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Can Veganism save the planet?

  • Writer: Emanuele Bortolotto
    Emanuele Bortolotto
  • Jul 22
  • 8 min read

Updated: Sep 8


It’s a beautiful, almost suspiciously perfect summer afternoon here in Helsinki. I’m sitting in my favorite cafeteria in Kamppi, trying to enjoy the moment. But then, my phone buzzes. I glance down and see a news alert about another record-breaking heatwave, another chunk of an ice shelf collapsing, another study about catastrophic biodiversity loss.

Suddenly, the peaceful afternoon feels like a scene in a disaster movie right before everything goes horribly wrong. It’s a cognitive dissonance I think many of us live with every day. This feeling of impending doom, this low-grade hum of eco-anxiety, makes you desperately want to do something. You start searching for a lever to pull, a button to press, a single, powerful action that can make a real difference. And in that search, one idea comes up more than any other: going vegan.

But the question is a grand one, almost absurd in its scale. Can a personal choice about what I eat for dinner truly have a planetary impact? In a world of oil conglomerates, systemic inertia, and political gridlock, can veganism save the planet? It feels both naively optimistic and desperately hopeful. So, as an investigator of big ideas, I decided to dive in and find out what the real story is.


Let's Define "Save the Planet" (Because It's Not a Superhero Movie 🦸)


First, I think we need to get our terms straight. When we talk about "saving the planet," we're not talking about the planet itself. Earth is a 4.5-billion-year-old rock that has survived asteroid impacts, ice ages, and being covered in molten lava. It will be just fine. What we’re actually talking about is saving a climate that is stable enough for human civilization to continue to thrive, and saving the millions of other species that make up the beautiful, complex web of life on Earth.

With that clarified, it’s also crucial to state upfront that there is no single silver bullet. There is no one heroic act that will magically fix everything. The climate crisis is a multi-faceted problem fueled by our systems of energy, transportation, industry, and agriculture. Solving it will require a mosaic of solutions, from technological innovation to massive policy shifts.

Inside this echo chamber of what I like to call the manuverse of online discussion, it can sometimes feel like going vegan is the only thing that matters. But when you zoom out, you see it's one powerful, essential piece of a much larger, more complicated puzzle. My investigation, then, isn't about whether veganism is the only answer, but whether it is a big enough piece of the puzzle to truly matter.


The Case For: A Quick Recap of Animal Agriculture's Gargantuan Footprint


To understand if removing something can be a solution, we first have to understand the scale of the problem it causes. And when it comes to environmental destruction, the scale of industrial animal agriculture is genuinely difficult to comprehend. It’s not just a small part of the problem; in many ways, it is the problem.

I’ve explored this in a previous article, but it bears repeating with some stark, new imagery.

  • Land Use: This is the most staggering impact. Animal agriculture is the single biggest user of land on the planet. If you were to combine the land used for grazing livestock with the land used to grow their feed crops, it would cover a landmass equivalent to all of North and South America combined. It is the primary driver of deforestation, habitat destruction, and biodiversity loss on Earth. 🌎

  • Greenhouse Gas Emissions: The global livestock sector is responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the entire global transportation sector combined. That’s every car, truck, plane, train, and ship on the planet. The methane from cattle, a greenhouse gas over 80 times more potent than CO2 in the short term, is a major accelerator of global warming.

  • Water Use: The water footprint of animal products is colossal, mostly due to the insane amount of water needed to grow the crops that feed the animals. It takes over 15,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of beef, whereas it takes around 1,200 liters to produce one kilogram of tofu.

The data, compiled in landmark studies from institutions like the University of Oxford, is not ambiguous. Animal agriculture is a wrecking ball for the planet's life support systems. So, logically, removing it from the equation would be a massive step in the right direction. But that leads to the biggest debate of all.


The Great Debate: Individual Action vs. System Change


This is where the conversation gets really interesting and, for me, where the real investigation begins. Is it our personal responsibility to change our diets, or do we need to focus on forcing massive corporations and governments to change the system?


The Argument for Individual Action


The philosophy here is simple: every dollar you spend is a vote. When you buy a block of tofu instead of a pound of ground beef, you are casting a vote for a different kind of food system. On its own, your single purchase is a tiny drop in an ocean-sized bucket. But when millions of people make that same choice, the bucket starts to fill up.

This collective consumer action sends a powerful signal to the market. Supermarkets start dedicating more shelf space to plant-based products. Food companies invest millions in developing new vegan alternatives. The cultural conversation shifts. What was once a niche, fringe movement starts to become a mainstream, economically viable alternative. This cultural shift is essential because it creates the political space and public will needed for governments to enact larger, systemic changes. Individual action, in this view, is the engine of cultural change.


The Argument for System Change


The counterargument is equally compelling. It posits that focusing on individual consumer choices is a distraction from the real sources of power. The global meat and dairy industry is propped up by hundreds of billions of dollars in government subsidies. It’s protected by powerful lobby groups that influence policy and fight regulation. The entire economic and political system is tilted in its favor.

In the face of this, does my personal choice to buy oat milk really matter? Or am I just a well-intentioned person tinkering at the edges of a problem that requires a sledgehammer? This view argues that true change can only come from top-down policy: ending subsidies, implementing a carbon tax on meat, and investing heavily in the development of sustainable protein alternatives. Without system change, individual action is just a drop in a bucket with a giant hole in the bottom.


The Synthesis: A Vicious (or Virtuous) Cycle


After looking at both sides of this debate, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a false dichotomy. It’s not one or the other. It is, and must be, both.

Individual action and system change are locked in a feedback loop. A critical mass of individuals making different choices creates a new market and a new culture. This new culture starts to elect different politicians and demand different policies. These new policies then make it easier for even more individuals to make different choices, accelerating the cycle. You cannot have one without the other. Choosing a bean burrito is both a personal act of reducing your own footprint and a political act of participating in a cultural shift that makes larger change possible.



Questions from the Internet: "Okay, but if I go vegan, does that one cow actually get saved?"


This is the question that gets to the heart of our sense of individual agency. And the direct answer is no, a farmer somewhere doesn't get a notification on his phone that you just ate a tofu steak instead of a hamburger and decide to let one cow go free. 🐮 The system doesn't work on a one-to-one basis.

However, the system works on supply and demand. Farmers and corporations project future demand based on current and past sales. When millions of people consistently buy less meat, the sales data changes. Supermarkets order less. Processors buy less. And farmers, over time, breed fewer animals into a system that has a declining demand. Your individual choice is one tiny data point in a massive trend that, collectively, results in fewer animals being raised and slaughtered. It’s a slower, less direct impact, but it is very, very real.


Questions from the Internet: "What's more important: going vegan or stopping flying?"


This is a fantastic question because it forces us to compare the impact of different lifestyle choices. The answer depends on your personal habits, but for most people in wealthy countries, the data is surprisingly clear.

According to research from Our World in Data, transportation as a whole accounts for about 16% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Aviation is just a slice of that. The entire food system, by contrast, accounts for about 26% of emissions, with animal agriculture making up the vast majority of that.

A single round-trip transatlantic flight has a massive carbon footprint, there's no denying it. But for most people, flying is an occasional activity. Eating, however, is something you do three times a day, every single day. A diet high in meat, particularly beef and lamb, creates a steady, massive stream of emissions. For the average person, switching to a plant-based diet will have a much larger, more consistent positive impact on their personal carbon footprint than forgoing one flight a year. If you can do both, that's even better. But if you're looking for the single biggest lever to pull in your daily life, it's almost certainly on your plate.



The Conclusion: Are We the Heroes?


So, after this long and winding investigation, let's return to our epic question: can veganism save the planet?

My final verdict is this: No. Not on its own. Veganism is not a single, caped superhero that will descend from the heavens and reverse climate change in a dramatic finale. The problems we face are too vast and too complex for such a simple solution.

However, a global shift to a plant-based food system is an absolutely essential, non-negotiable part of any realistic plan to avoid the worst of climate change and ecological collapse. I believe it is the single most powerful lever for positive environmental change that is available to us as individuals. It’s a personal action with planetary consequences. It addresses not just one, but a whole suite of environmental crises at once: emissions, deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water use.

Choosing to eat plants won't single-handedly save the world. But a world that is saved will almost certainly be one where we eat far, far more plants. By making that choice, you’re not just hoping for a better future; you’re actively building it, three times a day. And that’s not a small thing at all. ✅

And if you want to participate in this change, the first step is making plant-based food that is genuinely delicious. Let's start with the basics: [“Why Does My Tofu Always Taste Like Cardboard?”].


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