Livestock: Advantage or Disadvantage

I apologise in advance, if I've missed anything out. Feel free to add it. Erm, so it's not very enlgihtening but I was recently just reading about how vegetarians are converting to become an omnvirore. I guess that many of us here are omnivores, me included. However, if becoming partly vegetarian could eventually save our planet, would you become one?

ADVANTAGES
Livestock farming is a sure sign of a modern civilisation. Those who do raise it and consume them, are effectively having a much more stable food source. There are many minerals in meat that do provide us to be healthy – however you could probably find many of these in lentils (however disgusting they can taste to some.) There is some variety in our diet. It provides flavour and taste. Raising livestock gives a lot of jobs. Rather selfish to think that people think for themselves rather than animals.


DISADVANTAGES
In February 2008 (bit outdated - only one I can find), the US government produced the following statement, out of their report.

"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.

Global Warming
All of you should be aware of how livestock are a major contributor to global warming (if it does exist) to our environment. The carbon produced e.g. decaying and methane produced frow e.g. cows, if we did stop eating meat - we would definitely be reducing the amount of gases released into the environment.

I'm not sure how reliable this quote is (bolded parts are done by me), but:

Supreme Master Ching Hai: If we are vegan we don’t even need to worry about CO2 yet. CO2 by transportation and all that is not the grave urgency like methane gas and nitrous oxide and all the gases that are produced out of animal industry.

From my inside knowledge, and also scientifically speaking, 80% of global warming would be stopped if we stopped the animal industry. As the top climatologist Dr. James Hansen said, being veg is the single most effective thing a person can do to stop global warming.

80% is quite a large quantity. That could ultimately reduce (with great impact) of how much our planet is warming. But, that's to say if it does exist.

Food
Considering at the rate of how the population is increasing, we might not have enough food to feed everyone, hell – there are people dying at the moment due to starvation in Africa.

Eating veg gives us more food than eating meat.

Vegetables are the producers of a food chain; and usually, as the food chain progresses, the biomass (amount of living material) decreases.

When we keep livestock, we are continuously adding levels into the food chain by e.g. feeding the pigs/cows. This reduces the amount of biomass and ultimately means that there is less food to eat. I hope this makes sense? If we eat plants, it’ll mean that we need less food to fill us up – so there would be less agriculture, leaving most of the planet to restore itself.

Animal morality
We only do kill animals because they have no rights. If we have evolved from animals (maybe? Maybe not – I do think there isn’t something right about it) then surely other animals will be able to evolve in the long term. This could cause a potential threat after they learn that we used to kill them for food? Or maybe they would do the same? But, the point is. Humans kill animals and apparently if they are a distinct kin to us – isn’t it the same as killing a distinct cousin who can’t speak. Ah that was a crap example. Scrap that.


I couldn’t think of any more advantages. Ah, anyone got any more to add? I know that being a omnivore here, it would be very difficult to stop but maybe we could. So, if you had the chance. Would you stop eating meat and help the environment or would you rather continue with this lifestyle?

Any opinions guys?


[edit on 12/2/2010 by BlackPoison94]

I raise livestock. Livestock for food is one of the oldest forms of agriculture and stable food sources in history. Granted, some forms are more efficient and convert feed to protein/meat pound for pound better than others. What is the purpose of raising livestock? There is a market for meat...beef, pork, chicken, buffaloe, beefaloe, fish, duck, turkey, goat, etc.
If you just want to eat...veggies are good. Many is the time I have eaten nothing but veggies for dinner... fried squash, snap beans, butterbeans, sliced tomatoes, corn bread, new potatoes...yummy. BUT, I love bacon, fried pork chops, country ham, hamburger steak n gravy/onions, hotdogs,etc.
Point is, many people in Africa are not starving from lack of agriculture, but from lack of opportunity to grow/raise food in a stable enviroment. Twenty years ago, I unpacked crates with some of the prettiest grapes and oranges from S.Africa, Zimbabwe, Rhodesia... these countries reclaimed the land from able farmers and turned it over to the native peoples...fine except they didn't know how to farm. Now they are starving. The other obstacle is corrupt government and civil wars/political conflict...can't farm for fear of being shot/conscripted/confiscated. So, you go hungry.
I am a good stewart of the earth, as a farmer, I want a clean and fruitful enviroment, BUT cattle don't contribute to global warming. I think you could make a better case for all the millions of cars doing it... In fact, I don't accept the premise that there is global warming. I still have about 2 inches of global warming on my yard and pastures from 2 weeks ago... it should be about 40-60 degrees F now and melted. We are expecting more global warming tonight...about 2-4". It's been a cold damn winter. In fact, if it snows in Fla tonight, there will be snow in all 50states at one time. It snowed in Rome, Italy... first time in 25 years. A couple of weeks ago it was 14 degrees F in New Orleans. 46 in Miami, it was in the upper 40s in Puerto Rico.... Global Warming is a ploy to over govern and over tax.

What we are going through is a natural cycle, a rhythmic cycle that has been playing out for eons. There were ice ages...3 we know of...and then it warmed. The surfaces of Mars, Neptune, and the other planets were also warming about 10 years ago. Now they are cooling... folks smarter than both of us can make a legitamate tie to sunspot activity. Solar maximus and temps go up...solar minimum and temps go...TA-DAaaa...DOWN.

Al Gore preaches a consensus of scientists say global warming is real. A consensus used to say the Earth was flat, that the Sun orbited the Earth, That you could reach India by sailing directly due west, that the moon was made of cheese, and that unicorns and mermaids were real. A consensus of 6yr old children say Santa is real. A consensus of ATS members say reptilians run the White House-eat babies-and killed Lady Di.

There is about 5 feet of global warming on the ground in DC, the east Anglia e-mails reveal manipulation of data, polar ice is making a comeback, enviromental opinions were sourced for papers...not scientific data, hypothesis and supportive data of tree rings supporting warming came from 1-3 trees....hardly a random sampling, temps from meterological data collection stations came from only a select group from northern sites in certain countries....not all sites in all countries. Those are the FACTS as revealed by the so-called elitists scientists in their own words. India has pulled out of the IPCC, says it can't trust the data.

In conclusion, the common denominator between global warming, the IPCC, and cattle...is they produce a bunch of sh_t.

reply to post by AlreadyGone


I do love my chicken and my lamb - but would we give up our selfish means for the greater good for the planet?

But, the farming jobs would still continue; just without meat. Couldn't they focus on dairy and veg? Yes, I do agree that I firmly believe that cars and their pollution contributes more than methane produced by cattle. However the quote which I found did cause me think. 80% of the effect would be reduced. I don't believe that but if justified, could that be true?

I'm on the fence on the theory of global warming. I've seen effects that could show it's existing, and on the other hand - I see things showing me that it isn't. And didn't the IPCC suppress certain evidence that global warming isn't progressing as fast as we thought?

Maybe we are going through a natural cycle. Haha - let's leave it to your last statement.

Don't think we can trust no one these days.