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> As omnivores above the poverty line, we can all make conscious and conscientious choices about what we eat.

This being a forum of mostly tech workers, many of us can afford to choose more sustainable animal products and support agriculture that promotes biodiversity and carbon sequestration too. If you don't want to give animal products up, then look for sources that engage in regenerative agriculture practices. They tend to be the most humane ways to raise animals as well.

In the end, demand for meat, eggs, and dairy is never going to disappear. Maybe someday lab grown alternatives can be molecularly and structurally equivalent. But until then the most effective change we can make collectively is to change government incentives to farmers so they choose better practices.

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A lot of vegans eat fake meat and dairy which shares many of the environmental problems of meat, such as needing a lot of inputs so a lot of plant material relative to the final product.. It also adds energy use, transport, packaging etc.

There are also environmentally beneficial meats. So much so that when rewilding we sometimes need to add the same animals back (as is happening in Scotland - rewilders are breeding cattle that look like wild ones to make it "natural"). In the UK you can buy venison from wild animals that need to be culled to to preserve the environment.

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I would say it’s important to emphasize people don’t need to go complete vegan. Reducing consumption of animal products can be more realistic for most people.
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This is bullshit. The vast majority of CO2 is created by energy production.

The problem is systemic and blaming other people for their lifestyle choices is neither effective nor helpful and just leads to further division. It's exactly this sort of division that helps fossil companies to destroy the planet and keep making money.

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Sorry, this is just not correct, even when you ignore the other greenhouse gases and focus on CO2.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/global-warming-by-gas-and...

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Actually focusing on CO2, same site:

https://ourworldindata.org/ghg-emissions-by-sector

More than 70% of CO2 from energy, less than 6% from ALL livestock.

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flip the vertical order on that graph, its super misleading.
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Give it a couple decades. Most 'vegans' stop being vegan well before that. I'll let you Google why they do.
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I am not vegan, will never be, but I have known vegans for more than two decades and they are doing fine. We need to make it easy to make the right choice about food, and one way to do that is to stop making meat meat meat the ONLY cool thing. I am fine with vegans serving me tasty food, they make alternatives easier. If you do not want to be a full time vegan just switch to 3 out 7 days of the week or something like that.
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I gather this is a vague snarky comment loosely implying that vegans don't get enough B12. If so, it's a profoundly ignorant point that shows you don't have any knowledge of a typical vegan diet nowadays.
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Yep, B12 is a solved issue. It's pretty cheap to supplement.

I do want to mention that you do also have to look out to get enough of : Omega 3, Calcium, Iodine, Iron, Selenium, Protein.

Takes a bit of work at the start to adapt but it's very doable, and it's not like Omnivores don't have comparable deficiencies from not eating enough plants and fruit. Not to mention other problems that come with eating animal products...

I only supplement with Omega 3, Vitamin D, B12, Iodine (although sometimes I go for wakame). Have been on a plant-based diet for around 4 years now, feeling healthy.

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A couple of decades of not eating meat is a pretty significant improvement on you your carbon impact :)
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Vegans have never and will never appreciably reduced global emissions.

Global meat production is only increasing.

You're delusional with main character syndrome?

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Take a look to a soybean plantation for example, biodiversity totally destroyed. Also, are you doing a physical main work?
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The point is that you need multiple plantations like this to make enough feed for the cows to make equivalent calories/proteins.
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Disclaimer: Not a vegan myself.

You do realize those soybean plantations are not for human consumption, right? And that that's what is factored into the quoted loss of biodiversity?

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But someone still has to eat up all those cows before their methane mucks up the environment.

And if you're not willing to do your part, that just means the rest of us have to pull double duty.

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