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The environmental arguments are hardly clear to anyone with experience farming since they appear to hinge on equating ranch land with arable land and cattle fee

The environmental arguments are hardly clear to anyone with experience farming since they appear to hinge on equating ranch land with arable land and cattle feed with millable grain. Industrial farming is easy to revile and many people are indeed searching for more sustainable and ethical alternatives. My family raised a small amount of cattle growing up and most of the "clear" arguments against livestock seem incredibly ignorant to me and contrary to the basic facts of my life. The ethical picture of killing animals is equally murky since obviously to feed the masses industrial farming is necessary and that means pesticides and vermin control. So, no matter what you're going to be killing animals and it becomes a question of utilitarian balance or drawing a line and saying those animals (rats and all insects probably) don't matter. Meanwhile, we still live in an era of slavery, but most people fill up their cars and eat chocolate without any cognitive dissonance. Why would the ethics of meat and dairy be uniquely more clear to people than human slavery and murder? Finally, people who actually care about their diet probably want a natural source of vitamin B12. South Park actually put the best satirical point on this side of the discussion. People switch over to things like the impossible burger and think they have improved their diet, but they are just switching out one crappy processed diet for another. For many people the clear reality of needing more fortified foods seems to be a degradation, not an improvement. Do I think these apologetics are going to change anyone's mind? No, just like your apologetics to people around you aren't convincing them in all but a few exceptional cases. Maybe at least people can agree that the discussion is anything but clear and try to be civil but polarisation is more of the zeitgeist than civil disagreement. Logistics and economy are not easy, ethics either, nor nutrition. The only truly clear thing in all of this to me is that the best thing I can do is not have any children, but it is equally clear that other people are not going to stop that.

sc4les 7y ago
There's a bunch of fallacies in here. Dude, you need ~10x the amount of calories recycled through an animal than eating those plants directly. Where do you think the calcium comes from? "Basic facts of life" is such a BS term. Sure, you need a happy picture in your head to justify the practice, but it just doesn't make any sense. Next the typical blabla about crop deaths. Did you know that the vast majority of crops to go animals? Wanna save the majority of cute mice and little birds? Eat plants directly, don't waste most of them to kill even more animals. Oh and you're pro-slavery as well? You seem to be a nice person. Do you also justify murder because other people jaywalk? B12 hahahaha please do some research! We feed those poor creates so much antibiotics so they don't die in their tiny cages that their gut bacteria barely produces any - so almost all B12 goes into their feed. You take B12, indirectly. Please tell me more about how natural that is and how impossible burger doesn't stack up to your "natural" diet. That stuff is made to have an alternative for McDonalds, not to be a healthfood. Man. You build a very weak story for you, which sounds like the typical BS excuse. "Ethics isn't easy" - you have the choice, three times a day, to either fund one of the most terrible practices on earth or drink slightly different plant juice for your breakfast and go with beans or impossible burger, whatever your health preference is. No need for complex ethics man. It's an easy change, just uncomfortable at first. Stop the stupid excuses. If everyone cuts their emissions by 80%, we don't need to stop having children and be the last ones to enjoy the world. In which scenario does that argument make any sense?
- yostrovs 7y ago
  Thanks for immediately providing an example of the kind of person mentioned by the commenter you're addressing. I'm confident you did a lot of reading of Reddit, the correct blogs, and are member of sympathetic Facebook pages. And yet the ignorance is striking and so is how righteous you feel. I'll be having a steak and eggs in your honor this morning. With a cup of milk to wash it down.
- Ntrails 7y ago
  >If everyone cuts their emissions by 80%, we don't need to stop having children and be the last ones to enjoy the world. Cool. So I'm not having children and eating all the meat and fish I like. I reckon ethically I'm on sounder ground than continuing to produce human beings :)
latch 7y ago
It isn't "clear" to oil executives and the coal industry that they're killing the planet. It's easy to revile oilsands, but how else are people going to live? "Why can't we just be more civil and talk about it", they're thinking. As a layman, the scientific consensus appears to be pretty one sides. The UN makes it clear that it thinks our current farming isn't sustainable (1) and that it's primary reason for the current mass extinction (2). More recent NPR take on it (3) (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assessment_Report_on_Biodiversity_and_Ecosystem_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assessment_Report_on_Bi... (3) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to-slow-global-warming-u-n-warns-agriculture-must-change https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to...
- BlackFly 7y ago
  This consensus you are pointing to is the consensus that livestock is a leading cause of deforestation. There is no consensus that eliminating meat from all diets is the solution to that problem. There is also no consensus that it is the only problem. I have no idea what point you are trying to make with oil executives and oilsands. My general statement was in regards to the use of slaves (or indentured servants if you prefer) in the Arabic peninsula which doesn't seem to bother most people (because indeed most people aren't aware of it).

sc4les 7y ago

There's a bunch of fallacies in here. Dude, you need ~10x the amount of calories recycled through an animal than eating those plants directly. Where do you think the calcium comes from? "Basic facts of life" is such a BS term. Sure, you need a happy picture in your head to justify the practice, but it just doesn't make any sense. Next the typical blabla about crop deaths. Did you know that the vast majority of crops to go animals? Wanna save the majority of cute mice and little birds? Eat plants directly, don't waste most of them to kill even more animals. Oh and you're pro-slavery as well? You seem to be a nice person. Do you also justify murder because other people jaywalk? B12 hahahaha please do some research! We feed those poor creates so much antibiotics so they don't die in their tiny cages that their gut bacteria barely produces any - so almost all B12 goes into their feed. You take B12, indirectly. Please tell me more about how natural that is and how impossible burger doesn't stack up to your "natural" diet. That stuff is made to have an alternative for McDonalds, not to be a healthfood. Man. You build a very weak story for you, which sounds like the typical BS excuse. "Ethics isn't easy" - you have the choice, three times a day, to either fund one of the most terrible practices on earth or drink slightly different plant juice for your breakfast and go with beans or impossible burger, whatever your health preference is. No need for complex ethics man. It's an easy change, just uncomfortable at first. Stop the stupid excuses. If everyone cuts their emissions by 80%, we don't need to stop having children and be the last ones to enjoy the world. In which scenario does that argument make any sense?

yostrovs 7y ago
Thanks for immediately providing an example of the kind of person mentioned by the commenter you're addressing. I'm confident you did a lot of reading of Reddit, the correct blogs, and are member of sympathetic Facebook pages. And yet the ignorance is striking and so is how righteous you feel. I'll be having a steak and eggs in your honor this morning. With a cup of milk to wash it down.
Ntrails 7y ago
>If everyone cuts their emissions by 80%, we don't need to stop having children and be the last ones to enjoy the world. Cool. So I'm not having children and eating all the meat and fish I like. I reckon ethically I'm on sounder ground than continuing to produce human beings :)

latch 7y ago

It isn't "clear" to oil executives and the coal industry that they're killing the planet. It's easy to revile oilsands, but how else are people going to live? "Why can't we just be more civil and talk about it", they're thinking. As a layman, the scientific consensus appears to be pretty one sides. The UN makes it clear that it thinks our current farming isn't sustainable (1) and that it's primary reason for the current mass extinction (2). More recent NPR take on it (3) (1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of-earths-soil-acutely-degraded-due-to-agriculture-study https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/12/third-of... (2) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assessment_Report_on_Biodiversity_and_Ecosystem_Services https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Assessment_Report_on_Bi... (3) https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to-slow-global-warming-u-n-warns-agriculture-must-change https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/08/08/748416223/to...

BlackFly 7y ago
This consensus you are pointing to is the consensus that livestock is a leading cause of deforestation. There is no consensus that eliminating meat from all diets is the solution to that problem. There is also no consensus that it is the only problem. I have no idea what point you are trying to make with oil executives and oilsands. My general statement was in regards to the use of slaves (or indentured servants if you prefer) in the Arabic peninsula which doesn't seem to bother most people (because indeed most people aren't aware of it).