Over the last few years, a plethora of reports have issued recommending a transition to plant-based production and consumption as a way of tackling climate change, environmental destruction, and protecting human health.

One of the most recent papers, a peer reviewed study led by Peter Scarborough at Oxford university in 2023, conducted a comparative analysis of the diets of 55000 vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters, and flesh-eaters in the United Kingdom. It used data from 38,000 farms in 119 countries. The paper showed that in comparison to diets containing greater than 100g animal flesh per day, vegan diets (i.e. plant diets containing no animal products) resulted in 75% less climate-heating emissions, water pollution and land use than diets in which more than 100g of flesh a day was consumed. Vegan diets also cut the destruction of wildlife by 66% and water use by 54% in addition to cutting methane emissions by 93.5% (confidence intervals 90.3% – 96.3%, Supplementary table 8).  (Scarborough, P., Clark, M., Cobiac, L. et al. Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. Nat Food (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w). See also report on this paper in The Guardian.

The animal agriculture industry goes to enormous lengths to hide this type of information and it is a particularly powerful industry in Ireland. But members of the public are entitled to accurate information about the consequences of their choices for the future of the planet and their personal health. Go Vegan World aims to bring this very important data to the public in an easily accessible way.

It’s Not a Personal Choice When Someone is Killed

Even if there were no human health or environmental benefit to transitioning to plant-based production and consumption, there is a moral imperative to end our use of other animals. Our ad, It’s Not a Personal Choice When Someone is Killed, is a reminder to everyone that when we choose to use other animals, their lives are taken from them. It is such a trite issue to buy an animal product because it looks nice or might taste nice, or because it’s something we’ve always done when, on the other hand, the animal whose skin, milk, eggs, or flesh this was, has died  when we could just as easily have chosen a non-animal alternative.

These ads are live on 100 buses in Northern Ireland to celebrate World Vegan Month 2024.

References

Scarborough, P., Clark, M., Cobiac, L. et al. Vegans, vegetarians, fish-eaters and meat-eaters in the UK show discrepant environmental impacts. Nat Food (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s43016-023-00795-w).