Climate Change (Blog)

[James81]

Originally Posted by MidasGirl

I think the big huge elephant in the room that most people don't want to touch is 'population control'. That coupled with the entitlement mentality (read egos) that says I'll consume as much as I can greedily handle, sue me!

I think all these problems will naturally take care of themselves.

Meaning, when the human factor gets out of balance with nature, nature will take care of humans. We, as humans, might call this a "tragedy."

But I really don't think there is anyway to control what is inevitably going to happen to us (that is, mass-dying of some sort of either by disease or war). We can prolong it, but I don't think you can stop it. The monster is a bit too big now.

[nixxbox]

Originally Posted by joylangtry

Read The China Study by T. Colin Campbell. Read The Food Revolution by John Robbins.

Then read The Paleo Diet by Dr. Loren Cordain to get an alternative point of view. Just for the sake of compensating for Confirmation Bias.

[James81]

Then again, the more I think about it, perhaps Environmental Consciousness for Smart People could be a huge hit.

[Caledfwlch]

Originally Posted by joylangtry

This is the UN report that addresses this issue: Livestock's Long Shadow was produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Not sure if that is the reference to which you referred, Steve, but I do believe the info you cited is contained in there.

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely give it a read!

[joylangtry]

Originally Posted by nixxbox

Then read The Paleo Diet by Dr. Loren Cordain to get an alternative point of view. Just for the sake of compensating for Confirmation Bias.

Thanks for the info. I just visited the related web site Paleolithic Diet | The Paleolithic Diet is defined as our best understanding of what Paleolithic Era peoples' ate..

Interesting.

And it still supports Steve's points in his post, for the most part.

Originally Posted by Caledfwlch

Thanks for the link, I'll definitely give it a read!

You are most welcome.

[tomn8er]

Meat and meat products are the worst by far. Dairy and eggs aren’t quite as bad. It’s estimated that dairy consumption increases greenhouse gas emissions by only 2%, and most of that is coming out of the animals’ behinds.

I'm not getting this. You still have to raise the cows to maturity in order to milk them; you still have to transport the milk, same as the meat, then pasteurize it. Not to mention all the other resources involved in the production of cheese, yogurt, butter, etc. So how is dairy production any less harmful for the environment?

[cylon]

Steve I ordered your book yesterday from Amazon and am looking forward to reading more of your advice on personal growth.... not your leftist political agenda.

I'm not surprised you are concerened about climate change right now. You live in the middle of the desert and it's the middle of summer. You're probably projecting that horrid weather on the rest of the world.

[Gabo]

Originally Posted by beautyscientist

I read Steve's blog because he writes stuff that I can't imagine anyone else writing a lot of the time.

I would say that this particular post though is one that doesn't have Steve's unique take on things. I can imagine a lot of people coming up with something similar. Not that Steve shouldn't have written mind.

I agree. The vast majority of content on Steve's blog is stuff I wouldn't find elsewhere, or at least with a take I haven't seen anywhere else.

This particular post read very much like the hundreds of other climate change posts I've read. Even the part about the benefits of a vegan diet, while less common and more thought provoking, seemed the same as hat I've read on other websites and studies.

[MickeyM]

Since april 2008 I updated my mind software and changed my dining habits to lacto ovo vegetarian food. As from may 17th 2009 I did another update and went vegan (raw). I do well I think, but have not cleared all the issues I am encountering.

When investigating how AND why change my diet, I came across the veggie advocates making all sorts of claims as Steve does here. For example: "To produce one pound of meat requires, on average, about 5000 gallons of water. Compare that to 25 gallons for a pound of wheat. A vegetarian needs 300 gallons of water per day, while a typical meat-eater needs 4000 gallons."

I would like that if he came across these kind of numbers that he links them to the websites or reports where he found them. This gives more credibility to these numbers and helps to convince standard diet eaters in conversation (no I am not an evangelist - I just want to know where the numbers come from). If Steve gives all kind of links on the OSCGRP report - he surely can do the same on other data.

I enjoyed the post very much! Keep up the good work!

[BeyondtheWrap]

When I read this article, I saw the veganism thing coming.

But some things don't really make sense to me about the environmental argument for veganism.

For example, you say that the animals take up a certain amount of land and consume a certain amount of water. So the solution is to stop killing them? Then the animals will be alive even longer and still use up those resources.

If everyone turned vegan overnight and the farmers decided to stop killing their animals, we still have a sh!tload of animals to deal with! What happens next, the farmers turn all of their captivity-raised livestock out into the wild to fend for themselves? Then they'll die anyway, and the ethical argument for veganism is out the window.

Perhaps it's raising all these animals in the first place that's the problem. So how does a meat-eating society transition to a vegan society? Do you get the animals to stop reproducing and try to get their population down? Why not just kill them and eat them?

Perhaps then, the way for everyone to go vegan would be to keep eating meat until all the meat-giving animals are extinct, and we won't have to worry about a thing.

[JSB]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheWrap

If everyone turned vegan overnight and the farmers decided to stop killing their animals, we still have a sh!tload of animals to deal with!

I guess the pro-vegan folks would have to put up with one final gluttonous BBQ blowout before we all switched over.

[joylangtry]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheWrap

...If everyone turned vegan overnight and the farmers decided to stop killing their animals, we still have a sh!tload of animals to deal with! What happens next, the farmers turn all of their captivity-raised livestock out into the wild to fend for themselves? Then they'll die anyway, and the ethical argument for veganism is out the window.

Perhaps it's raising all these animals in the first place that's the problem. So how does a meat-eating society transition to a vegan society? Do you get the animals to stop reproducing and try to get their population down? Why not just kill them and eat them?

The animals raised for factory farming are bred for this purpose. So, as the numbers of factory farms decline, the related numbers of animals specifically bred for slaughter will decline.

[JoeRad]

Originally Posted by cylon

Steve I...am looking forward to reading more of your advice on personal growth.... not your leftist political agenda.

You do realize that Steve is one of the person's who has basically chucked politics out the window as lower consciousness activity?

Either way, I love how he has managed to get many people to come out with there opinions on this one...so much of the important timely debates are just ignored by many people, or when they do discuss them its the same regurgitated propaganda.

Good show Steve, even though I generally disagree with the consensus on climate change, I like that your talking rationally about it and their activities related to the topic.

[MickeyM]

Linda McCartney said one time:
If slaughterhouses had glass walls the whole world would be vegetarian.

And right she is! If restaurant kitchens are plotted in the middle of the restaurants between the guests with glass windows so that guests can see the cooks prepare the food, why can't we have the same transparancy with meat preparation?

[cylon]

Originally Posted by JoeRad

You do realize that Steve is one of the person's who has basically chucked politics out the window as lower consciousness activity?

I've done the same thing. Politics, the "news", and environmental kooks with their doomsday prophecies (I lump them in with religious nuts with their own doomsday prophecies), the world has no use for it. At least in the way modern man thinks of those topics. Anything designed to scare me, and suggest I change my own lifestyle in order to fulfill the speaker's (in this case Steve's) personal agenda, I consider false.

Climate Change is a political issue though. It's a bunch of well-meaning people getting sucked into an anti-capitalist, anti-humankind political movement. "Helping the environment" is just the feelgood way they disguise their marxist, self-hating agenda (self hating as in, they do not feel they deserve the right to be alive on the planet that created them, and they feel they are separate from nature, not a PART of it). And many of them just need a cause to be a part of that is bigger than them, they need something to fight against. The republicans fight the democrats, the Lakers fight the Nuggets, and the environmentalists fight the freemarket capitalists.

I'm sure Steve's heart is in the right place but I don't come to this site for left leaning propaganda. He of course has every right to post doomsday articles like this if he chooses.

[Daffy Duck]

[Tereza Sykorova]

The nature, or universe, which we are part of, every one of us, is taking care of itself all the time. If the human race is destined to perish, it will. Is it bad? Is it good? Or is it as it is? Can we really understand the endless web of causes and effects, can we really know all the sources and consequences of our actions? Our mind can never grasp the infinite. Our knowledge is limited. We can only pretend that our decisions are rational.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by cylon

Steve I ordered your book yesterday from Amazon and am looking forward to reading more of your advice on personal growth.... not your leftist political agenda.

Which book did you buy? Personal Development for Smart People or the black and yellow one with a similar title?

[Savage]

Originally Posted by BeyondtheWrap

Perhaps then, the way for everyone to go vegan would be to keep eating meat until all the meat-giving animals are extinct, and we won't have to worry about a thing.

Human beings are meat-giving animals. So your plan has us going extinct too. I agree we won't have to worry about a thing after that.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by Daffy Duck

Change the top question to, "Are you vegan?"

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Which book did you buy? Personal Development for Smart People or the black and yellow one with a similar title?

I'm a "dummy" for having a different view than you do on this topic, and pointing it out?

[Savage]

Originally Posted by cylon

I'm a "dummy" for having a different view than you do on this topic, and pointing it out?

What's with the "leftist political agenda" trolling? Just because I don't eat pork doesn't mean I can't be a capitalist pig.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

What's with the "leftist political agenda" trolling? Just because I don't eat pork doesn't mean I can't be a capitalist pig.

I suppose so. And you've said plenty about veganism so it's not like this is the first time you've been "political".

I have just HAD IT with politics and agendas and the news and the media and fear-mongering, I see it all as deceptive, agenda driven. So that was my mindset when I see read the article, another person using their platform of influence to affect the political views and personal habits of their "audience", and your stuff has always been about making your own choices and decisions. To me this article is like you supporting a political candidate. But that is because I have a very strong "political filter" and I'm doing my best to get rid of it, but obviously it's not going down without a fight. So I probably over-reacted.

But that's my interpretation, I'm sure I am taking this totally different than you intended.

[Savage]

Originally Posted by cylon

I suppose so. And you've said plenty about veganism so it's not like this is the first time you've been "political".

I have just HAD IT with politics and agendas and the news and the media and fear-mongering, I see it all as deceptive, agenda driven. So that was my mindset when I see read the article, another person using their platform of influence to affect the political views and personal habits of their "audience", and your stuff has always been about making your own choices and decisions. To me this article is like you supporting a political candidate. But that is because I have a very strong "political filter" and I'm doing my best to get rid of it, but obviously it's not going down without a fight. So I probably over-reacted.

But that's my interpretation, I'm sure I am taking this totally different than you intended.

Your reaction surprised me at first. It seemed out of character for you. I figured this topic must have touched a nerve that was already flaring because I couldn't connect your statements with the article itself. I certain didn't write this article for political reasons. I wrote it to share what I'd learned.

I hardly see myself as political given that I've never voted in any election. And I certainly didn't go vegan (or write about veganism) for political reasons. I originally went vegan as a personal growth experiment.

For me this is a human issue, not a political one. This is about making conscious choices as individuals.

[cylon]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

For me this is a human issue, not a political one. This is about making conscious choices as individuals.

I can respect that, I should have shown more restraint in my response and kept it on topic.

[James81]

I think what cylon is trying to say is:

"Hey Steve, we'll forgive you for this leftist propaganda blunder just this once. Now go fetch us some more info on how to get up in the morning. Kthx."



(In case the sarcasm doesn't translate, I'm, of course, *kinda* kidding lol)

[Savage]

Originally Posted by James81

I think what cylon is trying to say is:

"Hey Steve, we'll forgive you for this leftist propaganda blunder just this once. Now go fetch us some more info on how to get up in the morning. Kthx."



(In case the sarcasm doesn't translate, I'm, of course, *kinda* kidding lol)

Maybe if you went vegan and stopped gassing up your bedroom with C02, methane, and nitrous oxide, you wouldn't have such a hard time getting out of bed in the morning! Hehehehe.

[James81]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

Maybe if you went vegan and stopped gassing up your bedroom with C02, methane, and nitrous oxide, you wouldn't have such a hard time getting out of bed in the morning! Hehehehe.

I'm writing this down, this is good stuff.

[jayh]

Just throwing my two cents in here - I just finished reading four Abraham-Hicks books, and can't help but wonder if all the attention to global warming isn't causing more of it? Just a thought...

[chrisrushton]

This article has been the proverbial straw that has convinced me to give vegetarianism a try. 30 Days, I will see what happens. I've been a meat eater all my life and proud of it so this could be a bit of a shock for me. There are a couple of things motivating my massive U turn but this was definitely the final one.

I just can't quite face giving up meat cheese and butter in one day but in 30 days time I might just kick them to the curb as well.