this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
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I acknowledge I can't completely remove myself from contributing to suffering and climate change (short of killing myself, which I have no intention of doing.)
However I'll do all I can to minimize my impact. Including being vegan, living a generally minimal consumption lifestyle, buying secondhand as much as possible, walking or cycling everywhere, and not bringing any children into this world.
I'll also acknowledge my individual actions don't really make any difference in the grand scheme of things, but I couldn't live with myself if I didn't at least try to live in a manner that won't make our planet inhospitable to our species before the end of the century.
There are plenty of activities you could be doing that would have a hundreds of times more impact than going Vegan. You're right that your individual consumption actions don't really make a difference in the grand scheme, but that's not true for other actions you could be taking though.
You could work in the field of birth or population control, every baby you prevent being born is likely worth more than your entire lifetime consumption.
You could become a research scientist and work on recycling, pollution reduction, carbon capture, etc.
You could work together with others to purchase and protect large swaths of land or water.
Going vegan is the best thing a individual can do for the climate crissis
Objectively, no it isn't.
The best thing an individual can do for the climate crisis is switch their home heating to an electric heat pump powered by renewable energy sources, in combination with better insulation and increasing the density of their housing (apartments require less heat/cooling per person than townhouses, which use less energy per person than detached houses)
Home heating/cooling is the single largest source of emissions for an individual (on average) in developed countries.
It sounds like you already eliminated or significantly reduced the personal car, which is the second highest average individual source.
The emissions from the food you eat is usually the third largest individual source.
100% Veganism globally would be expected to drop global emissions by about 17%, but even switching to just replacing 75% of red meat with other meats would still drop global emissions by 10%, and full vegetarianism (no meat) would drop it by 14%. Veganism is definitely the most reduction, but it's not necessary at all if we just reduce the red meat and fix some of larger heating/cooling and transportation issues.