We Don’t Need a DeLorean to Fight Climate Change—We Need Vegans

If scientists can’t invent a flux capacitor in the next decade, a vegan world may be the only hope we have of turning back the climate crisis clock. Great Scott!

According to a new study published in the journal Nature Sustainability, by shifting food production from meat and dairy to plant-based proteins—such as lentils, beans, and nuts—we could remove up to 16 years’ worth of global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions. Excellent, dudes and babes! (Cue the air guitar music.)

This is great news in what has so far been a bogus journey. The looming climate apocalypse is coming at us faster than a sprinting T-1000. The United Nations claims that unless we make substantial changes to address climate change, we have roughly a decade before succumbing to irreversible damage.

According to righteous science experts from New York University, 83% of Earth’s agricultural land is used to produce meat and dairy. Meanwhile, plant-based proteins grow on less acreage, making them sustainable.

By shifting our global agricultural focus to producing vegan proteins, we’d free up a lot of land to regrow ecosystems that help offset our carbon emissions. According to Science Daily, the amount of carbon dioxide removal from regrown ecosystems would effectively double Earth’s carbon budget.

“The greatest potential for forest regrowth, and the climate benefits it entails, exists in high- and upper-middle income countries, places where scaling back on land-hungry meat and dairy would have relatively minor impacts on food security,” said Matthew Hayek—an assistant professor in New York University’s Department of Environmental Studies—to Science Daily.

Hayek stated, “Restoring native forests could buy some much-needed time for countries to transition their energy grids to renewable, fossil-free infrastructure.”

This isn’t a movie from the ’80s or early ’90s, and we don’t have flying hover boards. We all need to face the music and agree that going vegan to stop judgment day is worth much more than any sports almanac from the future.

Let’s be excellent to animals so we can party on, dudes and babes! Each person who goes vegan saves nearly 200 animals a year, simply by not eating them.

Chickens are caring mothers—a hen “talks” to her chicks in the shell before they’ve hatched to teach them to recognize her voice in a flock. Pigs can bond with humans, like to play games, and even enjoy a good massage. They’ve rescued humans from drowning and fires. Like many other animals, cows have best friends, can solve critical-thinking problems, and enjoy the company of kind humans.

All animals have likes, dislikes, and needs that make their lives just as interesting as ours. Once we all finally acknowledge that animals are totally excellent friends with complex lives, we’ll be saving not only them but also ourselves.

Forget waiting for the future—the best time to go vegan was yesterday. The next-best time is right now.

The United Nations has stated that meat consumption must decrease by as much as 90% in order for us to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change.

Come with us if you want to live—reduce your contribution to climate change by terminating your consumption of animal-derived foods today. Go even further by persuading a friend or loved one to do the same!