just an idea to bounce around: non-vegans love their “not everyone can go vegan” argument, and I agree–veganism is about causing the least harm, and some people have to be careful with their diet. I had to work on my eating habits before I could successfully go vegan.
But veganism isn’t just about diet. It’s about doing the best you can to cause the least amount of cruelty and suffering.
So maybe “going vegan” isn’t for everyone. But veganism as a movement sure is. You have no excuse to not care.
YOU HAVE NO EXCUSE TO NOT CARE.
Amen. Veganism includes cruelty free products, not wearing fur/leather/etc, boycotting zoos… literally nobody *has* to buy makeup that’s tested on animals or leather jackets. Anemia or whatever is not an excuse to support L’Oréal.
The zoos part…. you are aware that those animals would not live very long outside of the zoo, right? I mean, I can understand not allowing them to take any more in, and even converting the zoo into an animal shelter instead, but we can’t just release those animals. Especially the ones that grew up in cpativity. It’s a death sentence.
@nerdylilpeebs No one has stated we’re promoting releasing a bunch of zoo animals into the wild, I’m not quite sure where that assumption came from. Of course it would be bad to suddenly just release the animals into the wild. Many of them don’t know how to survive because they have been raised in captivity, and of course many endangered animals would be targeted by poachers and big game hunters. Zoos, provided they aren’t just for profit and actually focus on education and conservation, are excellent–in the short term. But the bigger problem is that humans are making the natural world permanently unliveable. Conservation is great, but we can’t just conserve a few acres of land and call it a day. We need to return vast swaths of land back to their original state and then leave them alone. Human destruction and exploitation of the natural world are the sole reasons we need to have zoos in the first place, and so we need to work on letting nature heal and regulate itself.
The assumption came from my seeing other vegans advocate for releasing them. I’m sorry I assumed that for here.
And, honestly, letting the environment heal and such is a goal I support.
But I want some clarification of what you mean by “return vast swaths of land back to their original state.” Because, I support that when it comes to frivolous stuff that humanity doesn’t need to survive (farms, water and electric plants, housing, etc. are examples of stuff we need).
@nerdylilpeebs Look at the American Midwest. It used to be hundreds and hundreds of miles of continuous prairie. Now the only prairie that’s left is confined to nature reserves. There are projects to bring back the prairie, but I can’t imagine a herd of bison or the far-wandering prairie chicken can survive on just a few acres. We can’t have little patches of nature in the midst of a sprawl of concrete. By “vast swaths” I mean areas that can support biodiversity in a functioning and balanced ecosystem.
We can consolidate our human communities, building up instead of out. We need to get rid of the idea that each human is entitled to a mowed lawn and a big house--that’s just not sustainable, especially with our growing population. And, hopefully, animal agriculture will become a thing of the past over the next century or so, meaning tons of livestock fields can be returned to natural ecosystems. And the decrease in animal agriculture will mean many crop agriculture plots can be returned to nature as well, since the majority of the world’s crops go to feed livestock.
Ultimately, we’re spending so much time managing other species that we’re overlooking the fact that the only reason they need managing is because of problems created by humans. We need to focus on reducing our impact and letting nature handle itself.
