However, the question is not what could be but what is the benefit of humanely raised meat.  And I agree with Jason, it's an open question.

One point I would offer up, is that the constrains on humane meat production limits the environmental damage of conventional practices.  Although the total direct CO2 footprint may not change that much, other forms of damage (to soil, to waterways, to communities, to the effectiveness of medical antibiotics) are strongly tied to the intensiveness of modern CAFO operations.  Humane meat that it at all worthy of the name simply cannot operate at those densities.  To a certain extent, the same is true of organic meat: without antibiotics, CAFO-style operations are impossible.  The resulting reduction in density makes it much more possible to handle the wastes and other impacts in a ways that are less destructive or even positive.

On balance, I would say that it is like so many things green (Priuses, personal PV, farmers markets): it's not enough, but it's a step in the right direction.  And the response of the environmental community should be similar: support the meaningful progress, but keep pushing for more.

How exactly does one influence an industry that one doesn't patronize--that is, how are those of us who don't contribute to environmental disaster by eating meat supposed to 'push' for more?

Coal is the enemy of the human race, but the production and market consumption of meat is not too far behind.  (By market consumption I mean consumption by other than the local producer or her neighbors.)  Essentially, meat is only tolerable in small amounts if it is part of a sustainable pasturage system, where the product is not shipped elsewhere.

"Humane" meat is just lipstick on a pig, a greenwash plan to sell more meat to guilty liberals.

The 5% Project

Just one example: The UN report on the carbon footprint of meat acknowledges that there is a very substantial difference in the carbon footprint of beef and that of chicken.  But, no, "meat is the enemy of the human race".

Same people should also work on their analogy-making skills.

So, given that, I think it's an unequivocally good thing for them to commit to serving meat from animals treated as humanely as possible (given that they're getting killed and eaten, which, as noted, is inherently a strange way to think of "humaneness").  I think that primarily because it's better for the individual animals, but I also think it's an unequivocal good in terms of environmental and animal welfare goals going forward.  People who eat meat, for the most part, don't even consider what it is that they're eating.  Most American meat-eaters are kind of grossed out if you show them a photo of a cow or a pig with the various cuts of meat labelled on its hide, because they don't connect at all with the fact that ribs are, well, ribs.

So I think for anyone who cares about reducing meat consumption--be it for environmental, animal welfare, health, or any other reason--should embrace this, because one thing it will certainly do if it becomes widespread enough, is make people think about what they're eating in terms of what it once was.  It's kind of like, I don't think of wheatfields when I eat bread, but I do when I eat bread made from locally grown and milled wheat, because the source has been made important enough that it stands on its own alongside the familiar foodstuff it has produced.  

A cousin of mine, when asked as a little girl where milk came from, said "the supermarket!"  While obviously most adults have a better grip on reality than that, they still keep food at that level of consciousness, for the most part.  It's going to be hard, if not impossible, to change people's goals with regard to acquiring food if we don't change the level at which they think about where they get that food.

Not really.  Plenty of animals kill other animals for food.  Most do not concern themselves with the feelings of the prey.  Ever seen a cat play with a mouse?  I'd say that concern for the feelings of prey is, in fact, a distinctly human concern.

And as it is, there really is no plant farming without animal farming. While the environmental effects of it are now known to everyone, I haven't actually seen a study suggest that stopping meat production would dramatically reduce the strain on the environment; to me, this conclusion sounds rather simplistic.

While I whole-heartedly support the idea of reducing the amount of meat in a typical modern diet (which is bad for the health), the environmental effects of the whole world turning vegan have really not been studied, and dropping red meat from our diets altogether simply has no health benefits.

Of course they do.  (duh)  But caring about their prey in an altruistic sense?  Give me an example.

GreenEngineer - I agree it's hard to conceive of any carnivorous animal "caring" for its prey other than for its own practical purposes as a food resource. In any case attributing human emotions to other species is an anthropocentric tic known in lit crit circles as "the pathetic fallacy" (pathetic here is a term of art not meaning something like sympathetic rather than pitiful). But I find it a stretch to see animals which are raised on a farm for their meat as "prey" in any way which is comparable to the carnivorous activities of other species. There is something exceedingly cold (and to me at least, not what I want to include in the range of what I consider "humane") about designing another creature's entire life around their utility as a comestible resource. I would hardly honor the burger-munchers at McDonald's or the feedlot operatives who supply them with the honorable title of predator - show me the the qualities of the wildcat, the coyote or the hawk in these drab exploiters. Like many vegetarians I see more moral justification in the hunt than in the feedlot - hunting at least carries with it an uncertain outcome for the huntee, and perhaps I am not alone in seeing a certain satisfying karmic balance in the degree of physical risk to the hunter (especially if your hunting partner is Dick Cheney - OK, cheap shot - and pun intended). If we are looking for justification from the "natural" behavior of other creatures (a dubious moral premise, but an interesting line of inquiry nevertheless), I believe there are a few examples of species which "farm" others as a resource (e.g. ants raising aphids for their secretions) but are there any which corral and control other animals purely for carnivorous purposes as we do?

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

No more feedlot groundwater and environmental degradation.

and a nice place for huge wind farms too.  It all fits together, the prairie even provides biomass fuel and carbon sequestration.

PRAIRIE NATIONAL PARK

The word "killing" needs to be phased out of these conversations, as that just is not the point, because as I said, to eat, you kill. I don't know where you draw the line, but I don't know if I'd want to hear anyone talk about the inhumane farming of snails, either.

So it is customary for a vegan to think, without further thought, that killing an animal for food is somehow less ethical than refraining from it, whereas I cannot consider it in any way obvious that killing animals for food is somehow ethically questionable. We are not denying animals of a life by killing and eating it, nor do they die a death that wouldn't otherwise occur. The suffering and pain is not necessary, either.

And I guess I won't have to remind you of cows that live with us western people but don't get killed for food, yet a vegan won't go near a product that contains their milk. The cows in India do not exactly count as wild, either, as cows are a species that long ago chose (yes, they actually chose) to live with humans, following the human settlements, becoming gradually more and more dependent on people.

I actually find it weird that the furthest you can get from nature and the inevitable symbiosis that occurs between humans, animals and plants, is in a vegan utopia, where no interaction with animals occurs and all domestic animals have long gone extinct. In what way is that ethically superior?

Now I am not saying you can go to a supermarket and buy whatever lump of meat and eat it without further thought, I just find stopping using animal products not necessary or clearly beneficial in order to value life.

1. Green Engineer- I have no examples of animals displaying empathy or compassion towards their prey- although perhaps examples exist- my only point was that overall many animals do show empathy towards other animals. Let me put things another way, even though many animals inflict great pain and suffering on each other I think we humans win the prize on that front- we have devised ways to inflict levels of pain and suffering on other animals way beyond anything ever practiced in the rest of the animal world. We have elevated torturing of other sentient beings to a sophisticated scientific endeavor- literally.

2. Regger- I kind of see where you're going but not really. Yes, we have to kill to live- I'm a vegan and I fully accept that- the issue is what we kill, how we kill it, and the social and environmental effects of those choices. A meat-based diet typically involves massive suffering of animals and massive social and environmental costs while a plant-based diet typically is much better for the environment and entails much less suffering- there are exceptions but this general rule holds probably 95% of the time.

Raising animals for their meat, even humanely, is undoubtedly more "environmentally intensive," etc., than raising plants for food.  But how can raising animals humanely not be reckoned as a significant improvement over the factory-farm model (CAFO)?  For one thing, there are many fewer animals in an area of a given dimension, hence less befouling of air and water due to waste, and more opportunity, when the ranch is managed intelligently, to rely on food sources for the animals from the vicinity, some of it perhaps even grown on the same ranch.

This is all pretty much what GreenEngineer was saying, in fact, in the third paragraph of his/her first comment.

WaterMirrors, new to me, made a very good observation.  And of course Spaceshaper and Willa present my own thoughts better than I can myself, for which I am as always very grateful to them.

The NYTimes editorial on Wolfgang Puck's resolution does well to point out that we should always want diners to understand where their food comes from, and to make moral decisions based on that understanding.  Willa repeats the same point in her own words, and it is also a large part of Michael Pollan's message.  We can move together, step by step, toward a better relationship with the Earth's community of living creatures.  And surely that ought to be a principal environmentalist goal, however we might better want to express it, and regardless of our present tolerance of carnivory by human beings.

Hopefully establishments of fine dining, whether led by Puck or by someone else, can soon publish statements regarding what kinds of seafood they are and are not willing to serve.

+++++++++++++

On "humane meat": Well, of course there are serious moral problems that may arise from that term, especially if it is abused.  Hopefully it will always be used in a well-regulated way.  Nevertheless, it would be a very bad thing, if it becomes acceptable even among thoughtful diners, that "humane" treatment of an animal must ordinarily include its slaughter for the purpose of our eating it, even after it has been treated kindly and sweetly all its prior life.

+++++++++++++

On animals showing empathy for animals not of the same species: Well, I am not convinced that this is a very interesting subject, in ethics.  The short answer is, "No, animals do not show such empathy."  Good for Spaceshaper, for reminding us of those cowboy-like ants who keep ranches of aphids, to scrape off their honeydew; I think there are termites that do something similar; the arrangement is advantageous for both species; but I do not think I would say that empathy is present.

Following the Christmas tsunami of 2004, in Kenya, an orphaned baby hippopotamus latched onto an ancient tortoise.  According to reports, they were dependent on each other's company for a while.  God knows what that relationship was all about.  But there seems no reason not to say, minimally, that these two very distantly related animals enjoyed each other's companionship.  I would be unwilling to say that the tortoise understood the young hippo's grief and loneliness.  But that possibility should not be dismissed altogether.

The story with cetaceans is confused: dolphins allegedly protect human beings who have fallen into the water from sharks?; they carry human beings in the water to a secure place?; they generally have not attacked human beings?  More so with orcas: Why have orcas never attacked human beings?  Or have they, only we do not know about it?  Is that scene at the beginning of "Free Willy," in which the orca knocks the GW shark into the air in order to save the people who had fallen into the water, based on anything like a reliable observation?  And if so, why do cetaceans love us so much, when they do not show similar love to fellow cetaceans and to pinnipeds?

Among our closest relatives, bonobos show a great deal of empathy and compassion, apparently, for suffering members of their group.  But they are notoriously difficult to study -- plus, they are vanishing, fast.  They may show compassion for members of other species, especially perhaps monkeys in trouble, but that is surely next to impossible to document.

Chimpanzees seem to exhibit some of the most frightful characteristics of humanity, but they have their tender moments, within the species.  They like to catch, kill and eat monkeys.

Gorillas, interestingly, are different.  Dian Fossey had very close physical contact with her gorillas, including lying in the lap of at least one male, and experiencing the ritual of mutual grooming, and being initiated into the sacrament of coprophagy.  (Aka shit-eating.  Which she said she liked.  But she would, wouldn't she; poor, dear kid.  It helps greatly, apparently, if the giver is a vegetarian, as of course the gorillas are.)

And there was some captive gorilla in North America who perhaps was being taught sign-language, and who was given a kitten as a companion.  They were reported, in a fund-raising letter that I remember getting a while ago, to be coming along terrificly.  (Was the name Koko?  Sorry, my memory is very weak.)

In that case, the gorilla was (is?) female, but was not a mother, I think.  There are apparently numerous examples of other female mammals, however, who have just given birth, who take in babies of other species: e.g., cats taking in puppies, dogs taking in kittens, a baby squirrel sometimes finding a place in a cat's litter, and so forth.

Famously, human infants have been raised by wolves.  Rudyard Kipling's "Jungle Books," the first volume, about Mowgli raised by Akela's people, is a classic.  And the foundation myth of Rome depends upon that rare but true possibility, that human babies may indeed be raised by wolves.

Stuck on the office door of a classics professor in a university in New Jersey, there is a cartoon, showing two young ancient Romans, of similar appearance, in a simple ancient Roman setting; and one says to the other, " Don't you think it's your turn, Romulus? I've been taking Mother out for her walks for three straight weeks now!"

As for human beings, and our empathy: Yes, we are capable of great empathy and compassion.  But the evolutionarily hard-wired "me first" attitude tends to prevail, in our relationships with non-human animals.  

With regard to our keeping captive, domesticated animals, raised for the purpose of our exploiting them, with no regard for their feelings or interests, to the point of taking their lives, we are most similar to all the parasitic animals, of countless taxa, such as ichneumon flies, and many wasps, which inject their eggs typically into other arthropods.  These are for a while healthy arthropods, living, thriving arthropods, maybe even happy arthropods ... until the eggs hatch.  Then, they are eaten, gradually, by the parasites within, which they are unwittingly, unwillingly harboring.  And then, after they have been eaten from within to a a certain degree, they naturally weaken, and finally die.

That process can take a while.  It is necessary for the host-animal, the prey-animal, to be alive and thriving for a while, before the parasite can take advantage of the "resource."

And as we were reminded recently in another thread, we all love our "resources."

Are we really no better than Sigourney Weaver's Aliens?  That is not a rhetorical question.  The ethics are complicated.  And I remain searching for the best way to evaluate conventional human carnivory.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

Weird world, eh?

I like this remark, from some brute with a brain named EuGenus:
<<
I don't know, meat is meat. Who it comes from is not an issue for me. Cow, pig, dog, man - they're all mammals (and all three letter words - did anyone notice that? Weird!) I don't give a little rat's ass as to the source of the deliciousness.
>>

And there follows a bit of dialogue from a Sylvester Stallone movie, involving the appreciation of a rat-burger.

Rat?  Sure, why not.  Ass?  Cat?  Fox?  Gnu?  Yak?

And why really should we restrict ourselves to mammals?  We never have before.  Owl?  Eel?  Asp?  Ant?  Fly?  Tic?  Bee?  Bug?

Cod, unfortunately, is no longer available ...

Well, who knows, if we restrict English-speaking carnivores to eating animals that have three-letter names, most of which are objectionable to most diners, then that may be a start.

One curious feature of that arrangement is that while "man" is on the menu, "woman" is not.

Which leads to an interesting question for such hyper-masculinists as BioD: If, for some difficult-to-imagine reason, you were inclined to resort to cannibalism, and you had a choice between male and female flesh, coming from adult individuals perfectly unknown to you, how would you choose?  Would you choose to eat the man, and not the woman, because eating her would be unchivalrous?  Or, would you choose to eat the woman, and not the man, because eating him might be a compromise of your heterosexuality?

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

But as it is, countless people in countless restaurants, e.g. McD's, munch happily on countless purposefully-cut oblongs of flesh, which do not look at all as though they came from anything living, breathing and feeling.

Buon Appetito!

(And you guys up there on the roof, keep that ketchup flowing!)

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.