No lie here, and the quote you chose has no rhetoric in it, just a logical conclusion to a set of premisse, you don't have to agree with them.

If you find "no true environmentalist" to be emotionaly charged language than that is on your part, because if you accept the premisses I put forth than that is the logical conclusion. I'm critisizing, the critic is not emotionally charged in itself, only the ego's who can't handle them, sorry for saying it how it is once's more.

The best thing you can do for the environment = be a vegan
If one truly care's about it he will become one, once's truly aware of the situation. The last part is the one I think most of the people are missing and it is why you think I am using rhetoric : this is no ornaments it's the real thing. Simple. You don't have to accept it, but if truly caring can be defined as "living up to your words all the way", the opposite being a hypocrite, then it seems to be the most logical conclusion. Show where the rhetoric is now will you ? What you call a "Blatant lie", the foundation for my conclusion, is an actual fact.

To say it briefly : how can a premisse based on facts and another premisse, which you don't have to agree with, be rhetoric when rhetoric is using language in an ornamental way with no true foundation ?

I know what rhetoric is and wouldn't criticise someone using it only to use it the second afterwards. If you were under this impression then sorry to say but this was only an impression.

Never said anything was silly. My view is that life needs to consume other life to survive. Even plants consume other life. Just how things work.

I thought the Nexus was above this. I feel like I'm being attacked when I came in this thread in a polite, non-confrontational way.

"The meat industry is the largest producer of greenhouse gases, among many other things. Thus, all the little cherries aside, the best thing one can do to help the environment is to not eat meat. If one cares about the environment, one will not eat meat, being aware of the situation. "

What is "the meat industry"? I don't really even want to have this discussion because it is so obviously biased the way you have chosen to word it that many people see right through it.

You seem to not make any distinction between factory farming of cows, and meat in general...which seems common among people who have emotional bonds to the idea that veganism is a high moral position vs omnivoires. I work in horticulture, and have worked in agriculture..and this arguement is laughable at best. All the land that is cleared for conventional mono-culture farming(organic or not) for crops that you are buying, is hardly environmentally friendly.

A person eating foraged wild greens, berries and hunted animals like birds and fish, or supporting local perma-culture farms is far far ahead of you in terms of what is environmentally ethical.

Some people for instance eat fish 2-3 times a month, that they catch themselves and do not consume any farmed animal products. Those people are doing more towards a sustainable lifeway than a random vegan buying imported plants from exotic locations and factory farms. Do you know how many animals are either forced out of they're homes or simply killed in order for land to be cleared so your plants can be grown? You don't have veganism or vegetarianism outside of agriculture. There are NO examples of this among homo sapien sapien. Argue it all you want..all the archeological evidence is stacked against the idea that we were ever anything but omnivoires.

My teacher and the woman who taught me perma-culture knows more about the sustainabilty of eco-systems than probly anyone else posting in this thread, and she is definitely not a vegan.

When I studied environmental ethics in college, my teacher would have thrown your arguement right out and told you to come back with something less biased and more representative of the situation as a whole.

You are picking and choosing individual points to support your belief system but seem unwilling to acknowledge the wider picture that conflicts with that belief.

There are so many things that are just silly about the claim that meat eating is the cause of the degradation of the environment. Capitalism is an anti-environmental stance. The meat industry is not much different from the oil industry, or the corn industry, or the soy industry, or the sugar industry...

Pick your battles wisely, or waste your time with fallacies.

"The best thing you can do for the environment = be a vegan"



Best get busy then, informing every single indigenous tribe on the planet that if they want to be as environmentally friendly as you that they should stop hunting immediately.

I hope you ride a bike and walk everywhere, have a green job, use only solar and alternative energy sources in your home, don't support the market full of vegan food products shipped from exotic locations resulting in increases levels of hydro carbons in the atmosphere..

Heyt - that was a polite entry post and I think how people treat each other says a lot about them. I like how you can have your own idea abut what is right for you and also understand why others eat differently and support them. No need to push your lifestyle or opinions on others - just to be yourself.

Jamie - good posts - things arent as simple as some people like to pretend and there are so many options. My best friend raises bunnies and that is my personal favorite spot to get my meat (I will help him kill and butcher my meat as well and we use as much of the animal as possible - even making soap with the brains), though I also enjoy farmers market offerings (all local!). I would love to learn how to hunt but right now I enjoy fishing in the meantime!

Just to say : I do make all those distinctions. I was focusing on the question at hand and thought a distinction did not need to be made evident throught my choice of words. Choose to hear what you want to hear or believe all you want.

Your not teaching me anything new. I'm not your usual "vegan" all of those things you named I did my research and I am acting in accordance.



First off, you is you in american, living most likely in relation with the "meat industry" not some indougenous tribe. This obviously does not apply to them. And yes, I do do most of those.

Let me reformulate myself : the best thing the common american can do to reduce his environmental impact is to become a vegan. This DOES NOT mean to forget about all the rest like you are assuming ! Of course locally grown is also extremely important ! It still hold's truth that not eating meat is the best thing you can do to reduce your environmental impact, then you can move from there to eat locally.

No I am not american and I don't support the factory farm meat industry at all. I vary rarely eat any meat. I get my meat from local free range and perma-culture farms. Beyond that, I have been vegan..both cooked and very serious raw vegan..as well as vegetarian. Excluding animal products from my diet leads to deficiencies. Why would I want to do that again? That would be rediculous and stupid. I got into it becasue I have suffered for years with chronic disorders. Do you know what it's like to wake up in the morning and shit cups full of fresh blood? I bet not. I care about MY health, as well as the planets. I know that veganism is not the answer many claim..but then many people who make these claims never suffered with real physical debilitating illnesses. Primal/paleo eating is what brought me back to a state of relative health compared to where I was. Veganism, raw food etc..these things I tried and did not cure me. I wish I could tell you some amazing story about how I went vegan and felt amazing and farted rainbows and all the animals rejoyced, but it's not true. I tried it, I lived it, and when it did not work, I moved on.

I get it, I have been there. I lived it, I believed it. I don't anymore. It seems to work for some people, great. Good for them. Beyond that I don't care.

Why do you feel the need to defend yourself ? The "you" I use isn't adressing you particularly.

And what happens when one needs to feed more than 10 billions animals per year to sustain the demand ? A whole lot of mono-crop fields. A whole lot more than necessary for usual farming.

Some people need to eat meat, if you do that is fine I have nothing against that and that is not the group of people I was calling out.

There's doing what you can do and doing what you only care to do. You did what you can, that is moral. Everyone as different path's and contraint's I am aware of that, you obviously go to take those into account also.

"And what happens when one needs to feed more than 10 billions animals per year to sustain the demand ? A whole lot of mono-crop fields. A whole lot more than necessary for usual farming"

No, you don't understand how perma-culture works. You are still arguing within a model of mono-culture. There really is such a thing as woodland raised pork etc. It requires a forest. Stop believing everything you read about this and educate yourself. If you don't want to listen to people who actually studied this stuff at a real school, then don't. Read the internet some more.

Of course I am arguing withing this model because that is what the industry is doing !

I am not calling out perma-culture !

You think industries have time for perma-culture ? stop putting word's in my mouth

Listen ? Your not saying anything all you do is make assumptions about how people think over the internet. I say something and you reply with : "ooo but this and this and that". Truth is I was talking about something else, I am not making claims about any of those things, you come acting like I do with shitloads of assumtions about the way I act concerning all the Other things. I'm no expert and I am not pretending to be one either. I am not making abstraction of your expertise I am talking about something else, in a specific situation, don't diverge from it.

Of course there is a thing as woodland raised pork !

I think hortwizard's raises an excellent topic, how ever it looks as if it has become a clash of strong opinions.

A recent dmt trip showed me that I was eating badly, and I need to eat more earthly. I don't particularly feel i need to cut meat completely, however now my diet mainly consists of fruit, vegetables, nuts, grains & legumes.
I will eat fish or chicken maybe once or twice a week, where I use to eat meat up to three times day.

This has only been quite a recent change for me, so i am still assessing what changes might come from the diet.
But initial results have left me feeling hungrier in the evenings, which I am trying to over come.

I have also cut out caffeine - I use to drink a lot of coffee and caffeinated soft drinks. I find this has made my mind clearer, I am able to relax my mind easier when trying to disconnect from "reality".

Hi there. Nice post, I hope maybe we can get this thread back on topic. in my experience people's opinions are often too entrenched for rational discussion between opposing points of view on this topic, so I don't usually bother trying.

But back to the original idea here, which you brought it back to. With regards to your evening hunger, I would advise you to give it more time. Your body needs to adjust to your new diet. Just like you'll get caffeine withdrawals until your body realizes it doesn'tt need caffeine, your body will crave the things you're cutting out of your diet for a bit. And this can manifest as increased hunger/lack of satiation. But it does change over time. You have to recalibrate your system.

In the meantime you can also be sure to include enough healthy fats... That is something many people don't adequately do and it will help with the hunger.

Coincidentally I've recently cut out caffeine as well because of insomnia and I feel waaaay better.

I was raised in a meat-oriented-society, that means meat at least 3 times a day. When I grew older I reduced meat in my diet and after a very intense LSD trip I stopped eating meat at for some month.

I try to eat organic and locally grown food and behave omivorous but eat animal products (meat, cheese, eggs, fish) very rarely!


tseuq

For all of us in disagreement with each other, let us remember we cannot know ourselves without the other!
It's okay to disagree, because if you don't have a different opinion than I, then difficult it is to know what I think!
hehehe

Wow, this thread really went south quick. So much energy-draining arguing. You guys do realize morality is relative right?

There's something to be said of moderation and balance.

Of course. Therefore burn down the rainforest, put the the natives into reservations and expand the soy fields, so every single child on earth can have meat all day! An starving African child is as entitled to meat as an arm-chair environmentalist. Who cares if it's inefficient food production?

How vegan (or aligned with those principles) is your computer and all the materials it's made from? What about the energy to fuel it? What about all the servers and structures that mantain the internet you use?

I guess you realize there is a trade off to everything in life yes?

This of course doesn't mean let's purposely destroy the world, or create more suffering than is necessary (debatable, but yeah.. ). But I think you seem to take an extreme point of view with an air of moral superiority which doesn't help conducing this discussion to a constructive direction. Personally I try to be as conscious as possible about my diet, my choices, and how they affect others.. And I do think other people's bad decisions in that area end up affecting me (for example destruction of rainforest to grow soya for feeding cattle, global warming related to methane from cows etc), so I do feel it would be my right to point that out to people, but there are many different ways to do it, and moments.

Diet involves many things, including nutrients, social bonding, pleasure, sustainability aspects, support of different types of business, etc etc. We all will create our own relative values to those different aspects depending on the situation, on our lives, etc. If you feel that someone is chosing one of those aspects above others in an unbalanced way and you feel that a discussion can be had, by all means go for it, but don't start from the position that your own relative value is right and others are wrong, and that you are taking the right choice, specially when the very medium through which this discussion takes place involves suffering of other lifeforms.. Maybe not using technology and living in the jungle and hunting animals would create less overal suffering than being a technological vegan. Or maybe eating the chickens you raise and kill yourself is way more sustainable and creates less suffering overall than eating as a strict raw fruitarian but buying fruits from halfway across the globe from a monoculture crop with horrible working conditions for workers? It's way more complex and nuanced issue than people seem to make it out to be.

Probably as much as yours or Jamies, they all come from Foxconn factories. To be precise: 11W CPU consumption powered by a hydro/wind energy mix.

What I wanted to say: if 7 billion people all start eating meat Western style, they create hell on earth. You eventually have to expand they soy fields and this leads to more rainforest deforestation.

Btw I don't claim morality on my side, because I want an equal share of the pie. My imagined trade-off to meat is probably a car or more flight miles. Not sure if cars are sustainable, but let's see. Maybe I become happy with living as a technologist vegan. Actually, I want to become a chemivoric/fruitarian space gorilla. Or somebody teaches me lightfasting/implements photosynthesis into my genes.

And I'm totally okay with ppl living in caves or in the jungle or in mega cities eating meat, because they have to pay the price for their lifestyle, as much as I have to pay my price for my lifestyle. I mean, how can you let others pay for your lifestyle? It won't work in the long run, because people always want at least an equal share. Even if it leads to war or ecological catastrophes.

I just wanted to give my two cents and experience with this topic.

I become a vegetarian after an LSD trip, and then eventually transitioned into veganism. However, I’ve recently began eating meat again and honestly I’ve been feeling much better health wise since introducing it back into my diet. I first became a vegetarian a few days after an LSD trip, I was eating turkey and during the meal started losing all desire to consume meat and started questioning my role in the cruelty that animals are subjected to, and I gave up meat then and there. A year later I became a vegan.

When I was a vegan I thought that if I’m not purchasing any animal products than at least I am not contributing and supporting the cruelty and torture that takes place to animals. However, now I think that’s a bit short-sighted and naive. I don’t think ceasing to purchase animal products is the answer, as the whole meat industry needs to be transformed. Animals need to be treated with respect and dignity and not simply farmed for profit. As with most social issues I think there needs to be a change of consciousness that takes place first. People to need become more aware in general, they need to be more aware of what they are eating and how it was produced. As Ramana Maharshi said “self-reform automatically brings about social reform”.

I now buy from local free range organic butchers but even they admit there’s no real way of humanely killing an animal, only ways of ensuring the process is done in a way that is as humane as possible. So while dyeing to become meat may not be a perfect situation for an animal to undergo, and they will be subjected to some pain, I’ve had to become ok with that. Part of the cycle of life includes life feeding on life to survive, and I have gratitude towards the animals that have given up their lives in order to sustain me.
But one of the things I’ve learnt from my use of psychedelics is that I need to stop becoming so attached to my beliefs and ideologies, that in order for growth I need to be able to challenge my own ideas about what is right and wrong, and to move along with the flow of life in that who I am today may not be who I am tomorrow. At the end of the day, it’s just about trying to do the best we can do, to be as aware and compassionate as we can from moment to moment. As long as a person is striving to do their best, then I think that’s all you can ask for.