[toohotatopic]

Because they like milk. You can justify anything if you want it to be true.

Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die?

This comes back to killing humans, one way or the other. How many insects are a foetus? Are poor people not allowed to have children so that insects can keep on living?

[roebk]

I think most people acknowledge that just by existing they’re causing harm. If you cut meat and diary out of your diet, you’re vastly reducing that harm. This isn’t just taking into consideration the cows, it’s also the vast quantities of crops that are grown to feed livestock. The largest study done on farm use was done by Oxford University a couple of years back and they found that “80 percent of the planet’s total farmland is used to rear livestock.” It continues with “freeing up land mass the size of Australia, China, the EU, and the U.S. – combined. This would lead to immensely fewer greenhouse gas emissions. It would also lessen the amount of wild land lost to agriculture, which is one of the leading causes of mass wildlife species extinction.”

So for me, it ends at the meat and diary have a huge negative impact on the environment and I’ll do my best to reduce my share by avoiding meat and diary.

[seanwilson]

> Where does this end? Industrial farming kills insects. We obviously don't have the same amount of love for insects as we have for cows. But why should cows live and insects die?

Instead of doing nothing because there aren't any perfect solutions, start by aiming to minimise harm when there's realistic options to do so? e.g. avoid cow milk in favour of oat or soy milk.

Dairy cows eat crops from industrial farming as well so if you're concerned about insects dying, less diary will likely help e.g. you could make milk directly from soy beans instead of feeding them to cows.