Numbers are hard to measure but we have at least 80 million vegans on the planet, plus 1,5 billion vegetarians. This is not "a few thousand". A decade ago, veganism was considered a cult, now we have Veganuary and my health insurance recommends a "Planetary Health Diet" (to not scare people by saying the v-word). This movement is much bigger than you make it sound.

And again, I agree: There is destruction and exploitation wherever you look closely, it's overwhelming. I'm all for drastic changes, and fast! This includes you, Sir Kevin, to acknowledge that the diet you learned from your parents needs to be addressed. You don't have to be perfect, I'm not, but please don't ignore your responsibility in this. It's the easiest difference you can make.

I think the zeitgeist is beginning to shift, and we can help move it along with our own collective effort, and leading by example in our own communities (online or offline).

I don't disagree that stopping the majority of emissions at their source (corporations) is the ultimate end goal, but as you say, we don't know when that will happen. Could be in 3 years, could be in a decade or two.

I'm advocating we do what we can to buy us (and especially the poorest and most vulnerable populations) a little more time while we wait for that major reckoning to happen. Besides, if we're collectively unwilling to even give up a little bit of beef in favor of plants or chicken, that doesn't bode well for us when the time comes to make much bigger sacrifices to take on those big polluters, and capitalism itself.

If we make society more egalitarian someday, we'll still ultimately have to rely on people becoming informed of what we need to do to save the planet from climate change, and then enact those things in their lives willingly themselves. There's no real reason we shouldn't be a part of that change now, rather than wait.

And I do want to emphasize how incredibly good Impossible meat is as an extremely convenient drop-in replacement for ground beef or steak bites. It often goes on sale, which brings the price down to be fairly comparable to animal meat. If you haven't tried it yet, I highly suggest picking some up when you see some on sale, it makes the transition away from animal meat much much easier, as it allows you to continue to use all of your existing recipes. Quorn is another really solid option that's comparable in price to animal meat, and when cooked with some beef or chicken stock, tastes very, very similarly to real meat in a recipe.