Nobody's perfect
In today's world, it's almost impossible not to contribute to any animal exploitation at all. Many products and services involve animals in some way. Even growing vegetables kills small animals, by accident or on purpose, like the ones that eat the crops.
That's an important reminder: we should also try to reduce those deaths. But the goal of veganism isn't perfection. It's to avoid harming as many animals as possible.
"But exploitation keeps growing"
Some people think veganism is pointless, because the number of vegans has grown and so has the number of exploited animals.
The author explains that this doesn't prove veganism doesn't work. The world's population and consumption have grown a lot. Without vegans, the number of exploited animals would be even higher.
Doing the math
The author makes an estimate. Suppose, just to keep it simple, that 2 trillion vertebrates are killed each year for consumption (the real number is probably higher). Dividing by the number of people, each person who eats animals is responsible, on average, for hundreds of animals a year. And that's counting only vertebrates; with invertebrates, the number is much bigger.
So each person who goes vegan stops contributing to the deaths of many animals over their lifetime.
In short
- The goal is to cause as little harm as possible, not to be perfect.
- Without vegans, exploitation would be even bigger.
- Each vegan spares many animals every year.