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If everyone stops eating meat, what would happen to all the animals? How about our economy?
Change does not happen overnight, and to the extent that the use of animal products decreases, economics will force the animal-using industries to bring fewer animals into existence. The fact of the matter is that many of the animals used for human purposes are killed very early in their life spans, in many cases before they even reach full adulthood. Hence, though billions of animals are brought into existence each year, because their life spans are short within the system of exploitation, the total population will rapidly shift downward to accommodate a decrease in aggregate demand. In terms of the economic impact of this change, nearly every major social change motivated by considerations of justice has been accompanied by people raising the fear that eliminating the injustice will create an economic collapse. However, we can see, for example, that women gaining the right to choose whatever kind of work they want did not destroy our economy; it merely contributed to its evolution.
Given that all styles of animal agriculture, when practiced at the scale needed to feed billions of people a diet containing substantial amounts of animal products, consume vast amounts of water, land and other resources while contributing to deforestation, soil erosion, habitat destruction and a loss of biodiversity, perhaps it is more useful to turn this question around. Perhaps we should be more concerned about what will happen to our economy if large numbers of people continue to eat a diet based on animal products. The use of vast tracts of land to grow feedstock for animals is connected with several dramatic impacts, including 1) making it more difficult for those in less wealthy countries to get access to the farmland needed to feed themselves, 2) contributing to deforestation as more and more land is cleared, and 3) damaging the biodiversity upon which our collective survival depends. Livestock & Climate Change, a report produced by two researchers with the World Bank and published by Worldwatch Institute has documented that over 51% of all global warming impact is being caused by animal agriculture.
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