it needs to reduce emissions more effectively than other equally costly options.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but this still seems inaccurate to me. If there is a more effective yet equally costly option O, but the total benefit of O+Vegetarian is still greater than the total cost of O+Vegetarian, then Vegetarian is still worth it (as is O).
My original question was an attempt to ascertain whether the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions was truly your primary reason for choosing vegetarianism
Yes. It was, and is. I guess there’s an added benefit in terms of cost, but given that I don’t care about the animals themselves I really don’t have any other reason for it.
The (seemingly) more common animal welfare justification for vegetarianism seems more directly linked to the particular decision to not eat meat than does a carbon emissions argument.
Sure. But it would hard to get a more direct link than the animal welfare argument, so that’s not saying much. Something in the order of 20% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to livestock, so it’s not like the link is weak, but there’s a sense in which your scepticism is probably justified. There’s actually a lot of variation in emissions depending on what meat you’re talking about. Ruminants (cows, sheep) are especially bad (because of the methane emissions), as is dairy (for the same reason). Farmed and deep sea fish are pretty bad too, but other fish are probably OK. Chicken (and especially eggs) are actually reasonably energy efficient (and probably more so the worse you treat the chickens).
The only real reason I gave up chicken was because I figured I would be less tempted overall if I made a clean break with meat altogether. I’ve also made a deal with myself that I can start eating (good) fish again if/when I manage to completely ditch the dairy. So there are points where my dietary restrictions don’t entirely mesh with my reasons, based on the fact that I’m imperfect, and that as a result I would probably be doing worse if I aimed explicitly for consistency.
Perhaps I’m misunderstanding, but this still seems inaccurate to me. If there is a more effective yet equally costly option O, but the total benefit of O+Vegetarian is still greater than the total cost of O+Vegetarian, then Vegetarian is still worth it (as is O).
Yes. It was, and is. I guess there’s an added benefit in terms of cost, but given that I don’t care about the animals themselves I really don’t have any other reason for it.
Sure. But it would hard to get a more direct link than the animal welfare argument, so that’s not saying much. Something in the order of 20% of global GHG emissions can be attributed to livestock, so it’s not like the link is weak, but there’s a sense in which your scepticism is probably justified. There’s actually a lot of variation in emissions depending on what meat you’re talking about. Ruminants (cows, sheep) are especially bad (because of the methane emissions), as is dairy (for the same reason). Farmed and deep sea fish are pretty bad too, but other fish are probably OK. Chicken (and especially eggs) are actually reasonably energy efficient (and probably more so the worse you treat the chickens).
The only real reason I gave up chicken was because I figured I would be less tempted overall if I made a clean break with meat altogether. I’ve also made a deal with myself that I can start eating (good) fish again if/when I manage to completely ditch the dairy. So there are points where my dietary restrictions don’t entirely mesh with my reasons, based on the fact that I’m imperfect, and that as a result I would probably be doing worse if I aimed explicitly for consistency.