I am aware of the objections coming from vegans, I really have nothing to say to them other than I am in favour of freedom of worship, but I am also an atheist who tries to stand on the side of the scientific method as much as my abilities allow me, so I think National Geographic and PNAS are a more reliable source of information.
Most importantly: loss of vegetable specie due to mono cultures farmed specifically for humans (tomatoes for burgers, for example - McDonald's is one of the biggest, if not THE biggest, purchaser in the world of potatoes, lettuce and tomatoes - or avocados for fancy sandwiches, that consume 300 liters of water to produce a single fruit) is not be underestimated.
As an example, this sentence
> vegans are inflicting far less damage because most of the cereal crops that are mono-cropped (wheat, corn, soy, etc.) are fed to the animals people consume.
is almost completely made up and numbers are greatly exaggerated for propagandistic purpose.
The reason why original Parmigiano cheese is so worshipped by Italians and it's so expensive abroad, is exactly because cows are not fed with crops, bu with natural grass.
The reason why in USA many animals are fed with farmed crops is because crops are subsidized by the govt, making them cheaper than the alternatives.
Another reason why herbivores are fed with crops is because they can eat the remains we can't eat, which is around 85% of the whole plant
According to FAO (United Nations Agency for food) "only 13% of global animal feed (all animals for food, including chickens, pigs and cattle) is comprised of grain crops"
Crops are also heavily subsidized to produce bio fuel, which is not great, I agree, but that has nothing to do with feeding animals or eating their meat.
I don't think any of the sources you mentioned here actually justify animal agriculture on the grounds of causing less death, though. The first two sources aren't specific to agriculture specific to human consumption, just agriculture in general. Also, whether or not global livestock is primarily fed on human consumable crops isn't the issue. For example, a very large portion of the feed mentioned in one of your sources (the third one) is still coming from farmed crops, so even if it isn't human consumable that doesn't mean we don't consider deaths coming from it. The last source is just unrelated, as you acknowledge.
I think you'd need to have sources that prove that specifically crops grown for human consumption result in more deaths, or that we'd have to grow more of those crops to feed humans compared to the crops grown to feed animals.
Again, just to clarify, the third source you mention has categories for things like "by-products", "Other non-edible", "Oil seed cakes", etc. Whether or not humans can eat those is irrelevant. The point is that all those things could still be coming from crops grown in the same general way as the crops grown for human consumption. Does that make sense, or am I being too religious for your logical atheistic brain?
> I think you'd need to have sources that prove that specifically crops grown for human consumption
I think you don't understand the issue.
Vegetarians (and vegans) don't kill less animals, they simply don't eat them (or at least that's what they say...)
> The point is that all those things could still be coming from crops
The point is that eating meat, unless you are from the US, does not mean you're killing billions of animals for fun.
American domestic cats kill billion of birds and other small animals every year.
Why are vegetarians obsessed only with non vegetarian people and not with domestic cats, which they love?
Because it's a religious fight, not an ethical one.
They want to blame someone and found this.
Anyway: scientific method implies that if you say "vegetarians kill less animals" you should prove it with numbers, as humans their activities kill billion of animals every year all over the World.
Vegetarians are not outside of the human realm, they live in societies as we all do and the major source of animal killing and suffering is not eating some meat, that's only selection bias at work.
It would be the same as saying: plants produce oxygen, if you only eat plants you're robbing our planet of breathable air, you should replant every plant you eat.
But every normal well functioning human knows that it's stupid to divide people into good and bad.
That's exactly what vegetarians do.
If you believe in veganism, it's OK, religions are allowed in our societies.
If you believe "vegan facts" from a vegan website is the truth, I don't know what to say to you, you can't fight made up beliefs, I got the Pope in front of my house, I know you can't beat blind faith.
But, the claim has always been that vegetarians don't kill less animals, not that they kill more. Which is arguably true. You won't find vegans in poor countries, you'll find denutrished children starving to death, they'd eat some meat if they could, just to survive. Veganism is a first World problem and as many other first World problems it's completely disconnected from reality.
When you'll eat an entire plant of wheat from roots to the top, we can talk about eating only vegetables.
Until that day you are only wasting resources, as any of us western humans do so well.
On average each year every American eats 3 chickens. Are you sure vegetarians on average don't cause the death of 3 birds each year? Can you prove it? Can you prove the industry you rely on for food is more ethical and kills less animals?
If your objection is "but I don't eat chicken so I kill 3 chickens less than the average" remember that other people could reply "I don't eat vegetables as much as you, so the damages produced by the agriculture industry are much more on you than on me"
Waiting for the data, please refrain if you wanna answer with more propaganda.
> Vegetarians (and vegans) don't kill less animals
Source? Your claim, thus the onus is on you to prove this, which you haven't.
> American domestic cats kill billion of birds and other small animals every year.
Completely irrelevant whataboutism. Like, that's a textbook example of the fallacy.
> Vegetarians are not outside of the human realm, they live in societies as we all do and the major source of animal killing and suffering is not eating some meat, that's only selection bias at work.
> It would be the same as saying: plants produce oxygen, if you only eat plants you're robbing our planet of breathable air, you should replant every plant you eat.
I don't even know how to respond to this. If we include fish, then _trillions_ of animals are killed every year for their meat and body parts. How is that not the greatest source of animal suffering?
> If you believe in veganism, it's OK, religions are allowed in our societies.
This is such a lazy insult. Why do you insist on acting like you argue in good faith, yet say nonsense like this? Genuinely, why?
> You won't find vegans in poor countries, you'll find denutrished children starving to death, they'd eat some meat if they could, just to survive. Veganism is a first World problem and as many other first World problems it's completely disconnected from reality.
What is the point you're making here, exactly? Because some people in the world have limited access to non-animal based sources of nutrition then veganism as an ethical framework is entirely debunked. How on Earth does that follow?
Your style of debate is _not_ working, my guy. Your comment history in other threads seems to paint a picture of you not really arguing in good faith. If you want to continue this discussion, I'll only do it on a video call. My email is in my profile if you'd like to set that up.