Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[The Grand Nudger]

I have, you're simply too lazy to click a link, or unwilling to respond. Vegetable production has very well defined fertility requirements. You have been provided with a list of those requirements (such a detailed list that it encompasses all crops that can be grown in my particular state, by crop, alphabetically, no less). Do me a favor, click on that link, and take a look at how detailed I'm willing to get here, how many things I'm willing to consider. Then, perhaps, you'll understand why I keep asking you to elaborate, to be specific. It's a little more complicated than you seem to have been led to believe.

Give me a fucking break, I do this for a living, and I'm good at what I do. If you want to know something about ag that I cannot help you with, I can find you the information you want in a heartbeat. I know my field, and I know where to find those bits of arcana in my field that are unfamiliar to me. You have your interpretation of what a report from the UN states. (I'm still reading it, and I still don't see any support for your position, all I see are a litany of reasons why the current production practices are unsustainable, and exploitative, which is precisely what the paper hoped to establish in the first place. Though it has been criticized on the grounds of basic fucking science as being a whitewash paid for by fossil fuel lobbies.)

They suggest eating less or no meat -based on an appraisal of current practices -with a questionable attribution of cause. Have you seen any of these papers suggest that it is a moral or ethical guiding principle which leads them to this? No, their strongest case is that of environmental and social impact, which has nothing to do with livestock and everything to do with current production methods. I keep attempting to drill this into your head and I'm beginning to think that you're purposefully ignoring me. You want a source, read the goddamned paper you linked......Nevertheless, those fertility requirements I mentioned above (and have linked you a comprehensive source for) hinge in part on intensive livestock production (except in the case of organics, where they comprise the entirety of the available sources of fertility). You need me to cite you a fucking source that states that if you had three marbles in a jar and removed one you would now have two marbles...unless you added another?

You haven't listened to a word I've said thusfar, so, business as usual. Do your own work. If this matters to you as much as your arguments would seem to imply you'd be engaging in due diligence before weighing in. That way some asshat wouldn't be able to annihilate your arguments on the grounds of abject ignorance of the subject. "Maybe we should do something" doesn't cut it. Definitions for what you feel to be "necessary" or "unnecessary" doesn't cut it. This is food, we live or die by it. You may be able to sit comfotably wherever you're att and spout off armchair philosophy but we're well beyond that point, aren't we. I've granted you your argument so many times and in so many ways that I would have hoped, by this point, you had at least attempted to find a way to bring it into the real world. I think that you get stymied at the point of assertion so often that you are unprepared to take it any further.

I'll ask you again, do you think that a pasture raised beef operation contributes more or less to environmental pollution and the suffering of sentient creatures than a commercial soy operation? Would you like to see commercial soy operations leverage "organic" or conventional methods in this envisioned vegan future? Let me explain why this is so important. If you go organic, you have two options. Animal manure, and nitrogen fixing crop rotations. Animal manure requires livestock, nitrogen fixing legumes decrease productivity and thereby necessitate an increase in cultivated area (or a measure of acceptance with regards to those that will not have access to food). You aren't going to be able to do the whole "hand picked bit" because you won't be able to even approach current yields without equipment in either case. If you would like to see us go the way of conventional methods (which utilize petrochem and natural gas based fertilizers -in addition- to manures for fertility you will need more oil, more wells.) I want to know which way you would go with this so that I can give you a detailed list of the potential environmental impact, since you claim to want such a list. I don't think that you actually do, or you'd have ponied up long ago. I think you find it much easier (and more comfortable) to continuously say "Prove me wrong!". Well, I'd like to, but you seem intent on avoiding it at all costs.

All you've offered thusfar is green manure, well, thats a decrease in yeilds, and the suffering of those who starve to death (already) will simply be exacerbated. There are a whole host of other concerns, but I'm trying to keep it surface side for you. Green manures also fail to address those livestock operations (that do currently exist) that would meet all of your requirements but for some reason you have decided that they are a no-go anyway. You are inconsistent in your application of your own terms and argument. You ignore the basic realities of agricultural production as though your arguments would have any value arising from your fantasies of agriculture. This is the issue I have with your arguments. Not whether or not you eat meat, or whether or not I eat meat, or whether or not it is moral or ethical to eat meat. Not how good you feel since becoming a vegan, not how healthy vegetables are, and not whether current practices are exploitative.