Vegans Against the Environment

Selfish vegans are ruining the environment

If you’ve ever suspected nothing is more annoying than prissy, sanctimonious vegans, it turns out you have company: Nature wants to punch them in the face, too.

As is often the case with virtue-signaling lifestyles, number-crunching doesn’t quite justify the supposed benefits of granola-crunching. “When applied to an entire global population, the vegan diet wastes available land that could otherwise feed more people,” concluded news site Quartz in a review of a scientific study published in the journal Elementa that compares the sustainability of various eating patterns.

The word "sustainability" causes me to check my wallet, to see if some leftist is trying to sneak his hand into it.

Just as global-warming hysteria leads to draconian restrictions and taxes that devastate the poor in order to provide conscience relief to progressives, totalitarian eating habits aren’t as sustainable as more moderate ones. For instance, trying to grow crops on land best suited for use as grazing land for cattle means wasting resources.

Considering 10 different kinds of diet patterns, the study concluded that veganism rated only in the middle of the pack, as the fifth-most sustainable. Two kinds of omnivore scenarios did better, as did “dairy-friendly vegetarian,” which came in first, and “egg-and-dairy-friendly vegetarian,” which placed second.

 How about a fruit salad?

As for the omnivores, the highest-rated (third overall) in terms of sustainability was the scenario in which nobody is a vegetarian, but everybody cuts back on meat modestly (13 percent). Red meat, poultry and fish would continue to be the leading protein sources, as they are now.

So: Balance and moderation wins, not gung-ho vegan evangelism. Vegans’ all-time No. 1 favorite phrase — “That’s disgusting,” usually uttered as you’re about to tuck into a nice cheeseburger — is a familiar warning that you’re headed to dietary hell. But vegans are the ones who are wreaking havoc on the planet compared to omnivores, at least the omnivores who maintain a sensible ratio of animal- and plant-based foods. Still, “I reduced my protein consumption by 13 percent” doesn’t lend quite the same eco-warrior thrill as announcing, with all the fervor of the crazy monk whipping himself in “The Da Vinci Code,” “I’m a vegan.”

So join Emily Ratajkowski and Sarah Jean Underwood, and enjoy a nice burger. Heck, you can even put some lettuce and tomatoes on it, and be more virtuous than your vegan "friends."

Having a constricted, narrow view of things is an enduring characteristic of eco-worriers. Yet almost every choice we make connects to other choices and leads to measurable consequences. So driving might be more environmentally friendly than walking in some circumstances, green intellectual Chris Goodall explained in his book “How to Live a Low-Carbon Life.” That’s because every activity requires energy. If you walked 1.5 miles to work, then drank a cup of milk to replace the calories you just expended, the carbon emissions involved in producing and distributing the milk would be about the same as if you drove your car the same distance. If two of you were traveling, “then the car would definitely be the more planet-friendly way to go,” science writer John Tierney reported in the New York Times.

Wombat-socho has a plain vanilla "Rule 5 Sunday" ready at The Other McCain.