It's funny to me because it reads like a satire of non-vegans, but this is literally how most of them are.
this post was submitted on 20 May 2025
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I agree, agricultural practices should definitely be changed so that plants and the animals in their ecosystems are being treated ethically.
I don't know necessarily that a tree is actually sentient but if we seriously consider it, perhaps that might lead to better environmental conservation practices as a matter of ethics.
They most likely are not sentient, as we currently understand or can perceive, though the complexity of the networks formed within a forest might, might, allow for something like it in aggregate. Consciousness is deeply strange, for something that should be so familiar.
But as Angel says, here it's just a paralytic deflection. Like saying that eating plants is stealing from the animals that could eat them, therefore we're already sinners, therefore we might as well sin some more.
Plants aren't sentient, but regardless, this person bringing up "plant rights" is just a deflection. We could handle environmental issues far better if we get rid of the nightmare that is animal agriculture, as that is fucking up the planet more than anything else. Natural ecosystems would be better for both plants and animals because we'd be without the problem of clearing vast amounts of land to grow crops to feed animals who are also responsible for a shitload of carbon emissions.
While I don't disagree about animal farming being terrible, it's impact is significant but not the top of the list by any means. Energy production dwarfs all other polluters by a large margin. 75% of greenhouse gas emissions and tons of toxic pollution. Construction is next because of all the toxic byproducts. Transportation is also worse. Agri-industry accounts for around 15% of GHG with a lot of pollution generated from food packaging. After that it's the fashion industry. While there is definitely some room for reassessing the impacts due to methodology, it's a roughly accurate list.
Not trying to minimize, just contextualize.
This seems to be neglecting the fact that animal agriculture absolutely requires a ton of energy production. It's not just happening in a vacuum—it's tied to things that you mentioned like transportation and fossil fuel usage. Also, as far as the point about transportation goes, just to be clear, the "local meat is more environmentally friendly than a vegetable that is transported across the world" take is not true.
This table covers environmental impact of many factors.
Here is an actual high quality version of the image.
Edit: I misinterpreted IncorrigibleDirigible's comment. My bad, G.
I was simply going by impact assessments of impact by industry types, obviously nothing happens in a vacuum. This is why I said there is room to reassess impacts. The stats that I was referring to try to take into account overall usage, pollution and other factors. Everything is linked in systems which is why it's difficult to get perfectly accurate pictures of things yet it IS possible to have a decent set of data to guide decision making on how to best course correct. Moving to renewables, building housing made to last generations instead of 20 years, public transportation powered by said renewables, reducing/eliminating meat consumption, growing locally, banning single use plastics etc.
I know the ethical and moral considerations are important. I agree with animal liberation entirely. I just take issue with presenting animal agriculture as THE single most damaging environmental practice, which it just isn't. Being factually accurate is important and misrepresenting the issue is harmful to the overall cause of environmental justice.
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i believe incorrigible was talking about transportation as in like, everyone driving around gas guzzlers, not the transportation costs of food
and i would like to see a source about how much of energy production goes into animal agriculture vs plant agriculture vs everything else, all this other stuff is irrelevant to what @[email protected] was saying
Yes, the categories have crossovers and the stats attempt to take those into account, as difficult as they may be to separate entirely. Transportation includes shipping across all categories and moving humans by car, plane, etc. I am certainly NOT advocating eating meat or anything remotely like that. I DO want to make accurate statements and have others get accurate info.
Animal agriculture will undoubtedly be more costly to the environment than plant agriculture—that's for sure. And who knows? Maybe I was missing something about other sources of energy production being more costly than animal agriculture, but especially with the sheer scale of it (over trillions of animals exploited and slaughtered every year), it is very destructive regardless.
However, irrespective of any environmental concerns about certain things possibly being worse than animal agriculture, the exploitation of animals ought to be condemned from an ethical standpoint anyway, and ultimately, even if there are concerns about environmental destruction in other ways, reducing our negative impact on the environment by doing what we can as individuals and finding solutions on a broader scale would not preclude going vegan anyway, so it remains a moral obligation.
i have no doubts, not trying to argue otherwise
wasnt trying to argue about the morality of anything, sorry if i came across that way
that's actually fairly contentious, some researchers argue that they might be
though my answer to the "what if plants turn out to be sentient after all?" thing is i'll cross that bridge when and if we get to it
No, not really.
A few "experts" who arrive at their beliefs off of vibes rather than science may say they support the notion of plant sentience, but it's not taken seriously as a scientific idea.
Non-vegans also don't believe it. If anything, they just throw it out as a disingenuous excuse to alleviate guilt.
Something I ask non-vegans who say this stuff [NSFW]
If plants are to be sentient and that therefore makes exploiting animals for food and eating plants morally equivalent, would you consider using a cucumber as a sex toy to be morally equivalent to bestiality?In every case, they dodge the question and act as if they don't understand the relevance.
the "experts" are botanists, they aren't like just random people and the idea has been published in scientific journals
and yeah, of course non-vegans are being disingenuous, that's what they do
Can you a cite a source, though? I've seen non-vegans cite sources and arrive at the wrong conclusions because they misinterpreted the sources. For example, they think that responding to stimuli is an indicator of sentience, but it's not. I feel like you are assuming far too much good-faith when it comes to this debate about plant sentience. Just because an idea is discussed and seems controversial doesn't actually mean that it's truly contentious with in a scientific context. Not all "debates" are genuine, and not all "controversies" are scientifically valid, and this is really just a "We have to validate both sides" kind of framing. Can you please demonstrate to me a single reputable botanical source that endorses plant sentience?
my 2 cents is that we dont understand nearly enough about consiousness/cognition to say (i dont have the time to look right now, but i remember reading about people somehow receiving some sort of vague memories when they receive a heart transplant, which suggests that cells themselves might have memories in some fashion), but this isnt the comm for it because like you say most people use the "plants are conscious" to justify their own meat eating