Climate chief, Lord Stern of Brentford, has said that we should give up meat to save the planet from global warming.
While it's undeniable that rearing herds of animals for meat is bad for the environment, is vegetarianism the answer - or even an answer? This is not an entirely scientific response to Lord Stern but there are a few points more serious responses have missed that have occurred to my flu-addled brain.
In order to provide vegetarians with dairy products, cattle must be bred. But only females are needed for milk. The males will not be sent off to live out their lives happily in green pastures; apart from a few kept for breeding, they will be slaughtered. The same goes for male chicks in egg production. The bodies will have to be disposed of, either as landfill or by burning, both of which have health and ecology implications.
Apart from environmental issues, this also removes any moral high ground from vegetarians. What's more, in Veggie World, anyone who eats meat but not dairy would be forced into veganism. That's not just lactose intolerant Westerners but a large proportion of the population of Asia.
Veganism may be the only true moral position regarding the exploitation of animals. But it has its problems as vegans don't eat honey. The bees that produce honey also pollinate crops as well as wild flowers and other flora essential to a healthy eco-system. Wild bees are not enough. So if we all became vegan, the planet would be headed for disaster unless we all kept bees as pets (not such a bad idea).
What would Veggie World be like?
Pigs would disappear. Children would grow up learning about them as semi-mythical beasts from the past, along with dodos. Or possibly they could see them in zoos. People who overeat could no longer be meaningfully compared with pigs. The film Babe might be mistaken for a historically accurate tale of pig farming. Sheep and goats would go too, apart from a few breeds used for cheese. Breeding sheep for wool would probably end as wool is a non-essential fabric. All the religious iconography and symbolism about lambs would become obscure. The Lamb of God and the Good Shepherd would become empty images. None of this is necessarily a bad thing.
Humans aren't the only ones who eat meat. What would cats and dogs eat? If humans have to stop eating meat, feeding it to pets could hardly be justified. Apart from guide dogs and police dogs, man's best carnivore friend would become a thing of the past. Farmers wouldn't need dogs any more as there would be no sheep to herd. One Man and His Dog would never be seen on TV again. Nor would Crufts. Again, not necessarily a bad thing if it meant that Ben Fogle was on TV less. There would be no dog poo in the world either. The Andrex puppy would be no more. The Internet would no longer be flooded with pets in cute poses or dressed up in clothes. A whole section of the greetings card industry would be threatened; no more pictures of fluffy puppies and kittens.
Macdonalds would either go out of business or switch to making meat-flavoured veggie burgers. We'd all be eating a lot more beans to get our protein. Methane produced by farm animals farting is one of the contributors to global warming but six billion people farting constantly is not going to do the ozone layer any favours. Incidentally, rice paddies also give off methane.
We do eat more meat than is good for the planet and many of us eat more than is healthy for us but as far as vegetarianism being the solution - Stern really hasn't thought this through.
ETA: I now appear to have swine flu. The irony is not lost on me.
http://layscience.net/trackback/714
Hmm... you're asserting that we become vegan because of cows, then extend that to not eating honey. How about we just stop drinking milk? I'm a committed omnivore, by the way; just thinking out loud, and for a long time now, I've used the "vegetarian world" model as a way of disputing vegetarianism as a life-style option that has anything more behind it than "not the poor lambkins!" squeamishness.
OK, so to summarise your post, we should scale back consumption of milk in proportion to that of meat, and not quite to zero, just quite a long way.
The honey seems to be a red herring - you seem to have said
a) If we don't consume milk we're vegans
b) Vegans don't eat honey
therefore:
c) If we don't consume milk, we must also not consume honey
Prof David Mackay (http://withouthotair.com) recommends reducing meat & dairy consumption to once a week as a means to reducing energy use. He quotes all his figures.
No, I'm just saying that veganism has its problems and that vegetarianism is not the solution Stern thinks it is.
I'd also add, my understanding is that the UK would gradually become over-run with deer, since we have eliminated all their natural predators other than ourselves. Well, I suppose people could cull deer without actually eating them but what would be the point of that? Maybe rabbits too, although the foxes might keep those down a bit.
I do accept that there are strong environmental arguments in favour of eating LESS meat and dairy products. But not for total veganism or vegetarianism.
I think that Tessa's reductio ad absurdum is entertaining and thought provoking but since many advocates call for less meat-eating is perhaps relevant only to more extreme views.
If we are being vegetarians for climate change, then the 'goodness' of not eating meat is proportional to the amount of meant *not produced*. Or, in more straightforward terms, the less meat is produced, the lesser the impact on the environment.
Game, such as deer, is not included since it is not 'produced'. It would indeed be culled and preferably eaten (since this is less wasteful and environmentally unfriendly than disposing of it).
Scaling back the number pets is also a good way of scaling back environmental impact. Dogs especially chomp their ways through lots of meat.
Complete vegetarianism for all humans is probably impractical. But we could eat much less meat.
Deer condoms?
You make a strong point about the dairy and veganism - a lacto-ovo vegetarian still can make a difference by cutting back on dairy products.
It's worth pointing out that Stern himself has admitted not being a strict vegetarian. Saying we should all give up meat for the planet is akin to someone saying something like "it would be good for the planet if we all stop driving." Sure, it would be, but almost everyone will still need to drive (or take the bus, otherwise burn fossil fuels to get around) at least a little. It's just a direction we should be moving in.
Deer condoms? The mind boggles.
And yes, game is a different category from meat that's "produced" but even if you look at meat "production" the picture's a lot less clear than Stern suggests. Much of what we think of as beautiful natural countryside in the Alps, Pyrenees, Welsh mountains or Lake District is actually created and maintained by grazing sheep or cattle. Without pastoralism the pasture and meadow would degenerate into scrubland, which becomes unstable and (at least in the Alps/Pyrenees) avalanche-prone.
This is only one example of a land-type that is unsuitable for agriculture but excellent for quality meat production. There are others, eg salt marshes which yield some of the finest lamb imaginable but are scarcely suited to growing grain.
You could argue that we should remove the herds and allow these types of land to revert to their truly natural states (which might well be unfit for human habitation). But I'm not convinced there is any value in doing so.
COI: been ~vegan for 7 years now (though I do eat honey from a local source, in preference to imported cane sugar or pesticide-intensive sugarbeet). I also don't drive. It's not difficult, just logical.
If we stopped farming animals, biodiversity wld prob be better maintained & even increased. In practice we farm a very few varieties of animal, and removing a single breed dominating many ecosystems would allow greater diversity.
Pets - again, these going is not such a bad thing, from a resource use POV. Dogs can live on a vegetarian diet. Cats can't synthesise taurine, but tend to feed themselves anyway. If you really want a companion animal, keep chickens or a pig, feed them scraps, and eat them. Very efficient, as meat goes.
If the Welsh hills didn't have sheep, they'd be a better carbon sink, because sheep keep the biomass down.
If beans make you fart, you aren't cooking them right. Anyway, still much more efficient to eat beans directly I'm afraid.
Sorry, logical choice is still to go veggie - along with other 'green' measures.
Here is a good video on the subject: http://meat.org
I don't have room to keep pigs and chickens in my flat. I could maybe manage a guinea pig - I hear they're good eating.
I'd say before you give up meat eating, I suggest you first take a basic critical thinking class. Your post is full of too many logical fallacies for me to list. I teach logic to university students. If you handed in this "argument" (I use the term loosely), I'd give you an 'F', maybe a 'D' because at least you seem to have a good sense of humor. Try this page to start:.
Before you go giving up meat eating, I suggest you first take a critical thinking class. Your blog commits too many logical fallacies for me to even begin to list. I teach logic at university. If you handed in this 'argument' (I use the term loosely), I would give you an 'F'. Maybe a 'D' because you at least seem to have a sense of humor.
Robert: I suggest you quit teaching logic until you learn to read because the argument in the post was against giving up meat eating.
This is great! I often wonder who it was that started this nonsense anyway. Doesn't anyone read their history books or the Bible. We are supposed to eat cows! We are supposed to eat fish! Look at the starving countries who worship cows instead of eating them. Common sense anyone? casino en ligne
Speaking as a convenience vegetarian (known to vegetarians as a slacker), I've never understood vegetarians/vegans who want (to force) everyone else to stop eating meat.
Still, you raise an interesting point: Can dogs/cats/whatever pets live on meat substitutes? ;)
Biodiversity measured in prairies grazed by cattle is actually higher than that of "wild" prairies as grazing limits the growth of invasive species.
The land used to grow grain etc. did not always do so. It has been modified to grow crops to feed us. That has an impact on teh ecosystem. Producing grain etc. for all the veggies requires vasts amount of energy and machinery from seeders, to either sprayers or tillers for weed control, combines to harvest, trucks to transport grain, factories to process and produce food products and to deliver them to your door. Don't even start me on the amounts of rodents, birds and other unfortunate animals and their nests that are run over during these processes. Far more of these animals are killed in the production of grain than in any cattle production. So technically your beans aren't really vegan since animals were in fact harmed in its production.
Being a vegetarian/vegan does not reduce your impact on the environment.
As far as I know, cats CAN'T POSITIVELY EAT ANYTHING BUT MEAT. They are natural carnivoures; they lack the ability to extract nutrients from plants, they have a less capable liver, and a lot of things we enjoy (like chocolate, yum!) are POISON for cats.
What will we do with cats? Will we feed them with mouses? Are there, in a modern city, enough mouses to feed a growing population of cats? Will you buy dissecated mice as cat food?