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Environment

Animal farming is devastating for the environment. It’s the second most destructive industry on Earth after fossil fuel production. Feeding animals requires cultivating a lot of food for them – which consumes a lot of water and drains the soil of its nutrients too fast for the soil to recover. It is an incredibly inefficient diet because it drains natural resources to provide only a small amount of the total calories we need, and less than half of the proteins we need. Additionally, expelling all the waste and excrements generated from having all these animals intensively eating generates huge amounts of manure, which releases methane, a potent greenhouse gas with a significantly higher warming potential than carbon dioxide. Chemicals and sewage often go into the rivers, polluting our waters. And there’s more: intensive farming practices often involve land clearing, leading to deforestation, habitat and biodiversity destruction. Fishing is even more destructive than animal farming on land. Oceans and the life inside them is essential for maintaining the global temperature and the planet's ecosystems in balance. But currently we are killing too many fishes too quickly, and the whole circle of life inside the oceans - from big fishes to algae - is being heavily disrupted, whilst life on Earth depends on it. So from an environmental perspective, the more your diet consumers animal products, the less sustainable it is. We just can't continue to feed the world (and the West in particular) on a animal product-based diet. We will run out of resource, the land won't recover quick enough and we won't have food to give to animals, nor to ourselves.

Sources and interesting reads#

If a lot of the “Yes, but…” that are hanging over your head right now, they will probably get an answer in the FAQs. This page is more to give you some interesting articles and sources that I have taken my info from. And also some books or documentary that I suggest, if you want to learn more about the lower environmental impact of a vegan diet. And if you still would like to discuss anything, please do reach out 🙂

  • The truth about livestock farming. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/14/livestock-farming-soy-soyboy
  • "Half of the world's habitable land is used for agriculture, and more than three-quarters of this is used for livestock." In this topic page, you will see an overview of land use across the world. https://ourworldindata.org/land-use
  • Environmental and biodiversity impact of our food chain. https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impacts-of-food
  • Food production is responsible for one-quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. https://ourworldindata.org/food-ghg-emissions
  • Meat is an important source of nutrition for people around the world. How quickly is demand growing? And what are the implications for animal welfare and the earth’s environment? https://ourworldindata.org/meat-production
  • 5 ways intensive farming hurts more than it helps. https://puregreensaz.com/blog/intensive-farming/
  • Why you should go animal-free: 18 arguments for eating meat debunked. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/jun/19/why-you-should-go-animal-free-arguments-in-favour-of-meat-eating-debunked-plant-based
  • Current state of the Climate: entering uncharted territory. https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/73/12/841/7319571
  • Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret (documentary). https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/80033772
  • Eating to extinction (book). https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/eating-to-extinction-the-world-s-rarest-foods-and-why-we-need-to-save-them-dan-saladino/5048648
  • Livestock and the environment. https://www.fao.org/livestock-environment/en
  • Sustainable food and agriculture. https://www.fao.org/sustainability/en
  • Regenesis: Feeding the World without Devouring the Planet. https://uk.bookshop.org/p/books/regenesis-feeding-the-world-without-devouring-the-planet-george-monbiot/7271836?ean=9780141992990