Vegans are "intense," huh?

Sounds too me like you haven't applied your own advice to meat-eaters - to view you as being a normal person who happens to eat things without eyes - to vegans. I was a vegetarian for a whole year until I realized that my reasons for going vegetarian (I wanted to stop causing suffering and death to animals; I wanted to do something better for the environment) logically led to going vegan. Dairy products contribute just as much to global warming and serve as breeding grounds for the veal industry. Factory-farmed hens suffer arguably more than any animal raised for meat. Veganism is logical once you've decided to become vegetarian. And it's really not that much harder. Nor are all vegans PETA members, nor do all PETA members wear face paint or desire to overturn cars.

Essentially, this article seems like one in a series of articles by "apologist vegetarians" who try to make vegetarianism seem palatable by sucking up to the "popular kid" omnivores: "I'm just like you, really! I still wear leather shoes!" This doesn't, however, make vegetarianism seem appealing so much as pathetic. Why should anybody apologize for making a choice that ends suffering to animals that most people would consider impolite to talk about over dinner (the same dinner where they are likely serving one of those animals)? Why should anybody apologize for making the single best choice to stop global warming? See the Martin and Eshel University of Chicago study from 2005 on Diet and Global Warming.

There is no reason to apologize for being a vegetarian, unless you want to apologize to the dairy cows and factory-farmed chickens that you aren't yet a vegan. Or apologize to the cattle, possibly from India, that are being killed and having their skin tanned (producing lots of water pollutants along the way) to make your shoes.

Veganism is radical, but in the best way. It's radical in the same way feminism and civil rights were once radical. Meaning, that some day it's going to seem so logical that everyone will wonder why we didn't get our collective head out of our ass sooner.

I recommend the author take a web-trip over to http://www.veganoutreach.org or to http://www.vegan.com to find some excellent resources beyond PETA that might explain to him why vegetarianism was good enough for me for a year, but veganism ultimately and still makes more sense.

It's been five years for me now. It will be a lifetime.

Sincerely,
Jennifer Howell