Let Them Eat Meat: There is Nothing Wrong With Rearing and Killing Animals for Human Consumption

good evening everyone thank you so much for joining us it feels appropriate to be having this discussion in this room apparently the reason that um it's such a steep slope is because uh this is where the first human corpse was dissected and it needed to be constructed this way so that everybody could get a look at what's happening well dissecting human bodies isn't on the menu for the discussion today but just about everything else is uh when I looked at the most recent developments I saw that uh Ellen degenerous Beyonce Jay-Z they're not passionate about Hillary Clinton's campaign Unfortunately they are proponents of veganism it's become a celebrity movement as I'm sure many of you know and uh I am a former vegan myself when I first became vegan 13 years ago it was almost unheard of I remember explaining to so many people what veganism meant and when I stopped being vegan and I am an ex- vegan and I know some of you will hate me for that um six years ago it had completely transformed into a mainstream movement that's now something everyone's familiar with so I've done my share of sprouting quinoa and adding tofu and soy protein powder to my almond yogurts but there is so much more to discuss about where the meet belongs on our table and I'm absolutely thrilled to have such distinguished and interesting and I can tell you from some of the discussions I was just over Hearing in the green room they have some interesting and even counterintuitive views um which we will be hearing more about so each speaker will speak for about nine or 10 minutes we'll then have a discussion and we want to include you I know there are a lot of people here with strong views passionate views in the audience we'll bring you in um to ask questions and engage with both Adrien and George so it's my absolute Delight to welcome our first Speaker as Speaker for the motion is the Sunday Times restaurant and TV critic you'll know him as AA Gil he's also worked as an artist and a chef he says and this is one of the less colorful quotes I've heard from him on the subject he will eat anything that doesn't have a birth certificate please welcome AA Gil good evening um I'm Adrien um well we to start off by separating the [ __ ] and the loonies um how many of you already are vegan vegetarian stuff hands up we could just ask them to show us their shoes couldn't we uh and how many eat meat what are you doing here I mean this always works the other way around whenever we do this George goes off held shoulder high and I'm kicked down the servant steps it's it it this argument is always about vegetarians vegans Notting Hill Nutters who w who want to change the way the rest of us eat so let me first of all lay out my stall I don't give a [ __ ] I don't give a [ __ ] what you eat any of you I don't want to make you eat meat I don't want to stop you eating meat I don't want to improve your diet you go and eat whatever you like I'm an extreme libertarian I just think that the point of life is to do as much as you can as often as you can as freely as you can that being said one of the most important things that ever ever happened to us as a species was that we ate meat GK Cheston said you know it was a brave man who first ate an oyster well it just wasn't we all were derive from animals that have e eaten oysters for thousands and thousands and thousands of years the Really Brave man was the first man that ate a burnt animal can you imagine how terrifying that must have been all you ever seen a fire is horrifying and suddenly you come across this thing that stinks of death and burning and the misses says bet you wouldn't eat that but he does and it changes everything why does it change everything good protein more important than protein cooperation vegetable eaters do it on their own meat eaters do it together eating big bits of meat eating big animals means cooperation if you cook it you can feed old people with bad teeth and young people with no teeth you can eat a huge amount more the difference that makes in life births for your pregnant women in being able to live three or four years longer and be productive is enough to put us in this Hall where they cut up the first dead body meat eating is what makes us Cooperative it what's make it's actually what makes dinner parties that may not be a good thing the other thing I wanted to say before we go on I'm more interested in your questions really than my going on about about me but I'm I did want have you have you ever thought about how little how few things we actually eat I mean how few animals we actually eat very very few and there's a reason for that that in to farm animals you have to have the acquiescence of the animal you can't farm animals that don't want to be farmed it's not us making them do it they have to see a point in being farm animals and not many of them do guinea pigs you all keep guinea pigs don't you eating guinea pigs guinea pigs live in people's kitchens in Peru Peru in Peru where they eat corn corn yes so they shut corn corn goes on the floor guinea pigs eat the corn every so often someone goes down beats a guinea pig on the head and eats the guinea pig now that works for the guinea pig because they get a safe environment they get to have babies they get to continue to breed they go on and occasionally one gets beaten on the back of the head but the important thing is is that outside the kitchen the peruvians also keep dogs but the dogs don't live in the kitchen they live outside the kitchen so the guinea pigs don't want to go outside the kitchen so guinea pigs live in this safe environment and it's a mutually successful relationship they go on being a species they go on and they get eaten when they get fat that works for them the animal that most people wanted to farm more than anything else right at the beginning of husbandry in the over that great s in ir and the Middle East the animal they were desperate to be able to farm were cheatah well you would wouldn't you I [ __ ] I mean who'd not want to have a cheatah you could hunt with it I mean just brilliant desperate to farm with cheaters but you can't and they tried for thousands and thousands of years and you can do it one at a time if you find orphaned Cubs you can train them they will live quite happily with people what cheers won't do is they won't live with each other animals that are farmed have to be able to live not just with us but with each other and they have to do something which is very specific which is neony neony this is the ability to remain Forever Young it's the ability of a dog never to grow out to be a wolf so you remain adolescent even though your body becomes fully grown you couldn't live with a real wild sheep they're [ __ ] rough you probably couldn't live with a real wild cow Who would know has anyone ever seen a wild cow no you have none of you have that and died out in the 17th century they don't exist anymore cows made a deal with us we look after them we'd milk them we'd Farm them and they would be one of the most successful animals in the world they are the wild ones the ones who went [ __ ] off I'm the Jimmy Dean of cows died in Hungary appropriately chickens anyone ever seen a wild chicken I mean I don't mean it's an Angry Chicken I mean you like a wild chicken Hardy we're not entirely sure where chickens come from probably from Far East bit of India jungle foul so useless at being Birds completely I just I mean talk about drawing the short sty what was can't fly look stupid the one thing they had to get them through to the next generation was an ability to lay an egg a day very few things can do that or would want to but it made them very useful to us so we said look [ __ ] it we'll get rid of the leopards and the dogs and the mongs and the Rats we'll lock you up keep you mostly away from the foxes just keep laying the eggs one a day and they went really is that it there chickens anyway that's my my bid for meat [Applause] eating I leave it now to George to tell you the really interesting [Applause] stuff thank you Adrian I told you there were some counterintuitive things that would come out our speaker against the motion is a regular columnist the guardian having wavered for years between eating and not eating meat he now says he's about 97% vegan he eats and I'm not making this up roadkill and the odd bit of fish or egg please welcome George [Applause] mvio Well Adrian and I disagree about almost everything but I I hate myself for laughing so much whenever he he puts the opposing case uh um it is actually a pleasure to be contradicted by himself so thank you even when I'm the butt of the joke um anyway um I I'm probably by inclination even more omnivorous than you are I mean I've I've um I I I got lost once in west Papa which um uh and ran out of food and ended up eating rats snakes stick insects and got quite a taste for the unusual and um in this country I've uh well I've eaten Grasshoppers and crickets and daddy long legs and mayflies and cadis flies and earwigs and Beetle grubs and woodlice I don't recommend woodlice they taste as soap um and just about every possible cut of meat and aful there could be including every variety of roadkill except cats dogs and we as we established beforehand cyclists who are get pretty sweaty under the light GR um and um um and you know I I don't have the sort of usual profile I suppose of an almost vegan um when I was um a young man I worked on an intensive pig farm and one of my jobs um was after a two we freeze where quite a lot of the pigs died and um we weren't able to do anything about it because Old Farm was locked down with ice I had to get rid of the pigs the dead pigs and by then they had blown out like barrage balloons and I had to burst them and and then dig them out with a shovel and after that nothing can Revolt you except par Snips obviously which should truly disgusting so so so why why why this change how how come someone with such gross appetites as myself ended up as a nearly vegan well it it's because um livestock keeping and indeed fish catching is just wrecking everything I love and and delighted and Enchanted by in the natural world and like all blindingly obvious things it took me a long time to see it it wasn't until I was living in mid Wales that I began to realize that something was very seriously screwed up about everything I could see because whichever direction I walked in there was well yeah okay it's Wales But whichever direction I walked in there was almost nothing there not just that there weren't any people there were no trees there were no birds there were no flowers there no insects it was just these wastelands of basically more grass and nothing else and the reason for it was a single agent of Destruction the white plague The Woolly M maggot the invasive ruminant from Mesopotamia the Sheep the hills had been comprehensively shagged and not just across whales but across all the Uplands of the UK the places which should be our great Wildlife refugees because it's there's absolutely no soding point in farming them because they're so unproductive have been reduced to wet deserts by the Sheep they have been sheep wrecked and I did a calculation the other day with the help of a researcher and we haven't quite refined it to the level at which I'd be happy with but it's roughly this this the first bit we know for sure that um meat from sheep um in other words lamb mutton and hog in this country produces about 0.4% of our diet in terms of calories yet sheeping occupies roughly the same area as all the arable and Horticultural crops that we grow in Britain all the grains all the potatoes all the oil seeds all the fruit all the vegetables for 0.4% of our diet it's a fantastically wasteful profant use of land to produce us with this Boutique product the Lamb Chop um and when you think of what could be there when you think of what was there before the Sheep this fully automated system for environmental destruction is let loose to just nibble out all the palatable plants the tree seedlings all the rest of it reducing the place to a wasteland well it breaks my heart and and then when you look at what's going on worldwide you see something very similar we had television chefs all over the place saying stop eating meat from these indoor intensive Farms where the pigs and the chickens and stuff are kept because it's so cruel as indeed it is eat free range instead and all you're doing by that means is swapping a disaster for Animal Welfare for with a disaster for the natural world um freerange chickens lay down this scorching carpet of reactive phosphate chicken chip which whenever there's a heavy rainfall straight into the nearest river pigs do so much damage to the structure of the soil that a friend of mine calls it open Pig mining as for sheep and cattle ranching well they are now the foremost cause of wildlife loss and habitat loss around the world staggering amounts of Destruction caused by our appetite for meat and you know the it's not like the indoor animals don't do any harm either you know the amount of soy and Maze these two great Planet ripping crops which are fed to them ensures that they too have a massive impact in fact if you want to eat less soy eat soy because um you the the the really inefficient way of consuming soy is doing so through the meat of an animal which has been eating soy and and you consume far far less of it if you eat it directly um You by consuming plant protein as opposed to animal protein you reduce your contribution to the clearance of natural habitats by 96% so so much for meat but for me me now it goes beyond meat and the reason for this was something that happened when and this makes me a very odd almost vegan indeed I was fishing at the end of of last of the last trout season um in in Devon on the river C well I wasn't fishing I went down there to fish but I could smell the River from 50 m away it had turned into a farm sewer it was just a stinking mass of cowshit and the only life form in it was sewage fungus filamentous wavery feathery sewage fungus which now coated the entire bed of the river so instead of fishing I traced this thing Upstream got to this massive intensive Dairy unit up there and found the broken pipe coming out of a um um slurry pit at the bottom which was just pouring straight into the river wiping it out went to the environment agency they pollution hotline ring our pollution hotline if ever you see any incident of pollution and we'll be on to it straight away the pollution hot oh very interesting sir yeah I'll send you the photos right okay thank you sir very interesting what do you think of them all very serious obviously a serious case right so I write it up in the guardian photos all the rest of it the environment agency are on the case two weeks later I ring them up and say so what what have you done about this oh we decided it's not a serious incident sir what do you mean it's not a serious incident well we found no evidence of a fish kill of course you found no evidence of a [ __ ] fish kill there are no fish left in the river you would expect a fish kill when you have an an an acute sudden pollution incident this is a chronic one there have been no fish there for months there's nothing growing there except sewage fungus well thank you for your opinion so we decided not to enforce and then I wrote that up and I had two separate whistleblowers from the environment agency got in touch that this is the what the instruction right across the board now we do not enforce against basic Farm pollution that's taking place in our Rivers I thought right Sol it if that's the case I'm out of this if you're not going to regulate the industry I'm not going to buy the products and again you look at the global picture and these vast plumes of cow [ __ ] just pouring down the rivers of of of chicken [ __ ] from the egg Farms it's just devastating to all the things that I love I don't want anything to do with that I don't want anything to do with the climate change it's causing I don't want anything to do with this erosion of everything that makes this world wonderful and this reduction this wearing away of the nap of the earth until we're just left with the same GR gray homogeneous nothingness everywhere that's what the livestock industry is doing and fine you do that but I'm not I'm not going to be part of it anymore and and it seems to me that yeah sure you know this is a choice this is your choice I can't make you eat meat or not eat meat I don't want to make you eat meat or not eat meat but it seems to me that if there is a measure of human progress it is not having to be what our ancestors were it's not having to be governed by the choices that they made otherwise I'll be talking to you in a bare skinned leotard we we we I you know I agree with a lot of what Adrian says about you know the role of meat in human evolution it was critically important for all the reasons that you say you're quite right about that but we don't have to do that anymore and we found other ways of feeding ourselves we found other ways of sharing our lives together of engaging communally of doing lovely things together of creating beautiful stuff like this without actually having to eat a mammoth before we do it and and that surely is what makes us human it's what makes us what we are is the choice not to be what we were thank you thank you George Adrien whatever you say about food libertarianism surely we have a collective responsibility to prevent the kind of Destruction that George is talking about I mean if we see animals not as food but as Weapons of environmental mass destruction don't we need to accept some responsibility in the way that we contribute towards that no it's it it's it's a sweet story and you do tell it awfully well um bless you but it's entirely fallacious and the thing that's wrong about it is that how many of you believe that nature has a balance that nature is this finely wrought even beautiful complicated tapestry of interrelated things that all lean one against the other and make it all perfect and wonderful because if you do and it's what George believes is you're entirely wrong nature works on cataclysm and accident we all we are all compar competitive we were born competitive we grew up competitive we evolved from competition there is no right way for the world to be there was no moment where George's world was just keep it there don't move that's it no there was no marvelous time when when the the up PLS were just that nice little bit of woodiness and not too many thistles and it didn't exist we all get on because something else fails the natural role of existence is to lead to extermination that's what happens to most things we've been immensely successful as a species that's not our fault that's our Brilliance what I mind about George's view of the world is that there is nature and then there's us there's everything else there's all the glory and then there's me [Laughter] [ __ ] greedy fat farting slovenly slothful uncaring [ __ ] eating things with eyes I am as much part of nature as every other spee here in this world all of us are and what I mind about this view of the way the world works is it stops me being part of my Birthright which is part of natural selection it makes me a [ __ ] zookeeper and I don't want to be a park ranger in your Park you're not [Laughter] inviting well look it's very of you to tell me what my beliefs are but um and you know obviously I see you know the world is full of cataclysm you know always has been there's always been cycles of Destruction and Extinction and then re rebirth and stuff but you know what we're doing at the moment is holding it down you know we don't let go we don't sort of suddenly hit it and then say all right well we've done the damage for a couple of million years we'll sort of leave it alone for a bit we just keep on the case all the time just knocking and knocking and knocking it back and within my own lifetime you I've seen massive changes and actually you know my con concern is not for some abstract thing we call nature because as Raymond Williams says nature is the most complex word in the English language what does it even mean you know we're part of nature we're not part of nature I don't know what that means my my concern is for my own feelings and people who also have those feelings about seeing this mass destruction going get to the vanity yeah it is Vanity of course it's vanity but then we are all vanity everything is Vanity we love this building because it reflects something that inside us or we would like to be inside us we anything we love is the same we love our children out of a kind of vanity in the same way but is that a bad thing is that vanity some form of evil I think not I think it's what allows us to be the outward-looking generous spirited engaged amazing creatures that we are and to deprive us of the Delight the Wonder the joy in in what excites us um particularly in the natural world that is a crime against ourselves apart from anything else I think this is just of words worthy and but I mean but surely if if that if we see destruction in the natural world and we can do something to prevent it it would make sense you must understand that what you're doing is gardening I quite like gardening I mean that's fine but that's what you're doing you are saying I have I have a an out of nature a human and aesthetic judgment a view about what this landscape should look like what should grow here what it should sound like what it should should smell like what it should be how it should what it should evoke in me this is nothing to do with nature this is all to do with me and it's gardening and that's fine but just call it gardening well half a sec um I and I kind of agree with you that that is where far too much conservation is you know you read these management plans and the grass in this part of the RO should be 10 cm High and the following species should be in it and the following should not and manage it just like a garden just like you say what I like is the idea of rewilding of just letting things go and seeing what happens and then you get far more exciting wild dramatic extraordinary Landscapes and ecosystems developing and part of the joy of it the Serendipity of it is the surprise that you get from not knowing what the hell is going to happen and that's what nature is about nature is not just or the natural world or whatever we want to call it it's not just a collection of species in a museum it's all the dynamic interactions between them which you can't predict and to me and it's my vanity a lot of the Beauty and the joy of nature is in that Dynamic interaction but it's those processes as well as the species which we're wiping out at the most horrendous rate and principally because of the stuff we eat George let me ask you this when I was vegan one of the things that bothered me was the question of whether not eating meat is enough I mean if the destruction you're talking about is as serious as it is then why is eating meat the solution and you could say anyone who shops at supermarkets or wears mass-produced clothes or buys anything that's produced through an industrial process is contributing to the same thing so why the focus on on meat as the problem well you're right it's never enough nothing is ever going to be enough and so it's a question of compromise it's a question of balance yeah I got leather shoes on yeah I you know I'll eat the fish that I catch every couple of weeks I'll eat an egg um I'll uh you know I'll still eat roadkill and stuff because you know no one killed it for me um but but you know and I know that just my very existence means I'm exerting an imp on the Living World of course it does even a vegan diet you are exerting an impact on the living world it's a question of degree but the impact of meat is so wildly disproportionately ridiculous that anyone you know even if you don't love the natural world how about just hating waste and just the idea of hating waste should be enough to think that's a really dumb thing to be doing just eating you know getting modom a pleasure from it um but you know you haven't tried my thae green curry you know where you get a modum of pleasure the same pleasure from that you what do you make it with uh tofu chickpeas whatever you know there there you just throw in just throw you love a bit of whatever you but but you know you get a little bit of pleasure but the disproportion between that little bit of extra pleasure you might get from eating meat and the phenomenal amount of Destruction required to produce it should surely commend it to anyone as a stupid thing to do just keeping on the theme of Destruction we haven't talked at all about Animal Welfare really um Adrien this is going to be fun Have you ever killed anything and and and what do you feel about Mass intensive farming that is well known to lots and lots of things um famously I shot a baboon and I I shoot for fun I shoot Birds I've shot Buffalo I've shot deer that's about it um don't like fishing wet knitting wet knitting you clearly feel at at ease with the idea of killing animals and not necessar but I eaten everything or someone's eaten everything I mean I I I I wouldn't ever kill anything because he got a spotty cat I mean it's only about food and I started off as a ve I went to a vegetarian boarding school the only one in the country sent by my hippie parents I suspect that has a lot to answer for yeah do you know I think we just got to the number of it haven't we we just St the rest of the debate down we know what this is all about the only the only other the only other um inmate you'll have ever heard of was Michael winter jeez that place must be closed down um and then when I stopped being a vegetarian I decided that I would if I was going to eat meat I had to to be prepared to do the whole business myself you can't just jump in when it looks like a brick um so I I started gutting animals and then killing them and eating them and cooking them and skinning them and and I still do that and I I I drive an enormous amount of pleasure from going out and finding en caps and getting my own my own food um do I care about the pain that animals that have inflicted on them up to a point um I think that the obsession with the last few and a half seconds of animals lives which is what the argument always comes down to is again A desperate vanity it's about us it's about how do I feel about killing this animal it's about you know is a is is an animal a Halal animal slightly worse off than a kosher animal k a [ __ ] really um those things I those things I I I I don't I don't care about I I think it's unpleasant if you see animals that are badly husbanded anywhere um animals that are that are kept in you know crates that are too small or and as a food critic how do you feel about the worst thing by the way how many of you eat um soft shell crabs don't if you ever saw the agony of a soft shell crab home you never read another one I didn't think we'd get some compassion from Adrian George your argument is more about the environmental damage than Animal Welfare even bursting those pigs didn't oh no it's not that I don't don't have concerns about that as well I you I suppose I mean I was going to say like Adrian but actually there's nothing like Adrian U I mean I I I I don't have nearly as much of a problem with shooting a wild animal that's you know had a reasonable life than keeping an animal in really crap conditions for the whole of that life and you know as I saw in the pig farm I worked on as I've seen in Endless Broiler and Battery chicken units and the rest of it animals are treated really amazingly badly you know we think of ourselves as a nation of animal lovers and we we lavish great affection on our dogs and cats which means largely feeding them on pigs and chickens and other animal which have been treated terribly in order for us to Lavish that affection on them and yet you take Pig just as intelligent as a dog just as capable of suffering as a dog and they are kept in really really horrible conditions you know and and it's getting bigger the scale can I can I jump I don't want to interrup can I jump in there because I think there this is another thing that I have a bug bear with which is the the um is is the hierarchy of suffering which is that The Closer animals are to us the more we can identify with with them again the vanity the the the the more responsibility we have for them and to them therefore chimpanzees obviously they should be honory people um and and but you know Abalone [ __ ] him but is isn't it about the capacity for suffering I mean think in the natural world the the the the the threshold for the right to life should be having a nervous system that's nearly like mine well I'm not really arguing about the threshold for the right to AR about the thrh the it is hard to draw the line isn't it if if you if you make a kind of sentient uh capacity to feel pain argument for not killing animals but plants plants there's some evidence can feel pain that's why some people believe in only eating things that fall naturally from the tree where do you draw the line it's not about drawing hard lines it's about saying look if if the capacity for suffering is very high then we should be more concerned about that suffering it's as simple as that it's not a complicated argument and and yeah you know we have a particularly high capacity for suffering because we are so bright and we' got such a highly developed central nervous system but there are many other mammals in particular which are also pretty bright and have got just as developed central nervous systems as we have their capacity for suffering is very great I I I I don't think that should be the criteria I think that everything everything is part of nature everything has the right to be part of it but everything dies in it and everything gets eaten everything gets eaten everything dies but this see that's not my objection in this respect is what happens when they're alive which is the main Animal Welfare issue okay quickly before we bring everyone else in what about health Adrien there's evidence that meets causes disease that a plant-based lifestyle is healthier do you think there's any Merit in advocating plant-based diets from a health perspective no do you accept that there is evidence that it's healthier to eat a plant-based diet do you know what my job is I am familiar with your work no there isn't it's incredibly difficult to replace meat protein that's a it's a real real problem for people who don't eat meat protein and you either have to have hideous textured grown manufactured protein um which has all sorts of problems with it as a child in vegetarian boarding school were you able to eat a balance diet no I think I I basically ate eggs and corn flakes um no I mean I it it it just it just is that said there are loads of people who AR vegetarians and live perfectly healthy lives most of India um but but it is very diff it would also be incredibly difficult to replace all of the meat production with an equal and valuable amount of plant production I once went on a very interesting trip to uh Madagascar if you haven't been going while stocks last there's not a lot of it left um it's terrific Madagascar an amazing amazing amazing place and I went with Q Gardens who were going to collect they doing the Millennium seed one of the most pointless things ever in ever conceive is that we're going to go and collect 10% of all the seeds in on the world and hide them but I'd love them for doing it so I went off with them and did that and the thing that's that is eating quite rightly as George Will point out the thing that's eating Madagascar a cattle zebu cattle which were brought over by the Africans who the second lot of people who got to Madagascar and I was there with a marvelously iodite clever sensitive local madagascan um biologist and every night we would watch the fires burn across the central Ridge while they clear they they they burnt for grazing for their zeu cattle uh huge amounts of stuff was gone none of the bear Babs are now producing young bear Babs all there were no there were no young bear Babs left in or of the six or seven six seven varieties of be B in the world they're all in Madagascar One in Australia two in Africa um there are no young they all been eaten by cattle and I told talked to this man about the cattle I said the cattle are obviously a problem and he went I know you can't get enough of them and I went no no really he said well but the cattle were always here and I went no no the cattle weren't always here cattle were brought over here in the in the 16th century he went no no no no cattle have always been here there have always been zebu here as long as there've been people here there have been zebu here my people came with the cattle and you I don't think that's probably quite right he was a biologist he was a scientist he'd been trained he was incredibly clever very nice I couldn't argue with him that was his culture that was who he was they are so tied up with the idea of being cattle rearing people that that's what they do that is who they are I wasn't going to say look I'm terribly sorry but George is going to really have a g at you when he go it's very you you have to understand that that the way people eat what they do how they live is as important as all the other stuff it's as important as you getting [ __ ] trees on Shel or whatever it is you want you know I mean that those things the way the way our culture works and the culture of our food and how it matters to us and what we what we grow up with what we we grow with is really important and you can't just dismiss it because it ruins your view can't we have new cultures go and invent one go on I mean it is is culturally specific isn't it I can say as someone who's tried to be vegan and War vegan in West Africa it's not a culture that's Universal isn't there something problematic about us trying to impose our Western Centric ideas about wellness and veganism on other cultures that as Adrian saying are fundamentally attached to meat eating I'm not trying to impose it um I'm just making an argument that you know if we want to minimize our impacts this is the way to do it as for the idea that you know you can't have a diet you can't replace the protein it's just it's simply not true it's easy it's really nowadays it is you know it didn't used to be because well actually maybe it was you know we used to eat D basically in this country peas pudding peas pottage peas soup it was dll um yeah and it's still there you know we' still got all the pulses you've got all the uh nuts and seeds and all the rest of it it's actually easy and I think it's pretty healthy I've lost a stone and I stopped you know I carried on losing it would have been a problem but you know it's fine um but um and as for the health side well you know you know if you're a total 100% vegan there's a couple of supplements you might want to take but that's it it's really not difficult you know and it's yeah it's not like it's some huge sacrifice we have to make it's not like we have to abandon our children to the wolves or something you know that might also be arguable but that that's different matter it's it this is simply you know exchanging one lot of nice things we eat for another lot of nice things we eat and it's not my culture to eat meat sure I was brought up eating meat but I was brought up in this derated country where actually People Like Us don't really have a lot of cultures anymore or certainly I didn't where I was brought up and it's just as easy to have a slightly different culture today and I feel more comfortable and more embedded in that culture again we don't have to be what we were I want to bring in the audience now um so if you could raise your hand if you have a question we'll take them in batches I think of three and if you could wait till you get a microphone before you speak because we are recording this so uh this gentleman here I saw first the lady there in the uh turtleneck and uh yeah the lady there I'll come to you in the next round is is that oh yeah hello so um this is by Adrian um uh yeah you're basically saying farming is right and natural and so on the the thing is I'm I'm very happy with humans being able to kill animals and eat them that's fine as long as they're wild animals when when you get to farming and now farming might be okay but the thing is there's got to be there's got to be certain things that we could do wrong so um like like it's possible to breed animals so that they so they are bred to suffer like like for example daxon now have legs that are so short that they can't really walk properly I've never eat a dexon no okay okay well I mean basically I think what I'm trying to say is like sausages yeah I think it's not it's not actually where sausages come from [ __ ] I I think what I'm trying to say is although okay you might be comfortable with the level of farming at the moment or whatever um although I think um as uh sorry Michael sorry as Michael says um I think I see I think probably we eat too much meat and I want to ask if you if you consider whether maybe we should just eat less um but sorry yes what I really want to ask is is can you imagine any situation where we where we could be doing something wrong farming things too much you know because humans have incredible power okay thank you thank you very much uh there she yes hi um I've got a comment and a question um my comment was on your point about cultures we should just accept cultures choice to eat meat you could equally argue that about slavery back in the day which just accept People's Choice to traffic humans and you know if they want to do that and that's that um do you I'm sorry that's a really really interesting and silly point do you really think do you really think that all of gastronomy and slavery are equitable yeah I think I think okay well that's fine then we really disagree I don't think I don't think they're the same it's not the same but there are parallels they are really strong parallels okay fine you're wrong you can undermine that by calling it silly but did you say you had a question but I have a question um and that's more on um resilience and biodiversity um because the way we farm so we are um uh our ancestors are something like 12,000 different human beings that's our our genetic biodiversity isn't very strong and the way we Farm means we have very specific types of animals and and we've really reduced the the amount of biodiversity that we're ingesting as well and so we're not resilient at all to um to Super bugs and things like that so there's a there's a massive issue there as well thank you I'd like to hear your comments on that thank you very much yes George is more better one there's there's one more question um this is actually a question for you for for me yeah okay um uh maybe more basic but I'm really interested in why people go down the path of veganism for as many years as you did and and and change I was hoping no one was going to ask me that okay um so yeah that's why i' like okay thank you okay um I think you're the only question to answer on no you can answer the first your first question was for Adrian sorry um I I I yes I was slightly hazy about what that was are we boming too much was what I got out of it um um you imagine any kind of farming you consider wrong is there any sort of farming that I considered wrong is there any extr that I was expect to take part in yes I'm I'm I don't at all that you consider it wrong is there any limit I mean we talked about intensive farming you love food you care about the quality of food is there any extreme that you would say I would like this to stop no I mean so if you say for instance fragra no I adore fragra you're such a team there was a a gasp of anticipation where the audience thought you might have a humanitarian strain in you but I was interested do you want to do the biodiversity question because that was quite interesting that question I you answer a person and then we'll do you have anything you want to say funny I one of the other stories I did about your question about what how are the the amount of the variety of genes that we're eating and the am the amount of stuff we're taking in I I did a really interesting story years ago with the um with the Bushman who I ought to call but I can't say it um the in in in Botswana and they I went to a a place called Kai Kai where they've been gathering for over 30,000 years the same people have been gathering for over 30,000 years um and we went oh I killed a thing was the thing with spikes on it porcupine that's it we ate a porcupine the really interesting about porcupine is that porcupine has got a glay of fat underneath the underneath the spines which is very it's fatty but it's also muscle and they lay it on a fire and cook it it's completely delicious it goes sort of porcupine crackling it's lovely and while they're doing it they make jewry out of the spines ni um the the the the Bushmen have a wider variety of DNA than almost all of the rest of the world put together they may still have it they said this incredibly but hasn't done them an awful lot of good anyway that was that and I think we know what you think about the uh slavery comparison George on biodiversity and also the comment that um the way we treat animals is akin to okay well slav on the first thing I I think the the more interesting stuff sorry it's all right I think I think yeah and the the the the first the thing thing about the biodiversity actually the more interesting point is a diversity of antibiotics and what we're now facing is the antibiotics which humans need being basically squandered on farm animals and and there you know there's a finite supply of the diversity of antibiotics which can be used to treat us and if they're being sloshed around all over pigs and chickens and cows and the rest of it then that Supply runs out and that to me is another very powerful reason why we shouldn't be eating meat um as far as the sort of slavery analogy is concerned sorry just make sure we get it right the cultural the cultural the argument that you should have a relativist approach to different cultures is like saying you should let people practice slavery if it's in their culture for example yeah what you say to that I mean look I I don't see a moral equivalence between eating meat and having slaves I understand the point that was being made I think there is an interesting um um interesting analogy between the anti-sugar campaigns in the 18th century and the anti-meat campaigns today um 1791 300,000 people in Britain boycotted sugar decided to just stop eating it all together because they could see the chain of causality between doing something which seems sweetly innocent you know what could possibly be harmful about eating sugar you know all the obviously but but obviously had um you know that sugar was coming from somewhere and and sugar sales in this country reduced by a third you know we could see the moral consequences of what we were doing we could see beyond the immediate um and um uh and and and and local implications of our Behavior we could see that they were Global we could see that our behavior and its implications span the world well you know that's kind of the same thing that I'm calling for when it comes to meat you know we if you don't want to see environmental destruction you stop eating meat just as if you didn't want to see slavery you stop eating sugar that's where I think there is a valid analogy to be drawn oh and incidentally there were people there there were slave owners and sugar traders who said it would be terribly bad for us if we stopped eating sugar you you it would have massive impacts on our health okay thank you um I don't know if anyone else is interested to the answer about me so why don't you come and find me afterwards and I will tell you can I no no no no come on oh come on um I I'm still about 90 I don't know you're 97 I'd say I'm about 90% vegan and I love veganism my problem was I took it too far and apologies to any of the raw food vegans here but by being a raw food vegan I got a bit disillusioned with the lifestyle because it was just so demanding and I think for me it was about thinking more about what I ate and taking more responsibility for the food choices I made but I think it's also unhealthy to spend all your time thinking about what you eat and um the problem I had with raw food and I think it's easier now I mean this was about six years ago when it wasn't so easy to find products and raw food um was that it took over my life a bit so uh I rebelled against it but I still love veganism thank you for your question okay um right next batch of questions um could you all raise your hands so I can see everybody got one oh oh two up there one there is there a mic up there yes okay oh you the mic okay thank you one there one there and I promise this lady and then I'll come to more of you here the lady of the black thank you hello good evening I'm sorry for my accent um it maybe yeah apologize um um we we don't talk and you just mentioned actually food should be only a pleasure and and we should eat I think then we should eat absolutely everything but maybe a bit less and talking about meat we don't have to eat meat every day we can eat fish meat vegetable and other uh um um produce uh without without being um totally focused what I see recently it's people have created trauma and sickness uh mental sickness because they're talking about food all the time they're judging they um and giving that to that children who grew up with anorexia and I I mean food should be only a pleasure and and and not a a trauma um but that's that's that's something which I'm quite amazed and I came for that today then we spending our time since 17 years we we've been we've been living in a beautiful world because honestly it's a beautiful world and we so lucky especially in the western world to live without any problems like we did and and we creating we yeah I'm going to stop we're creating problems which we we we don't have any all you have is to balance your life and eat a bit of everything okay thank you very much for that question there was one more up there we will we will answer it hi um yeah I have a question for Adrian um I was interested by two things uh first of all um your kind of affection towards the the liberal natural Order of Things um and and the kind of chaos and so forth and and how that leads you to feel quite comfortable with you know people taking whatever decisions they want around meat and so forth but then also counter to that a similar affection to sort of sustaining certain cultures around uh meat and meat cultivation and and um those kind of cultural practices around that and I think that that's actually under threat when you look at things like certain companies trying to synthesize meat um obviously you know it's possible that soon we will be able to synthesize meat that tastes as good but doesn't involve uh animal rearing or or any of those kind of cultural practices that you also hold there um so you know the question is how do you feel about um you man those those new businesses that are emerging that are synthesizing meat that could taste as good but actually threaten the livelihoods of those business thank you very much thank you and just a reminder can we keep questions this isn't personal to you I should have said at the beginning try to keep questions brief because there are a lot of people who want to ask them and I'm Keen to get everyone in uh a young lady here yeah um hi my question is for Adrian and um it seems to me that you're very clear that you agree with meat meat eating and you'd eat anything that doesn't have a birth certificate and um I appreciate you're secure in that decision but I was wondering what your reasoning would be behind that and what your justification would be rather than just sort of I don't give a [ __ ] as youve said many times and I appreciate your humor you made me laugh but on a serious note how do you say how do you say I justify my own sort of food gasm that sort of oh yeah I love huag over that animal's um rape and being taken away from their parents and their suffering and their murder and then your own health impact and the impact on the environment how do you thank you we got the question okay um Adrien how do you live with yourself that was a marvelous question I love the crescendo um yeah I just do come on Adrian give us more have you ever laid awake what you know with the image of of an animal you killed that day kind of Haunting you or any no have you ever seen anything that's made you question killing and eating animals you ever been to factory car yes that didn't make you question um I didn't want to work there um no I I no no sorry old you know psycho thing really and while we're on you Adrian the other there's another question for you um which is that oh I tell you what is odd has anyone ever killed a hair that's tough there's a very weird thing that hairs and rabbits do which is they're mostly mute but hairs scream when they die and they scream like children and it's a it do you know it it's seems to be a completely alteristic response it doesn't do the hair any good it doesn't do it at any other time in its life and it's it's quite that's quite tough I it's not not terribly but I do love hair go on um lost me there um is there not a contradiction between the two things you're saying the gentleman up there you Advocate the natural chaos of things but at the same time would like to preserve cultures that enjoy me I mean if there's chaos and cultures get I don't see how there's a mut I mean I I agree with George is the culture's come and go there's lots and lots of bits of culture that you know disappeared and and or re or come back in other places and in other ways but one of the most fundamental bits of culture we all share is food and it is absolutely Central to our sense of ourselves and who we are the food I mean you only have to think about just look at Italians and how Italians feel about Italian food I mean that is it is what they are who they are what your mother fed you where you grew up in Scotland we have an expression for the food of your Cal country is that these are not things that you can just say well you know actually why don't we just get rid of it Adrian our food culture has changed beyond recognition in country all the time con we've gone from being completely indifferent to it to completely obsessed about it with no happy medium in between no no I I I think I think I think you're I think what you're obsessed with is is the the medical and the no come on Ian all the supplements are just stuffed with recipes for things where you can't possibly find the ingredients and all people talk about now is the three Rs is recipes Resorts and Renovations there's not no other topic of conversation you go into a pub now you know to get a pie and chips and you know b b onion on c595 no have AIC P ships what's wrong with that why [ __ ] stuff but what what what I'm saying is is that is that look these things are about as unfixed as they could possibly be it's this incredibly Dynamic food culture we got in this country it's all new I'm not disagreeing with you but it is dynamic and it is a culture but are you why do we have to latch on to things that were in the past and say we got to preserve that I'm not saying I'm saying it should all be movable and it should all be what you wanted not necessarily what you think would be better for us to keep sheep off Hills yeah but George I'm not even going to bother let me just ask you food culture is so fluid and dynamic but are you not underestimating the kind of emotional attachment people have to things that maybe they did grow up with or to them evoke part of their National or religious identity and those things might involve meat and is it really fair to expect people to abandon one of the most powerful powerful meals in the world is Passover I mean it's a really properly moving thing to take part in [ __ ] food of you really enjoyed that of course it's true of course it's true you know people have attachments to that that's fine and I also have attachments to the living world and I say well there's my attachment there's your attachment I I I would love you to be more attached to the living world and maybe that other attachment will change fine that's how cultures evolve that's how things change you know moral questions bear upon cultures bear upon cultural questions they help to shape culture and in respon to the other question from up there I mean is this not an issue of excess if we all ate meat more responsibly if you know we Wen eating too much then uh that would naturally at least mitigate if not solve the problem of course it would mitigate it and it's all a question of degree you know and and if I I mean yeah it would be hugely beneficial as far as the wildlife and the habitats and all the rest that I love and the Earth's atmosphere and everything if we just stopped eating meat all together but I know that for most people that's too much to ask so fine cut it down that that's that's also fine um but you we can I think we can we get pretty unambitious about it you know people say oh well you know okay I I'll I won't eat meat for one of my four meals a day you know we could take things a bit further than that Adrian what's your view on know meatless Mondays cutting down on meat consumption generally I'm I'm I'm really against rules of any sort for anything I mean I I want a world that has fewer rules again yeah I mean I'm I'm I'm I'm much more fundamentally voltarian than I think you are and and I don't eat what you don't want to eat if you don't want to eat me don't eat it I mean the idea that you're going to get always Monday silly right uh next round of questions please um okay y Lady here gentleman right at the back and the gentleman here in the tie the next round we've got time so hopefully we'll come to all of you if if you keep your questions brief so please and uh let's not have any more statements please just questions um just a very brief introduction I've been vegan that's not a promising startan for 41 years it's possible wear Le the shoes since you were three um you're a Libertarian but what about the liberty of the animals and if you think of the chickens that you eat nearly all the chickens in the world who we eat 50 billion of them every year are are bread to grow so fast that one in four of them is seriously lame and question the last days of their life is that okay would you are you happy to dress that chicken up in spite of the no yes yes it's all right it's okay it's fine and and and and the reason is is that I can't I can't impose my human libertarianism on a chicken I can't say I'm giving this to you as a chicken it's a chicken eat it yeah just a quick one nice shirt George by the way um that's s of question questions around the sustainability of um the westernized sort of culture and attachment to um meat consumption and apparently in China uh there are now factories being developed to clone cattle to meet the demand for cattle in China which is not necessarily A a cattle or a beef eating country it's been um sort of induced by by Western culture so that's kind of the question sorry what's question that Western is that Western culture western western culture is is Western food is is taking over China B is it is is it sustainable is that consumption of meat that's that's really um pushed by fast food chains and and all the rest I want to ask answer the questions at the endent one more just hold it foret I will remind you thank you uh yes gentlemen my relatively superficial understanding of libertarianism is that it's about maximizing autonomy and freedom of choice and I just want to unpack whether there's an inconsistency there between um valuing your own personal autonomy and freedom of choice and not valuing the ability of future generations to meet their needs and I wonder if the the only reason that you've been privileged with the rights to pursue your own desires is a society that has been sustainable up until this point and that that not therefore mean that you have a responsibility to Future generations for them to provide for themselves thank you very much Adrian we're borrowing the Earth from our children you want me to ask that the easy can theall now can start with him no that was that was an absolutely spot-on question and and and I'm not I I don't have the answer to it I think you're right and I think that we absolutely have to think about what we leave behind us um but we have to also equally think about what it is we discard for uh our own vanity and our own sense of you know medical social insecurity but I think that I think that's a very a very valid point the other one I forgotten what was the other you're just doing that to punish me um Western consumption oh yes I'm going to turn that question around um will you go and stop the Chinese eating beef personally yeah I'll just Chuck my cape on and and fly over there no no because I mean you have to you have to say don't you you have to say well the Chinese are they're going to start eating a beef and it's not their thing at all I mean well you going to stop them then the question you know that seems to be freedom of choice if you want us if you want to eat hamburgers in peing why not and the question is is it sustainable not whether or not you should is it sustainable so can the can the globe can this can this world well if it isn't sustainable who's going to stop them there's there's over a billion people in are you going to stop them wait hang on are there two of would it be good to stop them and practically can you stop them well would you stop them but the the answer is would you would you go and stop people eating meat that's not answering the question that is the question how many of you you think people should tax meat to the point where only very rich people can eat it we're all right then George well look the um the only way we give ourselves moral standing is to be not complete Hypocrites of course we're all Hypocrites you you know there is no the only alternative to hypocrite to hypocrisy is cynicism um moral Purity is not a human option that you know none of us none of us achieved that but you know if you're not a massive hypocrite you then can say maybe other people should be doing it differently you know should be doing should should be taking the moral option if I've gone some way to towards taking the moral option and if we want to talk about what China's doing well we have to do what we want the people of China to do first now as to the sustainability of this you we get into conniptions about the human population growth and sure it's an issue there's no question it's an issue you know the more people there are on earth the harder it is to support those people at a reasonable um level of prosperity and the greater the impacts are going to be on the Living World human population growth rate at the moment is 1.2% livestock population growth rate is 2.4% double humans on the whole way less on the whole I say way less than most livestock um with the result that by 2050 there's likely to be 120 million tons extra human on the planet and 400 million tons extra farm animal on the planet this is a phenomenal impact such that by 2070 if everyone adopts this diet that we have which basically in Britain we eat a little more than our body weight in meat in in during every year in the states it's 150% of your body weight in meat if everyone adopts that by 2070 animal agriculture alone will produce all the greenhouse gases required to get us past two degrees of global warming we don't need any other input at all or greenhouse gases into the atmosphere this is a catastrophe this is a total disaster as our appetite for meat is rolled out across the world then the huge impacts associated with that appetite will also be rolled out across the world and of course you know the more widespread that habit becomes the greater the cumulative impact becomes so in answer to your question no it is certainly bloody well not sustainable but if we're going to change that it starts here okay we've got time for one possibly two more rounds of questions yet the two people at the back there have had their hands up very patiently and slady here uh this is for George actually being as he hasn't been very busy given that we're unlikely to convince the meet eaters here to change their lifestyle but given that I think you've convinced them that what they're doing is devastating the planet what's the one thing that you would ask them to do short of giving up meat um what would be the one thing they could do that might make a difference thank you hold that thought George [Applause] yep um I was wondering this is just a general question what are your opinions on nutrient consumption and the deficiencies that come along with being a vegetarian or a vegan speaking as an anemic however I was diagnosed before I became vegetarian so yeah what are your opinions on that okay thank you um my question is for George as well um we talked quite a lot about demand and reducing kind of our demand but do you think that's actually realistic or do you think that much more needs to be done in regulating the supply thank you okay George oh right well look the first question it's it's it's just really difficult to get people to do anything which is in the wider public interest or the interest of the Living World whatever it happens to be fly less get a smaller car stop using your car whatever it happens to be it's really really hard because it requires apart from anything else a leap of the imagination you have to be able to connect that action with its consequences and a lot of people most people don't want to go there you know cognitive dissonance is something we will go to horrendous levels to avoid you know people go to war in order not to resolve cognitive dissonance is there not one practical doable thing well in a way this what we're talking about is the easiest thing of all in some ways you know certainly reducing your your consumption of animal products it's so easy nowadays we're surrounded with such an incredible diversity of amazing things to eat and a whole load of those things are not meat it's really easy easy to have great meals which don't involve meat in fact which don't have any animal products in at all so I would put this actually at the easy end of the wedge of things which I want people to change not at the difficult end you know we could tomorrow we could say you could say to yourselves I'm going to eat 50% Less meat the next week you could say I'm going to eat another 25% Less meat and you could just taper it down and you know you're not going to have some huge disruption painful disruption to your life is generally going to be pretty good as for the question of anemia you know maybe this is an issue I don't know I don't know the answer to that I I don't know anything about anemia I know that there's loads of iron in green vegetables and stuff um and you know but whether people who have anemia should be eating meat I can't answer that any nutritional advice Adrien no is it part of your argument that it's um nutritionally more sensible to eat meat I in my in my experience wide and Broad nutritionists tend to be people who failed to get into nail paaths okay that answers that um actually nutrition is a burn out environmental activists dear they all become nutrition going to have to speak here somebody's going to have to Adrian I'll just come to you as well on um even though this question was the George um rules we need more rules rules for what to stop people eating meat because they won't do it voluntarily no I'm I'm not going to I'm not signing up for rules even though you conceded that was a good point I'm I'm I'm not a a denier of climate change I'm not a denier of the need to to to husband resources any of that um I do believe that we don't and we shouldn't uh dump bits of our culture simply because they don't uh suit this month's Guardian everything should be tailored for this month's Guardian George is it is do you agree that regulation might be the only solution it's not easy with food um I mean look there's all sorts of things you can do which don't involve rules one of them is stop subsidizing it for God's sake I mean there would be no Upland farming in this country at all if it weren't for subsidies all that sheet wrecking is entirely down to to public money because it's so unproductive you're producing so little there it simply would not be happening if we weren't paying for it now as a Libertarian I'm sure you would agree that we shouldn't be paying for stuff which wouldn't otherwise be happening out of public money I mean the the meat industry is heavily subsidized all of I I think what the problem with farming subsidies is that it goes to land owners and not to Farmers um so you know would you well the well the big the biggest you know the biggest recipient of of of of farm subes is the the sou who's got the race horses um and and and James Dyson and I as as huge land owners I'm I'm not sure that I I that I would get rid of all farm subsidies I think I quite like the idea that people people Farm marginal land um I think the argument about what's happening in the Lake District now I think is gerain and interesting and I know you're on one side of it and I'm I I don't feel particularly strongly about it one way the other but I'm interested in it um I I quite like being around Farmers when I go and see them and I like what they do and I like and I I trust Farmers more than I trust nutritionists back to that again okay we've got time for three really quick questions um yes this lady here oh there's someone up at the top oh my last question who have I ignored this is tough oh you've had your hand up for while okay sorry to everyone who didn't get a chance to ask I tried to be fair okay um yes um hi so I have a question for Adrian um so it's interesting that you pointed out um vanity and sort of separation of Nature and humans in um George's arguments because I think you could turn that around um and kind of um if you look at what arguments you're making um by drawing the line at humans is a kind of form of human exceptionalism so if you forget how ridiculous it sounds and imagine we could eat human meat and farm and breed humans um what is your reason for drawing the light humans why you know okay I've got to cut you off just because of time Adrian do you think you the toilet green argument don't ask yet just remember remember okay um thank you why is it morally okay to animals but okay to hum uh who is the next one oh yes hello George um as as a meat lover I'm finding your arguments depressingly convincing tell me if we took the Sheep out of Wales realistically what would the land be used for thank you okay thank you very much yes yes I I have a question for Adrian a few years ago you wrote an article about chickens in France and how these farmers were breeding specific breeds of beautiful chickens and you brought three or four back to England much to your wife's horrror and had a little chicken Coupe for a while apparently in your home and I was just wondering what had happened to these chickens that you need you ask excellent question Adrien I it's it's I I sort of wrote half a story a bit like that actually I went and got the chickens with Lord Snowden I know he's a bit like France but um it we went and did a fancy chicken show and I I absolutely fell in love with uh with fancy chickens they were amazing amazing and the people who breed them and keep them the taxi drivers who have them in their sheds and and look after them and show them it was it was absolutely riveting and did you bring them back yeah I did I put them in my garden and then the dog had a fit and um I I gave them to Elizabeth Hurley you're joking okay nothing I can't respond to that I don't know where we can go from there George I I love those silver lace W dots they're exactly dots absolutely beautiful brought over by the Vikings really yeah they're just stunning out chicken the history of chickens one day well it's next time um right whales without sheep yeah no interesting question very good question um I mean the first thing to realize is there's been massive change you know the farmers would constantly tell you oh it's always been like this but no it's it's been entirely driven by either the market or by the subsidies scheme you know before I mean go back a couple of generations they had cattle they were growing oats they were growing barley in the Hills um they had geese in the Hills all sorts of stuff going on and then you had these headage payments where you are paid by the number of animals you put on the hill so suddenly everyone oh you can get more sheep than anything else boom byebye cows byy geese bye-by oats B barley just sheep everywhere and then they changed that and they said you're now going to be paid by hect you're paid for owning land like Adrian says so so all right okay but the one thing you have to do to be paid is the land has to be bare if there's trees on the land you don't get paid for it so basically you've got a 55 billion Euro incentive for Mass habitat clearance across the entire European Union that's what's going on it's one of the biggest environmental disasters on Earth at the moment no one's talking about it hundreds of thousands of hectares of land have been cleared solely to meet the criteria for the subsidies the easiest way of clearing the land is to put sheep in it they keep it clear they mow it an automated system for environmental destruction so you take the Sheep off and yeah there'll be change again to begin with you'll see Bracken and fiddles and stuff come in and that'll last for a few years and then the trees start to come in among them yeah but how would we make money at oh I see what you mean well I actually want to see I don't actually want to see the end of farm subsidies I want to see those subsidies redeployed to environmental goods and that and that means bringing back back wild beautiful amazing places and stopping floods Downstream and doing all sorts of other benefits there's loads of work required for that loads of work and the farmers actually could do better out of this if you pay them the same amount of money um for environmental restoration as they're currently being paid for sheep keeping because the environmental restoration is that much cheaper they'd be taking they' be taking taking home a lot more keeping a lot more of that money than they would otherwise be doing chasing sheep across rain sodn Hills costs the average Welsh farmer £20,000 a year what's not to like I'm I'm sorry I've got listen did you not hear me when I said that lamb covering an area the same as all our arable and Horticultural crops provides 0.4% of our diet and that you know when you take into account the hydrological damage you're doing to farming Downstream in far more productive places through the of flood and drought you get from keeping the hills bare its net contribution to human nutrition is probably negative okay thank you thank you for the question Adrien vanity why draw the line at humans yeah why not eat humans why not eat humans I mean isn't there a vanity in saying we are the exception but we can eat everything else why aren't we eating each other will you tell me if anyone's going to one of the most interesting collapses of civilizations the two were in uh in in in in America the Anastasia in the Southern States of uh North America and the Maya in Central America both collapsed because they didn't have an ulet they were societies that did marginal farming mostly of corn and squashes but they didn't have any [ __ ] the point of keeping animals is actually the stuff you really don't like it's the [ __ ] and it's the [ __ ] that keeps everything growing it's the [ __ ] you need to grow the rice to grow the wheat and they didn't have it Anastasia ended up living in these amazing mises um eating each other it's the reason we don't hand over our morality to chimpanzees or to chickens is because it's our morality the chimpanzees and the chickens wouldn't understand it it's not theirs it's not their species it's ours and part of our our morality is we don't eat each other and we don't eat each other for very good reasons the reason we don't eat each other is it would be intolerable at breakfast if you thought you might be the egg but it's part of our morality not to inflict unnecessary suffering on other animals as well that's a big part of certainly the morality of people in this country or what they think what we think are morality well they don't but but then you know the only argument you're given for not eating people is that it's part of our morality yet you think that's enough of an argument not to eat people no that's like saying the only the only argument I've got for not killing people is it's murder yes yeah but but I mean no no you you know you haven't given I mean all you've said is there's there's moral objections to eating people so we shouldn't eat people people I say yeah fine there's also moral objections to eating other animals so on that argument that's enough to rest the case but not enough it's not enough to rest Cas I I I doubt even even you think they're equivalent no no no look I'm look I'm not actually proposing eating people this we were out of time um I didn't think we would end on cannibalism but you never know you never know and I forgot to bring my birth certificate watch out [Music] before we end Adrian did a straw poll at the beginning of how many people had meat in their diet I think was the question which was the overwhelming number so before we go we want to know how many of you after having heard the arguments tonight would seriously think about making a change in your diet and reducing the amount of meat in it so could you raise your hands if you're seriously considering making a change change as a result of what you've heard here wow everybody wins I think that was um good number did you ask people if they seriously think about eating more meat as a result it's anybody more determined to eat meat or seriously considering eating more meat as a result of what they've heard you've got some hands Adrian you've got some hands that's more than we thought he'd get for that argument thank you so much I must say that my our side has never ever ever won one of these debates that represents progress for your cause we have to close now thank you so much for being a brilliant audience thank you [Music] [Applause]

Channel: Intelligence Squared

Views: 85,421

Keywords: george monbiot, aa gill, afua hirsch, intelligence squared, intelligence squared debates, oratory, debate, public speaking, meat, veganism, eating meat, vegan, diet, health, organic, farming, animal welfare, ethics, morality

Id: ETpaLdi1aeA

Length: 87min 49sec (5269 seconds)

Published: Mon Dec 05 2016