Ethical vegetarianism and reasoning on global warming

In animal ethics, global warming has become an issue in a sense that the defenders of ethical vegetarianism and veganism seem to take for granted that they have a new type of reason in their toolbox to bolster their position. But what kinds of ethical positions do the arguments based on global warming (Climatic arguments for short) exactly create when presented? The standard arguments for vegetarian and vegan diet (or lifestyles more broadly) appeal either to the good consequences to the human agent or to the alleged immorality of breeding, rearing and killing nonhuman animals (hereafter animals) for food. In the former, human-centred argument, the references to health and to moral integrity are widely used. In the latter, sentientist argument, it comes either in utilitarian form in which case animal suffering is pointed out or in Kantian form in which case non-vegan diet is a failure to respect the value of and in an animal. Either way, there is no need for any extra arguments for vegetarian or vegan diet. The global warming dimensions are merely accidental additions in the pro-vegetarianism or pro-veganism toolbox that lose their significance as soon as the carbon footprint of animal production is neutral or the balance turns upside down, that is, if animal production becomes a carbon sink or in some other way manages to nullify GHG-emissions (e.g. produces biogas that replaces fossil fuels). If - and this is a big if - these latter visions sometimes turn into reality through technological advances, then we would have a case against this indirect Climatic vegetarianism and veganism. Such a situation is of course intolerable to (at least GW-based) ethical vegetarianism and veganism. In this paper, we investigate to what extent it is reasonable and possible for ethical vegetarianism and veganism to endorse this kind of contextual argumentation, such as the Climatic argument. The purpose of this philosophical paper is to analyse critically the various versions of Climatic arguments presented by the defenders of vegetarianism and veganism.