Everyone should become Lacto-vegetarian/vegan

"First of all you can't force people to eat what they don't want to eat" - This point is irrelevant to the argument; I merely state that everyone SHOULD become lacto-vegetarians/vegans and that we would have a better world and a better society if this is to be achieved. At no point did I mention anything about forcing people. "second of all someone has to keep animals in check and that is the human society if all meat eaters stopped eating meat there would be a huge overpopulation of animals" - The first comment is not explained clearly; for what reason does someone need to be keeping animals in check? Also, without the murder of animals, what is preventing us from keeping these animals in check? I can't argue back until you make that clear. The second statement is a common assumption that is often mistaken by meat eaters. There would be no overpopulation of animals; with the number of farm animals currently living in the world I can understand why it may seem so but that is only due to the mass breeding of livestock animals that takes place in order to provide more animals to be killed for their meat or to be kept for their produce (dairy/eggs/wool). Without the excessive breeding managed by the farming industry, the overpopulation of animals will most certainly not be any more of a problem than it is today. Whilst on the subject of doing what is best for the environment; bringing a halt to meat eating would greatly reduce the impact of climate change. "There are three times as many domestic animals on this planet as there are human beings. The combined weight of the world's 1.28 billion cattle alone exceeds that of the human population. While we look darkly at the number of babies being born in poorer parts of the world, we ignore the over-population of farm animals, to which we ourselves contribute...[t]hat, however, is only part of the damage done by the animals we deliberately breed. The energy intensive factory farming methods of the industrialised nations are responsible for the consumption of huge amounts of fossil fuels. Chemical fertilizers, used to grow the feed crops for cattle in feedlots and pigs and chickens kept indoors in sheds, produce nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas. Then there is the loss of forests. Everywhere, forest-dwellers, both human and non-human, can be pushed out. Since 1960, 25 percent of the forests of Central America have been cleared for cattle. Once cleared, the poor soils will support grazing for a few years; then the graziers must move on. Shrub takes over the abandoned pasture, but the forest does not return. When the forests are cleared so the cattle can graze, billions of tons of carbon dioxide are released into the atmosphere. Finally, the world's cattle are thought to produce about 20 percent of the methane released into the atmosphere, and methane traps twenty-five times as much heat from the sun as carbon dioxide." Those are the words of Peter Singer and, with my knowledge from in depth research, I could not put it any better. In 2009 researchers from the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency published their projections of the greenhouse gas consequences if humanity came to eat less meat, no meat, or no animal products at all. The researchers predicted that universal veganism would reduce agriculture-related carbon emissions by 17 percent, methane emissions by 24 percent, and nitrous oxide emissions by 21 percent by 2050. Universal vegetarianism would result in similarly impressive reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. These figures have not and cannot be proven for certain without being tested, but for those of you disagreeing that it should be tested - have a look at our world now; look at the increase of global warming that has taken place over the last few decades - we are risking the future of our planet for our own greed and desire for meat. On the subject of solving the issue of starvation: Continued growth in meat output is dependent on feeding grain to animals, and it takes up to 16 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of edible animal flesh; on average it takes 21 pounds of protein fed to a calf to produce a single pound of animal protein for humans. We get back less than 5 percent of what we put in. According to the USDA and the United Nations, using an acre of land to raise cattle for slaughter yields 20 pounds of usable protein. That same acre would yield 356 pounds of protein if soybeans were grown instead"". It should be no surprise, then, that food for a vegan can be produced on only 1/6 of an acre of land, while it takes 3 1/4 acres of land to produce food for a meat-eater. By ceasing to rear and kill animals for food, we can make so much extra food available for humans that, properly distributed, it would eliminate starvation and malnutrition. The meat industry is thus highly inefficient and, on top of the vast amount of land, resources, water and fossil fuels wasted, and the harmful gas emissions, farming (factory farming in particular) is also wasting extremely high amounts of energy that - if we transfer to vegetarian/veganism - could be stored and used to support more important causes. So, in conclusion - being a more efficient and environmentally friendly option - bringing a halt to eating meat would be the better option even if we discard the idea that we should not have the right to violate the animals. Yes, with such a large meat industry a forestalling of this could not happen over night but gradually as more people stop eating meat, the farms and factories will stop breeding so heavily and will require a lower energy consumption; this energy and space will then be transferred to produce more plants in order to meet the demands of the markets and, eventually, we could achieve it. Back to your arguments: "human is the most important race and takes priority over all other animals" - Here you have provided a statement but have given no evidence to back it up. What makes humans the most important race? We have priority over all animals merely because we are far more intelligent and thus the more dominant of species, but by no means does this mean that we should kill them. Anyhow, all the arguments to prove man's superiority cannot shatter the fact that: in suffering the animals are our equals. They feel pain and suffer just as we do and, therefore, it just as evil to inflict pain upon an animal as it is on a human. "many humans depend on meat products dietarily and hunting for financial reasons" - Again you have not explained your statement and in doing so you haven't given a proper argument that I can defend. Humans don't depend on meat products for their diet; they just see it as the easiest and most desirable option. I cannot name specific examples as you have not given me any examples to defend against but there are so many vegetarian/vegan alternative foods that offer the same nutritional values as meat. And hunting for financial reasons? That is no excuse to hunt animals, if anything that proves my argument further as those particular people are murdering animals as a means to one's end. It's absurd to think that people are acting immorally like that just for the money - and this can't be used as an excuse. That would be like justifying prostitution because people only do it for financial reasons, or contract-killing etc. Besides there are plenty of other jobs paying equal wages that do not require such unnecessary violence.