Entries on Farming Conditions & Ecological Damage?

[Margaret Hayek]

Hi all,

I think that it would be really great if there could be an up-to-date and centralized repository of information on (1) suffering in animal agriculture (and, although this is much less important, hunting), and (2) the environmental effects of animal agriculture (and, again although this is much less important, hunting).

Peter Singer & Jim Mason's books Animal Liberation (1975), Animal Factories (1990), and The Ethics of What We Eat (2006) all had excellent and excellently and reliably sourced discussions of (1) [and The Ethics of What We Eat had a similar discussion of (2)], but they are by now becoming out of date, and they were very US focused, which left open the challenge "that doesn't happen here" in other countries. As far as I can tell there is very little in the way of up-to-date literature reviews, let alone open source and live-updatable literature reviews, on this.

There is a bit more in terms of (2), in particular the general Wikipedia page on the Environmental impact of meat production [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environme ... production]. I've only glanced at this entry and while it looks OK it doesn't look like it reflects the current state of the literature. Those of us in the know about this literature could try to update the general Wikipedia page, but Brimestonesalad has told me that general Wikipedia can suffer from certain political and other structural difficulties.

So I was wondering if the phil vegan wiki could play the roles of serving as a general repository for up-to-date and comprehensive information on (1) and (2) by having pages on (i) animal products and animal suffering and (ii) animal products and ecological damage. I see that the phil vegan wiki index lists a page to be created on ecological reasons to be vegan but it does not yet exist. I don't see anything in the index about suffering in animal agriculture (and hunting).

Creating and updating comprehensive sources here could be a massive undertaking. It would be good to reach out to and get partial contributions from as many knowledgeable individuals as possible. In terms of Youtubers Unnatural Vegan, Mod Vegan, and Mic the Vegan have all done great work on ecological issues and included great literature in their video descriptions. To start with some individuals could basically watch / re-watch their videos on this topic, type up a literature summary, and include references. I also have a professor's Power Point slides on both animal suffering and ecology from a class on animal ethics, which I think I could either send to Brimstonesalad or incorporate myself if I have time.

If we could get some decent material here it would be nice, since we now have a version of the argument from companion animals [wiki/index.php/The_Argument_from_Companion_Animals] that needs a defense of an empirical premise about how consuming animal products vs. being vegan inflicts massive suffering (and death) upon farmed and wild animals in relation to being vegan. We were also talking about adapting the NameTheJustification argument [http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/inde ... tification] - and I was thinking maybe also even the NTT 2.0 argument [http://philosophicalvegan.com/wiki/inde ... eTrait_2.0] - to incorporate an empirical premise like this.

Thanks,
Margaret

[brimstoneSalad]

I think that it would be really great if there could be an up-to-date and centralized repository of information on (1) suffering in animal agriculture (and, although this is much less important, hunting), and (2) the environmental effects of animal agriculture (and, again although this is much less important, hunting).

Agreed, that sounds very valuable.

I started a general consensus repository here: wiki/index.php/Consensus

But it's definitely planned to have more specific pages.

So I was wondering if the phil vegan wiki could play the roles of serving as a general repository for up-to-date and comprehensive information on (1) and (2) by having pages on (i) animal products and animal suffering and (ii) animal products and ecological damage. I see that the phil vegan wiki index lists a page to be created on ecological reasons to be vegan but it does not yet exist. I don't see anything in the index about suffering in animal agriculture (and hunting).

I added a bunch of new links to the Table of contents.

Animal Products & Global Warming
Animal Products & Ecology
Hunting
Animal Products & Animal Suffering

Please don't hesitate to start the pages when/if you have a chance with whatever you have on hand, even if it's just a stub with a couple links to studies or a WHO quote. I'm still working on the antinatalist article with the time I have (reworked the Benatar section yesterday).

Creating and updating comprehensive sources here could be a massive undertaking. It would be good to reach out to and get partial contributions from as many knowledgeable individuals as possible. In terms of Youtubers Unnatural Vegan, Mod Vegan, and Mic the Vegan have all done great work on ecological issues and included great literature in their video descriptions. To start with some individuals could basically watch / re-watch their videos on this topic, type up a literature summary, and include references.

It would be good to get permission from each of them to transcribe their content to the wiki. @NonZeroSum has magic powers to generate a script from youtube videos. From there it could be edited down over time.

I don't remember a comprehensive video on ethics or environment, but I'd love to translate @ModVegan's great videos on leather to a wiki article.

I also have a professor's Power Point slides on both animal suffering and ecology from a class on animal ethics, which I think I could either send to Brimstonesalad or incorporate myself if I have time.

Can you get his permission to directly incorporate the content? That could be much faster, then it's an editing job from there. Much easier to work in an existing scaffold if the structure and most facts are there.