I had to read that a couple of times to get what you’re saying! I’m guessing that environmental historians have tackled this question? There is a pretty well established historiography on supply chains and what not, so I have to assume environmental historians have used that to better understand how these global supply chains have negatively impacted the global environment.
Absolutely. And most of what we hear is about with regards to action, is on individual action, instead of on systemic change.
I’ve noticed that shift, especially since China has started to reject our recycling. I hope this starts to open up the discussion on systemic change vs. individual action, and how it’s not one or the other, but one is more critical than the other (systemic change).
I’m not. As I said, it’s a problem whether the Amazon is burning or not. Unfortunately, the fascists are counting on that reflex. They know non-meat consumers will point out that the current use is ranching, which will cause a reflexive division in any resistance. They want us squabbling amongst ourselves and pointing fingers anywhere but at them.
And also, that systemic change is needed for individuals to have a way to collectively make an effective impact. For example, individuals can want to take public transportation all they want, but they need public transportation to take.
One of my favorite Heinlein quotes about technology is “When railroading time comes you can railroad—but not before.” There’s probably an inevitable corollary that when institutions invest in railroads, you can railroad— but not before.
How is this not like saying ”we should blame vegans because the vast majority of large-scale agriculture uses unsustainable and ecologically harmful practices”?
From my perspective, to everyone:
Unless you are without means to do so, pay attention to where your food comes from, and ask your restaurants, grocery stores and catering companies where they source their food from, and support your local, sustainable ranchers, farmers, and growers.
If people with means keep buying the cheapest meat and produce they can find in wal-mart, companies will happily keep clearing land or poisoning it to mass-produce cheap food.
While you’re at it, support government initiatives aimed at stricter food production controls while also supporting initiatives that allow those without means to acquire local, sustainable food at a price they can afford.
I just changed countries and had to spend immense extra time in grocery stores and online researching differences in law, in sourcing, in food safety, and choosing where I put my food dollars. Yes it was annoying as heck and took time, and he’ll yea I am lucky to have the means to spend a little more for sustainable food, but there are many folks out there like me who don’t give a second’s thought about the sources of their protein and produce that need to wake up.
I suspect another source of the entrenchment of the two sides (omnivore and vegan/vegetarian) stems from the tendency to see the other side as a monolith.
Vegans, for example and insofar as I understand it, have three main motivations: the ethics of killing seemingly sentient beings for food, the unsustainability of meat-oriented global industrial agriculture, and personal health. Some are motivated by all three, some by only one or two, and to varying degrees.
And within those are nuances, such as the privilege of class access, developed vs developing economies, the reality that a vegan diet can be unhealthy if the vegan is unfamiliar with how to replace certain benefits of an omnivore diet, the slaughter of livestock vs the suffering of livestock in industrialized agriculture, and the exploitation by the ruling classes of both domestic and foreign working classes. In other words, stuff be complicated. But a lot of omnivores just assume all vegans are moralizing hyper-utilitarians when the reality is that sanctimonious vegans are a small minority.
Conversely, and in part because of that caricature, vegans often assume omnivores are unreceptive to all arguments because they’re unreceptive to some. For example, few omnivores likely share the same ethical view of non-human animals as vegans who are motivated by not eating animals, because ultimately that boils down to fundamental values. But things like personal health and the climate argument core to this thread are arguments to which a whole lot of omnivores are receptive, and which probably already motivates many (as it does this omnivore) to limit meat-consumption.
Anyway, I don’t think we should blame vegans because the vast majority of large-scale agriculture uses unsustainable and ecologically harmful practices, because as far as I know, in the U.S. at least, the majority of large-scale agriculture (or at least a huge percentage of it) goes to corn and soy for animal feed.
What I was trying to anticipate with that sentence was the snark that often arises here in threads where the topic is a challenge to meat consumption. I’m not strictly vegan myself, but I have noticed that vegans often come up in such discussions, and then a lot of commenters jump in with the usual anti-vegan stereotypes. There’s usually a lot of defensiveness on all sides when challenges to eating practices come up. Anyway, sorry that sentence didn’t across well/clearly.
I certainly agree with everything else in your comment, and yes, I too spend time finding sustainable, justice-oriented and so on food producers and purveyors. I’m fine with spending more money on them, and eating less than I might otherwise of other things (like buying individual drinks of various kinds, which can add up so quickly) so I can afford it.
It also occurs to me that the vegans and vegetarians I know are chill people because I only tolerate chill people in my orbit. If the vegans one knows are sanctimonious twits, it may well say more about them putting up with twits in general than vegans being twits.
I did! But I felt like you raised a good point about how one-dimensional these arguments usually are. Apologies if that didn’t come across in my response.
It goes along with my more general sense that the deployment of tired anti-vegan tropes says much about the deployer, and nothing about actual vegans in general. Much like the deployment of any sort of stereotypes, I suppose.
I’m guessing that environmental historians have tackled this question? There is a pretty well established historiography on supply chains and what not, so I have to assume environmental historians have used that to better understand how these global supply chains have negatively impacted the global environment.
