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I agree with most of your points, but saying that treating animals well is worse for the environment is pretty misleading. "Treating animals better" should incl

I agree with most of your points, but saying that treating animals well is worse for the environment is pretty misleading. "Treating animals better" should include not feeding them growth hormones or pumping them full of antibiotics which enter the food chain via the meat and ground water. Treating animals well is good for the environment, and drastically reducing consumption or not eating them at all is especially good (think of Amazon deforestation to make way for cattle ranches).

derefr 9y ago
The effects of antibiotics entering the water table pale in comparison to 1. the extra pesticides that enter the water table from growing the extra plant matter that must be used to feed free-range animals, and 2. the pollution from the processes required to create the fertilizer to grow said plant matter. You can think of an animal as a way to convert a whole lot of plant matter into a little meat. Growing plant matter for feed, itself, pollutes in various ways. A given animal might be less healthy eating corn than eating grass, but if it needs to eat 10x the weight in grass in its lifetime... that animal, raised that way, is now likely responsible for 10x the pollution.
- undersuit 9y ago
  >the extra pesticides that enter the water table from growing the extra plant matter that must be used to feed free-range animals 1) Why must it be grown? Shouldn't there just be less animals in places that can't support their grazing? 2) Why are you applying pesticides and fertilizer?
  - derefr 9y ago
    You misunderstand the entire concept of modern agriculture, I think: agriculture is demand-driven. People want food, and have money to spend on food, and so companies (farms) come into existence to turn natural resources into food, so that they can take that money. You can't just have there be "less animals", without feeding less people than have the money to pay to be fed—which is effectively impossible without abandoning capitalism: a new company would always come into existence to capture that surplus. Looking at things through a demand-driven lens, #1 and #2 are one-another's answers: if all the existing companies restrict themselves to non-"enriched" agriculture, then the market can only support a certain number of those companies—but there is still demand, so a new company will come into existence that uses (or one of the existing companies "innovate" to use) pesticides and fertilizer, to squeeze more feedstock out of the same land, to produce more meat from a given agricultural base, to answer the unmet demand. (The real "problem" with this system is that demand isn't fixed; the more food there is available in an area, the more new people the people in that area tend to make, creating a positive feedback loop where demand will never be fully satisfied, necessitating a "race to the bottom" of who can squeeze their natural resources the hardest. Fix that, rather than abandoning an allocation system for operating too well.)
- sleavey 9y ago
  Let's not forget that grass is what they have evolved to eat. The fact that we can get away with feeding them food that is 10x more calorie dense does not make that approach correct. As others have said, the most environmentally friendly solution is to drastically reduce consumption of animals, regardless of what we feed them.

derefr 9y ago

The effects of antibiotics entering the water table pale in comparison to 1. the extra pesticides that enter the water table from growing the extra plant matter that must be used to feed free-range animals, and 2. the pollution from the processes required to create the fertilizer to grow said plant matter. You can think of an animal as a way to convert a whole lot of plant matter into a little meat. Growing plant matter for feed, itself, pollutes in various ways. A given animal might be less healthy eating corn than eating grass, but if it needs to eat 10x the weight in grass in its lifetime... that animal, raised that way, is now likely responsible for 10x the pollution.

undersuit 9y ago
>the extra pesticides that enter the water table from growing the extra plant matter that must be used to feed free-range animals 1) Why must it be grown? Shouldn't there just be less animals in places that can't support their grazing? 2) Why are you applying pesticides and fertilizer?
- derefr 9y ago
  You misunderstand the entire concept of modern agriculture, I think: agriculture is demand-driven. People want food, and have money to spend on food, and so companies (farms) come into existence to turn natural resources into food, so that they can take that money. You can't just have there be "less animals", without feeding less people than have the money to pay to be fed—which is effectively impossible without abandoning capitalism: a new company would always come into existence to capture that surplus. Looking at things through a demand-driven lens, #1 and #2 are one-another's answers: if all the existing companies restrict themselves to non-"enriched" agriculture, then the market can only support a certain number of those companies—but there is still demand, so a new company will come into existence that uses (or one of the existing companies "innovate" to use) pesticides and fertilizer, to squeeze more feedstock out of the same land, to produce more meat from a given agricultural base, to answer the unmet demand. (The real "problem" with this system is that demand isn't fixed; the more food there is available in an area, the more new people the people in that area tend to make, creating a positive feedback loop where demand will never be fully satisfied, necessitating a "race to the bottom" of who can squeeze their natural resources the hardest. Fix that, rather than abandoning an allocation system for operating too well.)
sleavey 9y ago
Let's not forget that grass is what they have evolved to eat. The fact that we can get away with feeding them food that is 10x more calorie dense does not make that approach correct. As others have said, the most environmentally friendly solution is to drastically reduce consumption of animals, regardless of what we feed them.