How to Be a Stoic: Using Ancient Philosophy to Live a Modern Life

by Massimo Pigliucci

For instance, contra to the standard vegetarian argument, it is not at all easy to calculate just how many animals suffer and die when you take up a vegetarian diet, because large-scale cultivation of plant species for human consumption radically alters the environment of the planet, depriving a number of wild animal species of vital ecological space. If you think that eating local and organic is sustainable, you may be in for a surprise when you look at the relevant literature or do a bit of back-of-the-envelope calculation. Even the activist-journalist Michael Pollan, author of the best-selling The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, agrees that we cannot feed billions of people on the kind of diet that he and I can afford and easily find at our local green grocery shops.