I do not agree with veganism as a moral standard. If it is your personal moral stance, that is fine. If you think humans eating meat is inherently immoral, I don’t want to deal with you, you’re hopeless. Vegan ideology behaves more like a sect of evangelical Christianity than a dietary choice.
Veganism is better for the environment, but claiming that it's a morally superior choice ignores cultural and economic factors that make people eat animal products.
It is not inherently better for the environment. That is the thing. When you begin trying to explain that local, sustainably sourced animal protein is better for the environment than imported plant proteins that are farmed 3,500 miles away using slave labor, they start tuning you out. Down is better for the environment than polyester stuffing, leather is better for the environment than pleather. We should work on making animal agricultural practices more sustainable instead of trying to shame everyone into eating plant products that are also farmed unethically and unsustainably.
This is false. Local, sustainably sourced animal protein still contributes more to GHG emissions than plant based protein shipped from thousands of miles away. The majority of the emissions from animal protein come from land use and the animals themselves, with only a tiny fraction coming from transport.
The assertion that vegan products are more susceptible to slave labour than animal products is strange. Everyone eats unethically farmed vegetables, not only vegans. You also assume that unethical labour practices are not endemic to the meat industry, including in the UK and the US. It would be impossible to provide the volume of meat consumed at such a low cost without exploiting vulnerable and precaritised workers. The fishing industry has similar issues.
This post makes the common mistake of attributing the popularity of petroleum-based fabric to vegans (1% of the global population) seeking alternatives, as opposed to understanding that this transition has been driven by fast fashion, not ethics. Most pleather and polyester is bought by non-vegans seeking cheap and fashionable clothing.
You might not realise this, but your framing echoes the framing of the meat industry to muddy the waters and promote their products in the face of increasingly unanimous scientific evidence of harm.
I'm fine with ethical disagreement but seeing so many people share false information is concerning. I'm happy to discuss more and/or provide pdfs – I've been vegan for years and I'm studying climate change and catastrophic risk.
