Making everyone else become a vegan (or, at least, internalizing the externalities associated with livestock so that market forces would make that a much more common choice), but doing so yourself won't. Classic tragedy of the commons.
I do understand the logic of pro-vegan types on this front, but apart from believing it's fundamentally flawed, I was especially curious on the specificity regarding CO2 in this case.
If the planet's population became vegan, we'd have some serious nutrition and soil management challenges to contend with. Cycling (or part-provisioning of) nutrients without using animals or without using methane and other fossil fuels (think Haber Bosch) is a mystery to me absent animals on the farm.
"If the planet's population became vegan, we'd have some serious nutrition and soil management challenges to contend with."
Nope. In addition, the whole world is not becoming vegan at once. If you think that's a problem, become a vegan now so that the whole world is not becoming vegan at once.
I carefully avoided the 'at once' bit. Clearly that would be even more infeasible.
That study / blog post is certainly partisan - but it is written by an energetic vegan (hmm, you'd think that'd be an oxymoron).
I've still yet to see a workable solution to the Nitrogen and Phosphorous (as well as all the other micronutrient and mineral) cycles that does not intrinsically require the involvement of animal husbandry or the input of massive amounts of energy.
Let me throw a reference to a properly researched study back at you - Simon Fairlie's 'Meat: A Benign Extravagance'
