There a few people seriously, articulately and consistently saying that animal agriculture farming is a leading cause of climate change, but if you examine their arguments closely you may find that they claim this not due solely to reduced emissions but because it effects a whole raft of issues and root causes connected to climate change. These include the ethical issue of suffering cased to all animals killed. Switching from beef to chicken, or kangaroo for that matter is not an acceptable outcome for many reasons, suffering being the chief amongst them.

That is the spiritual/ethical argument, and it is that link – the karmic or whatever name you wish to give to the cause and effect principle that links our actions with the outcomes we then experience, individually and collectively, which is the basis of the statement that meat eating is the major cause of global warming.

It is not an empirically quantifiable claim, and yes, many will dismiss it but that does not make it a lie. Quite the opposite in fact, it is one of the core truths in all cultures understanding of their interactions in this life.

Nor does it, in reality, undermine the veracity of the general argument in favour of adopting a vegan lifestyle.

‘As you sow, so shall you reap’ i.e. inflict suffering on 60 billion living beings, and know that suffering of humans will be the natural outcome. Our incapacity to understand this has been limited by our misguided understanding that this applied only on an individual level. However there is enough physically measurable evidence of this link out there for this now to be generally indisputable –
*Food shortages and water shortages, linked to the redirection of resources to animal ag.
*Decimation of the ocean’s fish through not only fishing for human consumption, but pollution caused largely by cropping ( a large proportion for animal feed) and animal agriculture.
* Not to mention that chickens and pigs have inadvertently been turned into the world’s largest marine predators through the growth in commercial fishing to provide food for these most egregiously treated of species.
* Deforestation driven by the need for animal grazing land, and crops to
feed the animals.
All of these are clearly attributable to the meat based dietary choices of the west.

As an aside I would like to point out that years of exaggeration and outright, intentional lies have done the strangle hold of the meat eating
paradigm on conventional thinking no damage! In fact that is what they are increasingly resorting to, much as the tobacco industry did, in a desperate attempt to shore up the haemorrhaging of public support for and faith in the industry. The meat based diet’s actual benefits and the old ways of relating to other species and the environment are no longer universally accepted, but that doesn’t stop them advertising information which has been patently misrepresented.

I do not mention this as an endorsement for misrepresenting the truth, simply as an example of the desperation of the meat industry.

The reason I believe they are more likely to be wilfully misrepresenting the truth, as opposed to those vegetarians who misrepresent it through carelessness bourne of emotive enthusiasm is that the veggies rarely have anything to gain personally by winning the argument, but the meat lobby is trying to protect a multi-billion dollar industry, and can afford clever spin doctors.

We do need to be careful how we present the climate/veg arguments so that the end of suffering at the hands of humans, for all animals, is the outcome. I truly believe that is the only outcome that will save us, ultimately.