I am not a vegan. And I don’t plan on convincing you to become a vegan either. However, I am a user of the internet and I am kind of confused. Vegans are extremely hated on the internet. And unfairly so.

November 1st was #WorldVeganDay and all of our little leaf-loving friends came out to share the benefits of veganism. I was shocked by what I read on Twitter and even more puzzled by what I saw on Facebook. The surprisingly significant impact vegans have on our global environment is startling. I’m sure we’ve all heard an infinite number of reasons to be vegan or at least vegetarian, but none of them are as essential or universally positive as these.

The United States of America’s meat market, in particular, is massive. With Americans eating nearly three times the amount of meat than the average human being, this comes at an enormous cost.

The worldwide livestock industry is estimated to embody 14.5% of global human-induced greenhouse gas emissions alone. These emissions are developed through mostly feed production, pasture expansion, enteric fermentation, manure processing, and the transportation of the animals by use of fossil fuels. Therefore, the livestock sector has an absurdly prominent role in climate change. In fact, the livestock industry’s emissions footprint is larger than all of the world’s airplanes, trains and automobiles emissions combined.

Additionally, this colossal American meat market guzzles an immense portion of water usage in America. The production of livestock requires 1,799 gallons of water to generate one pound of meat. Fortunately, it only takes a mere 132 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat.

Furthermore, the usage of raw materials between livestock and vegetarian agriculture is vastly different. Animal agriculture consumes nearly 33% of the world’s raw materials, while the vegetarian agriculture consumes a mere 2%.

A 2006 United Nations report determines that animal agriculture spurs a variety of environmental problems, both locally and globally. In 2010, the UN and the European Union decided that meat-eating is largely responsible for world deforestation.

After hearing all of that, how could you possibly see vegans as snobby or stuck up? If anything, they’re probably just overly-defensive, because they’re sick and tired of hearing everyone ridicule them every time they order food. In reality, these are just a bunch of admirable people who simply want the best for our planet at the price of their own taste-buds. That’s pretty heroic. Belittling and degrading this kind of selflessness is blatantly hateful. We shouldn’t feel the need to make fun of people who are purely trying to do good, but rather we should rather feel inspired by their noble way of life.