Do you agree with Richard Dawkins?

[The Grand Nudger]

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.

You have not, and I've explained why you have not, sometimes more than once with regards to a repeated claim. I'll do it again.

-Not all agricultural land is suitable for the production of crops suitable for human consumption. This is not my opinion. This is why agricultural sub-classifications exist, and you can find these classifications at the NRCS, or the FDA, if you were interested in learning about them. I encourage you to fact check me at any point.

-Intensive livestock production produces fertility that is used, worldwide, in the production of vegetables for human consumption. Our other option are petrochemical fertilizers. Both are exceedingly detrimental to a wide array of "sentient creatures". Ourselves included. You have offered green manures and crop rotation. They are insufficient. That's why we use livestock and oil.

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.

As I have already explained, livestock are capable of processing material which we are not. In this manner, cows, for example, turn sunlight into an available source of nutrition to us in a very similar manner that vegetables do (sunlight shines down, grass grows, we cannot eat grass, cows can eat grass, we can eat the cows). They also have the advantage of being able to be reared on land that is not suitable for vegetable production.

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.

A fine idea. Who said that we would all starve? I simply pointed out that some of us already starve. If we were to reduce our level of production by any means, say, decreasing the amount of fertility available to us from intensive livestock production, or by tying up land in service of inedible green manures, or low yielding crop rotations and covers, that would have the effect of decreasing that number precisely how? The UN advises eating -less- meat. You feel that this somehow supports your argument for eating -no- meat? Haven't I been asking you this in every post?

I have, vegetarianism.

You have offered a word that describes your ideology. That doesn't constitute a solution to the problems food production faces in any way that I am aware of. If it does, you need to go collect your Nobel prize, because you, good sir, have just solved one of the most persistent and terrible problems that our species has ever had to endure since the dawn of time.

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.

Who cares about world demand? We use animal products in some very important little pieces of machinery, in addition to using them to both produce our food, and as food themselves. Whether or not this valuable resource is being put to best use is hardly an issue of contention. It is not. That does not make the case for vegetarianism. It makes the case for ethical omnivorism. Here, finally, we've reached the place that I knew that we would if I continued to ask questions. You created a distinction from which you began your argument. When asked about the possibility of livestock production meeting your requirements you explicitly admit that you would simply create a new set of requirements. Absolute bullshit, and now I feel like I've wasted my time. You are a zealot, I don't have time for this sort of shit when it comes to ag. You do not wish to kill animals, and that is completely your business, but from here on out lets drop the pretense of rational arguments, "necessary" or "unnecessary" suffering, ecological, environmental, or human impact. You are only interested in preserving your own opinions and smug sense of ethical superiority on the matter. All else is rationalization after the fact.

You haven't addressed the ecological impact on ecosystems or the contribution that livestock production makes to greenhouse gases.

I have, consistently. I've also brought up the impact from our alternatives which you ignore only because it is inconvenient to your ideology (an ideology which, I have to say, after that last remark, has become worthless to me). There are no magic bullets.

-good work on the tags btw, much easier to sort the signal from the noise-