(E&A) Using Vegetarianism & Global Warming to start discussion on another website

While considered a conspiracy website, I usually browse/comment on abovetopsecret.com -- not for the conspiracies, but for the social thoughts that are being pondered worldwide.

I took an article that our Professor posted on his blog, and began a 'thread' (as they are referred to): Cut Global Warming by being a Vegetarian?

The point was to guage people's reactions, and inclue a huge 'IF this is the case...' to see if people were able/willing to set aside their knee-jerk reactions and seriously consider the possibility of vegetarianism, as I am. (Kind of my own worldwide social experiment.)

As expected, there are a few people who are dead-set against it, and refuse to hear otherwise. However, it's very intriguing, even hopeful, that there are some who are, like me, meat-eaters, but who are at least willing to ponder the situation, the possibility.

Someone brought in an article that I'm going to take a closer look at over the weekend: Vegetarian Myths

(excerpt: Agricultural animals have always made a major contribution to the welfare of human societies by providing food, shelter, fuel, fertilizer and other products and services. They are a renewable resource, and utilize another renewable resource, plants, to produce these products and services. In addition, the manure produced by the animals helps improve soil fertility and, thus, aids the plants. In some developing countries the manure cannot be utilized as a fertilizer but is dried as a source of fuel.
There are many who feel that because the world population is growing at a faster rate than is the food supply, we are becoming less and less able to afford animal foods because feeding plant products to animals is an inefficient use of potential human food. It is true that it is more efficient for humans to eat plant products directly rather than to allow animals to convert them to human food. At best, animals only produce one pound or less of human food for each three pounds of plants eaten. However, this inefficiency only applies to those plants and plant products that the human can utilize. The fact is that over two-thirds of the feed fed to animals consists of substances that are either undesirable or completely unsuited for human food. Thus, by their ability to convert inedible plant materials to human food, animals not only do not compete with the human; rather, they aid greatly in improving both the quantity and the quality of the diets of human societies.

That first paragraph sounds dangerously close (if not on target) to the idea that we touched upon in class, as well as in Feuerbach: objective matieralism verses 'sensuous human activity' -- stripping the animals of their value by labelling them as "renewable resources".

The second might have a point, in that the plants that the animals are eating are unsuited for human food. (I refuse to acknowledge 'undesirable', as that is a preference and not a reason.) However, wouldn't that simply require the fields to be planted with something that humans can eat? (There is mention later in the article about the soil of fields that have been used solely for wheat being eroded of their nutrients -- but that is a _fact_ of farming. How is that a defense of meat-eating?)

Someone else brought up Plan B 2.0 : Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble by Lester Brown (the entire book is online for free!).

Same person also brought US EPA - Human Methane Emissions which has a table that shows the recorded (rising!) levels of methane emissions from various sources - landfills, coal mining, et cetera. It's got _lots_ of juicy information!

To curb the car emissions problem, someone brought in Can Soylent Green save the world... and our climate? Welcome to the new biodiesel (excerpt: Algae? Done right, it can yield perhaps 10,000 gallons per acre per year, because it's harvested every two weeks instead of once a year. And folks are experimenting with different forms of algae to see if they could boost that production rate maybe four- or fivefold.

Algae
Photo/Vermont Department of Health

And here's the beauty of growing algae: It needs three ingredients. One is free -- light from the sun. The second can be recycled -- water. The third is carbon dioxide. Yes, that's the same stuff causing global warming -- which will certainly have to be captured at power plants pretty soon.)








As the discussion continues (and I hope to keep it going through the semester, fueled by what I learn in class), I'll keep you guys up to date on my 'social experiment', as well as any further sites of interest. :)