"Reynard" > wrote
> On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 10:43:31 -0800, "Dutch" > wrote:
>
> [..]
>>If I eat a 6oz steak from a moose with a carcass weight of
>>1500lb, I am responsible for 1/3000 of an animal death.
>
> Then why didn't you tackle Jon when he wrote;
>
> "The wish to avoid or reduce personal culpability actually leads some
> "vegans" and omnivores alike to view animal deaths, incorrectly, as
> divisible. Many on both sides subscribe to a bizarre and erroneous
> belief that one can be responsible for some discrete fraction of an
> animal death. Somewhat surprisingly, the argument seems to be found
> more commonly among omnivores, most often when they talk about
> the number of meals that may be had from the meat from one large
> animal; they'll talk about a "fraction of a death" attributable to one
> hamburger, for example.
>
> The animal deaths are indivisible. If the food production that caused the
> 1000 collateral deaths yielded food to feed 100,000 people (that would be
> some yield!), the eaters cannot say that they only "caused" 1/100th of a
> death. They all, collectively, are responsible for all 1000 deaths.
> Similarly, if a dressed steer carcass yields 250 pounds of edible beef,
> and
> those are made into 500 half-pound servings, those who eat them cannot
> say they only "caused" 1/500th of a death; they ALL caused one full death,
> together.
>
> The point is to compare the total numbers. One *could* eat a fish,
> causing
> one animal death; or one could eat a serving of rice that came from a
> particular crop whose cultivation and harvest caused 1000 deaths. The
> rice
> eater caused 1000 deaths."
> Jonathan Ball as Ted Bell http://tinyurl.com/4blce

I didn't argue the point because I didn't read it. I may discuss it with him
at some point, watch out for it, you might learn something about how mature
people with functioning brains discuss an issue.

> Also, why hasn't Jon tackled you for trying to "reduce personal
> culpability"
> for the deaths you're responsible for?

I can't speak for him, and I am not "trying to reduce" anything. It's more a
matter of semantics. If two people eat a chicken they are both culpable for
that chicken's death, but each person's animal death "footprint" for that
meal was 1/2 of a chicken. If they each ate a whole chicken it would 1
chicken each. One moose death over a four month period for a family of five
is a smaller impact *per person, per meal* than if the same amount of food
were eaten by one person in the same time. The relative impact also compares
to cds related to other diets.

> That's the bigger question, and only
> because the answer is so obvious.

It's utterly unimportant and uninteresting that we are looking at the issue
from different angles. Do you think I'm afraid to disagree with Jonathan?
What a deluded, desperate little man you are.