Looking through the different approaches on the list, I am missing one large one. Fishermen are currently throwing away a majority of caught fish because people only buy a very small selection of species (which also differ between nations). We could more than double the amount of fish meat that get eaten without changing the number of fish being killed, and yet for mostly cultural reasons we don't.
I really can't fathom the dogmatic line on vegans/vegetarians when it comes to insect farming for human consumption...<p>They talk about it toward 2:20 (I do like how they had a full transcript and ToC so you can jump around in the audio).<p>In any case, my take away was that because there might be some chance of a "net negative" life for insects in farms, we shouldn't be looking to replace some of our protein needs by insects.<p>Given the sheer amount of ecological damage that is being done to the planet with each season of industrial animal farming, I really don't understand why we're not looking at lab-grown insects as the MVP for "lab-grown meat".<p>The problems needing to be solved to make crickets/mealworm protein a scaled operation that could reduce the demand on chicken/beef/pork are much easier than growing meat in a lab (feel pretty confident in this claim, open to rebuttal).<p>How many cows would be saved every year if just 1 major fast-food burger joint switched to 50/50 mealworm-beef burgers? Would anyone even notice if Taco Bell switched their taco meat to be 50% ground crickets?<p>What resources are required to make lab grown meat anyways? Where are they sourced from? What habitats are collapsing to provide the necessary solvents/catalysts/preservatives/energy/etc for whatever solutions it needs to grow in? What are the negative externalities of this lab-growing process? What does that look like at the scale necessary to take even 20% of the current beef demand?<p>We're twisting our britches over what a cricket or mealworm might feel in a factory farm setting, yet they are basically the perfect little machines for turning carbohydrates, water and air into essential human-accessible proteins and vitamins (crickets have a ton of B12, just like red meat). They're the perfect stop-gap solution until the lab meat is ready for prime-time.<p>Also, insect-farming waste products are typically just great compost and fertilizer and you could basically grow insects underground (mealworms love the dark) and grow their substrate/feed above them. I think calories/acre would be another useful measurement to look at when trying to evaluate which direction human agriculture should be headed.<p>Alright, <i></i>TL;DR<i></i> - Insect farming is low hanging fruit for alleviating the ecological pressure of factory animal farming which is being ignored for no good reason.
/rant
Thanks for posting this to Hacker News! Very interesting interview covering all aspects of the animal welfare movement. I'm passing on the link to my activist daughters and nieces.
Just pointing out an unintended consequence I saw in a cartoon:<p>As soon as nobody farms cows for meat, milk, and leather, cows will become an endangered species/extinct because nobody will pay to keep them alive. And there's not much space where they could survive on their own in the wild.
I don't think most people really care about animals suffering, or not. However, most people do care about themselves and their children.<p>Long to short, factor farming generates a lot of ground level pollution. Furthermore, those animals also generate a lot of greenhouse gases. Frame the problem in terms of human suffering and more people are likely to pay attention.<p>Years ago there was a NY Times Sunday magazine feature article on factor pig farming. It was enlightening. Unfortunately, I've searched for it and can't seem to find it. If you can find, do read it.<p>p.s. Growing crops to be fed to farm animals is also very inefficient. More people would have more food if we all ate less animal protein.
Am I the only one who wonders how what the actual difference in suffering is in free range vs. factory farming? There might be a lot of projection going on - people imagining themselves in the same circumstance as the animals and missing the mark because of the differences between our sense of life and that of other animals.<p>As an example, I once spoke to a person who thought the movie _The March of the Penguins_ was horrific because the penguins just stood there week after week in the freezing cold doing nothing. That may be perfectly fine for a penguin. It might even be like what a adept meditator would experience in a life of meditation.