Allowing one damaging thing isn't a good enough reason for allowing another damaging thing. In both cases the costs and benefits need to stand on their own merits.
Actually, no, I don't agree with that. It's more of a balancing act than a piecemeal analysis. Being generally frugal leaves you more space to waste a few resources on specific things. Now, some things are over the limit regardless of how frugal you are generally, and pet cats may or may not be one of those.
It seems like here you’re arguing that banning some damaging things might make some others allowable. That’s the inverse of the argument I was discussing.
I understand the argument and it’s reasonable, but in the case if each activity under consideration, they have to be assessed relative to the total harm to the environment, not to directly against each other individually. But there could be a hierarchy of comparison.
Still, as I said this is the inverse case to the one I was replying to, which I still think is completely unreasonable.
Source on that? Most kids don't make a habit of killing local wildlife. Or are you using "kids" as a proxy for "habitat loss from rising human population"?
I'm including indirect kills over their lifetime, not just direct kills over the childhood (kittens aren't capable of killing that much either), but otherwise, it's a fairly 1:1 comparison, nothing to do with whether the human population is rising or not.
Anything that we consume and whose production method kills some number of birds. The number is immense, and it includes all kinds of stuff that most people do, particularly those in wealthier areas of the world.
If you were a producer of nuclear weapons and were warning people of the destructiveness dangers of having 16 year olds, I'd find it absurd. Wouldn't you?
Essentially, it's hypocritical to talk about environmental dangers on one activity when performing a much more environmentally destructive activity.