Vegetarian Is the New Prius

[jpak]

http://alternet.org/envirohealth/47668/

President Herbert Hoover promised "a chicken in every pot and a car in every garage." With warnings about global warming reaching feverish levels, many are having second thoughts about all those cars. It seems they should instead be worrying about the chickens.

Last month, the United Nations published a report on livestock and the environment with a stunning conclusion: "The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global." It turns out that raising animals for food is a primary cause of land degradation, air pollution, water shortage, water pollution, loss of biodiversity, and not least of all, global warming.

That's right, global warming. You've probably heard the story: Emissions of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are changing our climate, and scientists warn of more extreme weather, coastal flooding, spreading disease, and mass extinctions. It seems that when you step outside and wonder what happened to winter, you might want to think about what you had for dinner last night. The U.N. report says almost a fifth of global warming emissions come from livestock (i.e., those chickens Hoover was talking about, plus pigs, cattle, and others) -- that's more emissions than from all of the world's transportation combined.

For a decade now, the image of Leonardo DiCaprio cruising in his hybrid Toyota Prius has defined the gold standard for environmentalism. These gas-sipping vehicles became a veritable symbol of the consumers' power to strike a blow against global warming. Just think: a car that could cut your vehicle emissions in half -- in a country responsible for 25% of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Federal fuel economy standards languished in Congress, and average vehicle mileage dropped to its lowest level in decades, but the Prius showed people that another way is possible. Toyota could not import the cars fast enough to meet demand.

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[patrice]

1. Yep. If you love Earth, you've got to at least cut-down on meat. n/t

[yellowcanine]

7. In some situations animal agriculture is more environmentally benign.

On steep erodible land and arid prairies, savannas and steppe, it is much better to graze animals than to cultivate the land for crops. The porblem is, in North America we have perverted the ecosystem by plowing up prairies to raise crops which are then feed to animals. If we most of the farmland in the Midwest were converted back into prairie and grazed, we could still have plenty of meat in our diets and at the same time save a lot on burning of fossil fuels.

[kestrel91316]

25. Especially if we grazed out native bison rather than cattle.

[many a good man]

117. Buffalo Commons

http://www.gprc.org/Buffalo_Commons.html

History of the Buffalo Commons Movement

In 1987, Drs. Frank and Deborah Popper developed their bold new idea for a Buffalo Commons, (Popper and Popper, “The Great Plains: From Dust to Dust, PLANNING, 1987). Their continuing research showed that hundreds of counties in the American West still have less than a sparse 6 persons per square mile -- the density standard Frederick Jackson Turner used to declare the American Frontier closed in 1893. Many have less than 2 persons per square mile.

The frontier never came close to disappearing, and in fact has expanded in the Plains in recent years. The 1980 Census showed 388 frontier counties west of the Mississippi. The 1990 Census shows 397 counties in frontier status, and the 2000 Census showed 402. Most of this frontier expansion is in the Great Plains. Kansas actually has more land in frontier status than it did in 1890.

Great Plains Restoration Council mounted a Plains-wide mapping project at the county level, using a series of economic and social indicators, to show exactly where the frontier is and how much further it has expanded. GPRC than did more sophisticated mapping that scrutinized these and other factors down to the Census Block level, allowing for a much more rigorous and exact understanding of ecological, biological, geographical, topographical, demographic and political conditions.

There once were over 400 million acres of wild prairie grasslands in the central part of North America. The backbone of the Buffalo Commons movement is the work – over a period of decades— to re-establish and re-connect a corridor large enough for bison and all other native prairie wildlife to survive and roam freely, over great, connected distances, while simultaneously restoring the health and sustainability of our communities wherever possible so that both land and people may prosper for a very long time. We know that this re-connected wildlands corridor, anchored by a Million Acre Project in both the Northern Plains as well as the Southern Plains will be a fraction of the original prairie acres lost, but it will be enough, perhaps ten or twenty million acres in size, to assure the long-term survival of native wildlife. Future generations may choose to expand, as the new culture of caring and belonging we have started today becomes an integral, ingrained part of life in the world of tomorrow.

[Recursion]

58. I buy free-range

The cattle on the farm provide the fertilizer, which means he's not buying any, and the chickens and pigs turn and aerate the soil, which means he's not running a tractor nearly as much. IMO properly-pastured livestock have a very important place in a farm ecosystem; the problem is the industrial-hell factory farms that most of us get our meat from.

[ThomCat]

2. It would be nice if more people would consider giving up

mean, or at least cutting way back. This idea that every meal has to revolve around big pieces of meat is a very recent, very American cultural thing. There is no reason we can't go back to a predominantly vegetarian diet, except the meat industry's marketting and greed, and people's resistance to giving up anything.

[LaurenG]

3. I agree

and I appreciate your love for creatures.

[yellowcanine]

11. I don't. The human digestive system evolved to eat some meat. Like it or not,

we are omnivores. Just look at the teeth in your mouth. We have canine teeth for tearing meat but molars fro grinding vegetables. Herbivores typically have a long gut and carnivores typically have a short gut. We have both a long gut (small intestine) and a short gut (large intestine).

[LaurenG]

21. Well

I guess you and I disagree.

[yellowcanine]

22. Do you think black bears should give up eating critters and live on berries?

Makes about as much sense as people giving up meat and living on veggies. We are omnivores just like black bears (and brown bears - though not as much, they are more straight carnivores). And unless you can figure out a way for us to live on the grass from the natural grasslands which cover almost one-fourth of the earth's land area (not to mention eating phytoplankton instead of fish in the oceans) - well then it just does not make sense biologically or ecologically for everyone to be a vegetarian.

[ThomCat]

27. Bears, unlike humans

really can rend and tear meat when teeth and claw. And they really can eat raw meat without getting sick from it.

Go ahead, try it for a month and tell us how you do.

[yellowcanine]

38. Non sequitor. We cook veggies also. And process them in many different ways. And it is possible

to eat many kinds of meat raw - people have been doing it for millions of years. The fact that it is safer not to and that we prefer cooked meat in no way negates the argument that we are omnivores. And how do you know that bears don't sometimes get sick from raw meat?

[ThomCat]

45. Try it.

Don't buy butchered meat. Tear it with our teeth. And see how well you do when the raw meat hasn't been finely chopped or ground for you.

See how healthy are after a month of that.

[yellowcanine]

48. I point out elsewhere your point is a nonsequitor. It is a question of human evolution, not how

modern man eats or doesn't eat. None of your arguments refutes the point that our digestive systems are those of an omnivore.

[CrispyQ]

77. If it's a question of human evolution, then it's time to evolve,

& acknowledge the heinousness of the meat industry. No creature deserves to be treated the way those animals are treated. None.

What we do to one, we do to all.

[yellowcanine]

94. Apples and oranges. We are talking grass fed animals here. And evolution is not a conscious

choice so your prescription is a non starter.

[Name removed]

52. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ThomCat]

55. Funny, I tend to think that you meat-addicts

should get the awards for dumbest posts. You say that we should eat meat because we're biologically designed for it, but then switch to the argument that we've adapted to it via tools, well which is it?

(ignoring all the known health complications which true omnivorous animals don't get that come solely from eating meat and animal products.

And then you imply that because we can eat meat (despite the health complications) it's somehow safe, natural, and we should be doing it.
:eyes:

And, you clearly don't care about the environmental impact or the ethical impact. It's all about conjuring some convoluted argument to justify your addiction to meat.

[jgraz]

64. sigh...anyone who's taken basic science or logic can ignore this post

Ok, where to start...

"You say that we should eat meat because we're biologically designed for it, but then switch to the argument that we've adapted to it via tools, well which is it?"

It's both. We've been using tools for at least 1 million years and have been using fire for at least 50,000. A lot of adaptation can take place in 50,000 years.


"(ignoring all the known health complications which true omnivorous animals don't get that come solely from eating meat and animal products."

This sentence makes no sense on several levels. First, it barely parses as English. Second, you cannot compare wild animals to a society that lives off of mostly agricultural products. Third, very few people live solely on meat and animal products. What's your point here?


"And then you imply that because we can eat meat (despite the health complications) it's somehow safe, natural, and we should be doing it."

You should look up the word "imply", Funnily enough, it is not a synonym for "I just fantasized this to help my argument". Meat can be safe and natural, but it often isn't. What I've actually said is that we should not eat commercially produced meat and that we should eat far less of it than most people do. What that implies is that we would probably be better off if nobody ate meat, but that I don't think advocating that position will give us the best practical outcome.


"And, you clearly don't care about the environmental impact or the ethical impact. It's all about conjuring some convoluted argument to justify your addiction to meat."

If that fantasy makes you feel better, go ahead and wallow in it. I've said exactly the opposite many times on this thread.

[Dead_Parrot]

71. Thom...

We've been eating meat since long before we were were human. One of the contributing factors of Australopithecus' "success" over the other apes was their more varied diet (which definitely included meat) and their use of tools: It goes back about 4 million years.

If you want to claim we're "not supposed" to eat meat, go ahead. But I expect you to communicate this via a series of grunts and hoots while walking on all fours.

Now, we can clearly live quite happily without meat, and even the most ardent burger fan will hopefully see that the way 99.9% of meat is raised is a total fucking disgrace. And we eat far too much of it. But it is as much a part of us as walking upright and using tools.

http://www.tolweb.org/tree/ToLimages/bab+meat.250a.jpg

[jgraz]

73. Just to show you how disciplined I am

"I expect you to communicate this via a series of grunts and hoots while walking on all fours."

I'm just gonna walk away from this one... O8)

[yellowcanine]

75. For your information I eat very little meat. And hardly any red meat.

It is not a fair argument to ascribe motives when you don't know a person just because you don't agree with their point. Tool making is part of human evolution so it can't be separated from the rest of our biological adaptations - they are not mutually exclusive so you have proposed a false choice there. On what basis do you imply that man is not a "true omnivore"? What constitutes a "true omnivore?" No one is saying we should ignore the health implications of eating meat. What I am saying is that ecologically, one can make a good argument for animal agriculture, given the fact that one-fourth of the earth's land area is grasslands and humans cannot sustain themselves on grass. So far you have not made a dent in that argument, let alone refuted it.

[ThomCat]

76. There is no reason why we need to have a purpose for grassland.

There are a lot of valid reasons why we should just leave a lot of land available for species other than us. Therefore, the fact that grassland is only good for grazing says nothing about us eating meat. It says a lot about grazing animals being able to live there, but not necessarily for our consumption.

[yellowcanine]

80. Again, get real. We need to feed 6.5 billion people today, 9 billion by 2050. We can't afford to

ignore one-fourth of the land area of the earth in terms of food production. So far the only way we know of converting grass to human food is through an animal. That's a fact.

[ThomCat]

81. So instead of finding solutions to population growth that's out of control

we should just take over every inch of land? We're already destroying habitats and decimating species diversity. How much more damage is acceptable to you?

It's clear throughout this thread that your position is "anything we do is okay because we can do it. Problems are good to think about, but we shouldn't actually do anything about them."
x(

[yellowcanine]

90. The 6.5 billion are here NOW. The rate of population growth is slowing but

the population is going to keep growing for a while before it peaks. That's a fact. Unless you are going to advocate killing people it is a reality that has to be dealt with. I am advocating a possible solution - convert more cropland back to grasslands. That increases species diversity and restores more habitats. Plus it saves on fossil fuels. We would have fewer animals but they would be raised in a more ecologically sound way. Where it is possible to raise grain in a sustainable way we grow crops for human consumption. The combination of sustainable animal and plant agriculture could feed the world. That is a solution. What is yours?

[ThomCat]

105. To start, a massive PR and policy campaign

against our addiction to consumption. We need to tell people that endless consumption isn't an option. Not only should we discourage it, we should start finding ways to prohibit it.

We should require that subsidies for animal based agribusiness end immediately, and instead subsidize ecologically friendly plant based agriculture. That would immediately increase the amount of food that is available for people.

We should seriously consider fair and ethical ways to limit population growth. It's a necessity that doesn't seem to be on the table for discussion. I don't claim to have the answers, but we won't have any answers without some serious national and international discussions.

We need to start designating huge tracks of undeveloped land as off-limits for any future development, and we need to see what land we can return to undeveloped states (preferably not polluted land that corporations want to off-load anyway).

We need to address soil depletion and start banning the poisons of chemical agriculture.

We need to start mandating that companies that profit from plastics and other non-biodegradeable products need to contribute some mandatory part of their profits towards the clean-up and recycling of those plastics, and research on biodegradeable alternatives. There is no ethical reason why they should profit from the destruction of the environment and not be responsible for cleaning it up.

And sensible public policy regarding sex-ed and the availability of birth control.

We need a large package of projects and policies that all work towards towards a sustainable world, and we have to be willing to insist on changing culture to do it.

[flvegan]

128. It's actually quite valid.

If you had to eat AND chew raw meat at each meal, you'd get it.

[jgraz]

131. meh

I've eaten AND chewed raw meat many times: sushi, steak tartar, beef served rare au bleu. I've also cleaned and dressed fresh-killed deer, rabbit, squirrel and turkey, to name a few. I'm not sure why you felt the need to add the chewing bit -- if it's a straw man you're looking for, you might as well challenge me to swallow a side of beef whole. Now go choke down some raw navy beans and tell me how you feel.

There are many valid arguments for vegetarianism; this is not one of them. You do yourself and your cause a disservice by pressing such a blatantly stupid argument.

[flvegan]

143. "Many times" isn't every time.

Your point fails. The straw man comes with the navy beans comment.

Sucks to be wrong, I guess.

[Name removed]

145. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[flvegan]

147. Is that so?

Talking "sense" to me. Suggesting "abject stupidity" about a cutaway section of folks that you really, well...just don't get. Yet, you attack them.

What's sad is that the "other side" is twice as cursed. Thanks for proving that up, poster.

mark

[jgraz]

149. Dude, I "get" a lot more than you could ever hope to

I've been a vegetarian, been married to one and am currently in a committed relationship with another. To me, vegetarians aren't the "other side" -- stupid people are.

If you'd stop frothing at the mouth for a moment, you might figure out that I agree with you on just about everything. I just don't think that bullying people and employing piss-yourself ridiculous arguments is the way to get anywhere.

[flvegan]

150. Remind me of that

next time the whole "checking of credentials" comes around.

[NickB79]

41. I just had some raw sushi yesterday

Does that count as meat?

As for the "really can rend and tear meat with teeth and claw" argument, there is more than one evolutionary path to take towards rending meat. Bears, for example, evolved large claws and powerful jaws for killing their prey. Humans evolved large brains, with which we built stone tools to kill our prey and cut it into small pieces. We also evolved the intelligence to build fires over 1 million years ago, negating the need to eat meat raw. Or, was a band of Homo erectus sitting around a fire in Africa eating meat they killed with wooden and stone tools somehow unnatural?

[yellowcanine]

54. Blame it on Homo erectus and his modernizing ways. There are also the social aspects of meat

eating to consider. Herbiverous primates tend not to share food and thus have looser social structures. Meat eating primates tend to cooperate more, probably because it took cooperation to be consistently successful at hunting with primitive weapons.

[ThomCat]

56. Gee, and I thought it was the other way around.

We went from small loose bands when we were hunter/gatherers, to large settlements when we had to settle to cultivate the land. It took more people to raise crops than to hunt.

[yellowcanine]

69. You have it backwards. Cultivation of the land produced more food per capita.

Therefore some people were freed up to do other things - like become craftsmen, shopkeepers, traders, etc. In hunting gathering societies everyone either hunted or gathered, even the young and the old. In agricultural societies, only a percentage of the people raised crops of practiced animal husbandry. As societies developed, the percentage of people in agriculture got smaller and smaller so that in a modern industrialized society the percent is about 2%.

[Recursion]

61. I know some raw diet people, including carnivores

And I like rare-to-the-point-of-raw meat, though not so much chicken.

I'm not sure what you meant by eating raw meat "without getting sick"; we can all do that. We just can't transport raw meat for very long without it going bad.

[patrice]

42. Re Grasslands: Hemp is a "whole food" protein. n/t

[ThomCat]

26. If that's true,

Try eating your meat without cooking it first. See how well your guy handles that. And try tearing it with your teeth while it's raw. Don't use a fork and knife. See how well adjusted your body is to really eating meat.
:eyes:

[yellowcanine]

40. I answered that point above. We cook veggies also and eat them with utensils.

That is a trait of modern man. It has nothing to do with our evolution as omnivores.

[ThomCat]

43. But we CAN eat vegetables without cooking/tools

We CAN'T eat mean without cooking/tools.

[yellowcanine]

46. We CAN eat meat also. We choose not to. We CAN eat all our food without utensils. We choose not

too. Your point is not a valid one. Man evolved as an omnivore long before he had fire or utensils.

[flvegan]

84. Funny thing about "choose"

We can choose to not eat meat, thereby lessening our carbon footprint. Some choose not to. I understand that it tastes good. I also understand that the H2 has a cushy ride. Choices.

[yellowcanine]

91. Grass raised beef has a lower "carbon footprint" per pound of protein than

soybeans. The H2 reference eludes me. What is your point?

[flvegan]

98. Hard to swallow.

I'd be interested in reading that study.

The better one would be how to feed the masses with grass-raised beef. That would be priceless.

I'm sure if you thought a little harder about it, the H2 reference would finally strike you.

[ThomCat]

106. That's ridiculous.

The amount of protein that has to be fed to the cow to produce that beef is significant. You would certainly feed more than 1 pound of soy to that cow to produce 1 pound of beef. You'd feed that cow more than 1 pound of soy per week!

The idea that beef is more efficient is totally delusional.

[yellowcanine]

120. What part of "grass raised" don't you understand. Grass raised means no soybeans, no

corn, no grain of any kind. The grass is perennial, it doesn't have to be replanted. The animal does the harvesting. So no fuel is needed for replanting every year, no fuel needed for harvesting. Hence in terms of fossil fuels, yes, grass fed beef is more efficient than soybeans for human consumption.

[flvegan]

122. Where's that study?

I noticed that you skipped a response.

I'm quite interested in the efficiency of grass fed beef v. soybeans.

Let me know.

[yellowcanine]

137. I skip responding to people who want to play games with me. You want me to respond to you? Lay off

on the riddles and snarky remarks and play it straight.

[flvegan]

142. In other words

"I don't have a study or anything else to back up what I said."

[jgraz]

132. Sadly, that's not entirely true

Grass-fed only means 80% grass fed at the moment. The cattle are often "finished" on corn or soy on the same horrible feedlots as the pure grain-fed beef. You need to read the fine print if you want 100% grass-fed beef.

Of course, like everything else, ChimpCo is trying to fuck with this. They want to change the labeling requirements so that "grass-fed" can apply to any animal that is fed any grass. If they succeed, you'll be able to feed a cow a pure corn diet, with full antibiotic support, then let them chew a blade of grass on their way to the slaughterhouse -- congratulations, you have USDA-approved grass-fed beef.

[yellowcanine]

136. Well yes, it has to be truly grass fed.

[jgraz]

47. 50k years of fire has caused our digestive systems to adapt to cooked foods

That having been said, I often eat meat raw or very close to it. We're actually much better able to digest raw meat than many raw veggies. Try some uncooked legumes and see how you fare.

Given your position, I'm assuming you eat no cooked foods or cultivated plants. You must spend a lot of time out in the forest looking for edible berries.



ETA: :eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes::eyes:

[yellowcanine]

49. Good point about the legumes. Beans have a proteinase inhibitor which is only destroyed by heat.

Talk about gas!

[jgraz]

51. Turns out that in the wild, animal flesh is a lot safer than most plants

Once you get past the dangers of hunting, most animals you can kill are safe to eat. But there are many plants (not to mention fungi) that will kill ya dead.

Even today, cultivated plant products are a far bigger threat to our health than animal flesh. Things like corn syrup, refined flour and grain-based animal feed cause many more health problems than meat does.

[ThomCat]

60. Right, blame vegetarians

for modern processed food. :eyes:

[yellowcanine]

63. The dangers of hunting were reduced (and the success rate increased) by cooperation.

It had a lot to do with the way human societies (and our brainpower) developed. Interesting link on this topic here.
http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s6549.html

[ThomCat]

59. Nice straw man argument.

I eat a large amount of raw food in my diet. Yes, I cook a lot of my food, but that doesn't mean I have to cook food to stay healthy. And yes, there are a few vegetable foods (out of thousands) that need to be cooked. I still don't see any culture anywhere that has sustained itself on raw meat.

[jgraz]

65. I'm sorry -- did Mr. Eat-a-Cow-with-Your-Bare-Hands just accuse me of using a straw man??

:rofl:

[XemaSab]

139. Eskimos.

Raw seal fat--mmmmmm.

[jgraz]

146. There you go with the facts again

Next you'll probably try logic...silly, silly XemaSab...

[LeftyMom]

68. There's plenty of evidence that we're healthier when we eat little to no animal products.

Vegetarians and vegans have much lower rates of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer. While our bodies evolved with the flexibility to eat many things in order to adapt to shortage, that doesn't mean that all of those things are positive in their effect on our health.

[jgraz]

70. I don't think anyone is arguing with that

Although I do think that health and vegetarianism are more strongly correlated due to the fact that many vegetarians adopt other healthy practices in addition to diet.

I'd personally like to see all of us going after the factory farms (animal or otherwise) that do the most damage to our diets and the environment. Meat production will naturally be reduced if we simply impose some basic environmental standards on all agricultural businesses.

[LeftyMom]

74. Actually, there are studies that control for that.

One thing that scientists looking at the effects of a veg diet on health do a lot is compare Seventh Day Adventists and Mormons. They get similar populations in terms of non-drinking, religious white people with close knit communities, big families and an emphasis on clean living, but the one obvious difference from an epidemiological standpoint is that Mormons eat a conventional american diet and SDAs are almost exclusively vegetarians. What they find is that the SDAs live longer and are healthier than Mormons, presumably because of dietary factors.

The gold standard for diet studies right now though is the China Study, which looked at rural populations in China and the effect of diet on health over several decades. What they found was that the more animal protein a person ate, the higher their risk of heart disease and several kinds of cancer was.

So really, that I'm saying is that this idea that we're adapted to eat meat is bunk. We can, but we're not very good at it and it does us harm. It's like saying that we're adapted to live underwater, just because we can swim after a fashion. We're generalists, and while being generalists means that we can swim from side of the river to the other or eat a piece of flesh without ill effects sometimes, it doesn't mean that we're really adapted to make a habit of either.

[yellowcanine]

79. The evolutionary problem with your argument is that you assume that because

eating meat carries some inherent health problems means that we are not adapted for it. But that is not the evolutionary standard. The evolutionary standard is "fitness" - surviving long enough to produce offspring who will also reproduce. That is what "adapted" means. Apparently in human evolutionary history, those who were good at catching and eating meat were a little more fit than those that weren't. Otherwise the ability to catch and eat meat would not have survived in humans. We would be strict herbivores. So by definition, humans are adapted to eating meat. In no way is it "bunk." To say so demonstrates a lack of understanding of the meaning of biological adaptation. Most of the serious health problems of meat eating do not show up until well after people have reproduced and raised their children - even for people who eat a lot of meat. And if one eats meat moderately, they will not show up at all in most cases.

[LeftyMom]

82. But meat eating reduces our capability to survive and reproduce in the short term as well

First that idea that anything that happens after we reproduce doesn't really effect our evolutionary fitness isn't true, because human young aren't self-sufficient for a long time, so when you consider that we also have to get them ready to survive on their own, and we also help our gene survival when we assist in the rearing of our decedents, a long healthy life helps to pass our genes along even when we ourselves can't do the deed anymore. Otherwise, there'd be no reason for women to live past 45 or so, and good reason for them not to since they'd be competing with the breeding population for food and resources. And men, of course, can reproduce as long as they can get it up.

However, animal consumption impacts our health in our reproductive years as well, making us fatter, slower, more suceptible to heart disease and diabetes, amongst other things. With men high cholesterol, overweight and diabetes (all associated with meat consumption) limit the ability to achieve erection. And for modern humans, in both men and women animal consumption greatly increases exposure to pollution and toxins that collect in fatty tissues as they move upt eh food chain. In women, that exposure is passed through the placenta and in lactation, with breastmilk and hair studies showing that the body burdens of omnivores are significantly higher than vegetarians in mercury, organochlorines, flame retardants and other potentially harmful compounds. As a result, vegetarians are better equipped to reproduce successfully in a highly polluted environment.

[jgraz]

89. Well, now that you mention it, reproduction is a much bigger problem than meat eating

How many cows would I have to eat to even approach the environmental impact of your descendents? The best decision that anyone can make for the environment is deciding not to have kids.

[LeftyMom]

93. But if all the people who reduce thier impact don't reproduce,

all that's left will be the selfish assholes who think they can live in a mcmansion, drive a hummer and eat whatever the fuck they want. At least until malthusian population loss kicks in.

But really though, you want an idea to continue, you have to have at least some adherents breeding. It's why there aren't any Shakers.

[jgraz]

97. You assume that all your descendents will share your politics

How do you know that your 8 or 10 or 40 great great grandchildren won't be selfish assholes?

[LeftyMom]

103. Because I know my son.

I can't really picture him raising people to eat flesh- he's as repulsed by the idea as most people would be by cannibalism, and a better advocate for a vegan diet than his mother, in many ways.

[yellowcanine]

101. Political beliefs are not a heritable trait. This is silly.

[LeftyMom]

104. No, but we pass them on via nurture.

Which is why the number one predictor of a person's political affiliation is that of their parents. Religion, too.

[yellowcanine]

111. Good luck with that. It didn't work for my parents.

[flvegan]

124. WELL THEN, SAINTS BE PRAISED...

The be-all, end-all has arrived. Thank God/Goddess for the finite post. This will make so much shit so much easier.

[ThomCat]

107. But culture is!

If you can raise an idea up to the point of being part of the culture, it will be passed down.

[yellowcanine]

110. In your dreams.

[flvegan]

123. Look up "culture"

and post after that.

[yellowcanine]

100. You need to read my post again, I took into account raising the young.

Besides, you are arguing with the results of biological evolution, not with me. The evolution has occured. Humans are omnivores. Hence, by definition, meat eating is adaptive for humans.

[Odin2005]

87. Exactly. Vegan Fundamentalist propaganda annoys me.

I keep running into this outright lie spewed by the anti-meat fundies that eating meat isn't natural for humans. meat played an important part on our evolution. When the Ice Age started 3 million years ago large parts of Africa became semi-arid and our ancestors were forced to scavenge to survive during the dry season.

[ThomCat]

As opposed to the meat-addict fundies?

:shrug:

[flvegan]

127. Then don't term it as such.

Maybe the anger subsides.

[druidity33]

4. WOW...

I just have to put some more stats up here, so the naysayers from the last "meat is killing our planet" thread have something to chew on. (As i sit here eating my lentils and rice...)

According to the UN report, it gets even worse when we include the vast quantities of land needed to give us our steak and pork chops. Animal agriculture takes up an incredible 70% of all agricultural land, and 30% of the total land surface of the planet. As a result, farmed animals are probably the biggest cause of slashing and burning the world's forests. Today, 70% of former Amazon rainforest is used for pastureland, and feed crops cover much of the remainder. These forests serve as "sinks," absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, and burning these forests releases all the stored carbon dioxide, quantities that exceed by far the fossil fuel emission of animal agriculture.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the real kicker comes when looking at gases besides carbon dioxide -- gases like methane and nitrous oxide, enormously effective greenhouse gases with 23 and 296 times the warming power of carbon dioxide, respectively. If carbon dioxide is responsible for about one-half of human-related greenhouse gas warming since the industrial revolution, methane and nitrous oxide are responsible for another one-third. These super-strong gases come primarily from farmed animals' digestive processes, and from their manure. In fact, while animal agriculture accounts for 9% of our carbon dioxide emissions, it emits 37% of our methane, and a whopping 65% of our nitrous oxide.

So c'mon everyone, let's go to Outback and help destroy the Rainforests! Yay!

[yellowcanine]

17. What about the huge expanses of land that are natural grasslands - the prairies

of North America, the pampas of South America, the savannas of Africa, and the steppes of Eurasia?

[ThomCat]

28. How long do they remain grasslands once

we force overgrazing by pushing factory farms on them? For that matter, how many animals on factory farms ever get to graze at all?

With industrial agriculture being what it is, grasslands are just real estate. We don't graze small herds any more.

[yellowcanine]

44. Factory farms don't graze animals. They confine them and feed them grain.

How does that negate my point? The fact that we have perverted the prairies of North America by building houses on them or by plowing them up to raise grain to feed to cattle instead of just grazing cattle does not negate my point that animal agriculture is the best use (environmentally) of native grasslands (one fourth of the land area of the earth) for food production, not growing veggies.

[druidity33]

96. not to mention

The rivers of antibiotic laden pig shit that seep into our groundwater and waterways. How much of that stuff ends up in people's bodies?

All this being said, i have no particular problem with small scale Biodynamic farming and the occasional "harvest" of beef or chicken for consumption. Personally i have been a veggie for 16 years, but take no offense to local sustainable farms. Really, people just need to eat LESS of it. Maybe ONCE a week or so?


:shrug:

[jgraz]

5. 100% vegetarianism may be a hard sell (at least for people like me)

but advocating that people eat far less meat and only buy it from organic, humane suppliers would probably work on a lot of dedicated carnivores.

[patrice]

14. It could also be more local, which would be helpful. n/t

[jgraz]

16. yep, forgot that one

[truedelphi]

6. I cannot agree at all.

All mammals put out methane.

You have jsut made a great argument for cutting the human race down to 500 million people.

Besides - if we don't have the cows and the horses and sheep and goats out in the meadows - what do you think will we have?

Probably strip malls, wineries, casinos and parking lots. And boy oh boy what a lot of oxygen those items will produce <Not!>

it's true those creatures pollute - but at least their pollution is set off by the greenbelt effect that animals have.

I live in the heart of Califronia's casino/ wine country.

The vineyards are sprayed constantly with pesticides -and so unlike the old style vineyards wherein you had borders of tree and brush every so often (where migrating birds and critters like fox and rabbit could stay) today's wine industry leaders don't wanna lose even a single grape to a critter.

So the modern wine area looks abominable - ugly new little grape vines for thousands of acres, growing in the dirt that has nary a single weed.

I'll take the cows with their meadow any day of the week.

[yellowcanine]

9. See my post above. I make a similar point.

[jgraz]

10. "a great argument for cutting the human race down to 500 million people"

There are many such arguments. And they're all very difficult to rebut. My hope is that having children will eventually be the new smoking.

[yellowcanine]

13. If you outlaw procreation than only criminals will procreate.....I can hear it already.

New NRA slogan.

[jgraz]

18. We didn't outlaw smoking, just made it very unpleasant to smoke

Same thing for procreation. At the very least, we should not be supporting it.

[yellowcanine]

19. Ok then, only rich people could procreate. Is that any better than only criminals?

[jgraz]

32. I'm only advocating moral persuasion

I don't think this kind of change can be imposed on people. But advocates for reducing birthrates should be able to talk about it without be branded as totalitarian nuts.

[yellowcanine]

39. I am all for Planned Parenthood. Just not mandatory "One Child" policies as China tried.

[Dead_Parrot]

102. Let's eat babies.

Kills two birds with one stone: The food animals can live long and happy lives, and we get our population back to something normal.
:evilgrin:

[jgraz]

113. Too many toxins

Now, as soon as Niman Ranch comes out with organic, free-range baby sausage, I'm there.

[Nihil]

138. That seems to be a particularly Modest Proposal ...

On the other hand, encouraging more efficient avicide is not
such a Swift course of action ...

[Dover]

29. I like what Texas has done as a first step away from overgrazing issues.

They've created something called Wildlife Management as an alternative to Agricultural development which comes with the same Ag tax exemption. It allow a person to 'manage' their property for a variety of wildlife rather than for cattle, which means re-introducing grasses and other plants that may have been grazed to extinction on a property or purposely removed in order to accomodate cattle. Planting 'food plots' of indigenous plant species that encourage certain wildlife to thrive again is another part of the plans. It also includes wetland development, erosion control, etc.

Those who incorporate cattle into their Wildlife plans (in order to imitate the roaming bison herds who would move through the land and graze it in beneficial ways), are required to use a rotation grazing system. The number of cattle is strictly limited by the number of acres they graze under this plan. So the cattle are actually very beneficial in this case, in controlling the grasslands.

There are down sides. The really large cattle ranches that want to completely get out of that business (which may be the main reason for this new tax category) usually opt for the 'deer management' option under the Wildlife Management plan. And this also usually goes hand in hand with hunting (a lucrative thing as well as a means of controlling the deer population) and the building of very high deer fences which contain and prevent long range migrations of deer. So in a way, the deer become the new 'cattle herd'.

And of course large developers are taking advantage of it to offer those buying 10-20 acres 'ranchettes' these appealing tax breaks which drive the counties crazy because they don't get any tax benefits from these developments.

They also have had a hard time educating people to become good managers. All too often the whole idea is foreign to a new landowner who is well meaning but completely ignorant of the land. But the ag. department has been doing a surprisingly good job despite being underfunded and understaffed for such a monumental effort.

But overall, it's having a very positive effect. A more limited version is even offered to small urban properties who want to attract certain species of birds, etc. Wish the whole country would adopt this plan. It's a good first step.

[flvegan]

85. "Cows with their meadow"

You REALLY think that the majority of food animals are "out in the meadows"?

The rest of your post (the "probably" part) is pure speculation. Sort of like saying that if we don't put up another megamall somewhere, SOMEONE will come along and put multiple highrise condominiums in the space.

[jgraz]

8. Of course, if you really care for animals and the environment

your best move is to not have children. Vegetarians with kids don't get to lecture me about my once-a-month organic burger.

[LeftyMom]

66. My footprint and that of my kid still beats yours

And there's still the ethical issue that you're eating something that was confined, killed and ground up for your pleasure.

[yellowcanine]

83. It would't necessarily be so if the meat were pasture raised.

How much energy would it take and how much topsoil would be lost to produce the vegetable protein equivalent of a 1/4 pound hamburger? The hamburger CAN be raised on grass with hardly any use of fossil fuels and almost no loss of soil with proper grazing management. As for the so called ethical issue - you speak for yourself. People who eat hambergers are not taking pleasure at the confining (and you make the mistake of anthromorphizing here - the cow is not reacting to confinement as a human would) or killing of the cow. People eat by necessity. There is nothing unethical in taking pleasure in satisfying your hunger. And there is nothing unethical about eating something our bodies are biologically adapted to eating).

[LeftyMom]

86. It's perfectly unethical to ask another creature to suffer and die for your wants.

We're not obligate carnivores, we do well- better in fact- when we don't eat flesh. We're not tigers or seals or sharks with no choices but kill or die. When we don't have to kill to live, the only options remaining are either to choose to do so or not, and there's no way that killing for food in that situation is ethically defensible.

[flvegan]

88. When pleasure is taken at the expense or suffering of another being

it's called selfishness, and when one knows better, it IS unethical.

[LeftyMom]

95. There you are.

:* Was wondering when you'd come play.

[flvegan]

112. I hear bells every time someone invokes the stupidity

needed to maintain the "look in your mouth, you were meant to eat meat" argument.

Yeah, we're evolving AWAY from it, it would seem. If one were to compare the human mouth to the mouth of, oh, say a chimpanzee. Chimps eat "some meat" to supplement their diets. Serious teeth. Oh, but we have those canines. Those couple of TINY teeth justify it all. Sort of like evolving to walk upright so that we could play baseball.

[LeftyMom]

116. But they're freakin' emourmous. I keep cutting my lip on 'em

Oh wait, I got those at the costume store...

[flvegan]

129. Ever accidentally bite your tongue?

Notice how the teeth hurt but don't break the skin?

Maybe it's just me. The human canines were obviously meant to tear raw flesh. So long as that flesh isn't human tongue.

[Dead_Parrot]

130. Presumably the Serengeti is littered with severed lion tongues, then. nt

[flvegan]

144. Or lions know better.

Maybe?

[Dead_Parrot]

151. Or possibly - just possibly...

...anything with a brain-stem will reflexively stop biting when the tongue hurts.

Just a wild idea.

Of course, your brain-stem may be faulty, in which case it's a good job you've got blunt teeth, but that would make you fairly unique among vertebrates.

[jgraz]

92. You have no idea what my footprint is

But I can guarantee you, my footprint ends with me. How long will yours go on? How many animals will be slaughtered by your descendents? How many will die for your family's carbon emissions?

One thing I can promise you: your kid's impact will be at least 10x that of a child in a non-industrialized country. How's that for ethics?

[LeftyMom]

99. Zero, I'd hope.

Certainly none at my son's hands, and I assume if he ever has any kids he'd raise them similarly.

As for my carbon emissions? My diet makes them phenomenally low for a person in the first world (going from an omni diet to a vegan one reduces one's emissions as much as going from a Hummer to a hybrid. Link in my journal, way back in the spring, iirc.) I do what I can and more than most.

[jgraz]

115. You have hope, I have certainty

It's nice that you're making an attempt to cut down your footprint, but the cumulative effects of your descendents will eventually erase those efforts. Unless you're planning on buying your son a vasectomy for his 16th birthday.

[The2ndWheel]

12. At this point, what would we do with them all?

Our only option is to keep them caged. If they're kept caged, we have to feed them. To keep them fed, we have to have money in order to get the food, so we have to keep selling them. The same way we have no option but continued growth in every sphere of life, because if anything were to even hint at contraction, the whole damn thing would fall apart.

[patrice]

15. ?

I think the suggestion is to not breed so many animals for eating, so there wouldn't be a problem with what to do with them all.

?? Should we treat cancer by allowing it to grow?

[The2ndWheel]

23. Breed them for what then?

Are they all going to be pets? Can we let horses and pigs run free like squirrels? We keep cats and dogs as pets, and we beg for surgery to keep their numbers down. So what are we going to do with them? Put them in a zoo? That's pretty much our solution to everything since we need the space for ourselves.

"Should we treat cancer by allowing it to grow?"

Well things like cancer are nature's way of trying to get us to stop growing. We won't stop growing, so we'll try(maybe successfully) to eradicate things like cancer, but then we'll end up with something even worse, because eradicating cancer will allow us to continue to grow. Nature's only way of fighting back these days is to make us sick. Nature is our only counter-balance. We fear no predator, we mold the environment to fit our demands. I'm not saying don't get rid of cancer, but there is a reason it exists, and its not because it's evil or anything. It's there for a specific purpose. It's a stop sign. It's the same with the cold, the flu, AIDS, the things that happen to us in old age, whatever. That's why these problems keep popping up time and time again.

[patrice]

33. The point would be that the market would get smaller, so breeding

more would be un-necessary, hence no need to do anything about animals that aren't there in the first place. Or are you suggesting that people would continue to breed animals for a non-existent, or at least significantly smaller, demand?

Your remarks about cancer/environmental degredation:
Oh, I get it now, you're one of those "Kill 'em all (or let them die) and let God/Nature sort them out" types. The problem with your reasoning is assuming we'll "end up with something even worse" no matter what we do. You give humanity no credit for possibly adapting appropriately. You're also assuming that the correction will not make us extinct and/or if it does, that's okay. The longer we wait and do nothing "because nothing will work" the more likely that the intertia built up in the systems will create changes too large and fast for us to adapt to effectively. I think this attitude is suicidal. But then, I also think, for some people, that's the point.

[The2ndWheel]

78. How would the market get smaller?

You'd have to force it by not breeding the livestock. That's not really supply and demand. When in the history of civilization have humans voluntarily given up something?

Not to mention you have to deal with the animals that are here today. What are you going to do with them? We're not going to keep them as pets. We're not going to let them run free.

Where did I mention kill, let alone all of them? Did I say let them die? If I said anything, it's that we have no choice but to continue doing exactly what we've been doing. Plus eradicating whatever horror pops up next.

"You give humanity no credit for possibly adapting appropriately."

If only we did adapt. We no longer adapt, we control and manipulate, that's why we're in this problem.

"I think this attitude is suicidal."

Well, until we cure death, we're all going to die eventually.

All I'm saying is that we're at 6.5+ billion people artificially. To keep that up, we have to make it increasingly artificial. I can't stop that, as to do it, would be murder on a scale that would put all 20th century dictators to shame. As far as I can tell, we're on a path with no goal. If there is a goal, we can't stop even when we reach it, thanks to the laws of thermodynamics. Worse than suicidal, that's basically insane.

[ThomCat]

30. If we didn't constantly breed animals in vast numbers for

agribusiness, and selectively breed them to make them dependent on us for survival, and if we didn't encroach on every possible piece of land, we'd still have animals in something resembling natural habitats.

We need to undo the a lot of the devastating practices. We can't breed animals for traits that make them unable to survive, and then use that as an excuse to keep breeding more. That just makes no sense.

[The2ndWheel]

35. Absolutely agree

I'm not advocating selective breeding of other species designed for only our benefit. I'm just saying it's going to be very difficult to undo, even more so to do it smoothly.

[yellowcanine]

50. Get real. Cultivated plants are dependent on us also. We have too many people to go back to

a hunter gatherer culture. These are pie in the sky solutions. They will not feed 6.5 billion people, let alone 9 billion, the projected population by 2050.

[ThomCat]

62. And how will we feed all those people

if we stay addicted to meat?

[yellowcanine]

109. sustainable grass fed animal production and sustainable crop production.

And there is no such thing as "meat addiction" so you ought to lose that one.

[ThomCat]

114. Really?

You know for a fact that meat is not psychologically addicting? You've ever tried to give up meat to find out?
:rofl:

Yes, you're an expert. I'll definitely take your word on it. :eyes:

And, btw, there is no way in hell that grass fed animal based agribusiness would be able to produce more than a very tiny fraction of the meat that the current population eats. So even if we used your solution, you're advocating vegetarianism for the vast majority of the population.

[yellowcanine]

118. You are really reaching now. And you are not a serious person.

This is a waste of my time. Bye.

[flvegan]

148. Great response!!!!

BWAHAHA!!!!

[YankeyMCC]

20. Locally raised animals

by farmers using sustainable practices can make a big difference. In fact buying food locally will help reconnect people with the land and community around them.

Cut down certainly, but I don't think it has to be elimated. Industrially raised meat should be elimated yet but locally and sustainably raised meat can be a good alternative.

I think others have made the same point above, just thought it was worth repeating.

[yellowcanine]

24. Yep. Think grassfed beef and pastured poultry, rabbits, pigs, etc.

[jgraz]

34. It helps that grassfed organic beef actually tastes better and is healthier.

Too bad the USDA is trying to destroy the label.

[Porcupine]

53. Local, organic, Agriculture squesters carbon. Links

Joel Saladin of Polyface Farms

Terra Preta carbon sequestration improves soils

Farms like this one that I buy eggs from use the same patch of land for orchards, chickens and meat animals. The same acreage in local agribusiness farms provides a single crop of fruit or almonds per year.

An Ozzie permaculturist

Also Google: Buffalo Commons.

Agribusiness is the problem. We should try to move the curve from high end meat eating to reduced meat eating but that will take more will than Congress has right now.

[jgraz]

67. Cool -- thanks for this info

Always good to learn something new. :toast:

[12string]

31. Vegetarian

Be kind to animals...stop eating them.

[jgraz]

36. Welcome to DU

:hi:

You'll find that most of us have moved beyond bumper sticker posts here. Why do you have this position? How do you think you might persuade people to agree with you?

[12string]

152. Bumper sticker posts

Thanks for the welcome.If you go to my journal you may find
more than a one sentence post,including ,but not limited to
this subject.Kind of quick on the draw are't you.I've been a
vegetarian for over 31 of my 51 years and to be frank I don't
care irf anyone agrees or disagrees with my point of view.It
is just a statement that apparently can cause one to think.You
responded.

[phantom power]

37. I love meat, and I'm going to miss it.

[jpak]

57. Meat is the new Nuclear Power

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

72. No worries about the waste, though

[phantom power]

108. it would be the new H2, wouldn't it?

:evilgrin:

[bananas]

135. We can extract meat from seawater! nt

[XemaSab]

140. It's been done.

:P :9

[meow mix]

119. im having black bean enchiladas and steamed broccoli and tomato soup and

a couple slightly green bananas for desert :D
and ample coffee.

usually i go with stuff like this for months, but heh heh.. after a long time i kinda like to reward myself with something meaty =)

i have found that now i have to becareful of what kind of meat dinner i make, because going long periods without any seem to have caused something odd to happen. Most meat entrees now taste kinda like rotted death to me. for lack of a better description.
sice it seems i can tase the "meat-death" very easily now... i have to smother it in a really strong sauce of somekind.

this has caused me to avoid it more and more though.

[Name removed]

134. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[CRF450]

121. I like meat

I eat plenty of vegetables on the side and I am perfectly healthy and in shape! I dont believe all the "eating meat is bad!" propoganda thats spewed out by vegans. Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go cook me a good juicy cheezeburger.

[flvegan]

125. I love it when DU gets new, exceptionally cool posters.

Nice to have you here.

[CRF450]

126. Thank you!

I dont really live my life by political ideals, be it democrat or republican. Thats why I'm registered as an independant.

[jgraz]

133. Good thing you're posting on a political board then

Are you sure you weren't looking for friendster?

[Dogmudgeon]

141. Kathy Freston is the new Anna Nicole Smith

She's yet another self-impressed idle-rich trophy wife of a powerful corporate executive, making a career out of telling people how to live. La Freston is also billed as a relationship guru and "spiritual adviser" to the jet set, notably Arianna Huffington -- who may be rich but at least isn't idle. (The article is originally from The Huffington Post.)

Tell me again, how much carbon does a commercial jet generate? A lot more than (pained expression) a burger. But the jet set is a small, exclusive clique, while millions of people eat Demon Meat.

A lot of rich people likewise have the idea in the back of their mind that they got rich because they are virtuous; therefore, they are entitled to dispense unsolicited advice on how to live. In her case, that virtue was being sufficiently hot-looking to attract, bed, and marry Tom Freston, one-time architect of MTV and CEO of media giant Viacom. (Yes -- for two generations of musicians, Tom Freston was The Man. He made, and broke, hundreds of times as many artists as Simon Crowell.)

Moral entrepreneurship sucks, whether it's from media corporations paying for special laws like the Digital Millennium Communication Act, self-righteous vegetarians shoehorning themselves into environmental issues, or religiomaniacs legislating their hate for queer folk, killing at random in (non) civil wars, and endeavoring to control the bodies of young women.

Anna Nicole Smith pimped overpriced diet pills that entreated people to "be envied"; Kathy Freston pimps a wonder diet that makes you beautiful, cleanses your karma, saves the earth, and makes you a paragon of virtue. Her wonder diet is so wonderful, in fact, that if you don't adopt it, you're a bad person who hates the Earth. Only a low-class gold digger like Anna Nicole would advise you to "be envied"; a high-class seeker of cosmic gold, already living an enviable life, will tell you to "be virtuous".

Maybe, as an authority on love and marriage, she can fix me up with a rich gal who isn't so full of herself. I'm looking for a "drrty grrl" of questionable virtue -- someone who likes meat. And who can pay for my health insurance. I'll get by without the Prius.

Our world is in serious trouble, and the rich, who got that way by taking the spoils thereof, are now giving us lectures on dietary virtue. The weird have gone pro, indeed!

--p!