Veganism for the environment

Anthropogenic climate change, mass extinctions and environmental degradation have more Canadians than ever citing environmental issues as their greatest concern.
Many organizations have provided guidelines for reducing our ecological footprint. Most have fallen short on the most effective way of helping the environment: a transition to a plant-based lifestyle.
Reports, such as the United Nation's, "Livestock's Long Shadow" often get ignored, instead favouring pollution reduction from other industries. This document details the effect of meat production on the environment. It found that 18 per cent of anthropogenic greenhouse gases are created from animal agriculture. This makes animal usage a greater threat to climate change than the entire automotive industry.
So why all the hype about capping industrial sources when one need not look no further than their plate to reduce their personal emissions? Don't get me wrong; I am for reducing any source of pollution to the best of our abilities. A vegan lifestyle is an extremely effective way to do this.
That does not just entail the emission impact of terrestrial animal exploitation - many consume fish as a 'healthier' meat alternative. This also has negative consequences. Studies have found that all bony fish sequester carbon by secreting calcium carbonate. Over-fishing removes a major source of carbon sequestration. The removal of fish that eat plankton doubly impacts climate change. Instead of carbon being consumed by these fish, it goes to the bottom of the ocean floor, decomposes and then erupts into the atmosphere as methane gas. This effects coastal environments by creating dead-zones and producing greenhouse gases.
Climate change is not the sole concern when we consume animal products. Approximately 60 to 70 per cent of corn and soybeans go to feeding livestock. The energy conversion is only that high because factory-farmed animals cannot even perform simple bodily functions. According to natural energy pyramid economics, only about 10 per cent of plant matter's energy makes it to the average meat consumer's body, making it enormously inefficient. This requires more land, and greater energy input for extraction. With over one third of Earth's arable land used for agriculture, approximately 30 per cent of the Earth's arable land is going to use for animal agriculture. This has lead to mass desertization, deforestation, soil erosion etc.
With about 50 billion animals slaughtered annually to satiate human demand; meat production requires copious amounts of resources. The amount of water required to produce a pound of meat versus a pound of vegetables is enormously higher. Clean water being a scarcity for many, this is a huge waste of water.
Dealing with farm animal waste environmentally prudently is nearly impossible. Especially when you're injecting hormones and antibiotics into the animals, waste run-off and the use of manure leads to water contamination, outbreaks of bacterial infections and ecological dead-zones.
Hunting also creates environmental detriments. While natural predation contributes to evolutionary adaptation, human hunting diminishes wildlife populations (sometimes causing extinction). Fishing tends to target stronger animals, as they lunge at lures. This leaves fewer, less aggressive fish to mate - if they are able. This is paralleled in land-based hunting, where the strongest animals would be the ones to venture closest to humans. Trap-hunting and long lining for animals are also ecologically destructive by their haphazard approach; sometimes even killing endangered species. All of these have serious irreversible ecological consequences.
This isn't an extensive list of environmental devastations from animal usage, just the more consequential ones.
This ultimately begs the question, 'Can someone even be an animal-utilising environmentalist?'