How to be a vegetarian? (And also, why to be one?)

[The Grand Nudger]

I never said we should stop caring for domestic animals.  Please stop strawmanning that argument.  Milk cows and egg laying chickens still need farms and farmers, and I never said differently.

I'm not strawmanning you..you simply haven't thought it through.  If you think that people are going to continue caring for their cows and chickens if they cease to be profitable......you are mistaken.  They will die.  They are not well adapted, they are well kept.  Vegetarianism is no good for animals whose existence relies on commercial consumption.

As to your super defensive comments (they may not seem so to you, but they clearly are to me, and if you are a farmer I can see why)...they speak for themselves. 

And I'm not sure what fiction I'm supposedly putting forward?  

http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?ne...pguBBUrKhc

I didn't mean for my topic to hammer on your job.

Yes, you did...but that;s because you weren't thinking of people who do what I do, and I understand that. You were thinking of people who do the very things I;m opposed to, you just didn't realize that theirs was not the only model.

But even if farming animals caused LESS greenhouse gasses than cars, planes, etc. it still causes an enormous amount, and is the top reason for deforestation in places like the Amazon. There is every reason to reduce or stop eating meat, and move towards humane dairy and egg farming.

Bad practices are the cause for those things...not meat production.  Vegetarianism does not solve those problems, uniformly assumed it will exacerbate them.  

If our population was (much much) less, I would have less issues with animal agrigulture.  And ultimately, I recognize that the underlying problem is truly population.  But food production becomes an issue when you've got this many humans on the planet.  It can't just be ignored.

Please show me some studies that show how meat production is helpful to the environment?  Even one?

.......do you want me to show you studies that show bad practices are helpful to the environment?  They don't exist because, because they aren't.  

Anyway, thank you for stinking up my thread. (Punt totally intended). As I said, I should have expected it.  Everywhere I look for support for anything in life, I mostly find selfish cows. (More pun intended, how else can a person stay sane when dealing with humans?).

(P.S.  Sorry everyone, I really am just frustrated.  I was very excited about this change and looking forward to talking with other like minded people, and I should know better than to speak of ANYTHING publicly without someone raining on my parade.)

By all means, be excited, be proud...I support you and your choice.  I've already made it perfectly clear what I object to.