I’d hate to break it to you, but it sounds to me like your familiarity with vegetarianism and the ethical considerations of eating meat are somewhat superficial. There are various reasons why a person would choose to become a vegetarian, and while the argument is a highly personal one for many, your counter-argument that “vegans seem to deny the entire course of human existence” is pretty nonsensical. While it is true, according to our best knowledge, that early homo sapiens hunted animals for food, it did not hunt nearly as much meat as it’s cousin the neanderthal, who had a different body structure and a heavier reliance on such a diet. Modern homo sapiens can easily reach their target daily caloric requirements on a plant-based diet. Neanderthals would have found it extremely difficult to do so, as their bodies required double the calories of ours. Seeing as we have a highly developed food industry and no longer need to hunt to “top up” calories, it is relatively simple to take up a plant-based diet, even one in which you can gain weight if correctly planned. As for other animal products – humans aren’t at all “built” to digest milk after infancy (and are the only mammals who actively pursue milk after that age), the only reason parts of the world have a higher tolerance to natural milk is due to years of economic reliance on pastoralism. Many of those who choose to forego meat and/or other animal products for ethical considerations do it out of a sense of compassion towards other living species, something we believe our earliest of hominid ancestors may have not been able to do at the same extent as we can, due to later changes in the evolution of the brain which helped develop advanced abstract thinking. The realization that being “higher up” on the food chain doesn’t make us superior than other species and that we have the capability to distribute compassion towards other living things outside our own children is something that developed because of evolution, not despite it. Some people keep this compassion inside the confined circle of humanity. Some people go a few species further and extend it to all sentient life. While there are certainly evangelists among vegetarians (as there are for any lifestyle choice which people feel strongly about), do not confuse activism for evangelism. Animal rights is a real issue and vegetarianism is an important choice for many who participate in animal rights advocacy and does not necessarily negate a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Many animal rights activists are not trying to induce guilt – evolution has taken care of that part by itself in allowing us (or at least, most of us) to feel horrible about watching a helpless being being killed. The goal of this type of activism is to help you make that connection between that animal being killed to the slab of grilled meat on your plate, a connection which many people who buy processed meats on a regular basis fail to realize. Whether this realization causes you to stop eating meat, eat less meat or shrug the issue off entirely – this is a personal decision. 

I’m quite surprised at some of the comments here. Where I’m living at the moment (Germany), the issue of climate change is more or less undisputed in it’s urgency and most local municipalities integrate some form of citizen education to the issue as well as state-wide funding of climate change awareness projects. In the past few years that I have lived here, this has changed everything from the way we commute to the way we eat. Most of you have anonymous profiles, so I don’t know where you’re from, but if you think that the automobile industry in your country is trying to “ride on the back” of global warming in order to sell more vehicles, you should be asking yourself why this is and what kind of culture of commuting you have built for yourselves, which relies so heavily on personal vehicles instead of clean and efficient public transportation. There is rock solid (pun intended) evidence to past episodes of climate change and we have a pretty good idea of some of the things that have caused this in the past, such as volcanic eruptions and plate tectonics. We know this by studying rock formations, fossils and cross referencing other information that we know about life on the planet during past eras – long before modern man came into the scene. We also know that climate change goes through “periods”, including what we know to be four major ice ages. The difference between past periods of climate change and the one we are going through, is that we have achieved a sufficient level of ability to manipulate our surroundings (but apparently not much common sense) in order for the “push” towards a global change in climate to be man-made.To say that global warming is being “invented” by politicians or the automobile industry in order to further their own agenda is being blind to the natural history of our own planet. We are just a blip in the existence of this earth and it is highly presumptuous to think that we’d be immune to the earth’s fluctuations. Species have become extinct during periods of climate change. It is of course very highly unlikely that we will, but it is highly ridiculous to tout climate change as a fabrication when we have evidence to support otherwise, evidence that goes back millions of years. I don’t mean to be an alarmist, and pardon my language, but please pull your heads out of your asses. Ignoring this issue will not make it go away, and just because industries are trying to make money during this process, it doesn’t make it any less real. Nothing on this earth was “put here” for our benefit – it’s up to us to be sustainable with the world around us and provide a suitable living environment for the generations which will eventually replace us.

I’d hate to break it to you, but it sounds to me like your familiarity with vegetarianism and the ethical considerations of eating meat are somewhat superficial. There are various reasons why a person would choose to become a vegetarian, and while the argument is a highly personal one for many, your counter-argument that “vegans seem to deny the entire course of human existence” is pretty nonsensical. While it is true, according to our best knowledge, that early homo sapiens hunted animals for food, it did not hunt nearly as much meat as it’s cousin the neanderthal, who had a different body structure and a heavier reliance on such a diet. Modern homo sapiens can easily reach their target daily caloric requirements on a plant-based diet. Neanderthals would have found it extremely difficult to do so, as their bodies required double the calories of ours. Seeing as we have a highly developed food industry and no longer need to hunt to “top up” calories, it is relatively simple to take up a plant-based diet, even one in which you can gain weight if correctly planned. As for other animal products – humans aren’t at all “built” to digest milk after infancy (and are the only mammals who actively pursue milk after that age), the only reason parts of the world have a higher tolerance to natural milk is due to years of economic reliance on pastoralism. Many of those who choose to forego meat and/or other animal products for ethical considerations do it out of a sense of compassion towards other living species, something we believe our earliest of hominid ancestors may have not been able to do at the same extent as we can, due to later changes in the evolution of the brain which helped develop advanced abstract thinking. The realization that being “higher up” on the food chain doesn’t make us superior than other species and that we have the capability to distribute compassion towards other living things outside our own children is something that developed because of evolution, not despite it. Some people keep this compassion inside the confined circle of humanity. Some people go a few species further and extend it to all sentient life. While there are certainly evangelists among vegetarians (as there are for any lifestyle choice which people feel strongly about), do not confuse activism for evangelism. Animal rights is a real issue and vegetarianism is an important choice for many who participate in animal rights advocacy and does not necessarily negate a “holier-than-thou” attitude. Many animal rights activists are not trying to induce guilt – evolution has taken care of that part by itself in allowing us (or at least, most of us) to feel horrible about watching a helpless being being killed. The goal of this type of activism is to help you make that connection between that animal being killed to the slab of grilled meat on your plate, a connection which many people who buy processed meats on a regular basis fail to realize. Whether this realization causes you to stop eating meat, eat less meat or shrug the issue off entirely – this is a personal decision. 

I’m quite surprised at some of the comments here. Where I’m living at the moment (Germany), the issue of climate change is more or less undisputed in it’s urgency and most local municipalities integrate some form of citizen education to the issue as well as state-wide funding of climate change awareness projects. In the past few years that I have lived here, this has changed everything from the way we commute to the way we eat. Most of you have anonymous profiles, so I don’t know where you’re from, but if you think that the automobile industry in your country is trying to “ride on the back” of global warming in order to sell more vehicles, you should be asking yourself why this is and what kind of culture of commuting you have built for yourselves, which relies so heavily on personal vehicles instead of clean and efficient public transportation. There is rock solid (pun intended) evidence to past episodes of climate change and we have a pretty good idea of some of the things that have caused this in the past, such as volcanic eruptions and plate tectonics. We know this by studying rock formations, fossils and cross referencing other information that we know about life on the planet during past eras – long before modern man came into the scene. We also know that climate change goes through “periods”, including what we know to be four major ice ages. The difference between past periods of climate change and the one we are going through, is that we have achieved a sufficient level of ability to manipulate our surroundings (but apparently not much common sense) in order for the “push” towards a global change in climate to be man-made.To say that global warming is being “invented” by politicians or the automobile industry in order to further their own agenda is being blind to the natural history of our own planet. We are just a blip in the existence of this earth and it is highly presumptuous to think that we’d be immune to the earth’s fluctuations. Species have become extinct during periods of climate change. It is of course very highly unlikely that we will, but it is highly ridiculous to tout climate change as a fabrication when we have evidence to support otherwise, evidence that goes back millions of years. I don’t mean to be an alarmist, and pardon my language, but please pull your heads out of your asses. Ignoring this issue will not make it go away, and just because industries are trying to make money during this process, it doesn’t make it any less real. Nothing on this earth was “put here” for our benefit – it’s up to us to be sustainable with the world around us and provide a suitable living environment for the generations which will eventually replace us.