dairy — as simple as that! And the same goes for most of the GMO crops sold by all the big agricultural corporations currently on the market: without a livestock industry, there simply would not be enough demand for so much corn, soy and canola to be produced!
Meat, dairy and eggs are a wasteful way of producing “food.” But Big Ag requires this waste and inefficiency to sell more of their products. (If you trace the end use numbers, you can see that soymeal and canola ‘meal’ are high value livestock feed items; and so is the ‘distillers grain’ from corn processing for biofuel. And so is the cotton seed. And so is the palm kernel cake, although oil palm is not genetically modified, AFAIK.)
So those who are serious about “taking on big agribusiness” must start by starving them of their revenues and profits using the one tool in their power: and that is food choice!
Being a vegan does not mean that one must eat soy (although if they do, they are doing so far more efficiently without the “middle animal”), and it certainly does not mean one should buy GM soy or corn! Big agribusiness requires large areas of farmland to be cultivated using their seeds and their chemicals. A major switch to a plant-based diet will immediately drop the demand for their products massively. They may try to find other markets such as in biofuels, but if more people understand that biofuels are not a good solution to fight climate change, they can take action through suitable legislation.
Another ‘elephant in the room’ is the issue of farm subsidies, both in North America (USA & Canada) and in the EU countries. This leads to many kinds of waste and inefficiencies. Some of this is discussed in the book Meatonomics. When subsidies are addressed and used judiciously (or even got rid of altogether), a move to a more sustainable food system will take place in quick time. There will be opposition. But then any move to a truly sustainable world will face all kinds of hurdles because it involves huge changes in the way things are done. So the responsible thing to do here is to act in a mature way to make this transition as painless as possible for all those whose livelihoods are at stake. (For example, many people may lose their jobs in Big Ag, in weapons factories, chemical factories, etc., when people choose to end war and pollution; but obviously “jobs” are no reason to keep them going at current scales. This is where leadership, compassion, understanding and give-and-take come into play. Or should.)
The livestock connection is everywhere. Without so much demand for meat and dairy, the entire agricultural sector would look a whole lot different! Only a small percentage of land is used to grow grains, vegetables and fruits for direct human consumption. So the land use and water use will look vastly different if most of the people eat a plant-based diet. And we will not need so much production of animal feed, and the fertilizers and pesticides. And we will not need so much transportation or refrigeration. Most of all, we will not have so much ongoing deforestation! And we may not have to spend so much on health care and pharmaceuticals. And so on!
Back to system change
Let’s look at system change. Any new system that should emerge should be immensely more sustainable than the current one. And it should be fair and equitable to all, on a global scale. It should also leave enough room for other animal species and the rest of nature in general. And ocean life should be allowed to recover. And that means people everywhere must shrink their ecological footprint drastically. This simply cannot happen without a major worldwide switch to a plant-based diet!
Forget the indigenous people, and forget other cultures for the moment. Forget the small-time herders for now. But let’s not forget that the poor people in poor countries will be the ones who will be affected the most, and first, due to climate change. It is already starting to happen.
And btw, this statement,
“Remember too that the people who are least able to go vegan, are probably also the ones already most impacted by climate change”
is not quite correct! Check out the per capita meat consumption of various countries. (also here). Not surprisingly, people in poor countries eat very little meat. This is not to deny that culture and tradition are major factors everywhere, and that is why it is incumbent on those who understand the implications of a dietary switch to start with themselves and actively encourage everyone to make the switch as well.
And without restoring soil fertility, the future survival of people in many poor countries is seriously threatened and they will be forced to migrate as refugees. And soil fertility cannot be rebuilt as long as livestock animal grazing continues in already desertifying areas. See “The World Hunger-Food Choice Connection: A Summary” by Richard Oppenlander, for example. (And I hope to God that someone will not trot out that tiresome TED Talk that has already been debunked several times over!)
The poor people did not cause the problem of climate change. Their ecological footprint is small enough, and their per capita meat consumption too is small enough, that we can ignore that aspect in this context. We are talking about the people in affluent countries (and the relatively affluent people in developing countries) who can choose to eat a plant-based diet. It would be ludicrous to argue that such a choice would not have a major impact on the system itself when carried out by large numbers of people!
The very fact that there is so much pushback by the meat and dairy industries and the Big Ag corporations shows that they are already feeling threatened. Refusing to use the tool we already have, namely food choice, and instead talking about some big “system change” is starting to look childish and somewhat disingenuous — especially when some people use dismissive language about “lifestyle choices”, almost like an epithet! I would like to see one climate vegan who is against system change. Seriously!
(I generally do not talk about system change, and I am no Marxist by any means. Far from it! But check out this article by Louis Proyect, who calls himself ‘The Unrepentant Marxist’: ‘Cattle and neo-Malthusianism’, which refers to his earlier article, ‘Cattle and Capitalism’, which in turn refers to Jeremy Rifkin’s excellent book, ‘Beyond Beef’.)
The implications of switching to a plant-based diet on system change are so huge, that it boggles the mind that someone who says he is a vegan would choose to write such a blog post! And would have the chutzpah to call the vegan activists who show up at climate rallies as “assholes”! I read the ‘mea culpa’ in the “response”, and it was not convincing. At all! If this person has not declared himself to be a vegan upfront, this piece could easily read like it’s written by a carnist or a meat industry shill!
I have not addressed all of the problematic items in these two blog posts, and already my response is too long. So I will have to stop here.
Some footnotes:
- From “Soy Facts” from the website of ‘SoyaTech’, a soy industry consulting firm:
“About 85 percent of the world’s soybean crop is processed into meal and vegetable oil, and virtually all of that meal is used in animal feed. Some two percent of the soybean meal is further processed into soy flours and proteins for food use. Approximately six percent of soybeans are used directly as human food, mostly in Asia.”
2. From “Soy, you & deforestation” from the WWF website:
“Most people associate soy with tofu and soy milk. However, only a small portion of soy is consumed directly by humans. In fact, most of the world’s soy crop ends up in feed for poultry, pork, cattle and even farmed fish.
Unbeknownst to most of us, soy is found in almost all commercially produced meat or chicken that we eat.
And unfortunately, the expansion of soy to feed the world’s growing demand for meat often contributes to deforestation and the loss of other valuable ecosystems in Latin America.”
3. From “History of Soybean Crushing: Soy Oil and Soybean Meal” from the ‘SoyInfo Center’ website:
“The tremendous expansion of production and consumption of both soy oil and soybean meal in the postwar period was caused by a balance of strong demand and supply. The basic cause of expanding demand was affluence, which is typically accompanied, worldwide and throughout most periods in history, by a shift from traditional grain-centered diets to diets containing more animal products (especially meats and poultry), protein, oil, and fat. In short, with rising incomes, people have generally climbed up the food chain. …
In the period after World War II, low-cost, widely available soybean meal and grain triggered the greatest explosion in livestock and poultry production that the world has ever seen, and laid the basis for the Western meat-centered diet. The burgeoning livestock numbers, in turn, led to an enormous and sustained demand for soybeans (the crop increased more than fivefold between 1950 and 1980) and soybean meal. …”