Conservation of mass?
Do they understand that producing energy and fertilizer using the bodies of animals is less efficient than producing the same number of calories or mass of nitrates from plants+less-energy-than-is-required-to-raise-the-animal-in-question?
Using animals as fertilizer is a nessessity brought about by phasing out crop rotations. If we just rotated our fucking crops that would naturally replenish the soil. Instead we have endless fields of corn year after year
This was one of the first things we were taught in school during units on nutrient cycles - the closer to the source of energy, the sun, an organism is in the cycle, the more efficient their utilization of the energy is. I don't know if I'm taking knowledge of this concept for granted but it's so simple in my own mind.
I grew up in a poor rural area in the south and first learned trophic levels in 7th grade. I'm certain almost everybody has been exposed to this concept at least by the end of high school
I don't know if it's all of them, but I know someone who said that veganism is actually more harmful for the planet because plants need pesticides and fertilizer, which kill bugs. It took no effort to challenge them on that at all.
Sounds like my coworker who argued that veganism kills more animals that meat does, due to the pest control/elimination measures that might be necessary to protect crops. As if pest control isn't a thing in the meat industry from the feed crops, to the feed lots, to the barns to the slaughterhouses.
Education in capitalism is meant to produce workers who can understand things to mindlessly replicate it for work, not people who can think critically.
