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DctrLife t1_ix7nunr wrote

If anyone cares about environmentalism beyond climate change, there is no possible argument for animal agriculture. And even merely considering climate change makes it clear animal agriculture needs to be reduced.

This all without considering the moral reasons one could easily use to justify the abolition of the institutions of animal agriculture

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tuctrohs t1_ix7px51 wrote

The scale of it is astounding. From OP's link, 94% of non-human mammal biomass is livestock, and 71% of bird biomass is poultry livestock.

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UsandoFXOS t1_ixairyh wrote

Woooow, so we have multiplied the mammal population on earth by ten respect the "natural" population.

In other words, we have enslaved 90% of other mammals 😔

The most sad is to see the STUPID smile of friends and neighbours when i comment this kind of facts in social meets, and they only answer stupid things like: it's so delicious animal meat.

I feel that this kind of people would be able to eat me if we would live on a parallel dystopian society 🤔

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JCPRuckus t1_ixalao2 wrote

>Woooow, so we have multiplied the mammal population on earth by ten respect the "natural" population.

We've also eliminated a lot of habitat so we can live there, and hunted several species into, or near, extinction on land and in the sea. So, all of that is biomass that would "naturally" exist without our interference. So, no, we haven't multiplied the biomass by 10x what it would "naturally" be.

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frostygrin t1_ix7qqit wrote

Farmed bivalves look pretty good, actually. Eggs too. This attitude of summary judgment of all animal agriculture is unhelpful.

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DctrLife t1_ix9gagq wrote

This is actually a pretty good footnote that a developed discussion should take into account.

As a Vegan (moral position on animals), there is pretty solid evidence that bivalves can be consumed by vegans morally due to their seeming absence of cognitive process.

And the environmental impacts of bivalves in particular are, to my understanding, the best of any form of animal agriculture. They actually increase the cleanliness of water because they are filter feeder, and they don't take up land that is used for other things for the most part

I don't eat them at this juncture. But I see no moral or environmental issue with those who do so, and think one can safely identify themselves as vegan and still eat them.

And the issue with eggs is a bit different. You still have animals that inefficiently convert plant-calories into non-plant calories, taking up land for them to live on, and the land to produce the food to feed them. You end up with massive quantities of chicken waste, which, while better managed than cow waste, still ends up polluting the local environment.

And as a side note, for commercial agriculture, egg production is still atrocious.

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Corvid-Moon OP t1_ix9lrz4 wrote

I can grant that bivalves are ethically ambiguous, but you're right, eggs certainly are not. The commenter you responded to diminishes the harsh reality by saying:

>This attitude of 'summary judgment of all animal agriculture' is unhelpful.

Likely so they don't have to think about the consequences of their consumer choices & continue with the status quo, likely not even going so far as to only consume the things they deem okay to continue consuming; though of course I hope I'm wrong. Hopefully they look into it more & come to right conclusions on matters of ethics & environment.

The following is some insight into the human psychology of eating animals & why there tends to be so much push back against veganism/plant-based eating in general:

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oliverstr t1_ix84r8y wrote

Of course but the data is skewed as well it should be on nutritional value rather than weight

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[deleted] t1_ix8hi6k wrote

That seems a little exaggerated. Red meat is terrible, but poultry and eggs are a lot less bad.

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