That’s a crude joke
Are fossil fuels vegan?
Submitted 17 hours ago by SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world to [deleted]
Comments
SolidShake@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
Spacenut@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Yes. No animal was intentionally harmed or killed to be turned into oil. This puts it in the same category as foraged deer antlers or cicada wings, or I guess compost where you found a squirrel carcass and added it to the pile.
You could argue that animals are harmed by the process of extracting and burning fossil fuels, and thus it’s not vegan. But this isn’t very convincing to me, since that’s a secondary effect and not necessary to the process of consuming fossil fuels. (Or at least not necessary in the same way that killing chickens is necessary in order to make chicken sandwiches, for example.) And if you start worrying about a big web of consequences of your actions, then it seems like you’re mostly just adding stress to your life without actually making the world a better place.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 hours ago
So if a vegan has a pet chicken and treats it well, can the vegan eat the eggs?
Spacenut@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Imo “backyard eggs” are really small potatoes, especially when like 98% of eggs globally come from factory farms. But even in that case, egg-laying hens are basically bred to suffer. They lay an egg every 1-2 days, compared to like once a month in the wild, which takes a huge amount of energy and nutrients. And we’ve bred them to produce eggs too big for their bodies, so that even when they’re treated really well, the vast majority of hens have bone fractures.
That’s why animal sanctuaries will usually either feed the eggs back to the hens, or give them medication to stop them from laying at all.
Of course, this is on top of the fact that 100% of egg-laying hen breeders, everywhere, kill the males shortly after birth because they can’t lay eggs. See this for more information.
radiouser@crazypeople.online 6 hours ago
Bees aren’t intentionally harmed or killed to make honey but it isn’t vegan.
Spacenut@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
I mean I think bees are harmed in the production of honey, it’s just that most people don’t care about bee welfare. Commercially they’re bred by crushing the male to extract semen, and any operation above hobby scale will clip the wings of the queen so that the hive can’t escape.
Then you necessarily need to replace their ideal food source with something that is nutritionally much worse for them (basically sugar water), and then hope that they survive on that long enough to make more honey for us to take.
__siru__@discuss.tchncs.de 5 hours ago
This isn’t entirely true. Sometimes queen bees have their wings cur off to insure they stay in the beehive, and thus make the beehive produce honey. Also, the queens can then often be discarded/killed at the end of the season. So no harm being done in the production of honey is not always the case.
I feel like there should be an option to certify honey as being vegan if no harm is done to the bees in the process though.
Kekzkrieger@feddit.org 7 hours ago
Same argument could be used for Eggs and Milk then, those are not considered vegan, but in the end the animal does not get hurt.
lalo@discuss.tchncs.de 7 hours ago
Cows need to be impregnated by introducing an arm in their anus and holding their cervix so they can introduce a rod with semen in their uterus.
Male cows and chickens are useless to the industry so they usually get killed soon after birth.
Chickens usually are kept in cages the size of an A4 paper, cows also usually are very badly treated in order to be milked. Check out 3minutes.wtf so you can see that even what the industry calls the “best animal treatment” is still very inhumane.
Flax_vert@feddit.uk 3 hours ago
Isn’t this just vegetarianism at that point
Adori@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
No processed foods
howrar@lemmy.ca 14 hours ago
They’re pretty much all made of plant matter, but that’s irrelevant. What makes it vegan or not is whether you cause harm to the fauna by using it and creating demand for it.
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 14 hours ago
So is it?
Gold_E_Lox@lemmy.dbzer0.com 14 hours ago
depends on the person, their motivation, environment, and lifestyle choices i guess. you could argue either way.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 17 hours ago
No, they release harmful gases into the air which harm animals.
BombOmOm@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
If ’ you mean carbon dioxide, then I hate to tell you, but you make that as well.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
But they are also an animal. So they can’t kill themselves, since that also wouldn’t be vegan.
TheLeadenSea@sh.itjust.works 16 hours ago
Did I ever say it was?
SatansMaggotyCumFart@piefed.world 16 hours ago
For millions of years oxygen was a toxic and corrosive pollutant building up.
Nougat@fedia.io 14 hours ago
So do I.
DarthFrodo@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
The definition from the vegan society is:
Veganism is a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals for food, clothing or any other purpose; and by extension, promotes the development and use of animal-free alternatives for the benefit of animals, humans and the environment. In dietary terms it denotes the practice of dispensing with all products derived wholly or partly from animals.
Is climate change cruel to animals? It’s not intentional harm, but it causes suffering. So it depends on the ethical framework (deontology - utilitarianism spectrum).
Going on vacation by plane arguably isn’t vegan from a utilitarian perspective. Deontologists might still see it as vegan.
If someone needs to drive a car and can’t afford an EV, it’s not practical to avoid fossil fuels in this case. So that would be vegan either way.
I think the “avoiding as far as possible and practicable” principle also makes a lot of sense for the use of fossil fuels by environmentalists.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Wouldn’t this mean that if someone derives a sufficient number of utils from eating meat (enough that not eating it would be “impractical”), then eating meat is vegan?
DarthFrodo@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
If someone is literally starving and there’s only meat available, it can be argued that it would be vegan to eat it in that situation.
BombOmOm@lemmy.world 17 hours ago
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Coal is made from plants.
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Oil is made from plankton and algae.
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Natural gas is made from microorganisms.
I believe all three have a small chance of also being made from an animal. But I wasn’t able to verify that part.
blarghly@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
I mean, even if they do contain animal, does it matter? Are vegans not allowed to pick up old buffalo skulls from the ground from buffalo which died of natural causes?
rumschlumpel@feddit.org 16 hours ago
A large part of plankton consists of animals like crustaceans and jellyfish (zooplankton). Though IDK if that was also true back when the current oil deposits were formed.
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MysticEdge@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
Gelato isn’t vegan?!
Uruanna@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
… Chicken isn’t ~vegan~?