I didn't say ceasing the consumption of meat would end all life as we know it, twit. I was mocking your desperate need to end death and suffering by forcing other people to change. This isn't a difference that you can reason your way around. You simply exist as an insular human being without the capability to comprehend the notion that other people experience the universe in a completely different way than you, and that you can't possibly know that it is "bad" or "good" in the grand scheme of things because you are not God.

You're making the common mistake of believing that I am trying to justify something. I'm not. I don't need to. I think the march toward this new "guilt free" age of urban life is funny. I think you're the one trying to justify something that can't be justified by your measure.....our existence. To assume that you're the "ethical" one is to assume that your entire view of death and suffering is the only acceptable reality. Which... Is amusing to me. As I said, you can't possibly know that. This is the circle of life, and it's closed. You can't escape it. The cow can't escape it. Your dog/cat/whatever can't escape it.

You're also pretty far behind on your science. There are 7 billion people on this earth. EVERYTHING we do is inefficient and destructive by every objective measure. You apparently know very little about permaculture, which incorporates meat and plant production in an extremely efficient manner, and in that system meat produces far more energy per pound than any plant product. Eating meat in a balanced diet is extremely beneficial, and frankly I find it hilarious that people are still arguing the point.

Look. I know how hard it is for urban electricity junkies such as yourself to accept that your way of life is unavoidably destructive to the entire world, that people raising meat in a permaculture setting....and killing them for food.....are by every objective measure LESS destructive than you are. But that's your reality. You live in a densely packed energy hog society that you need to justify, at the expense of objectivity. Keep working though. Maybe one day you'll be able to justify the amount of energy it actually takes to grow wheat, tomatoes, and everything else for 7 billion people. Keep telling me that open range cattle do more damage to the environment than thousands and thousands of square miles of tilled, plowed, and harvested land.