Iv. But Climate Change / Animal Exploitation is Capitalism’s Fault!
Veganism is the answer
In rejecting the role we play
To save the untold masses
To subvert atrocity
Direct action is key
When reason has been ignored
Setting fire to this system
Ignite this warMoral Law — “Abolitionist” (2022)
Anti-vegan progressivism will never make sense to me.
People these days seem to have this idea that their actions exist in a vacuum. That they don’t live in the most prosperous, most powerful and most advanced nation in human history (for now), and this makes us part of countless exploitative systems by default. They seem especially hostile of the idea that any change to their consuming habits—even though boycotting is demonstrably the most effective driver of social and economic change—should come before personal luxuries. To me, this is the same impulse that drives the whole outrage over chain restaurants using paper straws; a small environmental change, to be sure, but at least it is a change.
Some habits are easier to change than others. It’s easy to abstain from something if you never grew up with it, which is why I think the singular focus on AI as a driver for climate change to be silly. Don’t mistake this as an endorsement of AI, which I despise for many reasons that include climate change. But it is demonstrably true that AI is magnitudes less destructive than animal agriculture. Three hundred ChatGPT inquiries use up roughly a gallon of water—compare this to over six hundred gallons of water to produce one hamburger. It is logistically impossible for, say, a vegan who uses AI chatbots and video generation every waking hour of every day to use more water than someone with a nonvegan diet who has never touched AI.
People take a look at these sorts of arguments and say that this is a production issue. That we should criticize capitalists rather than the consumer. The issue is that I agree with this on a fundamental level. I just remain unconvinced that the crimes of corporations abdicate people from their participation in unjust systems. People can bluster about how this is all leftist infighting that will never go anywhere, bourgeois moralism to distract from the very real revolution that will totally happen at the hands of their book clubs. People can say anything to distract from their values and behaviors, from how they can’t be removed from the systems they participate in. You can virtue-signal all you want because it’s easier than changing personal behaviors.
I understand why. It’s frankly very difficult to be confronted with the reality that you’re complicit in violence. And yes, it gets difficult knowing that whenever I whine about climate change or animal cruelty, most people just tune it out. But even if it is true that what I’m doing won’t change others, I still think it is a moral choice. If it is true that veganism isn’t a viable method of stopping climate change (it is) or opposing the meat and dairy industries (it is), then I still have a moral obligation to stay vegan. I would rather my convictions and belief in reducing the harm on this earth remain consistent than turn it away for some tiny, short-term comforts.
Maybe once there was a time for incrementalism. That time has long since passed. What weight does cheese have against the future of the world? Is it worth it to take the easy way out, eating and using stripped animal parts because it’s what will make me happy in the moment? These are the exact mindsets that have made the world the way it is now. I just can’t stand by and do nothing.