It’s mind boggling how tight the Venn diagram is between People Who Are Fearful of Climate Crisis and People Who Refuse to Stop Eating Animals.
Take dry grasslands for example where you could either herd goats and sheep on what nature provides or grow crops which uses a lot more water and fertilizer than the environment there produces.
The vast majority of feed used in factory farms is inedible to humans. The primary ingredient is often the waste product from bioethanol production and distillation [1]. The edible varieties of corn, barley, oats, and alfalfa used in feed aren't that popular with people [2], are mostly produced on land that would otherwise be unproductive, and are mostly used for newborns or in the final stage before slaughter to make the meat fattier and more palatable.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distillers_grains
[2] For example, even though barley is a core ingredient to much of the alcohol industry, animal feed still accounts for two thirds of barley consumption. Most of the rest of the barley ends up in animal feed in the form of distillers grains.
And then in the end you're left with foods with inferior nutrition. I'm not going to stop eating the foods I've evolved to eat (ruminants especially) until I can safely do so without becoming malnourished, weak, and unhealthy. Right now, this is not technologically possible.
You’re citing things which are actually making the case for eating only plants stronger, while thinking that you’re doing the opposite. It’s wild.
This isn’t even addressing the part of your argument where you fallaciously appeal to nature by saying you’re going to do what you evolved to do. What we evolved to do is irrelevant; what we have the ability to do is all that matters.
Millions of people “survive” on a vegan diet and have for decades. They’re doing just fine and aren’t “malnourished, weak, and unhealthy”
