Genuine question. Is there any evidence that the thousands of Americans who have gone vegan over the last few years have reduced the carbon footprint of the meat producing industry at all? I checked us beef production, and the numbers are basically flat since 2000 increasing slightly since 2014.[1]
If thousands of people going vegan don’t reduce the beef production in this country at all, have they really saved any carbon at all? Would love to see someone with a good data science background look into this.
It’s all well and good to talk about personal consumption as if it has fixed carbon cost associated with it, but you have to remember that not consuming doesn’t reduce the emissions unless it affects production.
It’s still probably good to reduce consumption because it could affect the production, but it may not be enough to cause any change at all.
> Is there any evidence that the thousands of Americans who have gone vegan over the last few years have reduced the carbon footprint of the meat producing industry at all?
Reminds me of the covid prevention paradox.
> the numbers are basically flat since 2000 increasing slightly since 2014.[1]
Looking at beef production numbers of a single country is pretty meaningless.
For one, you'd want to look at consumption. Production can be influenced by changing import or export balances without a change in consumption. You can also look at global production figures.
Two, you'd want to look at per capita numbers, to correct for population changes.
Three, you'd want to look at meat generally. (nitpicky) Beef is just one type of meat, it says a lot but not everything. Could be that dietary / health / business preferences shift to or away from e.g. chicken, that aren't related to veganism.
Four, you'd want a more sophisticated research method that'll indicate that veganism is a causal factor for meat consumption than a simple consumption graph. In countries rapidly developing economically (e.g. China), the meat consumption figures would be rising hard with or without say the percentage of vegans doubling from 20% to 40%, that doesn't disprove the impact of the extra 20% vegans. It only shows that other forces (e.g. economic growth) have outweighed the vegan impact, but it doesn't prove that without these extra 20% vegans meat consumption wouldn't be even far higher. % of population that's vegan would definitely show up as a causal variable across countries, almost obviously.
Just approach it from a planetary scale. Total planetary demand is local + overseas demand. Suppose it was 5 + 5 units = 10.
If you reduce local demand by 2 and overseas demand remains at 5, then total demand will go down to 8.
Any economics 101 course will teach you that reducing demand will the equilibrium price, at which price point fewer suppliers are willing to supply. The end result is less production, less consumption on the planet.
As a thought experiment, imagine 90% of the world population disappears tomorrow (demand disappears). Will we produce just as much, simply because the remaining 10% will consume more? The answer is obviously no.
Demand/supply curves aren't flat, so indeed the change will not be 1:1. It's not the case that if 10% stop eating meat, that total consumption will drop by 10%. But demand reduction from one group does lead to a total production reduction and a total reduction in consumption.
If thousands of people going vegan don’t reduce the beef production in this country at all, have they really saved any carbon at all? Would love to see someone with a good data science background look into this.
It’s all well and good to talk about personal consumption as if it has fixed carbon cost associated with it, but you have to remember that not consuming doesn’t reduce the emissions unless it affects production.
It’s still probably good to reduce consumption because it could affect the production, but it may not be enough to cause any change at all.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/194687/us-total-beef-pro...