Rational case for Vegetarianism/Veganism?

[Herzblut]

If food is scarce, and there are many mouths to feed, what is the best use of limited resources of time, energy, and most importantly, land and water?

Anything, but rice.

 

[robinson]

Why would you say that? In countries with Monsoons seasons, you can't hardly grow anything else. Much less raise animals to eat. Rice is the perfect food crop when it rains like crazy, you have lots of hands to work the fields, and a buffalo to pull a plow.

I would venture that is exactly why rice is the staple of many countries.

 

[automatthias]

On a more serious note, I now work in a job that involves a fair amount of hard physical work here and there. In order to be strong and healthy enough to do this work, I need protein and nutrients which are not easily obtained from non-meat sources.

Evidence?

Wikipedia says:

Protein intake in vegetarian and vegan diets is only slightly lower than in meat diets and can meet daily requirements for any person, including athletes and bodybuilders.

Reference: Peter Emery, Tom Sanders (2002). Molecular Basis of Human Nutrition. Taylor & Francis Ltd, p 32. ISBN 978-0748407538.

 

[Herzblut]

Why would you say that? In countries with Monsoons seasons, you can't hardly grow anything else. Much less raise animals to eat. Rice is the perfect food crop when it rains like crazy, you have lots of hands to work the fields, and a buffalo to pull a plow.

The monsoon season is just four months, correct me if I'm wrong. And, when you can have cattle to pull a plow, why can't you have some more for nutrition or business?

You mentioned China. China's agricultural economy is one of the most varied in the world, and the biggest by far.

 

[fishkr]

Eh, I've never considered that to convincing.

I mean, from an ethical point, look at it utilitarianly (Yay for making up words!).

You are killing a lot less animals than you would from meat eating, and you are not raising a large number of animals in cages to suffer just to slaughter and waste resources.

Just to be clear, I'm referring to the "by-catch" of monoculture, somethig that city and PETA members rarely think about. Trillions of animals are ground up by combines and tractors, poisoned by pesticides, dispaced from their natural environment, harmed indirectly by oil production used by agribusiness machinery, killed on the road during transportation.

Are you really killing less by eating vegatables? I suspect that this would be a more difficult calculation than you might at first think. Take just one step in the process of a meat crop vs vegatable crop production; The Harvest. With meat you round up the animals, walk them into pens, or trucks, and either slaughter them there or transport them. Vegetables, in most cases require vast areas of ground to be mechanically raised to stubble, or in the case of root vegatables, turned over. Harvest is cataclysm to animals that dwell on that land.

And which killing is worse? Less ethical? Killing an animal crop that has been raised as a food source that will be completely utilized, or killing countless sentient animals in thoughtless waste, leaving them to suffer and rot in fields or alongside roads?

There is a lot of "Free Range" beef production in Idaho. Cows eating grass in the open country. Compared to monoculture it is idyllic, both for cows and (if properly managed) the land.

M

 

[robinson]

The monsoon season is just four months, correct me if I'm wrong. And, when you can have cattle to pull a plow, why can't you have some more for nutrition or business?

Looking at India, they do and apparently always have used cattle for nutrition. They use the milk, in many forms, having figured out various ways to preserve milk products in the stifling heat and humidity of the climate.

No doubt due to some practical value in not slaughtering animals, but keeping them alive, to both do work and provide nutrition.

The amount of land required to graze or feed cattle may prevent a large population in a tropical climate from eating lots of meat. It is an interesting situation.

China and Indochina are a very interesting subject, on many levels.

 

[quarky]

There's lots of talk about food lately, on talk radio shows, in magazines, on the news.
I get the feeling that an increasing number of people have really no idea what to eat.
Overly processed foods have come under a lot of scrutiny of late, as has factory raised meat and agro-corp veggies. Even wild fish are suspect as a good food in some places.

As food prices rise and re-calls continue, the confusion is likely to increase.

Its very difficult to decide what to eat when we have an abundance.
I'm more confused about diet than at any time in my life, possibly because I'm more open minded than I was.
perhaps parameters are needed, however non-scientific, simply to reduce confusion?

I'd like to try a diet (for a while) that was completely from trees. i wonder if its do-able?
There are some tropical trees that have edible leaves.

Does anyone know what to eat?
What's for dinner?

 

[Roboramma]

Just to be clear, I'm referring to the "by-catch" of monoculture, somethig that city and PETA members rarely think about. Trillions of animals are ground up by combines and tractors, poisoned by pesticides,

I thought that's what you were talking about.
Those things, though, are equally, and actually more, true for grain-fed meat. We still have to grow those grains that they're fed on, and so those same problems occur. And concidering that feeding a cow grain, then eating the cow requires ten times as many calories as you would get out of just eating the grain itself, this problem is only hightened by grain-fed meat.

Of course, for pasture raised meat, the problem is different, but:

dispaced from their natural environment, harmed indirectly by oil production used by agribusiness machinery, killed on the road during transportation.

These issues all still apply. Changing from a vegetarian diet to a meat diet won't mean that there is no "by-catch", it won't even limit the "by-catch" as far as I can see, in fact, because meat production requires more land for the same number of calories, it only increases it.

Are you really killing less by eating vegatables? I suspect that this would be a more difficult calculation than you might at first think. Take just one step in the process of a meat crop vs vegatable crop production; The Harvest. With meat you round up the animals, walk them into pens, or trucks, and either slaughter them there or transport them. Vegetables, in most cases require vast areas of ground to be mechanically raised to stubble, or in the case of root vegatables, turned over. Harvest is cataclysm to animals that dwell on that land.

Do you really think, though, that more animals are displaced by the same number of calories of vegetable production as meat production? On average?
Turning vegetation in to meat, then eating the meat is inherently less efficient than simply eating the vegetation.

Now, it's true that same land can be more efficiently used to produce meat than other crops. On the other hand, as I said earlier, if we want to have some wilderness, it's more efficient to leave that land as wilderness, because the amount of food we can get from it is less than good cropland.

Nevertheless, I still think a mix of meat and vegetable food sources is the way to go - I just think that we should limit meat, at least if we're interested in our natural environment.

And which killing is worse? Less ethical? Killing an animal crop that has been raised as a food source that will be completely utilized, or killing countless sentient animals in thoughtless waste, leaving them to suffer and rot in fields or alongside roads?

Isn't this off-topic? The topic isn't about whether vegetarianism is more ethical from the perspective of animal suffering or killing, but whether it's more environmentally sound.
Anyway, it's odd the way you phrase it - "killing an animal crop that has been reaised as a food source that will be competely utilized" vs
"killing countless sentient animals in thoughtless waste, leaving them to suffer and rot in feilds or alongside roads"
It's funny that the first is put in completely emotionless language, while the second is... not.
For instance, that "animal crop" consists of "countless sentient animals" just as much as your "by-catch" does.
I might also point out that you've skipped over the issue of how the animals are treated while they're alive, which I think is at least as important.

There is a lot of "Free Range" beef production in Idaho. Cows eating grass in the open country. Compared to monoculture it is idyllic, both for cows and (if properly managed) the land.

Agreed - it sounds wonderful. On the other hand, how long do they stay there? Many cows are born in such an environment, and later sent to "factory farms" to be fattened as quickly as possible.
How much more food could be produced on the same amount of land if it were vegetable crops?

 

[volatile]

A post of mine from an old thread that might be of interest here:

I became vegan because I examined diet sceptically.

First, I stopped asking why vegetarians were vegetarian and instead turned the question on myself. The real sceptical question seemed to be "Why did I eat meat?"

I found I couldn't really answer that question, as I had never given my dietary choices any serious thought. They were as ingrained, and as unquestioned, as my earlier, lazy theism was. I had simply never sat down and weighed up the relative benefits of each possible dietary choice, starting from a neutral position. I don't think many people have.

So, that's what I did. I started to list the reasons why I should choose meat eating over vegetarianism. I couldn't think of a single one, other than "Meat tastes good", and that wasn't enough. I'll guide you through my thought process:

1) Health. Is vegetarianism / veganism "healthier" than an omnivourous one? Even if it isn't, it's at least as healthy, according to the ADA. There are lots of studies pointing out the relative health risks of red meat, processed meat and all the rest, but dietary studies are notoriously unreliable, so let's leave that aside and assume that the ADA is right and cutting animal products out of your life is at least not harmful. Of course, you need to eat a balanced diet, but even omnivores don't always achieve this.

2) Environment. "Livestock are responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent, reports the FAO. This includes 9 percent of all CO2 emissions, 37 percent of methane, and 65 percent of nitrous oxide. Altogether, that's more than the emissions caused by transportation." and "70% of all grains grown in the US are fed directly to farm animals, unnecessarily adding enormous levels of pesticides, herbicides, and petrochemical fertilizers to the Earth year after year, and consuming more fresh water than any other human endeavor." (Source). It seems to me that meat consumption is more harmful to the environment than the alternative, plant-based diet. There are plenty of other ways this is borne out, particularly when you consider how wasteful it is to grow food to feed to cows to then eat! See also: over-fishing.

3) Animal suffering. I am not dogmatic or evangelical about this, and I do not believe that a) it is always wrong to kill animals, b) that animals and humans are equivalent or c) that killing animals for food is metaphysically, or morally, wrong. Nevertheless, I believe it is undoubtedly the case that animals do suffer in the production of food. Cows, pigs and chickens all feel pain. I wouldn't kill a cat or a dog or a horse for food, and so I believe that if avoiding animal suffering for other species is possible, it should be pursued wherever possible. This seems to be at least a generally tenable position given laws on animal cruelty etc. If I can live as healthily as I can on a meat based diet, but eliminate unnecessary suffering, then why shouldn't I? In this sense (and in many others), veganism just seems a sensible extension of my broader ethical stance.

4) Convenience. As I said, I am not dogmatic about my veganism, and I am certain that in some cases, having a small-holding and being self-sufficient is a "better" choice. Nevertheless, I buy my food at stores. I do not hunt, or grow my own vegetables. If the soy milk and the regular milk are right next to each other on the shelf, why should I pick the animal milk, given points 1, 2 and 3 above? If the dairy free and the real mayonnaise are right next to each other on the shelf and pretty much indistinguishable from each other, why pick the animal product given 1, 2 and 3 above?

Now, don't get me wrong - I love the taste of meat. It's just that, having considered the relative merits of both diets, I can't justify eating it. I also love driving my car really fast, but I don't because my personal preferences aren't always sufficient to justify potentially harmful behaviour. And in any case, I'm not starving or denying myself anything at all. There are vegan alternative and analogues to pretty much everything these days.

People always ask me why I'm vegan. I always turn it round and ask them why they eat meat, because when I asked myself that question I never had the answer. It's just about thinking about the way you live your life, and why you hold the beliefs you do. In my humble opinion, non-dogmatic veganism is the logical and rational dietary choice; though if anyone can make the case as to why I should eat meat, please do.

 

[EHocking]

I'd like to try a diet (for a while) that was completely from trees. i wonder if its do-able?...

Mmmm,

Arboreal Menu de Jour

Sloth Bisque
* * *
Monkey Burgers
* * *
Pangolin Pie
* * *
Kopi Luwak​

 

[dakotajudo]

Just to be clear, I'm referring to the "by-catch" of monoculture, somethig that city and PETA members rarely think about. Trillions of animals are ground up by combines and tractors, poisoned by pesticides, dispaced from their natural environment, harmed indirectly by oil production used by agribusiness machinery, killed on the road during transportation.

Trillions?

Only if you make the PETA position a strawman argument for the ethical treatment of insects.

The PETA position is pretty much limited to vertebrates, so let's consider:

Combines and tractors are pretty slow moving, so vertebrates are pretty rarely ground up. Pesticides are generally targeted to insects, not vertebrates.

Displaced, yes, that's true - but that's not slaughter on a large scale as you imply.

Killed on the road during transport? Not really; but that transport is necessary, regardless of food type - you don't live where your food is grown, do you? Beef can be hauled half-way cross-country between slaughter and sale.

The only real valid point you have is in the production of fuel, but, then again, that's a cost shared among all foods.

With meat you round up the animals, walk them into pens, or trucks, and either slaughter them there or transport them.

Slaughter them there? Where? And transport - well, we covered that.

And these pens you speak of? Bare dirt - nothing lives there with cattle walking all over, except the cattle.

Vegetables, in most cases require vast areas of ground to be mechanically raised to stubble, or in the case of root vegatables, turned over.

Meh. Fauna seem to survive the harvest, in the stubble, well enough; at least, that's my experience with grains. (Raised to stubble? What does that even mean? Crops are cut to stubble several inches off the ground - if you run the combine head at ground level you risk breaking teeth on rocks).

Harvest is cataclysm to animals that dwell on that land.

Little bit melodramatic, aren't we?

And which killing is worse? Less ethical? Killing an animal crop that has been raised as a food source that will be completely utilized, or killing countless sentient animals in thoughtless waste, leaving them to suffer and rot in fields or alongside roads?

Have you actually been in the field during harvest? There's more road kill out there because of commuter traffic than harvest vehicles.

Tractors a big, noisy and slow, cars quieter and faster; animals dodge the tractors much easier.

Crop fields - especially small grains - are largely undisturbed for most of the growing season, when animals are reproducing. Hay land, in contrast, may be multiply harvested during the time when fauna are reproducing (pheasants nesting in late May, early June, for example). There may be some slaughter of birds moving in to grain fields just prior to harvest, but, then, they move in because of all food (insects and seeds) in those fields just prior to harvest. That extra feed adds to the animal population, so what's the net cost?

And, of course, the only reason to put up hay is to keep the cattle fed over the winter. Don't have that problem with crops.

There is a lot of "Free Range" beef production in Idaho.Compared to monoculture it is idyllic, both for cows and (if properly managed) the land.

Lot here, too. Cattle (or ranchers) have displaced coyotes, rabbits, skunks, badgers, on and on ...; it's not like Bambi and Thumper in the forest out there.

And, of course, pasture land can be just as intensely managed as crop land - pesticides applied to control insects (grasshoppers will strip grass, too). There is actually very little native grassland anymore; it's all planted grasses. You can, of course, manage pasture land with very little input, but I doubt there's enough of that to maintain the some 100,000,000 head of cattle in this country.

Really, the only way to make land fauna-friendly is to take it out of production entirely. No crops, no cattle, no people. But as long at the human population continues to increase, we have to add to land in production.

On the positive side, though, crop yields, per acre, have been increasing pretty steadily since the green revolution - more people can be fed per acre than ever before. Some of that is agronomic inputs (fertilizer and the like), but much is due to breeding and improved genetics (harvest index has increased, which means more biomass harvested and less left in the field).

I'm not sure about beef yields - that's not my area of expertise. Has the efficiency of cattle production kept pace with crops?

 

[dakotajudo]

volatile, your post is for the most part well thought out. But I have a couple of concerns.

1) Health. Is vegetarianism / veganism "healthier" than an omnivourous one? Even if it isn't, it's at least as healthy, according to the ADA. There are lots of studies pointing out the relative health risks of red meat, processed meat and all the rest, but dietary studies are notoriously unreliable, so let's leave that aside and assume that the ADA is right and cutting animal products out of your life is at least not harmful. Of course, you need to eat a balanced diet, but even omnivores don't always achieve this.

This is the big one. Is a strictly plant-based diet balanced?

My reading of the literature suggests that plant-based diets should be supplemented with some animal products - eggs or milk, if not meat - to replace nutrient deficiencies associated with plant-only diets. B12 and iodine, calcium to some extent (in that while plant material can be high in calcium, it's not available calcium - tends to be bound in the cell wall).

Do you have a reference for the ADA? I can find references to a position paper about vegetarian diets, but I can't find the paper itself, so I'm not sure if vegetarian means "plant only" or "meatless"

There are plenty of other ways this is borne out, particularly when you consider how wasteful it is to grow food to feed to cows to then eat!

On the other hand, is it possible to grow locally a complete diet based only on plant material? Does the need for variety in a vegetarian diet create a potential for waste as well?

That is, corn yields ~ 140 bushels per acre; soybeans ~ 50, dry beans ~ 30. While most corn goes to cattle, the same ground wouldn't produce the equivalent mass of feed for humans. There's waste in converting nitrogen to protein; the difference between corn yield and dry bean yield is just that.

I'm not arguing that converting nitrogen to cattle protein isn't to some degree wasteful, just pointing out that it might not be as wasteful as you think.

If the soy milk and the regular milk are right next to each other on the shelf, why should I pick the animal milk, given points 1, 2 and 3 above? If the dairy free and the real mayonnaise are right next to each other on the shelf and pretty much indistinguishable from each other, why pick the animal product given 1, 2 and 3 above?

I don't think soy milk and regular are equivalent. For example, less calcium is absorbed from soymilk than from dairy milk. How do the amino-acid profiles compare?

Does mayonnaise have dairy? I thought mayo was just oil and egg white?

 

[volatile]

This is the big one. Is a strictly plant-based diet balanced?

It certainly can be - and there are non-animal sources for pretty much every nutrient (including B12) except maybe DHA. If you read dietary studies of balanced vegan diets, they show no deficiencies (particularly in things like calcium, which is abundant in the vegetable kingdom - "Fortunately, many good sources of calcium exist. These include seaweeds such as kelp, wakame and hijiki; nuts and seeds (like almonds and sesame); blackstrap molasses; beans; oranges; figs; quinoa; amaranth; collard greens; okra; rutabaga; broccoli; dandelion leaves; kale; and fortified products such as orange juice and soy milk". (wiki)).

These are not as bio-available, sure, but vegans should be eating all of the above (particularly greens etc.) in vast quantities anyway. I seem to recall a study testing things like bone densities of long-term vegans vs omnivores and finding no differences. I'm off out, but I can dig the reference out for you if you'd like. It'll be on PubMed or Google Scholar, I'm sure.

Do you have a reference for the ADA? I can find references to a position paper about vegetarian diets, but I can't find the paper itself, so I'm not sure if vegetarian means "plant only" or "meatless"

Well, you probably found the reference at http://www.vrg.org/nutrition/adapaper.htm. There is a reference to the same in a USA Today article that says ""Appropriately planned" vegetarian and vegan diets have nutritional advantages, including low levels of saturated fat and cholesterol, says a 2003 position statement from the ADA" - http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/painter/2008-01-27-your-health_N.htm and, as far as I can tell, no evidence at all that a planned and balanced vegan diet is detrimental to health in any way.

On the other hand, is it possible to grow locally a complete diet based only on plant material? Does the need for variety in a vegetarian diet create a potential for waste as well?

The answer to the first question is "Probably", and the answer the the second is "probably not any more than an omnivorous one", I'd imagine, though these are hunches. As I said in my post, I don't doubt that an entirely locally-produced (or even self-produced) omnivorous diet is 'better' by some of the criteria I take into account. Nevertheless, it's not possible for me, right now, to eat an entirely locally-produced or self-produced diet, and so I have to work with what I have, in which system veganism makes more sense.

That is, corn yields ~ 140 bushels per acre; soybeans ~ 50, dry beans ~ 30. While most corn goes to cattle, the same ground wouldn't produce the equivalent mass of feed for humans. There's waste in converting nitrogen to protein; the difference between corn yield and dry bean yield is just that.

I'm not arguing that converting nitrogen to cattle protein isn't to some degree wasteful, just pointing out that it might not be as wasteful as you think.

Oh, again I'm well aware of that. But there is little doubt that a large amount of food edible by humans is instead fed to cows, and little doubt that animal farming (and fishing) have enormous impacts on the environment. As Darat pointed out earlier, and as Rolfe pointed out in another thread, of course not all (maybe not even most) land used to feed livestock can be converted to produce edible food crops. I'm not really working within the paradigm of everyone in the Western world going vegan overnight (which would, of course, be catastrophic), but simply from a rationalised and logical personal point of view.

I don't think soy milk and regular are equivalent. For example, less calcium is absorbed from soymilk than from dairy milk. How do the amino-acid profiles compare?

No idea. I'd be interested to know.

Bear in mind that most soy milk has calcium added, anyway, and that the relative health benefits / risks of soy vs cow's milk are not just based on their relative calcium levels.

Does mayonnaise have dairy? I thought mayo was just oil and egg white?[/quote]

I was counting egg under the broad heading of "dairy". My apologies for being unclear.

The reasons you seem to be suggesting I should eat meat (or at least, eat omnivorously) are the following, then:

1) Veganism is not as healthy; possibly more dangerous.

In refutation, I have not seen one single study nor heard the opinions of one nutritionist which support this view. In fact, all the evidence I've seen seems to suggest that a planned and balanced vegan diet is as healthy and as nutritionally-complete as as an omnivorous one.


2) "Supermarket" Veganism is not as "good" as an omnivorous diet based entirely around local, organic produce.

I concede this (and did in my original post), but suggest that this type of farming would probably be largely unsustainable today if required to feed everyone, and further that such a diet is currently less easily available than the regulated vegan alternative.

 

[Herzblut]

Looking at India, they do and apparently always have used cattle for nutrition. They use the milk, in many forms, having figured out various ways to preserve milk products in the stifling heat and humidity of the climate.

Asians drink lots of milk?

The amount of land required to graze or feed cattle may prevent a large population in a tropical climate from eating lots of meat.

What a bizarre idea. A climate that supports an incredible growth rate of foliage plant is ideal for livestock.

 

[Tsukasa Buddha]

People always ask me why I'm vegan. I always turn it round and ask them why they eat meat, because when I asked myself that question I never had the answer. It's just about thinking about the way you live your life, and why you hold the beliefs you do. In my humble opinion, non-dogmatic veganism is the logical and rational dietary choice; though if anyone can make the case as to why I should eat meat, please do.

Great post.

But I have one challenge!

How much does it cost to be vegan? You know, pocket book wise. Because that is the common criticism I hear from people.

 

[volatile]

Great post.

But I have one challenge!

How much does it cost to be vegan? You know, pocket book wise. Because that is the common criticism I hear from people.

No more expensive than meat eating, as far as I can tell. Especially if you're a vaguely ethical meat eater who finds the idea of a $3 chicken worrisome.

 

[fishkr]

Trillions?

Trillions?

Only if you make the PETA position a strawman argument for the ethical treatment of insects.

The PETA position is pretty much limited to vertebrates, so let's consider:

?

You have a lot of good points here (truncated your post and too many for one cogent reply), but many of them hinge on what I would consider an aesthetic distinction, and why I tend to think of PETA as a bunch of silly persons - the separation of vertebrate/invertebrate when considering the ethical dimensions of diet - the human tendency to have more empathy for organisms which most resemble us is something I find . . . dumb. Kill 1000 grasshoppers on the way to an anti-hunting rally? (not to mention the 50 voles and 3 ground squirrels . . . Life is life. It can all be respected or ignored, depending on one's tastes, but erecting anthropocentric distinctions about which species deserve our compassion and which do not is ridiculous to me.

I live in farm country and see the same things you do. And "trillions" is a vast understatement if one includes invertebrates.

It's probably all off thread, since this is Science, Tech, Math, etc., and my position on the subject rests, for the most part, on aesthetic/ethical considerations.

The argument in favor of a vegetarian diet, in terms of food production efficiency is hard to deny. This is not my interest at all.

Bottom line for me is that I fear, as species/populations tend to expand their number until outside forces such as famine, disease, territorial conflict, etc. curtail the "boom" population level, then acting and making policy, even personal behavior, based on maximum carrying capacity is scary. Something will always perturb the "maximum", and the innevitable result seems to be mass suffering. And for some strange reason as a species we seem to make policy or create behavior based on the "good times". (another topic entirely)

Why should an individual base his behavior on considerations that may lead a population to doom? (another topic entirely)

I was raised in SoCaL, and near the end of my time there (late 80's) I left my garden hose open all the time, using as much water as I possibly could. The more I used, I reasoned, the more expensive and difficult it would be for developers to make fake lakes and new subdivisions. I reasoned that the resource would be exploited until maximum carrying capacity was exceeded, and my intentional wasting of water would skew the tipping point toward the negative, if only by a billionth of a degree.

For the record, I rarely buy meat, mostly I eat what I've killed and a lot of
"imported" vegetables. I' convinced that the vegetbles have a greater environmental cost than the deer/elk I take from the hills near here and which sustain my protein needs. I also understand that if all of the 300 million humans in North America dispersed to the point of hunter gatherer status we would be in big trouble. So I'm not making any case based on lifestyle.

I worry about thinking about making decisions based on what the absolute maximum number of humans that can possibly exist on the planet is. I would hate to live on that planet, and I think most of would as well. But mixing ethics and science and agribusiness and PETA is probably a recipe for a very tangled and unproductive thread. Sorry for my part in that.

M

 

[Roboramma]

You have a lot of good points here (truncated your post and too many for one cogent reply), but many of them hinge on what I would consider an aesthetic distinction, and why I tend to think of PETA as a bunch of silly persons - the separation of vertebrate/invertebrate when considering the ethical dimensions of diet - the human tendency to have more empathy for organisms which most resemble us is something I find . . . dumb. Kill 1000 grasshoppers on the way to an anti-hunting rally? (not to mention the 50 voles and 3 ground squirrels . . . Life is life. It can all be respected or ignored, depending on one's tastes, but erecting anthropocentric distinctions about which species deserve our compassion and which do not is ridiculous to me.

I don't think they're antropocentric - I would have more concern for an octopus, for instance, than for a cameleon, though the latter is more like us than the former.
Plants are life, and so are humans, yet it's clear that we should respect the latter more than the former, and I think for the same reasons. I think that there are some things about our capacities for suffering, for happiness, for understanding our lives even, that are valuable, in a moral sense. I don't think those things are true of plants.

You may disagree that that's a valid moral distinction - I don't think this is the thread for that discussion - but it's certainly not obviously false to the point of being hypocritical to take it, to value one sort of life more than others.

Bottom line for me is that I fear, as species/populations tend to expand their number until outside forces such as famine, disease, territorial conflict, etc. curtail the "boom" population level, then acting and making policy, even personal behavior, based on maximum carrying capacity is scary. Something will always perturb the "maximum", and the innevitable result seems to be mass suffering. And for some strange reason as a species we seem to make policy or create behavior based on the "good times". (another topic entirely)

Why should an individual base his behavior on considerations that may lead a population to doom? (another topic entirely)

That's actually a good point - I started thinking along similar lines only a few weeks ago. Not really sure what I think at this point, but if we're maximizing the efficiency of our use of resources only so that we can use more of them, that's a little scary to me, and as you say may only maximize the damage we do in the long run.

On the other hand if we approach these things with intelligence and foresight, it doesn't have to be that way, we could use the savings we make with efficiency to increase the amount of wilderness we have, for instance...
Somehow, however, I think you're right - it's not likely to go that way.

 

[fishkr]

Plants are life, and so are humans, yet it's clear that we should respect the latter more than the former.

And why is this a given?