Seriously. As someone that was vegan for the better part of a decade and vegetarian for another half decade—it’s hubris when it comes to the environment.

You want to help the environment?

1. End the industrial military complex.

2. Eat local. Not like locally roasted coffee (maybe OK if you live where it’s grown) or locally produced chocolate (same) but like foods grown or raised within 60 miles.

3. When those foods are not available, but plant based unprocessed foods in bulk.

2 should have been kill Amazon and take care of your phone because you’re never buying a new one again.

This means no eating out—for the most part. It also probably means no beer or wine or coffee or chocolate. No Trader Joe’s. Most of Whole Foods is off limit.

Basically, eat like you live in a developing nation.

Pre-edit: yes, I know I’m not being helpful. I’m doing that on purpose because I really care about this stuff and I’m so frustrated with marketing—be it from a company or a person.

The reality is that the real solutions don’t sell movies, they don’t sell books, and the profit margin is so damn tight you can’t hardly buy it in a store at all.

If we’re going to make it through this, we have to stop pretending like green washed alternatives are going to solve anything. Maybe they can buy us an extra 10 years and maybe we can figure out something in that time. But to make it, we need a drastic, fundamental shift in our thinking and, much more importantly, in our actions.

Oreos are vegan. So are beans and carrots. Guess what grows in my garden and guess what doesn’t. And Earth Balance nor coconuts nor avocados grown there, either.