RE: Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?
April 22, 2012 at 1:41 pm
(This post was last modified: April 22, 2012 at 1:58 pm by Scabby Joe.)
Quote:Make a case for your own argument, at some point, anytime that it is convenient for you.
I have made a case. Huge amounts of the worlds land is used to rear livestock (or the feedcrop they need). If this was not the case, this land could in the main be used for agricultural purposes to feed humans. You keep saying that not all of this land is suitable for this but provide no evidence or fugures to back this up.
Quote:Crop rotation is not a perpetual motion machine.
Please explain how producing livestock does anything but make this problem worse? You have to consider that livestock animals add greatly to the amount of vegetation we need to produce to feed them. They consume calories. You get less out than you put in. For every 100 calories that we feed to animals in the form of crops, we receive on average just 30 calories in the form of meat and milk
Quote: You're advocating a reduction of production capacity when there are already people starving?
No, I'm saying use some of the land used for the livestock business and use it to grow foods humans can eat. You provide no evidence that we'd all starve to death if we didn't eat meat, just opinion. You will be aware of many reports from bodies like the United Nations that identify the livestock industry as hugely damaging and consequently advise eating less meat.
Quote:You are free to encircle a wider group of creatures within the umbrella of what your conscience can bear, but please offer a workable solution.
I have, vegetarianism. In a time when the earth's population is exploding how can it make sense to bring into existence tens of billions of other consumers (livestock) of the earth's resources? Livestock have to be fed and it is ridiculous that so much of the world's capacity is taken up with feeding cows, pigs etc when people are starving or dieing of thirst.
Quote:If livestock were produced sustainably, humanely, and then slaughtered (as they are now) in a humane manner with full regard to their level of "sentience". What would be unethical about that?
I do not believe that livestock could be produced with no pain and suffering on a scale that would satisfy world demand. If they could, then I could make an arguement that it is not moral to take their lives. That is a seperate argument and a little more complicated.
You haven't addressed the ecological impact on ecosystems or the contribution that livestock production makes to greenhouse gases.
I sincerely hope I have my quotes right this time.