[AgentR]

Yet another example of why there are always doubts about the cause of global warming and the suggested remedies. These things almost always seem to be some lefty agenda item that is then reframed in terms of addressing climate change.

No one is fooled. The purpose is not to slow down climate change. And the more blatant the tag-alongs become, the more likely it becomes that real climate change items will get lumped right along with them.

[Sys1]

Human meat will be a sustainable alternative, just like in Soylent Green.

[NEOPO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AgentR', 'Y')et another example of why there are always doubts about the cause of global warming and the suggested remedies. These things almost always seem to be some lefty agenda item that is then reframed in terms of addressing climate change.

No one is fooled. The purpose is not to slow down climate change. And the more blatant the tag-alongs become, the more likely it becomes that real climate change items will get lumped right along with them.

[SILENTTODD]

I guess no more Atkins Diet in UK?

Won't matter much if there's not enough food to eat period.

[steam_cannon]

Sounds like the idea is to delay predicted food shortages do to climate change, over population and diminishing farm production world wide. So I guess now we know what the propaganda will look like: "Be a vegetarian, eating meat hurts poor innocent animals..."

Climate Change
Wheat production to move north and be limited, on both sides of the pond.

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/12/04/cli ... ad-basket/

Over Population + Diminishing food production
How much longer can the world feed itself?
http://tinyurl.com/ygfnlk



Darn it, I want my burger!

[sirrom]

do you think this is part of the "secret goverment plan":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NNpHTakJUw

or is somebody just trying to save a few animals?

[Gazzatrone]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('steam_cannon', '[')img]http://shinyplasticbag.com/permalink/2005020800.jpeg[/img]
Darn it, I want my burger!

[manu]

It cant be to secret if its in the Daily Mail! They dont have a huge cattle industry lobby like in the U.S. so maybe they will get rid of the fast food industry. Yes, it is better for the environment. I read an articule in 99 that said that 50% of the women of the U.K. between the ages of 16 and 40 were vegetarian. Also the fastest growing buisness in the U.K. at that time was the organic foods buisness.

[sirrom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gazzatrone', '
')
Hmm if you look at that burger, you have to consider how much "vegetation" goes into one of those buns.

I'm pretty sure the production of lettuce, pickle, mustard, mayo, flour (for the burger) etc are more cost expensive and climate harming than the production of meat alone.

[sirrom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('manu', 'I')t cant be to secret if its in the Daily Mail! They dont have a huge cattle industry lobby like in the U.S. so maybe they will get rid of the fast food industry. Yes, it is better for the environment. I read an articule in 99 that said that 50% of the women of the U.K. between the ages of 16 and 40 were vegetarian. Also the fastest growing buisness in the U.K. at that time was the organic foods buisness.

[sirrom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'S')omehow raise the prices of meat products and you'll force a change. Its crazy how cheap meat calories are.

[sirrom]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mmasters', 'W')ell vegans are less likely to rebel with any force that's for sure; protein brings out the warrior in us. A vegan populace is an easy one to control and or powerdown. They definitely wont stop feeding meat to the military though.

[Doly]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'I')ts crazy how cheap meat calories are.

[dohboi]

From the tone of many of the above posts, I get the stong impression that most are not now vegetarians, much less vegans.
I am wondering why.

You are on this forum so you know how precious remaining energy is. Do you think it is good to use up remaining energy supplies as quickly as possible? Do you think that one has no responsibility for ones own actions?

Or perhaps you unaware of the basic facts of commercial meat production--that it uses some 20 times more of most resources to produce than are used for the equivalent nutritional quanitity of plant-based food (some 50 times for water use).

Perhaps you all eat grass-fed, locally produced meat?

Or perhaps you have reduced your meat consumption to a sustainable minimum?

Of course we are all creatures of habit, and doubtless this is the real, banal reason you have not taken this one modest step towards a sustainable planet.

[davep]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('dohboi', 'P')erhaps you all eat grass-fed, locally produced meat?

Or perhaps you have reduced your meat consumption to a sustainable minimum?

Of course we are all creatures of habit, and doubtless this is the real, banal reason you have not taken this one modest step towards a sustainable planet.

[Gazzatrone]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sirrom', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Gazzatrone', '
')
Hmm if you look at that burger, you have to consider how much "vegetation" goes into one of those buns.

I'm pretty sure the production of lettuce, pickle, mustard, mayo, flour (for the burger) etc are more cost expensive and climate harming than the production of meat alone.

[Twilight]

Post-crash every moving source of protein is dead. Endangered or not, behind a fence or not, it's dead.

Pre-crash it makes sense to eat whatever you need to stay healthy and fit. Knowing what we know, anything else is a futile gesture.

[drgoodword]

Brown University's Peter Uvin found the following in a 1993 study (pdf document):

Populations Potentially Supported By The 1992 Global Food Supply With Different Diets:

Almost Purely Vegetarian Diet: 6.3 Billion People

15% Of Calories From Animal Products: 4.2 Billion People

25% Of Calories From Animal Products: 3.2 Billion People

From a study published in the American Journal Of Clinical Nutrition:

The major fossil energy inputs for grain, vegetable, and forage production include fertilizers, agricultural machinery, fuel, irrigation, and pesticides (8, 9). The energy inputs vary according to the crops being grown (10). When these inputs are balanced against their energy and protein content, grains and some legumes, such as soybeans, are produced more efficiently in terms of energy inputs than vegetables, fruits, and animal products ( 8 ). In the United States, the average protein yield from a grain crop such as corn is 720 kg/ha (10). To produce 1 kcal of plant protein requires an input of about 2.2 kcal of fossil energy (10).

Fossil energy is expended in livestock production systems (Table 2Go). For example, broiler chicken production is the most efficient, with an input of 4 kcal of fossil energy for each 1 kcal of broiler protein produced. The broiler system is primarily dependent on grain. Turkey, also a grain-fed system, is next in efficiency, with a ratio of 10:1. Milk production, based on a mixture of two-thirds grain and one-third forage, is relatively efficient, with a ratio of 14:1. Both pork and egg production also depend on grain. Pork production has a ratio of 14:1, whereas egg production has a 39:1 ratio.

The 2 livestock systems depending most heavily on forage but also using significant amounts of grain are the beef and lamb production systems (Table 3Go). The beef system has a ratio of 40:1, while the lamb has the highest, with a ratio of 57:1 (Table 2Go). If these animals were fed on only good-quality pasture, the energy inputs could be reduced by about half.

The average fossil energy input for all the animal protein production systems studied is 25 kcal fossil energy input per 1 kcal of protein produced (Table 2Go). This energy input is more than 11 times greater than that for grain protein production, which is about 2.2 kcal of fossil energy input per 1 kcal of plant protein produced (Table 4Go). (my bold)

I'm not advocating a state-imposed ban on meat, but if the whole planet absolutely had to go vegan, not only would we save a great deal of energy (not to mention water resources), but we'd also be a lot healthier:

Our findings strongly suggest that dietary factors have an important influence on longevity and the risk of a number of chronic diseases. In general, we found that vegetarians had lower risks of obesity, hypertension, diabetes, arthritis, colon cancer, prostate cancer, fatal IHD in males, and death from all causes. The consumption of nuts and whole-grain bread were protective against both fatal and nonfatal IHD, whereas beef consumption was hazardous for males. The consumption of fruit and legumes appeared to be protective against a number of cancers, whereas meats probably increase the risk for cancers of the colon and bladder.

The only medically recognized natural treatment for heart disease is Dr. Dean Ornish's program, at the centre of which is a vegetarian diet.

The benefits of a vegan/vegetarian diet are very widely recognized, and have been used for millenia in healing and spiritual growth. As Hippocrates advised: let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.

[Ebyss]

I'd really like to see you grow corn or soybeans on our crappy, scrubby mountains out back. Sheep seem to love it though.

Not all agricultural land is suitable for growing grain, it's not a simple case of switching over. It takes a good few years for organic farms to reach the yields of petrochemical based farms, particularly if the land has been recently fertilised/sprayed using these same inputs. And lets not forget, organic farms need fertiliser too, just not petrol based - so they use animal based instead. Take away all the meat animals, where's your fertiliser to grow veg? One can do a biointensive approach - and it would work well on a much larger scale than it does today, but it's not going to feed everybody on the planet right now.

Also - do vegetarians not understand that millions of wild animals are shot and killed each year to protect grain and veg crops? 5 million pigeons in the UK alone, and still there is damage. Deer are another pest that is in greater numbers now than it has ever been - why? They no longer have any animal predators, and humans don't eat the cute animals anymore... so now deer are incredibly abundant and need their population controlled so they don't destroy grain and veg crops. Only one way to control deer population, and that's shooting. The real sin of course is that many of these carcasses are not eaten as there is no interest.

So unless you grow every bit of grain and veg and fruit that you eat, vegetarianism is not a cruelty free, or even animal free, choice.

Lets not even think of the amount of extra wilderness and wildlife habitat that we'd have to destroy in order to grow more grain and veg to feed a nation of vegetarians.

Now, I do buy locally reared meat (I'm surrounded by sheep, chickens and cows, the climate here is just too harsh for most grain), and I will soon be growing my own. It's much harder for me to get locally grown veg, as large scale veg and grain growing isn't feasible in my immediate area. Small scale does quite well, and that's what I'll be doing in my own garden. So, as it stands, my meat and eggs are local, I don't drink dairy so my soymilk is imported (can't grow soy on a large scale in Irish climate - though small scale soy is possible with a new breed that can tolerate colder climates - I intend to try growing this). My oranges, citrus fruit, melons etc most certainly do not come from my local area. I don't know where my dirt cheap pasta wheat comes from.


Humans have lived in harmony and balance with this planet, while eating meat, for thousands of years. Now, at our current population, that is simply not possible. Why do we continue to avoid the real crux of the issue here - overpopulation - in favour of forcing people to be vegetarian, or use biofuels (btw, how you gonna grow all the grain for eatin' and drivin'?) or build more coal fired power plants?


For what it's worth, people eat far too much meat and the intensive methods of rearing cattle and pigs sickens me to me very core. I don't buy cheap meat. I do buy cheap grain - perhaps I should look for a different source of grain. Or eat less of it.

[Narz]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sirrom', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('frankthetank', 'S')omehow raise the prices of meat products and you'll force a change. Its crazy how cheap meat calories are.