In sixth grade, I watched a documentary outlining the environmental harms that come with eating meat. Not long after, I became vegetarian.
At the time, it was a very straightforward and easily calculated decision: Eating meat was harmful to the environment and I cared about the environment, so I should therefore stop eating meat. However, as I grew older and those around me became more opinionated, I slowly began to question the impact my individual action made and, consequently, if it was worth sacrificing an entire food group for.
I’ve never been a “good” vegetarian. And by that, I don’t mean I eat meat, but rather that I want to. Despite having withheld my desire for more than eight years, I must admit I crave a burger every time I see one. All this to say, not eating meat is a sacrifice to me. I take a million supplements, became anemic for a period of time and don’t think I’ve eaten the recommended amount of protein since before I began college. Even then, the wellbeing of the planet means more to me than a few extra visits to the doctor.
Interestingly, I took an ethics class where we coincidentally studied marginal cases, which include humans with diminished cognitive abilities and non-human animals. This was explained in a 2004 article published by Alastair Norcross, professor of philosophy at Rice University, who discussed the extent to which these marginal cases deserved human-like treatment. The main argument Norcross made that interested me — beyond the ethics of factory farming — is whether or not giving up factory-raised meat makes any sort of difference on an individual level. Norcross argues that even if an individual’s decision to stop eating factory-raised meat seems too small to make a difference, it still holds moral significance; this idea is referred to as causal impotence. Norcross went further, using chickens as an example. He estimated that if 10,000 people stopped eating chicken, 250,000 fewer chickens would be bred and killed each year (estimating that the average person eats 25 chickens a year). This means that one person’s choice has roughly a one in 10,000 chance of preventing immense suffering for a huge number of animals.
While this may seem insignificant or too much of a hypothetical to justify sacrificing meat, Norcross argues that even a small probability of preventing great harm carries serious moral weight. We take action in other situations where we act responsibly despite low odds of them being necessary, like ensuring airplanes have functioning safety equipment. While the probability of these small actions making a difference is low, that doesn’t excuse inaction because the potential harm is so great. Essentially, according to Norcross, an individual can still have a meaningful moral impact by refusing to consume factory-farmed meat, since even a tiny chance of preventing massive suffering makes the action morally significant.
I think I agree with Norcross in terms of my own life. The chance of individual action making a difference in terms of something as significant as irreversible climate change is worth potentially giving up meat for “nothing.” Personally, I’m willing to accept that, even if the odds are against my individual action making a difference, I feel like it’s undeniably better than doing nothing. It’s something within my control that has a chance of mitigating or slowing climate change, no matter how small an impact it makes.
My family has adopted a similar mentality, each of us doing what we can, within reason, to decrease our meat consumption. My brother is vegan — something that he finds sustainable — but my mom and I didn’t after trying for a year. My mom is pescatarian because health concerns like Alzheimer’s run in her family and eating fish has been shown to potentially help decrease chances of the illness. Even though fish and eggs aren’t the best for the planet, it’s what she feels comfortable compromising because of a simple cost-benefit analysis: By giving up most meat, she is helping the environment, but by keeping fish and eggs in her diet, she is preserving her health. My dad found it difficult to give up meat because of his own health struggles, but he significantly cut down on his red meat consumption since red meat has been shown to be the worst for the environment. As a family, we all balance what we feel is our responsibility to do our part with what is actually feasible for us. For other families, health, time and financial burdens may play into what is feasible for them in terms of a more sustainability-focused diet. But, the average person can likely make some sort of sacrifice — even if that isn’t becoming 100% vegetarian — toward eating with the planet in mind.
Some campaigns have also tried to emphasize that we can do our individual part without giving up something indispensable in our diets altogether. Meatless Mondays was a campaign started in 2003 by Sid Lerner, associated with the Johns Hopkins Center for a Liveable Future. The idea behind the campaign was to promote sustainable eating in a more practical way. It allowed individuals and families to take one small step toward eating healthier and more sustainably without feeling like they needed to convert to an entirely different diet. Meatless Monday proved to make an impact, with various groups in more than 40 countries embracing the movement. A small change like this, when adopted by enough people, is no longer an individual action. Is the movement perfect? No. Did it stop climate change altogether? No, but it did help to raise awareness and mobilize a significant, diverse, multinational population to make a small change for the greater good.
When thinking about what I wanted to say with this article, an interesting point was brought up: Why is it our responsibility as individuals, and not the responsibility of corporations or systems or governments to stop climate change? We are told to recycle, compost, walk, use public transportation, buy second-hand clothes, turn off running water, take shorter showers, turn down the heat and the AC and consume less meat. But why is it that all of these things have one common denominator: individuals, rather than institutions?
The Recycling Distraction outlines one way in which the blame for litter was shifted away from companies to individuals. Before the 1950s, beverage companies used refillable glass bottles with deposits, creating almost no waste. After switching to disposable containers to cut costs, the companies generated massive litter in cities throughout the United States. As beverage and packaging companies faced growing public anger, concern and backlash, they created a public relations strategy to shift the blame through the organization Keep America Beautiful, promoting the idea that litter and pollution were caused by careless individuals. KAB promoted the idea that people cause pollution and became deeply embedded into American life through nearly 700 affiliates, schools and civic programs nationwide. Recycling was one of the first things I remember learning about in school; how it works, where to put our milk cartons at lunch, and why it’s important. In elementary school, I was told that I had a moral responsibility to recycle because otherwise I was hurting the planet. I find it interesting the way that these things are selectively chosen. The same urgent emphasis was not put on the environmental harms of driving or the importance of reaching out to elected officials. It was put on recycling, something that everyone does on a daily basis and everyone has access to. It was chosen because it’s something that every American citizen can feel guilty about, and I know that I did.
Beyond programs focused on recycling, KAB essentially created propaganda through the form of emotionally charged national ad campaigns that further pushed the blame of litter onto individuals. “Susan Spotless” of 1961 depicts a “perfect” little girl scolding her parents for littering. The “Crying Indian” campaign of 1971, clearly problematic for a multitude of racial, social and political issues, shows a stereotypically depicted Native American man shedding a tear over pollution, ending with the line, “People start pollution. People can stop it.” Similar advertisements worked as emotional manipulation on me. I still feel incredibly guilty about accidentally throwing a piece of paper in the trash. This is also why I struggle with individual action, and sometimes question my own choices: I’m angry. It’s frustrating to feel like an issue was put unfairly on me, and on my generation. It’s easy to let that anger take over and immobilize us. But as difficult as it can be, I don’t want to let that anger stop me from being an active environmentalist.
I am aware of this history, and it is unfair to push responsibility solely onto individuals. But I alone don’t have the power to create systemic change. I attempt to, with my vote and engagement in politics, but I am working, with many others, against decades-old political and social systems that don’t want to acknowledge the immense responsibility corporations that help fund the country have in terms of environmental issues. Climate change is not my responsibility to bear, but I also don’t believe that anger or resentment toward the government for its lack of action is a productive solution, either.
I’ve debated breaking my vegetarianism or eating meat consistently again many times. I honestly still might occasionally consume meat when I travel or if it’s a special occasion and it feels like I’m missing out on something important by not. But when I think about day-to-day life, two questions ground me in my decision. First, is this something good for a cause I care about that doesn’t significantly detract from my ability to live my life? And second, would I be vegetarian because I feel it’s morally right regardless of whether or not I knew I was making a difference? For me, the answer to both is yes. I don’t have a severe health condition or financial burdens that make vegetarianism something that hinders my life. And it’s something that makes me feel good, regardless of whether or not I am certain that I save 25 chickens a year. As someone who says they stand for environmental causes, I feel strongly that it’s important to align my actions with my beliefs. Abstaining from eating meat is the way I choose to do that so I don’t end up feeling hypocritical of my vote or my criticism of large corporations. If I say I care about the environment, I intend to live a lifestyle that reflects that, the same way I believe that corporations that claim to care about the environment should take meaningful action rather than just transferring the blame onto someone else.
Statement Columnist Liska Torok can be reached at liskator@umich.edu.
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