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I haven't read the entire thread--don't have the time--but I just want to add a couple of things to my original post. First, to imply that the overpopulation issue is some tired old "claxon," is just silliness. Honestly! Humans have been eating meat for millennia and did not experience global warming until our numbers became so burdensome to the planet. It's not just eating meat and raising animals for food that is the problem, anyway--this is silliness, too. There is rarely ever a single cause for any problem! Burning coal is a problem, using petrochemicals for our vehicles is a problem (very sad to realize that the original design for the internal combustion engine was to run on alcohol, a much cleaner burning source of fuel--and more sustainable, too), agribusiness is a problem, the list goes on and on. Personally, I believe that we are omnivores. Some people apparently are able to thrive without eating meat, but many of us are not. We could eat insects (and many cultures do) and I doubt that anyone would object to that on vegetarian grounds because we don't identify with insects. Nor do we identify with plants. The further away from us a organism is on the phylogenetic scale, the more proper we deem it to eat. But nothing wants to be eaten except for certain fruits. And plants that have been damaged have been demonstrated in well-controlled experiments to show alarm reactions in the form of chemicals produced and electromagnetic responses. So, I personally feel that it's disingenuous and anthropocentric to think that it's not "cruel" to eat organisms that aren't like us. But this type of thinking--that eating something is "cruel"--is anthropocentric. Animals who are carnivores or omnivores eat other animals. How the animals we eat are raised, cared for, and killed is, to my mind, where the morality comes in.
I am also always puzzled by those who say we should all become vegetarians because we can support a larger human population that way, implying that this somehow makes them more animal-friendly. Destruction of habitat from too many humans needing places to live, work, raise their food, etc., is not animal-friendly.
We need to do a number of things to address global warming. Each of us can choose from a myriad of options. I drive a hybrid, I walk or bike or skate when I can, I have a small, passive solar house with solar hot water and photovoltaic panels, I recycle what I can, and I eat a small amount of meat. I eat locally produced meat that has been raised on a micro scale by caring farmers whom I have met and whose ranches/farms I've visited. I chose not to have kids, either. And I certainly have never thought that only certain colors of humans should cut back on their progeny. All of us have to be considerate of the planet in this way. Having one or two children is not the problem, obviously. And I also agree with the posters who say that the best way to control population growth is to address poverty. This is an enormous problem to tackle but it is worth tackling any way we can. And of course, access to safe birth control is very important, too, for those who want it.
At any rate, to insist that the ONLY real way to approach global warming is by doing this ONE thing needlessly polarizes the issue and ends up turning people off to other, more inclusive arguments, in my opinion.
