World Without Meat

As the earth's ecosystems become more and more stressed, concerned socialists increasingly turn to meat production as an easy target upon which to set their sights. This fix has the advantage of sounding both morally righteous and anti-megacorporation. if only those privileged First World steak eaters would give up their luxury food, we could save the planet AND reconnect with our animal cousins. With Mother Nature. We could be better, healthier people. And stop Con-Agra. I just ran across this argument in the book Half Earth Socialism, which draws on E.O.Wilson's idea of setting aside massive amounts of land for the purpose of conservation and re-wilding. The authors mean well, their critique of capitalism is good, but their veganism is fetishized and their analysis of animal agriculture extremely flawed. Whose earth gets set aside? Whose herds get taken away? By whom? Of course industrial meat production is bad. That's a no brainer.But you don't jump from there to no meat production period. Baby with bathwater. You don't jump from jungle slash and burn to all grazing is bad. Grazing creates critical ecosystems. And huge amounts of protean. As for living morally, in a balance with nature. Did/Do indigenous subsistence hunters live in a balance throughout pre-history? Were/Are they connected to nature? Just wondering if they were/are as "connected" as modern vegans.