New Zealand’s pasture based systems aren’t exactly the idealistic visions people have of them. Even just environmentally, their attempts to scale them up have required huge amounts of fertilizer and lead to huge amounts of pollution. For instance for their dairy production:
The large footprint for milk in Canterbury indicates just how far the capacity of the environment has been overshot. To maintain that level of production and have healthy water would require either 12 times more rainfall in the region or a 12-fold reduction in cows.
[…]
The “grass-fed” marketing line overlooks the huge amounts of fossil-fuel-derived fertiliser used to make the extra grass that supports New Zealand’s very high animal stock rates.
Since you obviously didn’t post the OP looking for good faith discussion in the first place (and your comments in the thread more than attest to that fact), I’m perfectly happy with you not replying to my comments.
Given that any meat a normal person consumes is produced unethically in deplorable conditions, I don’t think it can be the ethical choice. If you raise the animals yourself and kill them quickly and humanely, sure. Or even go hunting and eat the meat. Fish and eat the fish. Otherwise, I don’t see how anyone could contend it’s ethical.
My dad is a conservative red blooded american, and he rarely consumes meat because he has worked in and around a number of factory farms of varying sizes. From chickens, pigs, to cattle. It’s all produced in truly abhorrent ways.
Your attitude betrays some level of cognitive dissonance imo, but what do I know, I’m just a lemming.
We were talking about how dominant factory farming is, and how things that try not to do that do not scale. The response to that was to ignore this and throw up hands and say “eh, guess we can’t do anything”. Am I’m supposed to instead assume that one has to eat meat and ignore that we don’t have to?
New Zealand’s pasture based systems aren’t exactly the idealistic visions people have of them. Even just environmentally, their attempts to scale them up have required huge amounts of fertilizer and lead to huge amounts of pollution. For instance for their dairy production:
https://theconversation.com/11-000-litres-of-water-to-make-one-litre-of-milk-new-questions-about-the-freshwater-impact-of-nz-dairy-farming-183806
Damn, guess I’ll just keep eating 100% factory farmed then.
You can always stop eating meat
And you can always start
I was going to reply to your earlier comment, but I’m now seeing there is little interest in any good faith discussion
Since you obviously didn’t post the OP looking for good faith discussion in the first place (and your comments in the thread more than attest to that fact), I’m perfectly happy with you not replying to my comments.
My comments, which are heavily sourced and cited, show that?
Yup. Very, very clearly.
Given that any meat a normal person consumes is produced unethically in deplorable conditions, I don’t think it can be the ethical choice. If you raise the animals yourself and kill them quickly and humanely, sure. Or even go hunting and eat the meat. Fish and eat the fish. Otherwise, I don’t see how anyone could contend it’s ethical.
My dad is a conservative red blooded american, and he rarely consumes meat because he has worked in and around a number of factory farms of varying sizes. From chickens, pigs, to cattle. It’s all produced in truly abhorrent ways.
Your attitude betrays some level of cognitive dissonance imo, but what do I know, I’m just a lemming.
We were talking about how dominant factory farming is, and how things that try not to do that do not scale. The response to that was to ignore this and throw up hands and say “eh, guess we can’t do anything”. Am I’m supposed to instead assume that one has to eat meat and ignore that we don’t have to?