> I'm saying we should stop factory farming cattle that are fed with heavily subsidized, fossil fuel grown crops, stop clearing land for more cattle, and hold the meat industry to some basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
Oh, I didn't see where you were saying that.
Almost all global food production has large fossil fuel based inputs, land clearing is the unfortunate reality of growing population and consumption but at least the market allocates it somewhat efficiently, and its quite fungible, so it makes no more sense to say no more land to be used for cows than it does to say no more land to be used for almonds or tomatoes or quinoa. And in the western world at least animal farming and the meat industry is held to some basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
> You're welcome to continue eating what meat is available in such a world and should thank anyone you meet who eats less so that your combined share of a sustainable world can meet your personal demands.
I don't know or care about your fantasy world, but I am quite welcome to eat meat that is available in the world I find myself living in. Just like you are quite welcome to buy a new iphone every year or go on frivolous vacations to ski or sight-see whenever you choose to.
> Almost all global food production has large fossil fuel based inputs, land clearing is the unfortunate reality of growing population and consumption
Well no it's not. Said population (which we should be stabilizing) can be sustained on a fraction of the land used today by eliminating the inefficient uses such as ethanol, cattle and almonds.
> but at least the market allocates it somewhat efficiently,
Nice slight of hand. Markets optimise for the goals of the people with capital. Efficiency is only meaningful once an objective is selected, and wellbeing of the majority is a different objective to increase in wealth of the already wealthy.
> And in the western world at least animal farming and the meat industry is held to some basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
This is patently untrue. The penalties for even recording or photographing factory farm operations are much bigger and more consistently enforced than the penalties for violating what scant animal welfare laws there are.
> I don't know or care about your fantasy world, but I am quite welcome to eat meat that is available in the world I find myself living in. Just like you are quite welcome to buy a new iphone ever year or go on frivolous vacations to ski or sight-see.
So we're back to you having no accountability for your personal actions and no change to the system that enables and subsidizes them being permissable. This is just a reframing of you getting to do whatever you want if you are powerful enough to do it.
So I guess I am asserting the moral high ground after all. Because I'm not lying and gasghting and demanding you subsidize my lifestyle while I and the systems I support destroy the lives of everyone around you.
Yep, fossil fuel based fertilizers and other chemicals aren't going away.
> Said population (which we should be stabilizing) can be sustained on a fraction of the land used today by eliminating the inefficient uses such as ethanol, cattle and almonds.
How about computer games and instagram and google searches and air travel and cars including EVs, electricity, more than 50 square feet of housing per person, etc etc.? We're back to judgements excusing our own preferences and consumption and denouncing others.
> Nice slight of hand. Markets optimise for the goals of the people with capital. Efficiency is only meaningful once an objective is selected, and wellbeing of the majority is a different objective to increase in wealth of the already wealthy.
It's not a slight of hand, you brought it up. I don't think markets are perfect or even all that great, but they sure are better than you (or I).
> This is patently untrue.
Your wild conspiratorial fringe theories and claims are just false. For example The US Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was signed into law on August 24, 1966. Name any country and you'll be able to find laws and regulations for basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
> So we're back to you having no accountability for your personal actions and no change to the system that enables and subsidizes them being permissable. This is just a reframing of you getting to do whatever you want if you are powerful enough to do it.
No, we're at everybody else not being accountable to you.
> So I guess I am asserting the moral high ground after all.
Yes it always seemed so.
> Because I'm not lying and gasghting and demanding you subsidize my lifestyle while I and the systems I support destroy the lives of everyone around you.
Yes, it is exactly because you claim that you are not doing that and that I am.
> Yep, fossil fuel based fertilizers and other chemicals aren't going away.
Yes that sentence was definitely about the fossil fuel bit and not the land use of cattle vs other protein sources.
Try a piece of intellectual honesty. How much human edible protein can be produced on an acre of land being used for corn and soy cow feed? Now how much on the same land with the same fertiliser input with a combination of plants and free range chickens? How much even if you sacrifice some yield to use organic methods?
> Your wild conspiratorial fringe theories and claims are just false. For example The US Animal Welfare Act (AWA) was signed into law on August 24, 1966. Name any country and you'll be able to find laws and regulations for basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
And almost all of those countries have laws specifically criminalising whistleblowing or documenting violations or turns the burden of proof for libel onto the defendant. Here's one that criminalises having footage.
> Yes that sentence was definitely about the fossil fuel bit and not the land use of cattle vs other protein sources.
You directed it generally. Now you're upset that I replied to what you wrote.
> Try a piece of intellectual honesty. How much human edible protein can be produced on an acre of land being used for corn and soy cow feed? Now how much on the same land with the same fertiliser input with a combination of plants and free range chickens? How much even if you sacrifice some yield to use organic methods?
I don't know the numbers. Chicken is a very cheap source of protein, much cheaper than a huge range of plant based protein actually. Are we moving the bar for sinning to "thou shalt not consume any plant protein more expensive than chicken"? How about bugs? You have to kill them to eat them, right? Or does the holy book have some kind of complicated sin taxonomy here?
> And almost all of those countries have laws specifically criminalising whistleblowing or documenting violations or turns the burden of proof for libel onto the defendant. Here's one that criminalises having footage.
That does not support your false claim that these countries do not have basic animal right or environmental regulation though.
> You directed it generally. Now you're upset that I replied to what you wrote.
More dishonesty.
> I don't know the numbers. Chicken is a very cheap source of protein, much cheaper than a huge range of plant based protein actually. Are we moving the bar for sinning to "thou shalt not consume any plant protein more expensive than chicken"? How about bugs? You have to kill them to eat them, right? Or does the holy book have some kind of complicated sin taxonomy here?
Yes. That's the entire point. Grain fed factory cattle farming is cruel and unsustainable. Option two is much less cruel and can be done for the same cost with solar derived hydrogen and takes a fraction of the land. There are organic methods that would see the same yield as option two with a slightly larger fraction of the land and would do less damage to the soil.
> That does not support your false claim that these countries do not have basic animal right or environmental regulation though.
A law that is never enforced and which whistleblowing of is criminalised is not holding anyone to any standard. I never claimed there was no law. I correctly claimed that farms were not held to account.
Do you admit you choose to inflict pain and suffering and death on animals for your own comfort, as you condemn others for doing the same?
> A law that is never enforced
Source on the wild conspiratorial claim that environmental and animal rights laws are never enforced? Don't make me google a counter example that proves you wrong for the nth time.
Wonderful.
> I'm saying we should stop factory farming cattle that are fed with heavily subsidized, fossil fuel grown crops, stop clearing land for more cattle, and hold the meat industry to some basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
Oh, I didn't see where you were saying that.
Almost all global food production has large fossil fuel based inputs, land clearing is the unfortunate reality of growing population and consumption but at least the market allocates it somewhat efficiently, and its quite fungible, so it makes no more sense to say no more land to be used for cows than it does to say no more land to be used for almonds or tomatoes or quinoa. And in the western world at least animal farming and the meat industry is held to some basic environmental and animal welfare standards.
> You're welcome to continue eating what meat is available in such a world and should thank anyone you meet who eats less so that your combined share of a sustainable world can meet your personal demands.
I don't know or care about your fantasy world, but I am quite welcome to eat meat that is available in the world I find myself living in. Just like you are quite welcome to buy a new iphone every year or go on frivolous vacations to ski or sight-see whenever you choose to.