[Moiraine]

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: (...) But I think we SHOULD be willing to trade jobs where extinction and resource depletion are concerned. Their jobs are already being destroyed anyway, it's just the death is currently slow and painful.

Well, of course you are right. But the economical system we live in now - capitalism - wants profits and it want them NOW. And thanks to globalization, state governments find it more and more impossible to regulate, because issues are global, and no international instance currently exists that could relay local governments on global issues. If I support the EU and the UN, imperfect as they are, it is mainly because it is all we have.

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: I didn't say don't eat meat and don't eat veggies. I kill veggies with great aplomb, in fact. While factory farming of animals has its issues, I think they do not rise to the extinction and resource depletion level of concern that exist for commercial ocean foods. As well, I am okay with eating animals that are organically farmed -- my problem with eating farm animals is factory farming (1. rampant animal abuse, 2. mistrust of the chemicals, hormones, and other farming methods), not my place in the food chain.

Well, what I was trying to say is that the issue of overfishing is but one consequence of what I stated above - the lack of an international power able to regulate the excesses of globalized capitalism. As such, every kind of foood producing is affected - so shifting from eating fish to eating something else is not a viable alternative.

Originally posted by Timber Loftis: As a side note, there is a 100:1 ratio between the amount of people you can feed using the same amount of land for crop farming rather than animal farming. Many vegetarians advocate the lifestyle based on the fact it can support a greater population and avoid starvation. So, while all types of farming have ecological issues, veggies certainly have the least based on this fact alone. I won't even bother with a lengthy comparrison of whether pesticides/herbicides outweigh the harm done by pig farms. Of course, I don't advocate this stance -- I think I've made it clear that for me the population problem has only 1 solution -- FEWER PEOPLE. In fact, since using plants only would support more people, I see it as an argument for animal farming -- I want the world to face the tough choices of overpopulation sooner rather than later.

Read this article, Timber, it may give you insights on the "overpopulation issue". [img]smile.gif[/img]