What Arguments Should Vegans Use to Make Their Case?

Instead of arguing which arguments vegans should use, I'll just put a few arguments out there...

1) All animals deserve the right to live without being tortured by humans. Simple as that.

2) Meat, dairy, and egg production are bad for the environment . More info here: http://www.vegansoapbox.com/11-articles-about-meat-the-environment /

3) Veganism is the logical extension of justice and fairness: http://veganvideo.org /

4) Vegans and vegetarians are typically healthier than nonvegans.

I have only fairly recently come across the abolitionist approach to animal rights and after listening to the thought provoking pod casts of Gary Francione and reading the articles on his website it seems to me that a more accurate name for the movement you are advocating would be:

The abolition of all domesticated animals (apart from humans) approach.

I have tried to get an answer to this question from Gary Francione himself but without success. I would appreciate it if you or someone else who is part of this movement could answer if this is a fair evaluation of your position or have I misunderstood?

Cheers
Kipppers

Ahimsa is a word used in certain Eastern religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and especially Jainism. In Vedic times, Hinduism had no quarrel with eating meat or with animal sacrifice . Hindu sects that continue in the Vedic tradition, notably in Nepal, continue with their practices of animal sacrifice to this day.

It was the Jains who had an issue with animal sacrifice, and it is the Jains who may be credited with first developing ahimsa as an element in religious belief. Monastic Jains sometimes took ahimsa to its logical extreme, ending their lives in ritual suicide by self-starvation. It is a practice that sometimes still occurs today. Historically, Jains have had some curious ideas: for instance, the belief that women were karmically impure because of their menstrual blood. There is an interesting comparison to be made between Jainism, with its blood= murder belief, and certain abolitionist animal rights groups, with their meat =murder belief. Jains, like many Eastern religions, believe in reincarnation. Some Jains refuse to wash for fear of killing body lice or other parasites that live on their bodies . Their practice of ahimsa forbids any action that will harm another living creature.

It is odd that Mr. Francione needs to preface his comments with a reference to ahimsa. It makes him sound as if he is trying to sell a religious belief, or as if he perhaps considers veganism a religious calling. Whatever it is, not all of us believe in reincarnation. Perhaps if you are a Jain you have valid reason for worrying about being reincarnated as a body louse. Those of us who do not believe in reincarnation are not apt to share that fear.

Why be Vegan?

Eating Vegan saves more land, energy , and water than any other choice you can make. That's because livestock eat several times more grain than they produce as meat . So raising livestock uses:

-several times as much land to grow the grain to feed them
-several times as much energy to harvest the grain and transport it
-several times as much water to grow the grain and to water the animals
-several times as much pesticides, etc.
-Worldwide petroleum reserves would be exhausted in 11 years if the rest of the world ate like the U.S. The least energy-efficient plant food is 10 times as efficient as the most efficient meat food. A nationwide switch to -a pure vegetarian diet would allow us to cut our oil imports by 60%.

Over half of the water used in the U.S. is used to grow feed for livestock. It takes 100 times as much water to produce meat than to produce wheat. The water required to produce a day's diet for a typical American is 4,000 gallons. (It's 1,200 for vegetarians and 300 for vegans .) Compared to a vegan diet, three days of a typical American diet requires as much water as you use for showering all year (assuming you shower every day).

U.S. Livestock produce 250,000 pounds of waste per second -- 20 times as much as humans. A large feedlot produces as much waste as a large city, but without a sewage system. Animal waste washed into rivers and lakes causes increased nitrates, phosphates, ammonia, and bacteria, and decreases the oxygen content. This kills plant and animal life. The meat industry account for three times as much harmful organic waste as the rest of the industries in the U.S. combined.

It takes ten times as much land to produce food for an average American compared to a pure vegetarian. An acre of land can produce 20,000 pounds of potatoes, but only 165 pounds of beef. In the U.S., 260 million acres of forest have been destroyed for use as agricultural land to support our meat diet (over 1 acre per person). Since 1967, the rate of deforestation has been one acre every five seconds. For every acre cleared for urban development, seven acres are cleared to graze animals or grow feed for them.

Around 85% of topsoil loss is directly associated with raising livestock. The USDA says crop productivity is down 70% as a result of topsoil loss. It takes nature 500 years to build an inch of topsoil. Vegan diets make less than 5% of the demands on the soil as meat-based diets.

I agree totally that we have a responsibility to create a just and sustainable world. And putting our efforts towards a peaceful planet is our greatest challenge. I am often frustrated by so many naysayers like the previous poster, who predict gloom and doom at the thought of change . As if we've reached the apex of everything that is good. It just isn't so.

Using Others is just not the way we will advance or evolve. It is an archaic notion that we can continue to breed, feed and kill billions of innocent beings without repercussions to our physical and spiritual health or without consequence to the environment .

That we attempt to rectify our world and make things better for all is not "rose colored glasses or Poly Anna" it is CIVILIZATION.
And its time is long overdue!

There are many technologies yet to be part of the solution. Urban farming, hydroponics, growing crops on sea barges, humanure are but a few options towards creating an abundant and compassionate existence.

The world is a wonderful place - But ideas that it can't be made better though peace and nonviolence is not only absurd but dangerously shortsighted. Indeed peace is the only way we ever will survive. And peace does begin with what's on your plate.

Want to save the world? Eat like you mean it. Go Vegan

I agree that the moral arguments in favour of animal rights and nonviolence are the fundamentally important points to emphasize when advocating for veganism . That is the best way to achieve the necessary shift in our thinking towards every other sentient being on the planet, to educate ourselves about what is morally right, and to illustrate how each one of us can begin to act on the fundamental belief that we all share; that violence is not justified, especially for trivial reasons such as taste, convenience, or other pleasures. We simply have to continue educating ourselves and our communities using the simple truths that we have no right to use other animals as a means to our end, and that inflicting violence and unnecessary pain, suffering and death on them, simply because we can or because we like the taste or whatever, is not the right thing to do.

The fact that veganism is also better for the environment and our health are extremely positive elements also, but the shift in thinking must come from the heart, from our recognition of the moral personhood of other animals, the acknowledgment that we have no right to USE them and all the wonderful benefits that come along from that knowledge are great things in themselves.