From: ens@ccu.umanitoba.ca ()
Subject: Re: Combine'd' laziness
Organization: University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 10:58:28 GMT

In <C18554.JnI@wpg.com> russ@wpg.com (Russell Lawrence) writes:

>The arguments against animal agriculture involve three separate 
>concerns:

>1) ethical arguments regarding the rights and/or suffering of 
>   animals;
>2) public health issues stemming from the role of animal fats and
>   proteins in fostering disease; and
>3) environmental arguments.


1)
The only believable reason for dogmatic rejection of all animal
agriculture is (1). The other two are rationalizations.

I doubt that any vegans would change their view if it were shown
than a diet including animal products were as healthy and as 
environmentally benign as a vegan diet.

2)
People concerned only with health and have no ethical qualms about
animals, are not absolute about their diets (or the use of leather).
There are, after all, unhealthy vegetable products (some mushrooms
e.g.), and even nutritionists that reject red meat concede there are
healthy animal foods (certain seafood e.g., skinned chicken, even).

[Me, I would need much more solid evidence that an omnivore diet
really reduces longevity, to alter my diet. In the absence of a
consensus among the experts, I think the natural course is the most
prudent. And a consensus that a specific food slightly increases the
risk of a specific disease is not enough, since it may at the same time
provide resistance to other diseases. It is known for example that
radiation increases the incidence of cancer, and this was observed
among the Japanese survivors near N. and H., but damned if those
survivors (those that did not die from radiation poisoning) didn't
have a longer overall life-expectancy than Japanese in similar
unradiated cities. Could radiation at some level have a net benefit?
That may be over-interpreting the data, but at the same time, although
we know radiation causes cancer, it could not be proven that it
reduces life-expectancy in a fairly extreme experiment.]

3) The environment issue (re animals) strikes me as strictly bogus.
Could anyone seriously worry about cow farts if they were not already
philosophically opposed to eating cows? And increasing our grain surplus
will not alleviate world hunger until you convince society to be more
charitable. It's like leading bankers to a gold mine in the
hope of alleviating poverty. Furthermore, the environmental arguments
do not support an absolute vegan philosophy. As someone else said,
hunting e.g. (including the seal hunt) is environmentally benign.

If there were people that were not animal apologists, but were
concerned about the environmental aspects of animal farming, I
would consider it as an independent issue. But when people have a
moral cause to defend, it is difficult to take their rationalization
seriously.  As a casual observer to the study of the origin of life, I
probably couldn't refute a creationists' 'scientific evidence', but I
would dismiss their 'evidence' simply because of their moral interest.

>Vis-a-vis the last issue, opponents of reform often muddy the water
>by arguing that water and energy conservationists should focus
>on non-livestock use of water and energy rather than livestock use.
>The problem with this allegation is that there's no unifying theme
>that ties together these diverse areas of agriculture... apart from
>the fact that they don't involve animals.

Try 'agriculture' as a unifying theme. There are as many diverse
applications of animal agriculture as there are of non-animal a.

Werner