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{{Workflow
|Plaintiff verdict=No
|Stage=Waiting for Plaintiff verdict
|Filed by=User:Frank
|Case ID=Afe9ea9dbBafEieAidBb
|Lie=Plant Based Diet Benefits
|Topic=Not a lie!
|Accusation=A group named "Vegan Friendly" has produced a humorous video Entitled "Hell of a Steak" claims that, if diners had to pay the "real" cost of a steak in a restaurant,  it would be many, many  times more expensive.  

View the video here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjaH3HW3jcg

The video claims that the actual cost of land, water and feed for one single cow far outstrips it value as food, and, more important, the practice of eating meat is devastating the environment.  The implication is that, by eating a plant based diet, we are taking a big step to protect the environment. While this claim is generally true, it does not tell a complete story about other human activities that are also playing havoc on the environment. The video ends with the statement, "A plant based diet is the single biggest way to reduce your environmental impact and fight global warming."

A plant based diet may not be the biggest single step an individual can take to protect the environment. The newspaper, The Guardian, states: 

The literature on the impact of reducing or cutting out meat from your diet varies. Some studies show that choosing vegetarian options would only reduce greenhouse gas emissions per person by 3%. Others show a reduction in emissions per person of 20-30% for halving meat consumption.
 
“Probably the most important thing to point out is that emissions are often viewed as the only metric of sustainability: they are not. Impacts of farming systems on carbon sequestration, soil acidification, water quality, and broader ecosystem services also need to be well considered,” said Matthew Harrison, systems modelling team leader at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2021/apr/25/going-vegan-can-switching-to-a-plant-based-diet-really-save-the-planet

The BBC states that: 

Switching to a plant-based diet can help fight climate change, UN experts have said.
A major report on land use and climate change says the West's high consumption of meat and dairy produce is fuelling global warming. But scientists and officials stopped short of explicitly calling on everyone to become vegan or vegetarian.
They said that more people could be fed using less land if individuals cut down on eating meat. The document, prepared by 107 scientists for the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), says that if land is used more effectively, it can store more of the carbon emitted by humans. https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-49238749

Finally, the news service Vox states that: 

A new study published in Science reveals just how important tackling food-related emissions is to mitigating the swiftly accelerating climate crisis. For the first time, the researchers isolated food system emissions and showed that these emissions alone will most likely put the Paris agreement climate targets out of reach.  https://www.vox.com/21562639/climate-change-plant-based-diets-science-meat-dairy

In conclusion, a plant-based diet seems unequivocally very friendly to the environment. Adopting such a diet may well be an important step that an individual can take to help the cause.  But it may not be the "single biggest thing."




|Locations= https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TjaH3HW3jcg
|Markup=<i>A plant based diet is <span style="font-weight: normal;">t</span>he</i> <b>single biggest way</b> <i>to reduce your environmental impact and fight global warming.&nbsp;</i>
|uuid=3d2f824d-3c4c-4407-889f-613791e8fed0
}}