The first aspect we generally think of when we talk about Veganism is almost always animal welfare. The fallacies concerning this topic are fairly straightforward. More than you'd think at least, but for that matter they are infinitely complex due to our emotional bond to familiarity rendering logic generally weaker. But science always wins and it is for that reason that this topic needs to be judged purely on unbiased fact and data and it shall be cited clearly. Though it requires logic I also know that morality isn’t logic it is based on emotion and so emotion shall be interwoven into the complexity of the required data to make this point. The fallacy regarding this topic is very large, it is the most emotionally bonded argument of all the arguments against Veganism. It is for that reason that the argument, “animals cant even feel pain” is stupidly rendered useless from a scientific point of view. But the argument itself isn't the only problem, when people present it they say “according to research” or “scientists say” without citing sources. When we vegans make points we use credible sources (real examples) like Oxford and Harvard or health organizations that if anything make money from the industry like the AMA (American Medical Association) or the FDA or even the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information). Yet somehow the supposed winners of the argument get away with, “research shows." Anyway, back to the argument itself, animals dont feel pain. To understand the truth though it be simple you need to know that the way creatures feel pain (not to be confused with the will to live which all life has). They use a nervous system which triggers that “pain” effect whenever something harming the body is detected. That is as primal as it gets. The idea that animals dont feel pain is absolute insanity. If you stab a fish does it act like everything is ok? Or does it writhe and bleed and the only reason we dont get it is because it doesn't speak english. Yet whenever we question that morality all we get is baseless claims of absolute nonsense. The other thing people dont know is how the dairy industry works. People know that in the meat industry all the animals die, yet people dont know that EVERY ANIMAL in EVERY INDUSTRY DIES. According to ers.usda.gov, the government agency for educating people on animal agriculture practice, this is the way  the dairy industry works. First the farmer gets the female cow and first gets bull semen, (yes, they get it that way) and with their left hand reach up their anuses and hold the cervix in place. (And as a reminder, this is standard practice according to New York Times correspondent and journalist Andrew Jacobs, who visited Dutch Hollow Farm in Schodack Landing, N.Y.) With their right hand they reach up the vagina of the cow through the cervix and impregnate the cow. The poor cow has to be pregnant back to back for years without break. When the baby is born, the mother naturally licks her child out of love and compassion. Then the farmer beats the cow into moving away and puts the calf in a confinement center, a super small cage where she’ll spend her entire childhood, without her mother’s milk or love. The mother is milked and then when she stops she gets re impregnated. When she is too old, they will slaughter her and by then the calf will be an adult. And for the record, male cows, according to USDA “humane protocol”,  are hit in the head with an iron bar right after birth because they don’t make milk and therefore have no value in life. Most dairy cows live and sleep in their own poop and as a result they get sick. This is due to the overwhelming number of factory farms. For that reason farmers pump them with antibiotics. All so we can get a glass of milk! We spend an average of 15 minutes eating our meal but that is the entire life of an animal, a baby, who can never drink her mother’s milk. It is nearly identical in the egg industry which is arguably more horrifying. This is the reality of our world, but it can change, it has to. 

According to ffcoalition.org (Unfortunately, the government has no info on these matters that are public due to the infamous Ag-Gag laws which prevent footage of slaughterhouses), “We estimate that 99% of US farmed animals are living in factory farms at present. By species, we estimate that 70.4% of cows, 98.3% of pigs, 99.8% of turkeys, 98.2% of chickens raised for eggs, and over 99.9% of chickens raised for meat are living in factory farms.” These are mind blowing statistics yet not surprising in the slightest. It goes without saying that factory farms are torture machines that take in life and spew out death, waste, PTSD fr the workers, and most of all money, the one thing the capitalist US Cares about. And what saddens me the most is the fact that there are people who society has lied to and made them think animal products are “humane” and that just because they saw a farm once or twice means they are an expert on the matter. But sadly this is our world, these are the lies we are fed, and because of it anti-Vegans come to destroy us, but the truth will set free, no matter what. Either way animals are incredibly intelligent, for example, pigs are as smart as dogs, yet we murder one and love the other. And even if the animals we kill are dumb, they still feel pain and know what will happen to them. And even if they were dumb, do they deserve this lifelong torture? For a 15 minute meal? And most of all, what do you value more, Taste or Life, a 15 minute meal or a lifetime of love and peace for the animals whose dead bodies you would have consumed?

Aside from morality there is another argument that is both controversial and it's one people have misinformation on, Health. A lot of people think you can be healthy and be Vegan at the same time, or people think Vegans can’t build muscle. Many say, “are you Vegan, how do you get your protein?” and “You can’t be healthy on a Full Vegan Diet’. First of all it's important to note that cows in the beef industry eat soybeans. So soy itself has the protein that we need. And B12? B12 is injected into cows with their other meds. Being Vegan is safe and totally possible. Many athletes, actors, and weightlifters are Vegan. For example, Colin Kaepernick, Venus Williams, Kristen Bell, Joaquin Phoenix, and even late Coretta Scott King! People have, can, and will survive on a Vegan diet and are really healthy. Many say they are more healthy as Vegans. You can tell me to my face I'm weak or tell people  Vegans are weak but telling it to Venus Williams and the other Vegan Celebrities is a whole different story. So don't take my word for it, take theirs. Not only is it possible to be Vegan but instead it's easier because you have lower cholesterol. According to the famous film Forks over Knives which famously converted Kristen Bell (the voice actor for Anna in Frozen). And the taste does not necessarily need to be lost. With new Impossible and Beyond meat, the molecules are nearly the same and require way less energy, land, and fuel for shipping. And with newer lab-meat that’s healthier we can push that to another level. Anyone who says “you can’t live on a vegan diet and survive is wrong ''. In one of Leonardo Di Caprio’s climate crisis documentary interviews, there is a man whose mom was vegan and he grew up a vegan and is now really old and still healthy as ever. Arguably more healthy for that matter given his blood cholesterol is lower and he’s in his 80’s. And as I’ve said before, all those athletes get their meaty flavors, their cheesy goodness, their creamy ice cream, it’s just that they get it in more than one awesome way. And many companies worldwide are finding alternatives. Like an entrepreneur in Southeast Asia who made a 3D printed fish so his country would stop over fishing and the company Perfect Day which prints real milk DNA that has actual lactose from mushroom molecules. We are humans, we have made cities and flattened them in an instant. Our power grows annually. Why not use that for a better purpose? And just because some transitioning vegans struggle with weight doesn't mean we all are pale, weak, and skinny. And the more we invest our time and money into this the more we benefit from it and the easier it will be, because ultimately it’s an investment, but in the grand scheme, we don’t have a choice.

Another aspect to consider in the subtopic health is that animals are injected with all kinds of steroids and antibiotics due to the fact that they live in their own poop and naturally, they get sick. Also 90%+ of animals are genetically modified and there were contests in the 80’s and 90’s where people LITERALLY invented new chickens and pigs that were so fat that they had no muscle, couldn't walk, and can’t even lift themselves up off the ground. People have to lift them and every week hundreds die from sickness. Their genetics are so screwed up they can't even reproduce, only some have special genes for that and they are confined to crates called farrowing crates and forcibly impregnated their whole lives, much like dairy cows. Furthermore, their antibiotics eventually start to fail because the bacteria develops resistance. Then, not only will they get super sick and we can’t stop all their deaths but also we will use more and more antibiotics. And get this, “The study published in Acta Scientific Microbiology says chicken liver meat and egg yolk samples showed resistance to commonly used antibiotics. New Delhi: A new study has found that samples of chicken liver meat and egg yolk collected from three major regions in Mumbai contain 'multi-drug resistant' bacteria.” And it’s not just Mumbai, it’s worldwide. They use antibiotics in every animal in every country and if they say antibiotic free or hormone free then that's equally bad because they live in their poop without antibiotics. In fact, the NCBI themselves say, “16% of all lactating dairy cows in the U.S. receive antibiotic therapy for clinical mastitis each year, but nearly all dairy cows receive intramammary infusions of prophylactic doses of antibiotics following each lactation to prevent and control future mastitis—primarily with penicillins, cephalosporins, or other beta-lactam drugs.” Basically, cows are pumped with antibiotics and hormones, and that's just 3 types of antibiotics! And according to the “Center For Infectious Disease Research And Policy'', (CIDRAP), “Approximately 70% of all medically important antibiotics in the United States are sold for use in animals.” Tell me, what’s worse for us, meat with bacteria or meat with bacteria that’s resistant to modern medicine’s strongest antibiotics, seems like an obvious choice, none of the above! The exceptions for Veganism are people who eat animals out of pure necessity, hunting in barren lands or islanders. And farm workers will still have jobs, they will be replaced by soy farming jobs, which I can assure you does not give you PTSD. In fact, a 2015 study by Smith University showed that farming (plants) has many therapeutic effects and has been shown to alleviate Posttraumattic Stress Disorder (PTSD) The people who do have to eat meat even though all of the evidence has been presented due to environmental conditions (Not to be confused with cultural traditions) are justified because they arent murdering trillions of animals. Basically, they have no choice. There are many situations that can have exceptions and the arguments meat eaters use are all “one time”  situations in which the answer is obvious and the answer is the exception not the rule. Clearly it is not the logic that the meat-eaters need, it is their emotional attachment to their old ways, but old ways need to change, and traditions can be slightly modified for our and  the animals’ benefit.  These are some of the strongest rebuttal arguments we use but also the most logical. We have proven time and time again why we need to go vegan and if this isn’t good enough evidence, what is? If they won’t take science (not to be confused with being uneducated), why do they even bother funding science? At the government level there is a lot of hypocrisy, until the “Capitalist Republic” that is the US gets its act together we ain’t going anywhere.

Finally, onto the principal topic at hand, Climate Change. We all have heard something about climate change being caused by animal products (and byproducts). Everything mentioned in the field of inquiry will be based on pure fact. I know this is a fraught topic anyway and the idea of our world ending is already tough. But we care about those we love and so their future matters most and must be placed above all. For the adults have lived their lives well and good and we deserve the same. 

There are 2 aspects to consider in this theme and they are as follows, Cattle Grazing/Methane Expulsion and Soy farming (on a mass scale for animal feed). These are the three largest contributors in the category of animal agriculture emissions. Yes, it's not that the slaughter trucks produce CO2, It's the very cows they carry. Starting with cattle grazing/methane expulsion, the more common idea This is a further explained perspective on the same ideas you hear everywhere. And it is imperative that we realize the enormous impact of animal agriculture because while transportation does contribute to climate change and it is not enough to be Vegan. Especially since according to one of the UK’s most famous newspapers, “Eating a vegan diet could be the “single biggest way” to reduce your environmental impact on earth, a new study suggests.

Researchers at the University of Oxford found that cutting meat and dairy products from your diet could reduce an individual's carbon footprint from food by up to 73 per cent. If everyone stopped eating these foods, they found that global farmland use could be reduced by 75 per cent, an area equivalent to the size of the US, China, Australia and the EU combined. Not only would this result in a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions, it would also free up wild land lost to agriculture, one of the primary causes for mass wildlife extinction. The new study, published in the journal, is one of the most comprehensive analyzes to date, looking into the detrimental effects farming can have on the environment and included data on nearly 40,000 farms in 119 countries.The findings reveal that meat and dairy production is responsible for 60 per cent of agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions, while the products themselves provide just 18 per cent of calories and 37 per cent of protein levels around the world.`` Can you believe that! Just cows alone, a fraction of the animals we torture and consume, produces 60% of agriculture’s greenhouse gas emissions! And somehow only provide 37% of world protein?! Tell that to those who say Vegan protein isn’t possible. The fact is land like in the Amazon or other forests is super fertile and grass can grow abundantly. That's why cattle farmers rip down forests all over the world and replace it with simple grass infested with invasive species being fed on by cows who produce 75% of all animal product emissions.

Moving on to the second way in which animal products cause global harm is Soy Production. Most of the non-grass fed cows are fed soy. They are fed both soybeans and Alfalfa which is basically hay. As you may know, they eat tons of food and soy is no exception. In fact, even chickens in the industry eat soy. American soy is subsidized in the same way as corn. That is why many farmers (chicken) feed chickens soybeans. Just a few years ago there were 7 chickens for every human on earth. That’s 49 Billion chickens. And that isn’t even considering the boom in population since that study took place. Think about it, 49 Billion chickens, Virtually every non-grass fed farmed cow, and often even pigs eat soy. There is no way that countries like the US or the EU or even the UK could produce soy at the scale necessary to feed those animals. It is for that reason (and for cattle grazing space) that the Amazon Rainforest is being deforested. Yes, there you go folks, The Amazon is being deforested for the sole purpose of getting that 15yr old gamer his KFC. Can you believe that! We are ruining nature, in arguably its most beautiful environment and destroying it for a Big Mac. Can you believe that, do you see the logic, people who say Vegans are extreme are the extreme ones. Because they know these things, they just value profit over this. 

I would also like to bring up another important thing the animal industry has been hiding. Even though rain forest conditions are great for soy, they can’t produce the amount of soy necessary to meet the demand. They can buy more land or at a lower monetary cost, they can take a cheap way out. When you buy meat at a grocery store, it may say Non-GMO and that is a lie in 2 ways. Firstly, the animals we eat are already genetically modified to the point of not being able to stand up or even reproduce naturally. The second way is that the soy farmers genetically modify their soy to make more soy faster and cheaper. This should be no surprise though, and it’s important to recognize the difference between consumption level soy and feedlot soy. Consumption soy is carefully regulated by the FDA and cannot be labeled as Non-GMO or Organic without their approval. Also, it is generally grown locally (as in not as far as Brazil. In the country basically) and doesn’t require as much carbon for obvious reasons. GMO Amazon soy is hidden from the public and slipped (or shipped) to its destination unmonitored, without regulations, and without any quality standards whatsoever. Because as long as it is cheap and the public doesn’t find out that Non-GMO meat doesn’t exist at Wendy’s, (or most places in the world for that matter) They can keep producing it. The chemicals, pesticides, and broken genetic structures (controversial topic), eventually find their way into us and the environment using this system, one way or another.

This is a small percentage of the reasons why people should go vegan but there are so many more and infinitely more topics. Everyday science makes advances on lab meat production. The animal industry is sickeningly gross, cruel, and has practically no standards and relies entirely on the government’s tricks to survive.  That is why veganism, for all its sacrifice and bravery, in the face of humiliation, is the only way we can heal to the required amount we need to save our world. We need to know the truth, and act on it, for ourselves, for the animals, and for those we love, because they matter most, and no parent wants to hurt their child’s future, because ultimately, what binds all of us together is love for those we care about. We have made mistakes, a lot of huge ones, from Rockefeller destroying the electric car market to industrializing farms into literal factories and striping them down to inputs, outputs, and numbers. We don't see very far into the future, we don't see  or try to save even the future of our own progeny. That is our failing, people don't listen to science, from anti-vaxxers, to Climate Change, to Veganism. I gotta change, we gotta change, we humans gotta change, and it can all start with a simple household step, a choice to do better, to be better, 

Go Vegan.