I became a #vegetarian (aspiring #vegan) almost exclusively to contribute to reduce animal #suffering.
With time, I realised that the _other_ reasons to avoid animal-based foods are surprisingly strong, too.
🧵
1️⃣ Land usage:
[Crops for human consumption make up only 23% of all agricultural land worldwide, and yet they provide 83% of all calories](http://hannahritchie.com/convergence-nutrition-sustainability/).
Plant-based calories (and proteins) are much more efficient and require way less land and water than meat and dairy.
🇳🇱
@tripu This misses a very important point... While almost all land suitable for crops is also suitable for animals the reverse isnt true. In fact it is quite often the case animals are raised on land explicitly not suitable for crops. I dont know the exact breakdown, and that would be important to evaluate this fairly. But I know from my interaction with farmers that a great many of them raise their livestock on mountainous land not suited for crops and use fertile farmland mostly for crops.. Even when the land is flat and not mountainous it is often unsuitable for crops due to the makeup of the soil (too rocky, no good drainage, etc)
@freemo @tripu I would guess the real answer to this would be "we should try, but profits as a measure are preventing that".
Measuring something is often a problem, but especially if those measuring are profiting from it.
Full disclosure: i am eating animals, and aware i am doing something wrong here.
I would like to improve, but everything feels like fighting windmills. If i recycle, how many rich people commission a ride to space for fun, rendering it useless? This is not the only thing i would critizise, but it is endemic at this stage.
> _“I would like to improve, but everything feels like fighting windmills. If i recycle, how many rich people commission a ride to space for fun, rendering it useless?”_
I encounter that line of reasoning very often and, respectfully, I think it is bogus.
A couple ways to see that:
* When a billionaire wastes a gazillion dollars and tons of CO₂ to have a space walk, he is not “rendering your recycling useless”. Those things don't cancel each other out. A world with wasteful space walks where @admitsWrongIfProven does not recycle what is sensible to recycle is _worse_ than a world with wasteful space walks — full stop.
* I bet [you are “rich”](https://howrichami.givingwhatwecan.org/how-rich-am-i). If you avoid your responsibility, you are providing excuses not to do their part to the next in line (mid-income people, not to mention poor people).
* You would not dare use that argument when talking about big evils. You do not hit your spouse, steal money from your neighbour, throw chemical waste in a river, or torture lizzards — but you know for sure that there are lots and lots of serial killers, child molesters, criminals, war lords, genocidal rulers, etc. You do what is right, because it's right. Why then should we accept that argument for little evils?
/cc @freemo
@tripu @freemo
You certainly are right that i am - on a global perspective - rich. It is also correct that others doing bad things does not mean one should follow suit.
But it is beside the point. I never argued that eating meat was ethical, merely that i was not able to stop so far.
Just that i am relatively rich does not mean i am without fault, it does not exempt me from struggles.
What i described with the sentence you cited was meant to show that i am struggling. Not in a fight-for-your-life way, but in a struggle-to-be-happy way.
It takes a lot more energy to get motivated to do something if everything around seems to fall apart. I do what i can, i have several things going that are good.
Easy pickings first, i never wanted to fly, i never did. Having a car was more effort than it was worth, car gone. Electronic devices? Used as long as possible, no replacements for status symbol reasons. "Things" in general, i am as practical as possible.
But that specific fault of mine about eating meat remains. Because i can't find the energy to change.
Sure, others have it way worse. But that does not make it easier for me.
