No it doesn’t. The science suggests that current popular methods of agriculture for both livestock and crops are not great, it also suggests the improved methods of agriculture can greatly reduce environmental impacts for both livestock and crops. Your information is about 10 years out of date.
I don’t think meat eaters are arguing that, i think they’re arguing that people need to wake up to the reality of the world. You can go vegan if you want, but you cant go vegan to stop killing animals, because you are, even if your not eating them. That’s the reality of life, there isnt any getting around it.
This is a strawman and has no place in a discussion.
Because i’m an equal opportunist, i think this is also probably a bit of a strawman, and a road that should be avoided as i dont think it likely would provide good discussion based in reality.
The argument if one can be had i think probably more lies in the fact that plants are alive regardless of nervous system. One ‘side’ thinks that’s the line between it being OK to kill for food and the other doesn’t.
Its worth keeping in mind that people here who eat meat aren’t calling for making everyone eat meat, in fact most here believe in a varied diet. I may be one of the few here who eat more meat than most.
Your (@Dan-01) view that we should all eat plants just doesn’t sit in reality. Many people simply cannot eat plants or are so restricted that they would never survive on what they could eat if all they had were plants. There’s a reason many many plant foods are labelled as allergens, a lot of them are simply inedible to humans.
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Anarchist
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It’s not difficult for me. I don’t feel the need to respect anyone’s views. I’ll respect the reasoning informing those views, if appropriate. So I wouldn’t respect the views of a murderer, but I’d respect the views of an omnivore, a vegetarian, a vegan because I can see a reasoned process for coming to those views.
Pretty much all the meat I eat is fed sustainably weather that be grass fed or whatever there are ways animals don’t need fodder crops to survive at all it was introduced as a cheap feeding method.
But it to eat take away from the fact that a lot of crop farming destroys the soil so it is pretty useless to grow anything else, whereas animals actually fertalise the ground they graze on.
How are vegans killing animals? If the demand for meat is reduced by a vegan, which in turn avoids bringing an animal into existence, are you saying that is the same as killing?
Palm oil can be pretty devastating. Crop cultivation in general has its own problems that are rarely talked about, though at the moment it makes sense since the focus is all on meat.
Crop cultivation can leat some bad environmental impacts that can cause a compromise of the water supply from runoff, pollution, soil degradation, and deforestation among other things.
The following are a couple of extracts from an EU study describing some of these elements:
Soils may be susceptible to erosion, loss of organic matter leading to poor structure, and
pollution by pesticides and heavy metals. Soil erosion has effects external to the farm,
through siltation of water courses and transport of pesticides and nutrients. The latter can
also be conducted to water via leaching and sub-surface flow
Both ground and surface waters can be influenced by nutrient and pesticide pollution
from arable land. This results in reduction in the quality of drinking water and
necessitates expensive treatment. It also has ecological consequences for aquatic life.
Intensification of farming systems, encouraged by economic support under the CAP has
exacerbated these problems.
Nutrients, especially phosphates cause eutrophication of water, which upsets the
ecological balance and can result in undesirable effects such as fish death and algal
blooms. Problems are greatest where farming is not intensive, and lower in southern
Europe
Intensification of arable systems has led to a large decline in biodiversity on arable
farmland. Loss of non-crop habitat and simplification of systems has disrupted food
chains and caused declines in many species.
Declines are best quantified for birds, but there is also evidence for similar or greater
levels of decline in mammals, plants and invertebrates.
Simply ‘stop eating meat’ is the incorrect answer, as a number of people have said, we need to look at all our food sources, move for more responsible farming, and improved farming techniques which can reduce and/or eliminate these problems in both livestock and crop farming.
See my above post for example, there is an environmental impact of crop farming which affects wildlife. Crop farming also inadvertently kills animals when those crops are harvested, when fields are prepped, and when pesticides etc. are used.
In some cases animals may also be controlled (by hunting) to protect crops from damage as well.
My point is only that there is a reality that cant easily be gotten rid of except to just ignore it and pretend it doesnt exist. No matter what you do, you will kill an animal, even if you’re a vegan.
edit: thats not to say thats an argument to eat meat, its just to be aware of reality.
No. To be clear, i respect anyone’s choice to eat what they want. Where someone feels they cant eat meat for moral reasons i think that’s a good reason too. But just like the people who ignore where their meat comes from, who willingly ignore their chicken is from a factory farm for example, the same i believe applies to all foods. You can go vegan for the moral reasons, but the reality is you cant completely get away from animals dying so you can eat, and people should not ignore that, no matter what your diet is.
Most people can eat most plants. And, arguably, most people should eat plant-based diets devoid of animal products; for their own health, for the health of the environment and to stop needless cruelty to other animals.
Now that I’ve not eaten animals for a number of years and health-wise have never felt better, I can’t imagine eating it but… lab-grown meats is almost certainly going to become wide-spread in the coming years. This will enable those that want to, to eat meat that is produced without cruelty and without nearly as much environmental harm.
As for the your comment that the science implicating animal agriculture in harmful climate change is out of date… I simply beleive that you’re wrong. Many recent studies are clearly demonstrated the link and the harm caused by animal agriculture.
When did I say I respected peoples rights to murder other people? Are you also saying that we shouldn’t respect people for being attracted to people of the same sex? For wanting to change their gender? Or having a different religion? Of course not. I don’t agree with veganism but I respect peoples rights to eat with a veganism lifestyle. Why is it then okay for me to be criticised and offended for my omnivore beliefs?
Everything has an environmental impact. I believe in making sure I offset it as much as I can and I feel I’m in the positive for being carbon neutral. I even have 30 children a year go through my class planting trees, wanting to protect the planet and make the world a better place. I think I do my part well.
That simply doesn’t scale. It might be sustainable for a small number of people to eat that way but it doesn’t scale the numbers of people currently eating meat, hence the increase in recent years of ‘factory-farming’. Which itself is or course hugely damaging for the environment (and health: mass use of antibiotics, for exampe). Hence the only real answer being either for a large-scale reduction in meat consumption or, more likely, replacing much of livestock farming with ‘lab-grown’ meat (something almost certainly going to become widespread in the coming years).
I don’t think that I have or necessarily would criticise you - or others - for eating meat.
That said, I suspect that, given the knowledge we have available to us regarding the harm meat eating (or rather its production) causes, we aren’t far away from a time when it would be entirely appropriate to criticise people for eating meat; much in the way that it is acceptable to criticise people for, for example, not recycling, littering, etc.
If all that could kept a couple of chickens in the garden for eggs then ate them once they stopped laying and them that can kept a pig and fed it on food waste and dead fall fruit and ate it once it was at the correct age and weight we could have affordable sustainable animal products easily
