Quote:
Originally Posted by munish  I think steve has already answered this.
He says," meat eaters are the biggest enemy this planet has ever seen."
By avoiding meat you can solve 99% of the environment related problems.
All other things like fossil fuels are excuses to avoid the guilt feelings by the Meat eaters. |
I have to say that I strongly disagree with this post. The biggest environmental challenge in the world today is global warming, and it is not caused by "meat eaters". I do acknowledge that cows produce methane, which is a greenhouse gas, but this is minimal in comparison to the effect we humans have caused by burning fossil fuels. I don't think that omnivores burn fossil fuels to avoid guilt feelings about eating meat, or that if we were vegans we would burn any less fossil fuels. Let's take Las Vegas as an example. Let's say that everyone in Las Vegas quits eating or using animal products of any kind. Is this going to stop the environment issues related to C02 production from fossil fuels? NO! People are still going to drive cars, use air conditioners, have lights in their homes, etc., all of which uses the same amount of fossil fuels regardless of whether or not the people eat meat. Let's look the consequences directly related to food. Where is the food going to come from. If everyone quits eating meat, fruit and vegetable production is going to have to increase. Granted, there will be an equal decrease in the amount of meat produced, but this isn't going to solve the overall problem. Likely, a large percentage of this food is going to have to be shipped in from another state or even country. The Las Vegas area doesn't exactly have the greatest farmland in the world for growing vegetables. Even if the food was grown locally, huge amounts of water would have to be utilized in order to grow the crops and chemical fertilizers would have to be used almost exclusively. Chemical fertilizers are all derived or use petroleum in their manufacture, and the water would have to be pumped into the area using even more energy. I'm not saying that "meat eaters" are any more efficient. I'm just saying that we aren't going to solve any significant environmental problems by going vegan. In today's marketplace, going vegan has the same environmental drain as continuing to eat meat. Either way you look at it the food must be shipped or trucked in, and no doubt a large amount of petroleum was used to manufacture it before it was even shipped. You are just trading one problem for another, because all of the produce you buy, even organic, has a link to the fossil fuel industry, and even if everyone stopped eating meat, that link would still exist. I don't know if Steve Pavlina said that 99% of our environmental problems would be solved if "meat eaters" changed their ways or if you just misquoted him, but if it is indeed what he thinks, I would like him to explain his reasoning with facts. If he has an article about the subject, please refer me to it.