Environmentalists and Vegetarians

That's really sweet that someone would get so upset about MY opinion...

LOL I feel important.

 

and would you be so sweet to still be upset with my opinion or are you already bored with it

 

yeah,i`m totally with u here.
Cant call yourself environmentalist,if u eat meat

 

I was upset? Did I miss something?

 

But society at large is not hunter-gatherer.

 

The ppl in India live in ‘REAL family units, extended families’ yet the population density is enough to cause problems with water supply. It’s caused enough concerns for Indian politicians to do something about it.

Politicians there have been trying to address population growth and the related issue of female infanticide for years if not decades.

They realize ppl have children for old age security more so than Westerners as the vast majority of the pop. do not have any kind of retirement program. This does not mean pop. growth issues should be sidelined.

To address this politicians have promised trust funds as an incentive for smaller families, a sort of old age security for those who have only 1 child and more money if their only child is a girl. The programs are designed to reduce reliance on offsprings.

Would they come up with these incentives if they weren’t concerned about resource availability for the population. Think about this and take a look at the thread [thread=140405]’ What do you think is a viable solution (S) to the overpopulation problem?’[/thread] and hippypaul’s feedback to my reply b4 using such derogatory language, one has to think outside the box to come up with the suggestions I did there, the most workable solutions offered todate on that thread IMHO. Do you have to attack me personally cos I don't see eye to eye with you on some issues.

Addressing retirement/old age security concerns in India and China is still a work in progress but it should not be abandoned with efforts focused exclusively on consumption. China has been increasing it’s per capita meat consumption steadily over the years with the rising affluence there, other countries would do the same if their economy where to improve. This should show you how much of an uphill battle you have on your hands if you focus only on consumption and not population.

 

There is deffinately too many negative emotions and energy in here for me... I have officially ducked out of this one.

 

1000 fucking kudos to you, baby. I'm a vegan and we don't resort to non-renewable substances. I mean, if we can, we can learn to live without them like the hippy movement in the olden days... living a simple life. It's not that hard, it's everything Lennon stood for: imagine life without it. Lennon didn't stand for vegetarianism, yes, i know, but the message is underlying and stands for a higher truth than it has yet to be sub-catagorized. We are one with the live, breathing Mother Earth and we need to respect all things living and non-living...

 

i don't think they are mutually exclusive, but i think that if you are a compassionate person and you concern yourself with keeping our earth in good shape, then you should also take the next step to realize that killing is wrong, that animals are part of the planet you are trying to keep clean, and that the meat industry is cruel and detrimental to our planet. so i guess in essense i believe that you CAN be an environmentalist and not a veggie, but i don't see how anyone with a compassionate bone in their body could eat a helpless animal.

 

i posted that without reading all the posts....drummenmama speaks truth...the true ecological damage of the food industry comes from the fact that we ship our food thousands of miles before we eat it. eat local, in season, organic.

 

if one eats organic meat, then he or she can be an environmentalist, but if they eat meat that has loads of chemicals in it, then they are not. For an example, a chicken is pumped with hormones, it takes a piss, then the hormones are dispursed on to the earth. For the most part meat eatters do not eat organically because it's expensive, so most of the time they are not environmentalists. Go vegetarian for yourself and the environment!

 

I believe that responsible hunting practices are very environmental.

 

An environmentalist meat eater is something that can't exist. If you consume meat, you support the meat industry which causes a huge amount of pollution.
To say "I'm an environmentalist" but keep living in a manner which harms the environment is hypocritical.

 

OK, I eat meat. I guess I'm not an environmentalist. Does that mean I can stop recycling? Can I now take repeated inefficient trips in my car?

Or should I do what I do and not care whether I meet other's definition of "environmentalist".

Is this another discussion of "who is in the club" and what lables people should wear?

 

You can't be stupid and smart at the same time either. I eat rabbit. An overpopulated, free range pest. I eat kangaroo, another overpopulated, free range animal (both industries need our support to tackle the beef industry).

So think please. Think.

 

Modern farming techniques have a major negative impact on the Earth. It could also be said that vegetarians are not enviromentalists unless they eat only foods from truly sustainable organic local farms (which most farms are not). Modern industrial farming techniques are responsible for water contamination (both surface and groundwater with pesticides,fertilizers etc), soil loss and erosion, deforestation, air pollution and animal extinction on a vast scale.

 

Here are some facts I found that I would like to share with you all ... These are some reasons why people say Environmentalists should be vegetarians/vegans

Of all the agricultural land in the U.S., nearly 80 percent is used in some way to raise animals—that's roughly half of the total land mass of the U.S . More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to create cropland to grow grain to feed farmed animals.more than 70 percent of the grain and cereals that we grow in this country are fed to farmed animals. It takes up to 22 pounds of grain to produce just one pound of meat, and even fish on fish farms must be fed 5 pounds of wild-caught fish to produce one pound of farmed fish flesh. All animals require many times more calories, in the form of grain, soybeans, oats, and corn, than they can possibly return in the form of animal flesh for meat-eaters to consume. The world's cattle alone consume a quantity of food equal to the caloric needs of 8.7 billion people—more than the entire human population on Earth. About 20 percent of the world's population, or 1.4 billion people, could be fed with the grain and soybeans fed to U.S. cattle alone. The environmental magazine, noted in 2002 that more than one-third of all fossil fuels produced in the United States are used to raise animals for food. 80 percent of all agricultural land in the U.S. is used by the meat and dairy industries (this includes, of course, the land used to raise crops to feed them).
Simply add up the energy-intensive stages: (1) grow massive amounts of corn, grain, and soybeans (with all the required tilling, irrigation, crop dusters, and so on); (2) transport the grain and soybeans to manufacturers of feed on gas-guzzling, pollution-spewing 18-wheelers; (3) operate the feed mills (requiring massive energy expenditures); (4) transport the feed to the factory farms (again, in inefficient vehicles); (5) operate the factory farms; (6) truck the animals many miles to slaughter; (7) operate the slaughterhouse; (8) transport the meat to processing plants; (9) operate the meat-processing plants; (10) transport the meat to grocery stores; (11) keep the meat refrigerated or frozen in the stores, until it's sold. Every single stage involves heavy pollution, massive amounts of greenhouse gases, and massive amounts of energy.
It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of meat, while growing 1 pound of wheat only requires 25 gallons. A totally vegetarian diet requires only 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You save more water by not eating a pound of beef than you do by not showering for an entire year. Animals raised for food produce 130 times as much excrement as the entire U.S. population, roughly 68,000 pounds per second, all without the benefit of waste treatment systems. Factory farms in America produce 20 tons of fecal matter each year for every U.S. household.
Factory farms also produce massive amounts of dust and other contamination that pollutes our air. A study in Texas found that animal feedlots in the state produce more than 14 million pounds of particulate dust every year and that the dust “contains biologically active organisms such as bacteria, mold, and fungi from the feces and the feed.”The massive amounts of excrement produced by these farms emit toxic gases such as hydrogen sulfide and ammonia into the air. The EPA reports that roughly 80 percent of ammonia emissions in the United States come from animal waste.Feeding animals who are used for food and then producing, transporting, and storing animal products is extremely energy-intensive...in fact, the average American diet requires about 400 gallons of oil per year, almost twice the amount required for the average vegan diet.In addition, carbon dioxide is also released from animal manure. Indeed, while driving a hybrid Prius instead of a “regular” car saves the equivalent of just more than 1 ton of carbon dioxide a year, a vegan diet generates at least 1.5 fewer tons than does the average American diet.

My own opinion is you should do what you want to do. Just because your an Environmentalists doesnt mean you should become a vegetarian/vegan but if you think about it when you do eat meat you are supporting some of the distruction thats happening to mother earth. I respect all your oppinions please respect mine .. Thanks
Peace
<3 Katy

 

Yes I eat meat, yes i am an environmentalist. i don't take well to people telling me what I can and can't call myself. You could say that your not an environmentalist if you; own a car, ride in a car, pay taxes, use a phone, fly on a plane.... We are all guilty of participating in modern culture because we are all sitting at our computers.

I will be honest, I try and buy organics, I only buy free range meat, but when I am working on ships i eat with the crew, and they (by and large) eat meat... its work to get a decent salad on here most days. I thik a lot of people spend a lot of time worrying about food when bigger things are happening; it is like we are rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic sometimes. sure eat simple; eat foods where you can picture the ingredents (know that high fructose corn syrup has a bunch of names), but there are more important things to worry about.

And as to the whole "killing is wrong" thing; I don't buy it... Killing food to eat is an acient ritual; it predates mankind, mammals, vertibrates. I think that to kill wastefuly is wrong, or to treat your food meanly (see others comments on the animal industry) is wrong, but having slaughtered animals to eat, I feel no remorse. My animals were well cared for, loved, well fed and happy...