Veganism: Mitigating or Perpetuating Climate Disaster?

Connecting to nature has been something that I’ve strongly craved in my everyday adult life. The idea of being able to sense fresh air, and see the sunlight or clouds just gives me a sense of calm like nothing else. In the past, being a professional musician, I lived the night life for quite some time. I would be playing gigs until 4am, and not even getting to sleep until 6am.

Fast forward five years, and here I am. I’ve grown a deep admiration for the outdoors, early and slow mornings, and just getting out in the world during the daytime. I realized that once I started out as a full-time student, there would be less time for me to enjoy the outside time that I valued. The next thing that weighed in on my thought process was my diet.

I didn’t have much control over being super busy with work and school, but I did have control over what I was able to eat to fuel my body.

After doing some research on the topic of veganism, I was able to find out what America might look like if all its people were to adopt a vegan diet. I knew prior to reading that there are some questionable sustainability issues when it comes to certain vegan foods. I think that it can be hard for many vegans to admit to these factors, since there is so much evidence behind the benefits that it can have on your long-term health.

Despite some of the emissions that come from plant-based farms and agriculture; it was interesting to find out that annual emissions in America would drop from 623 million to 446 million tons a year if everyone were to go vegan.

With this lofty statistic, I think about all the people who might go vegan if they knew more about the ways it can improve your life. As we see climate change driving out more species and natural landscape, we are forced to search inward for an individual effort. A quote from another article says, “We shouldn’t be doing things just because it’s a cultural tradition when there involves needless suffering. This is and will continue to be moral injustice.” (Winters, 2019) Those who are practicing mindful eating have embraced the fact that our diets have a large impact on what amounts of nature we will have left to experience.

As a society, we need to be more aware of what it took for the food on our plates to get there. This gives us the ability to prevent food waste, mitigate climate change, and enhance our ability to experience the beautiful world we live in.

Winters, E. W. (2019). Every Argument Against Veganism. TEDx, Video — . https://youtube.com/watch?v=byTxzzztRBU&t=492s