#vegan for the earth

[elftwink]

one thing thats so interesting about being a vegetarian is you get to hear all about everyones hypothetical activism that they care about very deeply when talking specifically about your diet and why it's stupid, but literally will never bring up ever again in any other context

[chiaralbart]

BEE THE CHANGE 🐝 🌍 reminder for Earth Day that we can all do our part to help our planet in our daily life with the smallest things 🌱

[aloesthetic]

Saw the most aesthetic truck of my life a few months back and still think about it

October 22nd, 2023

[oediex]

Today is Earth Overshoot Day.

"Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity’s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year."

This means that from today on, we are living in an ecological deficit, or on "credit". We are using natural resources the earth cannot replenish, as well as accumulating waste the earth cannot deal with, "primarily carbon dioxide in the atmosphere". We are using 1.7 earths every year.

The date of Earth Overshoot Days is slowly climbing forward more and more:

While what we should be doing is pushing that date back the other way. If we want to reach the IPCC goal of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions by 43% by 2030, which is required if we are to limit global warming to 1,5°C, we need to push Earth Overshoot Day back by 19 days for the next 7 years.

World Overshoot Day is calculated by Global Footprint Network (where the above graph is from), an international non-profit research organisation that provides data, insights, and tools for decision-makers to understand the ecological limitations of our world so that they can make informed decisions for a better future.

One of the best things you can do as an individual is going vegan, because meat and dairy products tend to emit more greenhouse gasses than plant-based foods. It is truly one of the most effective ways for you as an individual to have an impact on the environment.

A friendly reminder here at the end that veganism is a doing what is “possible and practicable” for you - this includes access to foods, allergies, health issues, mental health issues, etc.

[morethansalad]

Edible Terrarium / Adult Dirt Cups (Vegan)

[fruit-berries-herbs]

[totally-sick-blogger]

Sustainability is rarely accessible

This post is dedicated to Audrey, hi king!

Like many people, I think sustainability and taking care of the environment is really important; however, something that I feel isn't talked about enough when discussing ways to be more sustainable is how it's often inaccessible to disabled people and low-income people.

A lot of "alternative products" aren't viable options for disabled people because of factors such as cost, how easy they are to acquire, or physical accessibility issues.

some examples include:

paper straws and wooden cutlery - I know that for me both of these products give me major sensory issues and as for wooden cutlery I'd also like to note that they're much more difficult to eat with which could cause problems for someone with poor dexterity or fine motor skills.

pre-packaged foods - a lot of disabled people rely on pre-packaged meals and snacks for all kinds of reasons such as sensory issues, having specific safe foods, fatigue, and physically being unable to prepare foods. etc. One example I see often is being told off for buying precut produce because why not "just cut it up themselves" when in reality, some people physically cannot cut it up themselves or don't have enough spoons to make that a priority; not to mention that frozen and pre-cut produce is often cheaper than fresh produce.

medical supplies - A lot the medical supplies that disabled people rely on every day are made up of single use plastics and most of the items aren't meant to be used more than once (though some products can be used for multiple days if cared for properly) that being said, disabled people tend to produce more plastic waste but it's not our faults so we shouldn't be getting flack for it!

Another element of environmental advocacy that a lot of people talk about is veganism; which is of course great thing to practice if that's what works for you but a lot of people (disabled or not) cannot be vegan for dietary reasons. This could be because of allergies, intolerances, restrictions, location, finances, etc. For example, I've got a soy allergy and I've got a friend with a severe nut allergy. This means that neither of us could be fully vegan because the majority of vegan products are made with soy and nuts. I also rely partially on tube feeds for nutrition and as far as I know, there aren't any vegan, soy-free formulas yet (and if there are they're probably absurdly expensive)

This brings me to my final point about cost. A lot of alternative options for vegan and sustainable products are significantly more expensive; making it much harder for people who are already struggling financially to afford those products. Not to mention people who live in food deserts (areas of a city that don't contain grocery stores) or rural areas. There are very low chances that either of those places is going to have specialty food stores or even have alternative options in the few stores that they do have!

In conclusion: stop blaming poor and disabled people for the awful state of our environment and start blaming billionaires and massive corporations!

[awesomecooperlove]

CHEMTRAILS

[probablyasocialecologist]

Similar problems arise with Vettese and Pendergrass’s contention that “the easiest—and perhaps only—way to achieve large-scale reforestation and feed the world at the same time is through widespread veganism.” They defend this contention by feeding into their model per capita estimates of land requirements for different dietary regimes based on agricultural figures within the coterminous United States and multiplying these by global population numbers. Notably, even the article from which these estimates are drawn observes that a smaller total number of people can be supported by a vegan diet than a vegetarian or low-meat mixed one, as the former is unable to use land suitable to grazing. Although this may be less of a problem in the context of the United States—as even the lowest estimate of the maximum population fed by U.S. agriculture is 1.3 times the size of the 2010 U.S. population—it becomes a much more dangerous assumption when applied to more arid regions, such as parts of Africa, Latin America, and Asia, where attempts to impose sedentary agriculture on Indigenous populations have undermined pastoral livelihoods with disastrous social and ecological consequences. It also runs counter to the nonprofit organization GRAIN’s contentions that struggles around agriculture and sustainability need to start from the premise that “farming communities should also be able to decide by and for themselves, and without pressure, the type of land tenure they want to practice”—a sentiment echoed by movements such as La Vía Campesina and in the Marseille Manifesto. These complexities do not negate the fact that shifting that portion of the world’s population presently consuming large quantities of industrially produced meat to a more vegetable-based diet would have numerous health, ecological, and ethical benefits. Rather, a more comprehensive ecological approach suggests that there are problems with assuming that experiences and conditions based on a single U.S. metropolitan view are directly translatable into global realities. As Rob Wallace and Max Ajl point out in response to a piece co-authored by Vettese that advocates Half-Earth Socialism, planetary veganism, and synthetic meat in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many vegan criticisms of the social-ecological effects and suffering inflicted by industrial animal husbandry are valid. Nevertheless, they lose their moral and empirical backing when they adopt a series of settler-colonial biases that facilitate the careful drawing of distinctions between industrial and sustainable cultivation of plants while treating industrial and peasant animal husbandry as an undifferentiated whole. That is, the differences between peasant and pastoral animal husbandry practiced by countless peoples around the world and industrial livestock operations are as great as those that Vettese and Pendergrass recognize between industrial and organic agriculture, in terms of their ecological consequences, their contributions to and imbrications with cultural identities, and the amount of harm inflicted on the animals involved. In this sense, Vettese and Pendergrass’s universal condemnation of all “animal husbandry as one of the most consequential and dangerous ways humans shape life on Earth” is both inaccurate and reflects what Wallace and Ajl refer to as “specific values, specific devaluations, and pathological externalizations” undergirding a project “that consents to the brute confiscation and erasure of peasant and pastoral particularisms in the name of ‘universal’ ideals: rewilding Earth upon the bones of supposedly atavistic peoples poor and brown.”

[tea-withnofixinsplease]

Strange business hours are irritating but I'm determined! I'll be calling 5 minutes after opening thank you!

[earths-way-of-laughing]

Camping from this past weekend

[aloeverawrites]

There’s nothing humans love more then reminding cats of basic facts.

We’ll be like “you’re a baby, and you have ears!” And they’ll be like “damn Sandra how do you figure these things out.”

[jhoumous]

Earth day

[animalsoutloud]

[fivepercentgodsandearths]

[morethansalad]

Three Sisters Soup (Vegan)