I am more and more concerned about global warming, and take many steps in my personal life to reduce my impact – including being vegan; traveling to visit family in Sweden via train instead of flying; traveling by public transport instead of owning a car (living on a small village on an island with two young children – so it is possible for most people); investing in solar panel/solar battery/heat pump; having an ecological veg box, etc. The average global footprint per person in the UK is 10 000 kg of CO2 [1] – this is living as we lived on 4 (!) planet earth. Currently, global warming is heading like a fast car driving towards a precipe at an accelerating speed – several degrees with severe consequences for our planet and us living here [6]. Each person can slow this down by reducing their emissions.
Going vegan [11] can reduce your carbon footprint from 3300 kg (meat-heavy diet) to 1500 kg; not driving – 2000 kg (for average car) [12]; flying – around 250kg per hour flying – depending on how far you fly [12 and 13]; 1600 kg for using solar panels [14]. An average car weighs around 1000kg. Making all these changes can mean that you reduce your carbon footprint with the weight of 7 cars per year. Imagine dumping all these cars into the ocean and atmosphere every year with polluting gases. Then multiply it by everyone having the same lifestyle. All CO2 that is dumped by personal lifestyle choices – from fossil fuels in transport, animal agriculture, etc. (e.g. methane gas from cows) [16] – into the atmosphere and into the seas; acidifies the ocean and reduces the oxygen in the seas; so it is slowly killing marine lives and are making the seas inhabitable. [15]
Changing your lifestyle may look daunting – but the consequences of not doing it are even more daunting – an uninhabitable world. And it can be quite easy to change with some determination. There are already 20 million refugees due to global warming, and as it is caused by our individual emissions, we can all reduce the suffering we cause by changing our lifestyles [10]. The average person in the Uk is melting 39m2 of Arctic sea ice per year [9].
According to WWF humans have wiped out 60 percent of all mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles since 1970 in the last 50 years. They write in their new report that the biggest cause of wildlife losses is the destruction of natural habitats, much of it creates farmland used for farming animals. Furthermore, killing for food is the next biggest cause – 300 wild mammal species, including some chimpanzee and bear species, are being eaten into extinction – while the oceans are massively overfished. Researchers warn that the oceans will be depleted of fish by 2048 [7]. If we all went vegan we would no longer pay into the three major causes of what has been labeled as the 6th mass extinction in the history of this planet.
Without meat and dairy consumption, global farmland use could be reduced by more than 75% – an area equivalent to the US, China, EU, and Australia combined – and still feed the world. There are an increasing number of people who realize that we can easily live and be very healthy on a vegan diet. Since we can do this, the intense suffering that many animals go through for animal products is completely unnecessary [8]. They all want to live in freedom and be happy just like us, however, the process of being reduced to meat, dairy, eggs, honey, wool, etc., typically involves a lot of suffering (e.g. cows get their babies taken away from them within a day from when their calves are born so that we can have cows milk instead of their calves, and never get to see them again). Being kind and compassionate we can decide to make peace with animals and be vegan. There is a one-month vegan challenge I highly recommend called Veganuary, with plenty of delicious recipes and other advice [5]. You may consider doing it for the environment and/or if you don’t believe it is right to harm and kill animals for palate pleasure or convenience.
Thank you very much to everyone who read all of this! 🙂 🙂 If this can inspire anyone to do any kind of change, even if it initially is doing it in small steps, I am very happy.
Foot-notes
1.https://www.carbonindependent.org/23.html#:~:text=The%20UK%20average%20carbon%20footprint,about%20double%20the%20world%20average.
4. https://www.klimatkontot.se/Default
7. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2006/11/seafood-biodiversity/
8. See http://goveganworld.com/
9. https://www.geospatialworld.net/blogs/arctic-ice-melt-human-activities/
10. https://www.unhcr.org/uk/climate-change-and-disasters.html
11. https://www.greeneatz.com/foods-carbon-footprint.html#:~:text=Shrink%20That%20Footprint’s%20chart,CO2e%20(Carbon%20Dioxide%20Equivalent).
12. https://www.carbonindependent.org/17.html (7400 miles per year, https://www.nimblefins.co.uk/cheap-car-insurance/average-car-mileage-uk#:~:text=Average%20Mileage%20per%20Day%2C%20Week%2C%20Month%20and%20Year&text=On%20a%20daily%20basis%2C%20cars,and%207%2C400%20miles%20a%20year. )
15. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/04/210416120005.htm#:~:text=According%20to%20a%20new%20study,are%20responsible%20for%20this%20process. And https://www.dw.com/en/ocean-acidification-climate-changes-evil-twin/a-41471258
16. https://www.cowspiracy.com/facts (See scientific references under ‘Methane is 25-100 times more destructive than CO2 on a 20 year time frame.‘)
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Further reading:
Mass extinction:
Humanity has wiped out 60 percent of all wild species:
Land reduction: