With the miserable British weather so frequently changing summer BBQ plans or catching us of guard ruining freshlywashed hair, it’s easy to see why global warming isn’t oten taken as seriously as it should be. As a matter of fact, environmental reasons accounted for a mere 12 per cent of people that signed up for Veganuary in 2019, compared to 34 per cent that signed up for animal welfare, and 46 per cent for health reasons. Although it’s a slight increase from the 10 per cent in 2018, is it really enough to reflect how concerned we should be about the state of our planet?
Of course, vegans aren’t the only ones responsible for stopping climate change, but the impact that our lifestyle has is something that should be at the forefront of our campaigning. According to New Internationalist, if we all went vegan tomorrow, between 14.5 to 15.6 per cent of man-made global greenhouse gas emissions would be eradicated immediately. Researchers at Oxford University claim that removing meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce your food-related carbon footprint by 73 per cent. In a time when our future looks so dire, these monumental numbers should carry much more weight than they currently seem to.