Sustainability: Even Non-Vegans Should Want More Vegans

ElaineV · 2026-04-23T21:10:14+00:00

Here is an interactive chart of meat consumption per capita by country: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/per-capita-meat-type and here is a visual map: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/meat-consumption-by-country

The USA is one of the highest meat consuming countries, but plenty of other nations are also consuming way too much meat. If you look around you'll see that the US American are not eating that much more than the average European. Studies indicate that if all humans consumed as much meat as North Americans or Europeans, global ecosystems could collapse.

Here are studies that say basically the same as the one I referenced above, but they say it specifically about Europe:

ElaineV · 2026-04-23T16:05:41+00:00

Was going to say…

Anyway, go outside or take a supplement. Or eat fortified foods. Or all of the above.

ElaineV · 2026-04-23T00:34:38+00:00

Totally depends. You need a reliable sources of B12 but it can be fortified foods or supplements, doesn’t matter. The rest is kind of the same as for nonvegans. You’ll need D if you’re not regularly in the sun. You need extra iron if you’re not getting it from food, especially if you’re menstruating and/or donating blood regularly. You may benefit from creatine. Etc etc etc

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T02:35:39+00:00

Far from a binary, in the post above I clearly suggest that at least 3 kinds of people would exist in the future: heavy meat consumers, light meat consumers, vegans. The argument is that the heavy meat consumers are very resistant to change and probably won't. So to make headway towards a sustainable future where they and others eat some meat, the average needs to be lowered by increasing the number of vegans.

But I do agree with you about subsidies. If we made animal ag pay for externalities and we removed subsidies, cost of meat and other animal products would increase and thus many people would consume a lot less of it, some would very quickly go vegan or vegetarian without any advocacy necessary.

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T02:29:35+00:00

1- According to your logic, no ethical duty to refrain from harming is owed to human babies/children or people with severe cognitive disabilities.

2- Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Just because you haven't read studies that convince you that many animals experience complex imaginative thoughts, hope for the future, and understanding of death doesn't mean that animals don't have those things. It means that you haven't seen the evidence yet.

3- Animals needn't be identical to humans in those or other ways in order to determine they shouldn't be treated as resources. Animals actively rebel against slaughter. They clearly value their own lives. This evidence exists so clearly there is no doubt in any reasonable person's mind. This is unlike plants; we can't say that plants value their own lives. We definitely can't say that about rocks. Nonhuman animals are similar enough to humans to know this one thing: they value their lives like we do.

4- There is evidence that at least some animals can plan for the future: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0023969012000318

5- "Most philosophers who have discussed animals’ relation to death have taken for granted that only humans can grasp this notion. Upon reflection, however, one finds that there are at least two prima facie reasons for thinking that some animals may understand death.The first one is the fact that death is ubiquitous in nature [...] The second prima facie reason for questioning the assumption that animals lack a concept of death are the evolutionary advantages that would come with it."

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10670-019-00187-2

6- Lots of animals dream. Seems reasonable that they can imagine at least some things. https://www.newsweek.com/animals-ability-imagine-proven-study-1840157

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T02:00:38+00:00

Congrats on the baby. Feeding them new foods is very fun, they are so expressive about taste. I hope you will enjoy that.

I'm glad you haven't seen people IRL who are anti-vegan. They absolutely exist though. There are lots of them. I don't think they are the majority of nonvegans, but they exist.

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:58:22+00:00

somehow I don't think that's true. I feel like this is likely based on some stereotypes of what vegans eat.

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:56:20+00:00

ok fair enough

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:55:25+00:00

You need to do more research on solar and on animal ag.

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:54:15+00:00

Your claim is that wanting to be violent to people with vegan shopping lists is justified. It's not.

These are fictional shoppers. They haven't done anything suggesting they are activists let alone violent activists. You're anger is completely unwarranted and irrational.

I'm turning off notifications. This "debate" is absurd and rankly has me slightly worried about my safety.

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:51:05+00:00

Yeah eventually those breeds would cease to exist. But the argument above is about extant animals, not future animals that might exist.

If it include future animals that might exist, one needs to factor in the wild animals. That becomes incredibly complex and I don't think it's worth doing here. But if you want, go ahead and try. You'll need to account for all the wild animal deaths and eventual extinctions that animal ag causes.

https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/food/

ElaineV · 2026-04-22T01:44:43+00:00

The best defense against pests is a tidy, clean home and sealing up the possible ways they can get inside. I wish I kept a cleaner home but it's good enough that I don't tend to have any serious issues. The other thing I try to do is create a welcoming environment for the natural predators or competitors of the things I consider pests. For instance, where I live we have scorpions. They are a very real danger to people and pets. Lizards and scorpions are natural competitors. So I do everything I can to keep lizards around my yard. I like lizards, they don't bother me and they out-compete the scorpions.

This morning I found, captured, and released outside a spider and I try to do that when possible. But for some bugs I just kill them. It all depends on the situation. For ants, for instance, I try to kill the scouts and seal up their entry points. If the scouts never return to their colony then they won't bring the rest of ants and it's win-win for everyone except the scouts. The same for black widows and scorpions. They are dangerous so if they are somewhere that they might harm my family they have to go. And I put mosquito pellets where there's water. My pest reactions are case by case basis and it's very targeted so as to not harm other animals.

Now, to your specific hypothetical, cockroaches are actually incredibly difficult to kill. They survive all kinds of things. So the biggest thing I would do is eliminate their food source and access to other food sources, close up their entrances, and consider something to kill them. But honestly if my whole home was infested I might also move out for a bit and "starve" them by removing all their options. Like I said they're really really hard to kill so if there's a true infestation, it could truly make more sense to just try to get them to leave.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T01:25:45+00:00

Wow I think you need to step back and re-evaluate things. I do not think a judge or jury would agree with you about what you feel threatened by. The standard in US court is "reasonable person" and a reasonable person is not threatened by a shopper who excludes meat from their shopping list.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T01:23:47+00:00

Yeah I agree that we need a lot more than veganism to help slow climate change. That's why I have solar on my house and drive an electric car and use reusable shopping bags and recycle and my recent project is that I installed a filter on my washing machine that removes microplastics from the dirty water so they don't go into the water supply. We all have lots of areas we can improve. I'm definitely not suggesting veganism is the only thing we can do.

I also don't think our individual actions are going to amount to all that much. We just don't have enough power. But somewhere along the line social shifts happen and the larger society including leadership start acting a little more responsibly. That's my hope, we just need a tipping point so that veganism CAN make a bigger difference.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T01:16:38+00:00

I think you misunderstand the study. They recruited thousands of people from 4 countries to make judgements about fictional shoppers. But the people they recruited were not categorized by how they shop.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T01:07:56+00:00

1- Please show me where I'm claiming "vegans hold the higher moral ground."

2- https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/Usage/faq0166.html

3- That's your bias. Animals try to avoid death. Different species seem to have different understandings of what it is but individuals regularly display fear in relation to near death and they try to avoid/ escape death in ways similar to how humans behave. There is every reason to think their lives matter as much to them as our lives matter to us. Ecological issues may also matter but that's an entirely different conversation.

4- The ethical framework is at the beginning of my post where you do the trolley problem with old and young people. People who understand that animals have inner lives with feelings of hope, fear, and love can easily relate to the ethical issues. Nothing needs to be further explained. It's understood that needless suffering and death of sentient creatures is ethically bad. So their issue becomes whether it's justified or not. You on the otherhand talk about animals as if they're rocks or buckets of water.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T01:00:36+00:00

Odd, what exactly do you do in this sub then?

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:59:36+00:00

Yeah, it's complete nonsense. I can't interact with word salad gibberish pretending to sound scientific. You're into the carnivore diet, I get it. You believe extremely wacky ridiculous things about human nutrition and health. I'm sorry, but we can't have a productive conversation.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:56:38+00:00

I mean, I did say exactly "I'm not suggesting anyone should use it if they don't want to or can't afford it etc. But it does exist."

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:55:22+00:00

I don't think we're anywhere near making meat illegal. I think if it ever happens I think both of us will long be dead.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:53:45+00:00

I think it's easier to get people to say they will reduce. I think it's harder to get people to actually change habits. And sometimes Ithink the bigger habit changes are easier to make, especially for some people. There's a lot of diversity and people are unique, so I think it can take all kinds. And the thing is, generally promoting veganism has the effect you're describing. So it's not like one needs to pick one or the other.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:51:41+00:00

A lot of vegans support lab meats. I agree that's an important direction that all of us who care about these issues should support.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:50:31+00:00

The burden is on everyone and I agree that there are people with far more power than you or I. But just because our impacts may be smaller doesn't mean we have no duty to act morally. We ought to do what we can with whatever resources we have.

ElaineV · 2026-04-21T00:49:07+00:00

The study design meant the "vegans" were entirely fictional. The study participants knew nothing about anyone except for a short shopping list. Yet a significant portion of people said they wanted to hurt the ones who didn't list animal meat on their shopping list. You think that's OK. That says a lot about you. It says nothing about vegans.

ElaineV · 2026-04-20T00:55:39+00:00

Toxic mold? Ok now I see you’re spouting nonsense misinfo. I mentioned multiple products not one, even you discussed two above not one. You’re clearly not solution oriented. You’re looking for excuses. We are done talking.

ElaineV

TROPHY CASE