People usually don't believe that our current food consumption is a major player in the climate crisis. I have to admit that the connections are very complicated. They're going from methane in the digestion cycle of cows through transport to rainforest clearing in Brazil. I'd like to get a grip on that myself. That's why I'd like to dedicate part two of my posting series about the climate crisis to this topic.

On top of that, the climate is only one of many plagues meat consumption causes. It's also the main driver of the decline in biodiversity. It causes serious health issues driven by lies triggered by a cruel meat and milk lobby. and by the way, it's completely unethical.

I myself chose to be a vegan eight or nine years ago and I've learned a lot about the other topics along the way. The possibilities for a vegan diet have increased ever since. The topic is booming. I'm sure it's not a trend that will go away anytime soon.

Introduction

I'd like to start my journey into veganism with a look into the future, it's a sci-fi magazine after all. We are on a camping ground, mainly because I'm writing this from the side of a camper van. 50 years fast forward.

The old couple next to us is classy. They drink their red wine from proper glasses. And they sit in front of a miniature screen watching TV shows each evening. I haven't seen such a thing for a long time. But they enjoy it. He, a man with a white long beard and a lot of tattoos, is a smoker. But he's not into cigarettes. I haven't seen such stupid things for decades either. No. He's smoking his food.

For the whole day he's following a ritual. He prepared a seitan dough with dozens of spices, precooked it and now it's under the smoker. Soon, it will be roasted on the grill for the final touch.

What you get in the market, he said, is all fake. You have to do it yourself. It's as cheap as flour, dead simple and the tastiest thing you'll ever eat.

Then they invited us for dinner.

The previous thoughts point out the inevitable, the future we're steering to. We will develop into a vegan world. It's not an option to choose from in the future. It's the opposite. It will be a very expensive option to eat meat, eggs or dairy products from time to time. And as it has no additional value, people will just stop doing it.

While many of us are still in denial, we are already transitioning into that way of life. Farmers see more and more problems with livestock farming. Feed gets more expensive and subsidies from the states will become less and less. On the other hand, vegan products become more versatile and are healthier by design. People notice that spices are vegan and therefore vegan food does not taste like nothing. Also the rituals built around meat - barbecues, sunday roast and full monty breakfast will have worthy replacements even without french cream sauce, cheese finishers or omelette.

It is happening, we know that. And now it's time to dive into the why.

Dimensions

I just want to give you some relation between nature and livestock.

• 4% of mammal-related biomass is bound to wild animals.

• 36% are humans. We outweigh the rest of the animals by a factor of nine.

• 60% is livestock. The farming animals that we use as food.

The biggest part there is cattle, which by coincidence is also a large source of methane and therefore plays a huge role in the greenhouse effect.

Another overall side effect is that we use more and more land for farming, i.e growing soy for feeding the animals and grazing itself. This devastatingly affects the planet's biodiversity. It also shrinks the rainforest (e.g. in Brazil), which approaches a tipping point if it's getting reduced by another 18%. At that point, it can't maintain its microclimate anymore and will dry out.

Some people say that moving to a vegan diet would have one of the biggest positive effects for a private person's footprint. But in public discussions, it is almost never mentioned.

The complex set of factors is touching all aspects of the climate crisis and thus the topic is even harder to grasp as the climate change as a whole.

The most comprehensive and obvious part plays a significant role. Cows are producing methane. About 30% of the total planetary emission. But this is only responsible for 2% of the green house effect. The same amount goes to Nitrogen fertilizers for feed production. But many other effects are also included:

• Production
• Transport
• Deforestation

The current estimation of the overall share of the meat and dairy industry is 14%. When we only fight with the sources of the emissions and don't change our habits, the share will rise to 23%-27% in 2030 and up to 80% in the year 2050. For more details and sources, I recommend the german publication Fleischatlas.

It's hard to change the behaviour of the people. But in this sector, we have proof that it's inevitable.

Let's Set It in Relation

Time for a small recap session. We found out that meat and dairy have a 14% share in climate change.

The chart shows, that you can shave off 71% from your 500% over-budget emission with a vegan diet. In comparison if you get rid of your car (average in europe), you can only save 66% of the budget. The improvement is not huge, but it is available right now for everyone. It just has to make click in your head.

Mass meat and dairy production, however, come with a much bigger footprint in another crisis: Biodiversity. I know. Yet another crisis doesn't even fit in our heads anymore. But fighting the climate crisis the right way might come with many synergies with stopping the extinction of species, when you do it the right way. It will be worth it, because in a climate catastrophe, many of us will suffer, but after a biodiversity ELE all humans will be wiped out.

Pillars of Veganism

Going vegan has three pillars. In the last episodes, we have covered some ground on one of them - sustainability and climate protection. In the next passages, I'd also dive into the other aspects. So let's start with speciesism and animal rights.

Speciesism in its clearest form is when you love your little designer dog and at the same time have fur around your neck from one of its ancestors/siblings. But it's more than that.

It's baked (wrong word, I know, butchered would be better) even into the language. In English, you differentiate between cow and beef, calf and veal, pig and pork.

Also, meat is an abstraction in itself. A ridiculous argument against vegans is that they substitute meat with "identically looking alternatives", while a sausage looks nothing at all like the original, too. Together with the abstraction, its background wiped from our conscious mind.

People even think that organic meat - where animals have 30 cm more space - would be less cruel. No. Someone cuts these throats as well in the end.

The aspect of respecting animal rights is the most important part of veganism. Two simple narratives from different perspectives describe very well, that animals should have rights just as humans do. Let's call it cat/cow according to the Yoga position.

• Cat: If you've ever lived with a pet, e.g. a cat, you automatically get to know their character. I believe there is no way to unsee that the animal has a personality that must be protected. They're a friend. They depend on you, speak in their own language with you and you understand most of it. They express thoughts, feelings and needs.

• Cow: And on the other hand, if you've ever looked into the processes of a slaughterhouse (I recommend the documentary "Cowspiracy" for a start), you immediately know that it is utterly wrong what's happening there. It will be impossible for many people to accept these conditions just for a steak.

Even without written law, this will become clear. Animal Rights are not up for discussion. There will be cases where it doesn't seem that obvious. So it's also very simple to draw the line. Just include all animals.

Health

This storyline about veganism started with the climate crisis and already came to its centre, animal rights. But there's one more pillar to cover: health. Let's start with a part that is mentioned less often. Most of the recent pandemics are caused by transmission paths that involve meat.

With today's hygiene standards, we can more or less exclude direct transmissions as in the medieval plague. The only remaining vectors are mosquitos/insects with malaria as an example. The rest of the pandemic incidents went through steps that involve meat production and consumption with horrendously expensive side effects.

Take corona as an example. The patient-0 transmission can be traced back pretty precisely in the meantime. It can be located with a precision of five meters around one spot on an open raw meat market (a so-called "wet market") in Wuhan, China. The original carrier was a bat with probably another host (Tanukis are in the discussion) in-between. All avoidable in a vegan world.

The reason why I became a vegan in the first place was my personal health. I was not sick, but I felt my veins getting plugged with cholesterol and my metabolism getting enriched with poison. And then, one day, I took the decision to stop. At that point, I didn't know all the details. But I felt better day by day.

There were 800 significant studies about meat in 2015 already and it's well known that animal protein is carcinogenic. The China Study (I also recommend the book by T. Colin Campbell) is about a region in China where people were coincidentally living vegan and could be examined in all areas of physiology. The result was stunning. 80 - 90 % of all cancer and heart diseases and diabetes cases can be avoided with a vegan diet.

So why don't we all live vegan then? This is where lobbyism comes in. For generations, we are taught that milk is healthy and meat is needed to feed our brains. Now meat production and pharmaceutics are unstoppable trillion dollar industries.

Wrap Up

Veganism is no religion, as many claim. I think it's two things: a set of rules that help you easily navigate through the giant stream of consumption. When you follow them, you (not always, but) most likely do the right thing for your body, the environment and in any case for the animals. And it's also a mindset. It's the thought that we evolved from other animals and therefore we can't draw a line.

In this article, I've discovered what effects dairy and meat have on us and our environment. it is inevitable that the whole human race is more and more acquiring the vegan mindset.

This is not a "we should one day" or an "if we did that, the world would be better". No. It is an existing process. This transformation is already happening. If you take a closer look, you will see that this great opposition is only the last childish rebellion against common sense.