There seems to be a clear disanalogy in that if every individual stopped eating meat tomorrow, factory farming would be history very quickly. On the other hand, if everyone tried very hard to reduce their personal CO2 consumption, the effect seems more limited (unless people are really serious about it, in which case this would probably lead to major economic damage).
The key difference seems to be that CO2 emissions are embedded in our current societies and economies in such a deep way, that we can only get out via long-term investment into replacement infrastructure (such as renewables, electric cars, public transportation etc.), which is not necessarily influenced that strongly by individual consumption. On the other hand, meat eating is exclusively about the sum of personal demand, even though measures to reduce supply via policy or decrease demand via investment into viable substitutes would still be highly valuable. (I imagine that I might change my mind if this line of thought was convincingly refuted).
I directly address this objection in the essay (it’s the first if of my “other objections and responses”). Do you mind spelling out why you found this unconvincing?
It does not really seem to address the reasoning from my second paragraph. You say:
“Similarly, if people refused to consume any goods or services that were associated with net-positive greenhouse gas emissions, then those industries would rapidly decarbonize or go out of business.”,
but it seems to me that this would be way more costly for individuals than giving up on meat, in addition to leading to way larger economic damage in the short to medium term (without enough time for investments into replacement technologies to pay off).
“but it seems to me that this would be way more costly for individuals than giving up on meat”
This isn’t obvious to me. First, I think it’s likely that many vegans underrate the costs that going vegan would impose on many non-vegans. Second, even going vegan doesn’t completely eliminate one’s individual animal suffering footprint, since there are non-dietary channels in which individual consumption causes animal suffering. Going full Jain seems like it would be comparably burdensome to completely eliminating one’s gross carbon footprint.
I do think I agree that rapid decarbonization through individual consumption decisions would be more economically costly than rapid phaseout of animal agriculture, but I think that says more about the short-term tractability of the two problems than it says about the role of individual consumption in solving them. In any case, neither problem is, as a practical matter, going to be solved primarily via individual consumption choices, so I’m not sure too much hinges on this question. Locally, the effects are quite comparable.
There seems to be a clear disanalogy in that if every individual stopped eating meat tomorrow, factory farming would be history very quickly. On the other hand, if everyone tried very hard to reduce their personal CO2 consumption, the effect seems more limited (unless people are really serious about it, in which case this would probably lead to major economic damage).
The key difference seems to be that CO2 emissions are embedded in our current societies and economies in such a deep way, that we can only get out via long-term investment into replacement infrastructure (such as renewables, electric cars, public transportation etc.), which is not necessarily influenced that strongly by individual consumption. On the other hand, meat eating is exclusively about the sum of personal demand, even though measures to reduce supply via policy or decrease demand via investment into viable substitutes would still be highly valuable. (I imagine that I might change my mind if this line of thought was convincingly refuted).
I directly address this objection in the essay (it’s the first if of my “other objections and responses”). Do you mind spelling out why you found this unconvincing?
It does not really seem to address the reasoning from my second paragraph. You say:
“Similarly, if people refused to consume any goods or services that were associated with net-positive greenhouse gas emissions, then those industries would rapidly decarbonize or go out of business.”,
but it seems to me that this would be way more costly for individuals than giving up on meat, in addition to leading to way larger economic damage in the short to medium term (without enough time for investments into replacement technologies to pay off).
“but it seems to me that this would be way more costly for individuals than giving up on meat”
This isn’t obvious to me. First, I think it’s likely that many vegans underrate the costs that going vegan would impose on many non-vegans. Second, even going vegan doesn’t completely eliminate one’s individual animal suffering footprint, since there are non-dietary channels in which individual consumption causes animal suffering. Going full Jain seems like it would be comparably burdensome to completely eliminating one’s gross carbon footprint.
I do think I agree that rapid decarbonization through individual consumption decisions would be more economically costly than rapid phaseout of animal agriculture, but I think that says more about the short-term tractability of the two problems than it says about the role of individual consumption in solving them. In any case, neither problem is, as a practical matter, going to be solved primarily via individual consumption choices, so I’m not sure too much hinges on this question. Locally, the effects are quite comparable.