You can’t slaughter a vegetable
You really aren't arguing in good faith when you start referring to harvesting vegetables as "slaughtering" them!
The definition of slaughter explicitly says "animals". No one talks about "slaughtering" plants. No one calls a harvest a "slaughter". In fact, I thought this was a parody initially.
Animal-based diets overall have twice the water footprint and emit about three times as much greenhouse gas and use three to ten times the land. Why is this a surprise? In practice, you have to "slaughter" far more vegetables to feed an animal that you later eat than if you directly murder and eat the vegetables. The immense land and water use and the massive pollution from animal agriculture means that meat and dairy, which provide only a small part of the world’s food, are responsible for a majority of the destruction of the planet from our diets.
You have not one link to any science at all. You have no actual numbers. Any actual science articles would completely refute your claims.
No one really believes that plants feel anything or that they are “slaughtered” when they are harvested. I don’t even believe you believe that. I think you’re simply making empty arguments just to be oppositional.
Animal livestock is responsible for about a quarter of the world's greenhouse gasses: see this and this. The number one thing either an individual or a society could do to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions almost immediately is to stop animal agriculture.
Unfortunately, a lot of people present a lot of false arguments in order to continue eating meat and dairy.
For example, the argument that eating vegetables kills more animals than eating meat doesn't seem very intuitive.
When you find out that a typical animal-based diet
I am polite when talking to vegans, even when they are being ignorant and arrogant, which is quite often, unfortunately.
It's this comment that made me laugh out loud, and caused me to respond.
I'm quite sure that you're as polite to vegans in person as you are online, which is to say, not at all.
You've shown absolutely no command of facts or science. You give us a bunch of anecdotes about your wildly atypical existence as an organic free-range farm in Cambodia, and use them as some sort of universal cudgel to accuse people of ignorance.
You are the very last person to be calling others "ignorant" or "arrogant".
I personally, and science
Let's see this "science" — from a peer-reviewed reputable journal.
and personal experience vindicate this, do not believe veganism is moral, possible at a global scale, or good for the environment.
You haven't actually argued any of these points at all — you've simply announced them and claimed that you had arguments for them — arguments you haven’t divulged. Why would “I say so” convince anyone?
Tell me - what do you think the world will be like in 30 years? In 50 years? You have a kid - they'll be a adult. What will it be like?
In my lifetime alone, we've killed more than half of all the wild mammals; more than half the sea creatures weighing over 10 pounds or so; more than half the wild birds; more than half the flying insects.
Look at just the mammals:
Those little green dots are all the wild mammals left.
All those grey dots are domesticated mammals. Actually, the numbers are from 8 years ago, so there are about 2 fewer green dots and 20 more light grey dots.
Right now, it's expected that by 2030, there will be about 50% more of the light gray dots from the picture and about 13% fewer green dots. That's about 5 green dots gone. But there really aren’t very many green dots left already.
How long can we go on killing more than half of all the wild creatures in a single person's lifetime?
Well, we are going to find out. No one's changing their lifestyles at all.
But I'm sure when you're looking at the broken ruin of your biosphere in thirty years, you still will be blaming everyone other than yourself for the ruin of everyone’s futures.
Angry? Want to refute me? I'm willing to discuss it if you use facts and science and not decrees and proclamations.
In fact, I'll make you a deal.
I'll purchase you a free copy of this very readable book which boils down the argument to a few pages — with hundreds of carefully chosen citations to peer-reviewed papers and more readable but still solid sources at the end if you doubt any of the claims.
It's short, it's a fast read, and it makes all the arguments I would, but better, with more documentation.
If you read that, we could have a discussion based on actual hard facts rather than your unsubstantiated claims.
Are you up for it? Do you really have the courage of your convictions?
