Climate Change is Irreversible, But Going Vegan Can Make It Less Terrible
I'm challenging myself to stop despairing, but it's hard.
When my wife Moore and I left West Hollywood to move back east less than a year ago, there were fires blazing behind us and in front of us. By the time we reached the Denver area, the fires there rerouted us along smaller, windy roads—some of which hugged scorched mountainsides.
Moore suffers from serious asthma and we had to ensure that our drive across the country—complete with our three elderly dogs and brave, brave kitty—left ample time for her to use her travel nebulizer if need be. The air quality in many parts was terrible.
The weather conditions were harrowing—as were the confederate flags and “Trump 2020” signs we passed for the vast majority of our nine-day drive. We arrived in the northernmost foothills of the Catskills relieved to be hanging our hats in our new apartment rental while we looked for a place to call a more permanent home.
That duplex was good to us (even though it had beige carpet) and we were grateful to have a spot to ride out the height of the pandemic, grateful to be employed (especially since Moore’s employer went fully remote, so she was able to work for a California institution from New York), and grateful to have our close friend and beloved pod-mate move to the apartment upstairs when it became available. The three of us have been vegan for more than 70 years collectively, and we had multiple opportunities to try out new recipes as we revised our pod rules and rode that line between despair and strategy. (HGTV helped, too.)
Less than a year later, we all have homes in Rochester, NY—a choice we made in part because the New York Times climate change map has decent long-term projections for this small-but-mighty city, and we have goals of turning it into an energy-independent home. We also really appreciate the activist energy here, not to mention the vegan butcher shop just down the road. And as we embark on this journey to net-zero living (or as close to net-zero as possible), we also fully intend to do our parts to ensure that climate-friendly living is available and affordable (or, better, free) to all.
So follow along as we tell you about our journey and what we discover.
These environmentally forward actions come from a place of hope for what is possible if we create scalable solutions that genuinely start with personal action, but if I’m going to be totally honest, they also come from a bit of despair. And though I’ll continue to use hope as a strategy, my despair—much like climate change—appears to be irreversible.
Today, when I popped out of bed like the cinnamon toast I craved, I did what any well-meaning, pre-caffeinated masochist would do and I opened the virtual New York Times. What I found was an article entitled “A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us.”
This was coverage on the IPCC’s 3,000-page report that came out today citing that global warming is (duh) an emergency, that humans have heated the earth by 2 degrees since the 19th century, and that the consequences are being felt worldwide (images of Moore and me driving through smokey skies come flooding back, pun intended).
And though heat waves are killing people every day, and floods and wildfires are plaguing various corners of this pained planet as I type this, perhaps the most depressing part of this report (but don’t shoot the messenger) is that, according to the New York Times, “Even if nations started sharply cutting emissions today, total global warming is likely to rise around 1.5 degrees Celsius within the next two decades, a hotter future that is now essentially locked in.”
A hotter future is locked in.
What, exactly, does that mean? It means a billion (a billion!) people suffering and dying in more extreme heatwaves, unable to access water because of even more severe droughts, and animal and plant species going extinct.
The report continues by stating that there are efforts that can be taken now to ensure that the planet doesn’t become even hotter than is inevitable, as long as efforts are taken immediately. “If nations follow through on more recent promises — like Mr. Biden’s April pledge to eliminate America’s net carbon emissions by 2050 or China’s vow to become carbon neutral by 2060 — then something closer to 2 degrees Celsius of warming might be possible,” reports the New York Times. “Additional action, such as sharply reducing methane emissions from agriculture and oil and gas drilling, could help limit warming below that level.”
Most of the articles I read or perused this morning covered the UN report straightforwardly, not really focusing on solutions except in broad strokes. And I can say that now because I’ve slightly calmed down.
When I first read about the reports, I was utterly beside myself. Not only because I feel overcome with despair and fury (just thinking of all the precious wild animals who are literally burning right this very second is enough to undo me), but because one of the most simple ways to make a difference is to replace animal agriculture with plant-based agriculture—and hardly anybody is reporting on that.
Breaking that down even further, let’s put it this way:
Going vegan is one of the most direct ways to make a difference when it comes to climate change.
Here are some stats for you: Agriculture is responsible for about a quarter of all global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions; animal agriculture accounts for 80 percent of this. One pound of beef requires 1,800 gallons of water—the equivalent of 105 eight-minute showers a day. Animal ag is the leading cause of deforestation—in 2018, 30 million acres of tropical rainforest were lost (a rate of 43 football fields a minute). Livestock take up to 83 percent of farmland but only provide 18 percent of calories worldwide. Two billion tons of manure a year from US livestock alone (or 12 billion pounds each day) are produced—a large portion of which is stored in open lagoons. Over a 100-year period, the greenhouse gas methane has over 25 times the impact on the earth as carbon monoxide.
Oh my god.
Replacing beef with plants would bring the yearly CO2e amount down by 96 percent—from 1,984 pounds per average American to just 73 pounds of CO2e.
So—and, just so you know, I am squelching my urge to write in all caps because what I really want to do is scream this—why isn’t the media covering this simple solution?
And by very simple, I do not mean that this alone will fix everything. But doing nothing certainly won’t fix anything … and by encouraging people to go vegan as a means to lessen their footprint, we can actually focus on the connection between individual action and climate change. Instead of just reading depressing articles that cite reports that throw in there, “oh yeah, and animal ag is bad,” but then don’t follow it up with any actual concrete advice—such as working to eliminate our consumption of animals (at least Berkeley is doing it!).
The world is on the line, and it’s still not a fucking headline.
I brought my despair to my friend Anna Starostinetskaya, the senior news editor at VegNews (where I am the former senior editor and current editor-at-large). Like any modern-day friends and colleagues, we Slacked about it, and Anna told me about a friend of hers who just started an executive position at a climate start-up. Anna told me: “I was like, ‘nobody ever talks about animal ag as an issue,’ and she said I was breathing too much into it and pointed to the fact that these reports speak to general systems that need to be adjusted to meet climate goals and we're supposed to glean that animal ag is included. I argued that it is purposefully excluded and she said I was nuts.”
Nuts. We are seen as nuts.
Anna continued: “Then I was like, ‘What if this was a different scenario. Like, how do I bake a cake? And then the directions are, 'use flour, water, butter, and heat.”
Exactly, Anna. Be sure to add some nuts to that cake for some actual sustenance.
Anna pointed out to me that Reuters covered the UN report too, and got a little bit closer to the meat of the matter. That story is entitled “To save the planet, focus on cutting methane - U.N. climate report,” but still misses the mark to some extent.
To me, this omission by so many mainstream media platforms—not just in this instance, but with few exceptions, regularly—is unethical journalism at its most egregious.
So I hung my head and I fought back tears. That is the kind of Monday I am having.
I texted a different friend of mine and told her I’m full of climate despair today. She replied and said, “Climate despair is real,” and then told me she’s considering renting a hot dog steamer for a vegan farmers’ market in Iowa (where she lives) so that she can serve meatless franks. Frankly, that gave me hope.
But these days, my hope is hard to come by. I conjure it, just like I tell others to do. I “act as if” I have it until a little bit pops through, against all odds. I focus on the massive gratitude I continue to have to live the life I get to live, advocate for those who so many others push aside even when they are burning in front of us, and I recognize that feeling climate despair is completely normal. Not feeling it would actually be weird, amiright? Like some kind of self-gaslighting, if that were possible.
You guys, I really want to end this with something positive, and so I’ve decided to end it by plagiarizing myself. And so I will conclude with a chapter from a book I wrote, The VegNews Guide to Being a Fabulous Vegan (Hachette Go, 2020), in which I talk about “The Difference” we can make by going vegan … even when we think it won’t do anything. Spoiler alert: It will.
***
It can be easy to go down the path of thinking that one person going vegan doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. After all, this is a big world, and one person alone generally does not yield that much power
But if we thought that way about everything, we would probably not care about littering. What’s the difference if one gum wrapper is on the ground? We would certainly not vote—because who cares if one person votes? It’s not like it’s going to change the election. If it didn’t matter what one person did, then if we had the means, we might get an additional car—not worrying about whether it’s gas-guzzling. We’d buy the styrofoam cups—not the recyclable ones—for kid’s birthday parties. Actually, why recycle at all? After all, we’re just one person; we’re not going to make or break any systems all by ourselves. Bring on the steak!
But there’s a lot more to it than that, and social change still happens person to person and by example. So if you’re at the grocery store and you ask where the Beyond Meat burgers are, you’re not only just affecting that store by buying the Beyond Meat and showing that there’s a demand for that product, but you’re also opening the eyes of the person who you’re asking. Someone else nearby you hears “Beyond Meat” and they think, “huh …” Next time they are in the section of the grocery store with those burgers, they might just pick them up.
Similarly, if you’re at a restaurant and you order the vegan meal, the server, chef, and manager are all hearing you in one way or another, and they know there’s an interest in vegan food. Plus, the person at the table next to you—or maybe your non-vegan dining-mate sitting across from you—hears, sees, and (if you’re the sharing type) perhaps tastes that as well. We are influencing people constantly, all the time, in ways that we can’t possibly understand. So just by living our lives and being true to our values, our efforts go far, far beyond us. Plus, by buying the Beyond Meat patties or ordering that vegan item at the restaurant, we are also affecting the bottom line—and, of course, supply is driven by demand—so your choices make way, way more of a difference than it might seem.
There’s also this: every life matters. It’s like that poignant, albeit-overused starfish story (originally adapted from “The Star Thrower” essay by Loren Eiseley), which you probably already know (it’s overused for a reason), but the short version goes something like this: boy goes to beach and sees a lot of starfish washed up by the waves; boy starts to pick them up one by one and tosses them back into the ocean; man comes by and points out that there are too many starfish for him to save and it won’t make a difference, saying, “you can't save them all, so why bother trying?; boy thinks about this and responds, "well, it matters to this one" and then flings the starfish back into the giant sea.
Every individual life matters. No matter who you are and how much you say that what you do doesn’t matter, the fact it is, it does; everyone’s individual actions matter a lot. They not only directly matter (such as to that one starfish—or cow, pig, or chicken), but since we are a highly impressionable, social species, our actions have the power to normalize or inspire others.
Let’s assume you’re down with all of that—that you recognize that our choices make a difference. It’s also important to remember that you don’t have to fix everything to fix something. If you save just one animal from suffering, it’s worth it; that alone is worth every moment of your effort.
There are serious crises looming (and upon us already) that are going to enormously change the way we consume food. Climate change, land use, pollution—all of these things are contributing to our understanding that things have got to change. If we listen to the folks worth listening to, we will find that the way we eat now just isn’t sustainable. Not eating meat is a twofold win: 1. It can slow the destructive path we're on 2. It will help make vegan food more accessible. Every single person who purchases plant-based instead of animal-based is therefore making an enormous change. Supporting these foods is a strong, political act—and so is boycotting foods that are cruel, unsustainable, and unhealthy.
Yes, we need systemic solutions; but the best way to motivate business and government is to vote with our dollars. Even in small towns and cities across the United States and the globe, there are more and more vegan places popping up—from Kansas City to Spokane to Omaha, and everywhere in between. There are also more and more vegan companies, animal-rights advocates, food scientists, and financial investors working to ensure that our collective future is both compassionate and delicious.
There is no way these businesses would be making the changes they are making—major fast-food chains introducing vegan options, vegan meat companies going public and the stocks skyrocketing, plant-based milk innovations growing exponentially—if one person had not initially gone vegan. And then another. And then another. It really is pretty simple, when you get down to it.
The important thing is to not let other people get in your way, and there will always be the naysayers. But you’ve made it this far, so you probably already know that if you listen to naysayers your whole life, you’ll never do anything you want to do—or anything that matters. Beyond them though, try as best you can to not be your own naysayer, and not get in your own damn way. The arguments you make with yourself about veganism are solvable, and are ultimately not that important when compared with the deep satisfaction you can get from really making this change and sticking the dismount.
Once you do, you’ll find that it’s 100-percent positive. You’ll meet wonderful people, taste incredible food, be connected with a deeper purpose, and have a whole lot of fun. Most importantly, you’ll be out there shining in your corner of this world, knowing deep down that you’re doing your absolute best, and living your own, beautiful truth in your one, glorious life. Enjoy the ride.
***
Here’s hoping.
xo,
jazz
One Thing I’m Jazzed About
Tonight, I’ll be attending the virtual webinar, Introduction to the Climate Justice Movement.
Here’s how it is described:
Climate change will disproportionately impact BIPOC and poor communities the greatest, both globally and locally. In this virtual class we will learn how the intersection of social justice, anti-racism work, and climate activism has given rise to the climate justice movement. Participants will be guided through historical and contemporary examples of how climate change is disproportionately affecting people of the global majority and those who have been historically excluded from the climate justice movement.