I'm an omnivore who enjoys meat. I would hunt my food if it was an option to me. I eat meat with most meals. I've travelled and spent a chunk of time in places like India where I didn't eat a lot of meat at all and lived on dal fry (lentils) and whatever else was commonly available. It was fine, but I'm not designed to live on salad, beans and tofu alone.
Thats not to say I'm blind to problems in the meat industry, I'm sure someone will mention methane or whatever else, plus there's clearly a serious amount of waste, and a fuck-tonne of animal cruelty (the concept of breeding life for food is probably cruel, right?).. I don't believe in battery farms or any of that. I'd prefer hundreds of self sufficient permaculture food farms, with a varied and healthy ecosystem instead of monoculture savaging the lands nutrients.
The problem is similar to oil. We know they are the largest polluters but we still need to drive to some job - public transport isn't available/suitable for everyone, and electric vehicles aren't cheap enough to the majority of people (batteries are creating its own problems with lithium mines among other things).
I have a problem with veganism as I feel its an extreme attitude anyway. Great if it works for you but its not a catch all diet. Vegetarianism is more realistic, but vegans are the worst representatives for veganism. I've never met one who wasn't preachy and somewhat judgemental about it.
I'm all up for constructive debate about big issues. The problem is one of power. We as the people have the collective bargaining power to fix everything, to fight our governments honestly and constructively. yet year after year, election after election, there is an absolute lack of a real and correct public response beyond a few vocal outrages or violence/riots which doesn't help.. And what's worse, is when you do get a good spokesman for a cause, you end up hating them for whatever reason. Half the time its from media bias, but even without that, hearing them passionately fight for something, people turn against them. They become annoying and the cause is lost. Governments are full of self serving snobs and can delay things long enough nothing happens. So we always just sit and wait.
I digress, right?! But its all the same collective issue/attitude and the scam on the public is the same trick every single time. We are kept on the breadline so we can't afford to fight back. You or whomever is telling me to go vegan when thats really not the issue. Don't even get me started on palm oil.
