Huh? If there is a scale that means there is weight or direction on a spectrum, doesn`t it? Don`t "scales" measure "more" or "less"? You tell me. You are the one who chose the word "scale." Perhaps you are confused a little by your word usage. I am.
If a vegetarian/vegan society is ever realized, I don`t think anyone would envision a scenario where it would happen at one time how you put it as a "turn over". Diminishing demand for the product would incrementally caused by economics to make the farmer breed animals less and less.
So what? What individual animal which is suffering cares about their species if their only purpose is to be forced to live for exploitation or under tyranny? If we become a veg world there is no need for them as they disappear with the economic forces that erase them. Surely the ecology of the world won`t suffer from their absence, since like you said they are not natural to it and as we all know offer no benefit to it as part of the eco-system.
We have no pressing need to ensure the survival of domesticated animals for the survival of our own species. Our survival no where near rests on that. It is already known that man can meet ALL his dietary needs from a plant based diet in this modern world. That is fact. Scroll up and read the American Dietetic Society`s position paper on vegetarianism and nutrition.
Would you happen to have any official studies to back up that far out assertion?
LOL!
Pastoral farming is a source of nitrate contamination of the soil and waterways. In addition overgrazing and herd animals such as cows and sheep increases soil runnoff.
Excerpt:
The impact of livestock and agricultural practices
Animals themselves can have a major impact on the quality of water in a catchment, principally through faecal contamination and through disturbance of watercourses and surrounding land, both of which contribute to downstream contamination. Such downstream effects have a significant impact on water quality and, potentially, on animal productivity. A number of studies in New Zealand have shown that increased farming intensity will, or is likely to, result in greater nutrient enrichment of waterways. Many of these are outlined below.
Microbes and nutrients from manure enter streams or watercourses by several pathways (Gary et al. 1983; Tiedemann et al. 1988; Larsen et al. 1994) including direct deposition from animals; via runoff or overland flow, where deposits of manure, along with organisms and nutrients in the manure, are transported to the stream; and via other pathways including sub-surface transport and filtration, and artificial drainage.
Bacterial densities in run-off from agricultural lands often exceed water quality standards (Baxter-Potter and Gilliland 1988). This is not surprising given concentrations of 100 million coliforms per litre in bovine faeces (Thelin and Gifford 1983). Several studies have shown that the extent of, or levels of, bacterial indicator organisms in streams in the US are proportional to cattle numbers, and inversely related to the area of pasture (Darling and Coltharp 1973, Gary et al. 1983).
SOURCE
I am not devoid of reality, RickSP. Even Jews who were fortunate enough to escape from Germany during the early years of persecution knew that they may also see some forms of anti-semitism in there new homes as well. However, the practical do make choices. Not everyone is a Spartan like you are, beating your chest at the injustice of tyranny. Many are pacifist to the bone. Would you expect a very elderly lady or man or young child, or handicap person to fight any tyranical regime as you would? or would you afford them the choice to make between what lesser evil there was without belittleing them or cajoling them?
I can`t comment on your aunt`s situation. There is no way for me to verify that, surely as there is no way for you to verify a family member or acquaintance example of my own that perhaps had the opposite reaction to your aunts -- if I were to offer one.
Again with history, huh? Past history is in the past. Using it for logic to continue something into the future just because it was beneficial in the past is weak reasoning. Like I said, slavery was beneficial to man in the past as well, but we do not continue it. We are not ostolapithicus any more. We are modern man and we no longer need to consume meat.
We have evolved in modern society to be able to live without it. It is unecessary.