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KINDNESS TO ANIMALS AND THE PLANET
I ran across this unattributed statement recently and thought you all might appreciate it. Did one of you write it?
Achieving ecological respect and sanity through reducing the amount of meat we eat. -- We have been reawakened to the first two factors of three aspects of eco-sanity: ; how animals are killed, and how they live their lives (so eco-kashrut must forbid factory farming, etc); Still deeper: It is all too clear that the obsession of many people with eating a great deal of meat is a twin to our addiction to oil and coal as a way to poison the planet. Huge farms of cows and pigs pour methane - an even more dangerous global-scorching agent than CO2 - into the atmosphere. And the obsession with meat forces us into factory farming, to meet the demand. To heal our earth as well as our own bodies, we must return to our forebears' diet of eating meat no more than once or twice a week.
ANIMAL RIGHTS, PROTECTION OF ANIMALS
Albert Schweitzer, Reverence for Life
“The Problem of Ethics in the Evolution of Human Thought.” Schweitzer delivered this short address in 1952. It is included in Jacques Feschotte’s Albert Schweitzer, 1955. I have been unable to find a copy online. Please share with us if you find it.
“Ethics is only complete when it exacts compassion towards every living thing.” (Schweitzer in Feschotte, 127). –Dick
FARMAGEDDON: the True Cost of Cheap Meat
Compassion in World Farming (UK)
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Cruelty to farm animals demands exposure
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The Washington Post By Editorial Board April 26, 2013
SO GUT-WRENCHING are the images — cows being shocked, turkeys being stomped, horses being burned with chemicals, piglets kicked like soccer balls — that the videos recorded by animal rights organizations at factory farms are almost impossible to watch. That, though, has helped make them effective tools in the fight against illegal and cruel treatment of farm animals. It’s alarming that a number of states have bowed to pressure from agribusiness and enacted laws to criminalize this useful undercover work.
Other states that are considering following suit should think twice about whether the best way to deal with the important issues of how animals are treated and food is produced is to keep U.S. consumers in the dark. Six states in the West and Midwest have enacted legislation cracking down on the undercover videotaping of animal facilities that has been the foundation of investigations by organizations including the Humane Society of the United States and Mercy for Animals. So-called ag-gag bills are pending in six other states, including Pennsylvania and North Carolina.
Some of the measures, the New York Times reported, would make it illegal to secretly videotape farms, livestock ranches, slaughterhouses and other food production facilities or to apply for a job at one of them without reporting an affiliation with an animal rights group. Others, such as one the Tennessee legislature passed this month, demand that any video that chronicles possible illegal activity be handed almost immediately to law enforcement authorities, a seemingly innocuous requirement that would have the effect of preventing meaningful investigations documenting patterns of abuse.
Defenders of the legislation say the videos cast farms and other livestock concerns in a bad light and have caused financial suffering. They say activists use the footage to raise funds and advance their cause of getting people to stop eating meat. Those are weak justifications for extreme legislation that inhibits the rights of employees, denies vital assistance to law enforcement and tramples First Amendment rights. Sufficient laws exist to protect property from trespass.
Animal investigations have proved their value. In 2007 the Humane Society documented unsafe practices at a California slaughterhouse that resulted in the largest recall of beef in U.S. history and a new federal policy to prevent downer cows (cows that cannot stand on their own), at risk for mad cow disease, from entering the food supply. If not for video footage, prosecutors in Tennessee would not have been able to take action against workers using illegal methods to improve the gait of walking horses. The same is true for authorities in North Carolina, who charged workers at a turkey farm with abuse and neglect of animals.
CO2, GLOBAL WARMING, CLIMATE CHANGE
PETA: Fight Global Warming by Going Vegan
www.peta.org › Issues › Animals Used for Food
Global warming has been called humankind’s “greatest challenge” and the world’s gravest environmental threat. Many conscientious people are trying to help reduce global warming by driving more fuel-efficient cars and using energy-saving light bulbs. Although these measures help, science shows thatgoing vegan is one of the most effective ways to fight global warming. A staggering 51 percent or more of global greenhouse-gas emissions are caused by animal agriculture, according to a report published by the Worldwatch Institute. Additionally, a recent United Nations report concluded that a global shift toward a vegan diet is extremely important in order to combat the worst effects of climate change.According to the United Nations, raising animals for food is “one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.” In addition, the official handbook for Live Earth, the anti–climate change concerts that Al Gore helped organize, says that not eating meat is the “single most effective thing you can do” to reduce your climate change impact. Carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide together cause the vast majority of global warming. Raising animals for food is one of the largest sources of carbon dioxide and the single largest source of both methane and nitrous-oxide emissions.Carbon Dioxide
Burning fossil fuels (such as oil and gasoline) releases carbon dioxide, the primary gas responsible for global warming. Producing one calorie from animal protein requires 11 times as much fossil fuel input—releasing 11 times as much carbon dioxide—as does producing a calorie from plant protein. Feeding massive amounts of grain and water to farmed animals and then killing them and processing, transporting, and storing their flesh is extremely energy-intensive. In addition, enormous amounts of carbon dioxide stored in trees are released during the destruction of vast acres of forest to provide pastureland and to grow crops for farmed animals. On top of this, animal manure also releases large quantities of carbon dioxide.
You could exchange your “regular” car for a hybrid Toyota Prius and, by doing so, prevent about 1 ton of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year, but according to the University of Chicago, being vegan is more effective in the fight against global warming; a vegan is responsible for the release of approximately 1.5 fewer tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year than is a meat-eater.
A German study conducted in 2008 concluded that a meat-eater’s diet is responsible for more than seven times as much greenhouse gas emissions as a vegan’s diet. Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the U.N.’s Nobel Prize–winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (and a vegetarian himself), urges people to “please eat less meat—meat is a very carbon-intensive commodity.”
Methane
The billions of chickens, turkeys, pigs, and cows who are crammed into factory farms each year in the U.S. produce enormous amounts of methane, both during digestion and from the acres of cesspools filled with feces that they excrete. Scientists report that every pound of methane is more than 84 times as effective as carbon dioxide is at trapping heat in our atmosphere. The EPA shows that animal agriculture is the single largest source of methane emissions in the U.S.
Nitrous Oxide
Nitrous oxide is about 300 times more potent as a global warming gas than carbon dioxide. According to the U.N., the meat, egg, and dairy industries account for a staggering 65 percent of worldwide nitrous oxide emissions. (Use the N-Calculator to calculate your nitrogen footprint and to see how you could lower your nitrogen usage.)
You Can Help Stop Global Warming!
The most powerful step that we can take as individuals to avert global warming is to stop eating meat, eggs, and dairy products. Order PETA’a free “Vegetarian/Vegan Starter Kit” and do your part to start saving the planet and animals today!
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Eat less meat to prevent climate disaster, study warns
Fertilisers used in growing feed crops for cattle produce the most potent of the greenhouse gases causing climate change
Eating less meat will help environment, a new study says. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images
Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent
Friday 13 April 2012 07.56 EDT
Meat eaters in developed countries will have to eat a lot less meat, cutting consumption by 50%, to avoid the worst consequences of future climate change, new research warns.
The fertilisers used in farming are responsible for a significant share of the warming that causes climate change.
A study published in Environmental Research Letters warns that drastic changes in food production and at the dinner table are needed by 2050 in order to prevent catastrophic global warming.
It's arguably the most difficult challenge in dealing with climate change: how to reduce emissions from food production while still producing enough to feed a global population projected to reach 9 billion by the middle of this century.
The findings, by Eric Davidson, director of the Woods Hole Research Centre in Massachusetts, say the developed world will have to cut fertiliser use by 50% and persuade consumers in the developed world to stop eating so much meat.
Davidson concedes it's a hard sell. Meat is a regular part of the diet in the developed world. In developing economies, such as China and India, meat consumption has risen along with prosperity.
"I think there are huge challenges in convincing people in the west to reduce portion sizes or the frequency of eating meat. That is part of our culture right now," he said.
Researchers have been paying closer attention in the past few years to the impact of agriculture on climate change, and the parallel problem of growing enough food for an expanding population. Some scientists are at work growing artificial meat which would avoid the fertilisers and manure responsible for climate change.
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Nitrous oxide, released by fertilisers and animal manure, is the most potent of the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The UN's climate body has called for deep cuts to those emissions.
Growing feed crops, for cattle and pigs, produces more of those emissions than crops that go directly into the human food chain. Eating less meat would reduce demand for fertiliser as well as reduce the amount of manure produced.
Davidson also suggests changes in current farming practice – such as growing winter ground cover crops – would help absorb nitrogen and prevent its release into the atmosphere.
In reaching his conclusion, Davidson draws on figures from the Food and Agricultural Organisation suggesting the world population will reach 8.9 billion by 2050, and that daily per capita calorie intake will also rise to 3130 calories.
Meat consumption is also projected to increase sharply to 89kg per person a year in rich countries and 37kg per person a year in the developing world.
Such a trajectory would put the world on course to more severe consequences of climate change.
Davidson is not suggesting people give up meat entirely. "The solution isn't that everyone needs to become a vegetarian or a vegan. Simply reducing portion sizes and frequency would go a long way," he said. So would switching from beef and pork, which have a high carbon foot print, to chicken or fish.
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[NO THEY DO NOT. –DICK]
Less meat eaten, more planet saved
The Baltimore Sun, May 20, 2013
A review of 12,000 papers on climate change in the May 15 issue of "Environmental Research Letters,"found that 97 percent of scientists attribute climate change to human activities. Although we're unlikely to reverse climate change, we can mitigate its effects by reducing our driving, energy![http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png]()
use, and meat consumption.
use, and meat consumption.Yes, meat consumption. A 2006 U.N. report![http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png]()
estimated that meat consumption accounts for 18 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that it may be closer to 50 percent.
estimated that meat consumption accounts for 18 percent of man-made greenhouse gases. A 2009 article in the respected World Watch magazine suggested that it may be closer to 50 percent.Contact State Legislators
Greg Leding gregleding
David Whitaker djwhitaker
Uvalde Lindsey uvalde.lindsey
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