The meat industry contributes massively to global warming. According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the meat industry is responsible for almost 15% of greenhouse gas emissions; for reference, the entire transportation sector emits 14% of greenhouse gas emissions.
As a result, the United Nations Environment Program has
called on people to move towards a vegan diet:
“Impacts from agriculture are expected to increase substantially due to population growth increasing consumption of animal products. Unlike fossil fuels, it is difficult to look for alternatives: people have to eat. A substantial reduction of impacts would only be possible with a substantial worldwide diet change, away from animal products.”"Overpopulation is caused by number of factors. Reduced mortality rate, better medical facilities, depletion of precious resources are few of the causes which results inoverpopulation. It is possible for a sparsely populated area to become densely populated if it is not able to sustain life." I doubt people eating meat will be the death of us all, lol.http://www.conserve-energy-future.com/causes-effects-solutions-of-overpopulation.phpPlants cannot feel pain or suffer. There's absolutely no evidence that they can, and it wouldn't make any evolutionary sense. In any case, even if they could suffer, producing meat requires many more times plant protein than simply producing plant-based foods for humans to directly eat: what do the animals that we rear for meat eat? Plants.
Yes, it is true plants cannot feel pain but they react to stimulation. "How plants sense and react is still somewhat unknown. They don't have nerve cells like humans, but they do have a system for sending electrical signals and even produce neurotransmitters, like dopamine, serotonin and other chemicals the human brain uses to send signals.an diet would still cause less suffering, which is what it's all about - it's not about being a saint, it's about reducing the amount of suffering you're responsible for." -
http://www.pri.org/stories/2014-01-09/new-research-plant-intelligence-may-forever-change-how-you-think-about-plantsAgain, some people are not vegans because they do not care. They enjoy the taste of eating meat, and meat is not harmful or lethal. Unless raw of course.It is a personal choice to pledge eating no meat, and cause less suffering to animals. If you're vegan, good for you. The person next you can chose to be vegan but chooses not to. For some people, they care about having side order of bacon and eating it, not caring about "how". Animals are responsible for their own suffering as well. A lion is responsible for the death of a zebra that it ripped open. Eating meat is natural and contain nutrients. I'll repeat it again : living things get their nutrients from other living things.And, what if someone were keeping human infants or severely intellectually disabled humans in the conditions in which we keep nonhuman animals reared for meat? These groups of humans are demonstrably less intelligent than the animals we rear for meat, yet by your argument, it would be permissible, because "your values may not be someone else's values".
For that matter, is it wrong to stop people from torturing other people? After all, their values may not be your values.