Vegetarians are destroying the environment

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd
reply to post by FortAnthem

 

But you have to understand why such a study would have been conducted in the first place. If you read the link I provided in the first post it might make sense. And...this "study" was likely inexpensive.

The findings undermine claims by vegetarians that giving up meat automatically results in lower emissions and that less land is needed to produce food.

Please visit the link provided for the complete story.

Should make sense now.

-Dev

Except, as I have already stated, it isnt correct. They are studying policy, and claiming it is agriculture.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


Ok, I see this study was commissioned to debunk the vegitarians who think they're saving the environment.

Just goes to show environmentalists are idiots no matter what they eat.

what a load of crap.....this report is seriously flawed in its thinking...Cattle needs land to graze on and extra land to grow food for them as well. So instead of having this land to grow veggies we have it so ppll can eat meat. these guys must have been sponsored by the meat industry......

reply to post by ToHoldaPigeon


Starred. When you make your life with truth, you become the enemy of those without truth. This is why Christ was hated. Not saying you must be a certain religion or anything, but God does provide and we are limited. It's just the way things are.

Originally posted by loner007
what a load of crap.....this report is seriously flawed in its thinking...Cattle needs land to graze on and extra land to grow food for them as well. So instead of having this land to grow veggies we have it so ppll can eat meat. these guys must have been sponsored by the meat industry......

Maybe they were. It wouldn't suprise me. After all the study was designed to debunk the vegitarians.

Originally posted by sparrowstail


The masses should eat less burgers and drink less coffee in my opinion.

Political/environmental vegetarians often make claims about the productivity of vegetarian agriculture as oppose to animal husbandry. For example, the British group Vegfam claims that a 10 acre farm can support 60 people growing soybeans, 24 people growing wheat, 10 people growing corn, and only two producing cattle. Keith responds:

“ Set aside the fact that a diet of soy, wheat, or corn will result in massive malnutrition—along with fun stuff like kwashiorkor, pellagra, retardation, blindness—and ultimately death. The figure of two [for] cattle might be true if you assume grain feeding, though I can’t make the math come out.”


She then points to Joel Salatin’s Polyface farm as a refutation of the assumptions in the Vegfam calculations. On ten acres of land, Salatin’s grass-based husbandry produces:
3000 eggs
1000 broilers
80 stewing hens
2000 pounds of beef
2500 pounds of pork
100 turkeys
50 rabbits

This would support at least 9 people for a year, and as Keith points out, “in full health,” since people can live on a diet composed solely of the foods above, whereas none of the foods proposed by Vegfam form a complete diet.

In addition, Salatin’s farm produces a few inches of topsoil per year whereas monocultures proposed by Vegfam destroy topsoil.

donmatesz.blogspot.com...

The above is quoted from a review of the book, The Vegetarian Myth, by Lierre Keith.

The following is from the first 14 pages of her book, found here:

The truth is that agriculture is the most destructive thing humans have done to the planet, and more of the same won’t save us. The truth is that agriculture requires the wholesale destruction of entire ecosystems.

Direct quotes from her book:

Rice, wheat, corn – the annual grains that vegetarians want the world to eat – are thirsty enough to drink whole rivers.

The result has been an unending river of corn, drowning our arteries and our insulin receptors, our rural communities, and poor subsistence economies the world over. The corn comes at a huge environmental toll: there’s a half gallon of oil in every bushel. And it’s essentially a massive transfer of money from the US taxpayer to the giant grain cartels, who are able to command the price of grain to be lower than the cost of production, with all of us making up the difference – five billion dollars in subsidies for corn alone, straight into the pockets of Cargill and Monsanto.

-Dev

reply to post by captaintyinknots


Ok, can you please elborate, instead of writing one sentence explanations? As far as I'm concerned, this is a discussion of environmental issues regarding vegetarians vs omnivores (or Crops vs Husbandry).

-Dev

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


Agriculture has produced problems in the past.

Is anyone familiar with the American “Dust Bowl”?

Read below;

"­The seeds of the Dust Bowl may have been sowed during the early 1920s. A post-World War I recession led farmers to try new mechanized farming techniques as a way to increase profits. Many bought plows and other farming equipment, and between 1925 and 1930 more than 5 million acres of previously unfarmed land was plowed [source: CSA]. With the help of mechanized farming, farmers produced record crops during the 1931 season. However, overproduction of wheat coupled with the Great Depression led to severely reduce­d market prices. The wheat market was flooded, and people were too poor to buy. Farmers were unable to earn back their production costs and expanded their fields in an effort to turn a profit -- they covered the prairie with wheat in place of the natural drought-resistant grasses and left any unused fields bare.

But plow-based farming in this re­gion cultivated an unexpected yield: the loss of fertile topsoil that literally blew away in the winds, leaving the land vulnerable to drought and inhospitable for growing crops. In a brutal twist of fate, the rains stopped. By 1932, 14 dust storms, known as black blizzards were reported, and in just one year, the number increased to nearly 40."

Source: www.howstuffworks.com...

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd
reply to post by captaintyinknots

 

Ok, can you please elborate, instead of writing one sentence explanations? As far as I'm concerned, this is a discussion of environmental issues regarding vegetarians vs omnivores (or Crops vs Husbandry).

-Dev

Quite simple.
The article states, flat out, that the negative impacts on the environment are due to the policies of importing veggies, etc.

Not with the fact that veggies are grown.

Therefore, it isnt the veggies that hurt the environment. It is the policies of the countries that ship them around.

Maybe studies show that tofu does harm the environment more - but generally being vegetarian is a much more peaceful way for our planet. That's what I believe. I discussed it in my following thread: Livestock: Advantage or Disadvantage

Being a vegeterian, will ultimately mean that a large amount of carbon emissions would be reduced - if global warming actually occurs.

reply to post by captaintyinknots


That's great.....but agriculture still destroys the environment.

-Dev

Wow vegans are so touchy Now you mean to tell me that the conversion of land for agriculture is a good thing? Considering that depending on the land, you may have to modify it to support the crops. I.E. irrigation, tree removal and so on. What does that do to the ecosystem? Hell you have to spray pesticides [or do something else] to destroy pests, those pests feed something else you know? How many animals die to feed a strictly vegan diet without contributing something with their deaths? At least with raising animals for consumption a good amount on the animal is used for something. What kinda of poop is used in fertilizer? Eating vegetables is not necessarily going green.

[edit on 12-2-2010 by hangedman13]

reply to post by BlackPoison94


Not to be harsh.....But it's one thing to believe it and it's another thing to rely on data.

-Dev

reply to post by FortAnthem


As someone who considers things philosophically, I get annoyed when people consider legitimate, stand-alone issues as necessarily political. There are two major reasons to care about our environment: first, it sustains us. Second, it is the source of our life as well as peerless beauty, and it will make us psychologically healthier not only to witness more of it, but to feel ourselves participants in its nurturing and development. The first reason is practical: without our environment, we either die or live inside of machines. The second is philosophical: if we murder our environment, we will never forgive ourselves, but if we increase its place in our life, we will feel greater spiritual sustenance.

We cannot treat nature like disconnected parts, as in a machine; it is a whole that depends architectonically on its parts. Further, perhaps an appeal to the soul: destroying things of great beauty has never made us feel good about ourselves, no matter how many extra people and associated shopping malls we were able to install in its place.

reply to post by DevolutionEvolvd


Ah sorry, didn't mean to. Yeah - got to have data.

Originally posted by DevolutionEvolvd
reply to post by captaintyinknots

 

That's great.....but agriculture still destroys the environment.

-Dev

Not nearly to the extent of grazing, and not at all the way this article would make it out to be.

This is propaganda.

Originally posted by loner007
what a load of crap.....this report is seriously flawed in its thinking...Cattle needs land to graze on and extra land to grow food for them as well. So instead of having this land to grow veggies we have it so ppll can eat meat. these guys must have been sponsored by the meat industry......

could be possible,
humans and their"strange" projets are destroying the environment and our planet too,our home,and the only one we have

reply to post by captaintyinknots


You're telling me that cattle allowed to graze and consume grass are destroying the environment moreso than stripping land and planting monocrops?

-Dev

Congrats! You reached another (lower) level on ATS!

If you wan't eat 1 kilo soja, you need one kilo soja.
If oyu wan't eat 1 kilo meat, you need 10 kilo soja.

Now - what is better for the Environment?
I am beginning to really wonder here!
Here in Switzerland, they eat chicken from Brasil.....