We Are the Weather

Globally, humans use 59 percent of all the land capable of growing crops to grow food for livestock. • One-third of all the fresh water that humans use goes to livestock, while only about one-thirtieth is used in homes. • Seventy percent of the antibiotics produced globally are used for livestock, weakening the effectiveness of antibiotics to treat

Intellectually accepting the truth isn’t virtuous in and of itself. And it won’t save us. As a child, I was often told “you know better” when I did something I shouldn’t have done. Knowing was the difference between a mistake and an offense.

No. The opposite of someone who eats a lot of animal products is someone who is attentive to how often he eats animal products. The best way to excuse oneself from a challenging idea is to pretend there are only two options.

It’s a shame that instead of having a minority of climate atheists, we have a majority of climate agnostics.

The only dichotomy that matters is between those who act and those who don’t.

Our minds and hearts are well built to perform certain tasks, and poorly designed for others. We are good at things like calculating the path of a hurricane, and bad at things like deciding to get out of its way.

The four highest-impact things an individual can do to tackle climate change are eat a plant-based diet, avoid air travel, live car-free, and have fewer children.

we cannot save the planet unless we significantly reduce our consumption of animal products.

Just as someone in an ambulance can’t see the word “ambulance,” we can’t read the history we’re creating: it’s written in reverse, to be read in a rearview mirror by those who aren’t yet born.