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Vegetarianism, Animal Cruelty and Human Overpopulation.
StoicBuddhistAlex
Veteran
I just watched earthlings
I really dont think is viabale to stop eating meat in the short run.
But 7 billion humans it too much, no matter how much we progress if we humans keep reproducing at this rate, we will kill all biodiversity.
If we all go vegan, there is not enuf space for farms unless we again kill all forest, jungles etc.
LETS GO GET A VASECTOMY who is with me?
I really dont think is viabale to stop eating meat in the short run.
But 7 billion humans it too much, no matter how much we progress if we humans keep reproducing at this rate, we will kill all biodiversity.
If we all go vegan, there is not enuf space for farms unless we again kill all forest, jungles etc.
LETS GO GET A VASECTOMY who is with me?
0
Comments
And I don't think it's true that "we" have to "again kill all forest, jungles, etc" if most of the world were to become vegan. Do you know how much real estate a factory farm (and its surrounding buildings and feces lagoons) take(s) up? A lot. With modern advances in agriculture and even using vertical farming, the same spaces could be used to provide cruelty-free food for people.
Besides, I don't think it's realistic to expect every single person in the world to become vegan/vegetarian. It would be cool if even half the world was, but it won't be the case.
/Victor
More humans = More animals to be tortured, more resources needed to kill them with less pain.
We need to start controling human population, all the advances you say are great but it would be double benefit to also reduce population dramatically.
Its really that hard just to have 1 or 2 kids????
Population is expected to peak at around 9 billion sometime around 2050 and then slowly taper off. I think the next century will be a challenge environmentally and economically but if we, as a species, can find a way through it we'll have learnt some very important lessons.
Vegetarianism vs. meat-eating and overpopulation are linked. Animal protein is much more expensive to produce in terms of land use than vegetable protein. You can feed a lot more people on land devoted to vegetable protein than animal protein. Frances Moore Lappe first wrote about this in "Diet For A Small Planet" in the 1970's. There are farming techniques that produce a lot more food per plot than conventional farming, too. The problem is that this "vertical farming" or "french intensive farming" is very labor-intensive. It would work in countries where labor is cheap, but industrial farming developed in the West because labor is expensive, and mechanized farming is cheaper. Or was, before gas prices skyrocketed.
A multifaceted approach is needed; slowing population growth, farming more efficiently, farming to feed local populations first, rather than focussing on export crops, economic development and education for the poor, reigning in corporate power and values, re-visioning the economic system for human values and a sustainable future, etc. etc. etc....
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/world/04population.html
Ready for a poop burger with your soylent green chips?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-20072270-71/japanese-scientist-creates-poop-burger-surely-not/
Seeing as how you prefaced your original post with a link to Earthlings, I assume the topic of animal cruelty is at the forefront of this debate? If so, wouldn't it help animals more if humans ate less/no meat and advocated for animal rights than to hope for an enormously sociopathic culling of the human race?