Thank you for that image. “big portion” is a bit vague, and this does clarify it. To me, 11% is quite a lot of that pie, when you think about:

• Electricity is becoming greener every day due to solar and wind being cheaper than oil and gas
• Transportation is getting greener via EVs
• Industry is getting a focus from people trying to create green concrete and steel

Here’s another chart that breaks down that agriculture portion. My understanding is methane is mostly due to cow farts, and nitrous oxide is mostly due to animal urine and fertilizers.

We need to make impacts in all of these sectors, if we’re going to fix climate change.

Re: meat tax, we could start by just not subsidizing meat and dairy.

This is the thing. In isolation, enjoyment is a decent argument for anything. But you have to step back and look at the impact of things to see if it’s a good or bad thing.

In the case of animal consumption, the pros are:

• it tastes good
• it’s convenient
• it means people don’t need to change.

(People often add “it’s nutritionally necessary” here. I know I did. But that’s a myth. You can get everything you need from plants. If that wasn’t the case, vegans would be unable to live whole lives without issues, but that’s happening)

The cons?

1. It causes millions of land animals to be killed every single day, many in a very scary painful way. If you include fish, that jumps up to hundreds of millions
2. Animal farming contributes to a big portion of the emissions that are causing climate change.
3. It’s an extremely inefficient way to produce food for humans. Just think: in order to produce one pound of meat, how much input grains/grass/whatever was there? Why not skip the middleman and eat the plants directly?
4. Industrial fishing is destroying our oceans, which also contributes to climate change.

I could go on, but I digress.

But these are the things I came to learn when I went vegan last year. So it came down to a simple question in the end: do the pros outweigh the cons? Do my tastebuds matter enough to contribute to all those problems? The answer was clear enough for me

I struggle with using the word spirituality w/ meditation as well, because of the mentioned connotations. But I think this is roughly the definition people use that does kinda fit: “Spirituality involves the recognition of a feeling or sense or belief that there is something greater than myself, something more to being human than sensory experience, and that the greater whole of which we are part is cosmic or divine in nature.”

And that feeling does resonate with me a bit. I don’t believe in any supernatural or religious deity, but I do believe we’re all part of something bigger in a very literal sense. Meditating and being mindful and reflecting on life are ways for me to remember that bigger whole.

So in that sense, I’m “spiritual” but I don’t use that word personally.