Veganism could be a lifeline for survival in the 21st century if enough people became vegan in line with a full understanding of the broad scope of veganism, and would see whole industries change to accommodate the consumer demands created by a mass change of hearts and minds amongst the global population. By nature, a big shift in demand helps create the conditions for a big shift in the way corporations produce goods, the way institutions operate and how Governments subsidise industry.

 

We are in a global crisis and need answers fast, and on environmental grounds alone, a substantial and rapid shift to plant based food systems could dramatically lower overall emissions whilst helping create new habitats for rewilding, allowing free living beings and insects to thrive against, whilst reducing both land use and pollution currently occupied and created by animal agriculture. 

 

We are also in a human health crisis, with degenerative lifestyle diseases escalating despite the inroads of research and development of modern-day medicine and health care, and a switch to predominately plant-based lifestyles would help alleviate multiple disease whilst freeing up health care resources to help those in need including ageing populations. Recent research has revealed the NHS in the UK could save up to £6.7 billion if everyone adopted a plant-based diet. 

 

And we still have a world hunger crisis, with up to half the world’s population experiencing food insecurity and living on less than £5 a day, and often with dwindling land, water and resources to survive – and a switch to plant based diets globally along with addressing issues of production and distribution could have dramatic impacts on food security and sovereignty. 

 

We are overfishing large areas of our oceans, poisoning our rivers and disrupting the natural habitats of trillions of sea & water creatures, and a switch to plant-based food systems could make big differences in alleviating these problems and allowing the oceans & rivers to recover. 

 

Species extinction is at an all-time high and continues to gather pace – plant based food production has been shown to use up to 75% less land and resources, less water and less pollution, and less habitat loss as a result. 

 

Pandemics and Zoonotics continue to threaten our whole existence.

 

And at the heart of so many of these problems, we are taking the lives of billion upon billion of sentient beings and violating their rights to live a life free from enslavement to the human population. If we can fix this broken relationship, then we straight away fix so many other areas. Only veganism gets right to the heart of the problem – we have destroyed our relationship with other animals and only by recognising their true value as individuals with a free will to live their own lives, challenging the current property status and helping animals achieve personhood instead, and aligning our lifestyle choices with these values, can we truly fix the problems we face for generations to come.

 

We have some major issues to face that threaten our whole existence – and veganism provides a genuine solution to many of them if applied rapidly across large sections of the global population. No-one is pretending that veganism can fix all these problems alone – but veganism adopted by billions of people on the planet would make significant inroads on multiple levels and put in place the foundations for a real recovery of the planet over generations to come.

 

 

Further Reading & Viewing

 

 

 

Veganism Could Save the Planet – Earthling Ed (short video)