Go Vegetarian - Save the World!

[Aramike]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6891362.ece

Interesting enough...

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

...but this...

He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable. “I think it’s important that people think about what they are doing and that includes what they are eating,” he said. “I am 61 now and attitudes towards drinking and driving have changed radically since I was a student. People change their notion of what is responsible. They will increasingly ask about the carbon content of their food.”

...reminded me of an old Stallone movie called "Demolition Man", where his character wakes up in a world where anything that might be bad for you is banned (including meat).

His prediction is wrong, by the way, and his analogy of drunk driving couldn't be more off-base. Drunk driving has an immediately visible, dangerous effect. Eating meat ... mmmmmmmm ....

Steaks at my house. Who's in?

[Ilpalazzo]

What would you say if I called you a brutish fossil, symbolic of a decayed era, gratefully forgotten?

[Morts]

Originally Posted by Aramike

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6891362.ece

Interesting enough......but this......reminded me of an old Stallone movie called "Demolition Man", where his character wakes up in a world where anything that might be bad for you is banned (including meat).

His prediction is wrong, by the way, and his analogy of drunk driving couldn't be more off-base. Drunk driving has an immediately visible, dangerous effect. Eating meat ... mmmmmmmm ....

Steaks at my house. Who's in?

MEAT IS MURDER......tasty tasty murder

[DeerHunter UK]

Kangaroos will be the saviours of meat eaters everywhere...hopefully. They have some bacteria in their gut which prevent the build up of gasses, so in effect kangaroos cannot pass wind...they don't need to. Scientists are trying to see if this bacteria can be put into cows for the same effect.
I saw it on QI.

[CaptainHaplo]

It would be a heck of a drive - but I like steak!

Actually - vegetarian diets create alot of carbon and "other" gases as well. Guess this guy never considered the body's natural reaction to a salad.....

[Skybird]

The desastrous consequences to the environment of producing meat for mass consummation cannot be denied, they are too obvious. That does not only mean the infamous methane-debate, but transportation of cattle, of food to keep it alive in the big cattle farms in the US, falling ground water levels, desertification, etc. Everybody reading even a bit about the matter must come to that conclusion, it cannot be avoided. I talk of mass production of meat on industrial levels, not the local farmer having some animals in the barn to use them for his own family only.

Also, the ammount of kilograms of crop and water needed to produce 1 kilogram of meat is so insanely high that the calcualtion in the long run does not appear to be justifiable in the face of 7 billion people needed to get fed.

Finally, studies of the past 2 years showed a strong link between social class and meat consummation. The higher the social class and the education level, the less meat gets consumed in such families. Meat has become a food for the masses of low educational standard and knowledge, where the meat consumation falls the higher the educational level is. This compares to the link between obesiety and social class/educational standard. Many poor families tend towards becoming obese becasue they lack the knoweldge to stay away from sugared soft drinks and chips and unhealthy fast food.Unfortunately, these unhealthy - I would even say: venomous - foods often are the ones being cheap (because the demand is high and so the prices fall), and so they get consumed by the poor lacking the education to know about their unhealthy nature. and so you have the phenomeneon of so many people living by wellfare - being fat.

I do not go that far to propagate vegetarianism. I have been that for ten years, but then eased by stand a bit becasue occaisonally I simply like a normal old fashioned steak with butter and herbs and salt and pepper and then nothing. I enjoy the taste of it. but These days I eat meat very rarely, it simply is no need of mine. I also feel better when concentrating more on crop. In ancient Rome, there have been several revolts by legionaires if they had meat only for longer periods of time and during wars, but no crop. they felt weakneed if only eating meat. The healthy consequences of eating more crops has been known already back then.

So instead of calling for a zero-meat policy, I would call for a dratsical reduction of meat. Try to keep it at once per week only. and you may find over time that you can live with even lesser opportunities, after some time. I can and I got there without even thinking about it. I have meat once or twice per month.

The problem is that 7 billion people is simply much to much crowds on this panet. Doctors tell you to eat fish regularly. but the fact is that already now, all types of table fish have become rare, one third of them being endangered by extinction. the stocks of fish has been overfished, and very very massively so. We have fished the oceans empty in many places, and if we all would folloow the doctor's calls, it would mean cataclysm for the planet, like it also means cataclysm for the planet if every person on earth would live by Western material standards and every family would get a car and every family would consume as much water like we do over here, and every family would run as many electronic devices in the household as we do.

Our living standards in the first world are simply far too excessive, and we are several billion too many people in the whole world. Too much is too much, there is no workaround to deal with the desastrous consequences. much of our ways we take as granted are not only threatening our own perrsonal health, but are hazardous to the sphere of life on this planet as well.

Originally Posted by DeerHunter UK

Kangaroos will be the saviours of meat eaters everywhere...hopefully. They have some bacteria in their gut which prevent the build up of gasses, so in effect kangaroos cannot pass wind...they don't need to. Scientists are trying to see if this bacteria can be put into cows for the same effect.
I saw it on QI.

It's not a question of how much wind the intended food animal passes, it's about the whole meat producing infrastructure at place.

[SteamWake]

[SS107.9MHz]

Originally Posted by DeerHunter UK

Kangaroos will be the saviours of meat eaters everywhere...hopefully. They have some bacteria in their gut which prevent the build up of gasses, so in effect kangaroos cannot pass wind...they don't need to. Scientists are trying to see if this bacteria can be put into cows for the same effect.
I saw it on QI.

NO TIME FOR THAT! cOME ON KANGAROO, JUMP INTO MY BELLY!

[SS107.9MHz]

I tend to agree with Skybird on this one, and also I rather eat less meat and for it to be good (very good) than to eat lousy unsavory meat everyday... And it seems to get aharder everyday to get good meat, most of it only comes from some Butcherhouses... very rarely from supermarkets, even when they have dedicated venues.

[ETR3(SS)]

I got a great idea! Let's just kill all the animals all over the planet. This will reduce carbon emissions by infinity billion tons a year!

/end sarcasm

Seriously if we all become vegetarian then what will we do with the all the livestock? I doubt the bleeding hearts of the vegans will find wholesale slaughter for no reason acceptable. Aramike I'm comin over for that steak, I'll even bring the baked beans.

[NeonSamurai]

That one is simple really, any change in dietary consumption on a large scale would at best be gradual, and the animal stocks would gradually shrink as well.

Anyhow I also agree with Skybird in this case based on all the information I have acquired on the subject. My diet is also very low in meat and fish.

I would point out though that a fair amount of what farm animals are fed is not fit for human consumption, but for a well rounded diet they do need the other kinds of food too.

The big one though is cutting back on the human population which is totally out of control.

[FIREWALL]

I'm kinda Vegan... I always have a big baked potato with my 2" steak.

[August]

Since my heart attack I limit my meat consumption to bison and fish.

[Oberon]

Count me in on that steak, but yeah, the primary problem is supply and demand. With medical facilities in the western world constantly improving and continued aid to 'Third world' nations, as well as the growing populations of the 'Second world' nations we are outgrowing our own supply. Compounding this problem is the 'First World' nations steadily growing elderly population, so people are living longer as well as producing offspring at a continued rate, death rates are down, but birth rates are unchanged, and diseases are contained easier (for the most part) than before. So the only thing left to rebalance populations is human events (war) or natural events (earthquakes, volcanos) but in this age, we are predicting natural events with enough time to save lives, and trying to reduce the number of wars.
All good things morally, but it increases the population, and at the same time, environmental concerns (be it through natural or man-made events) are also effecting the food production rate.
Still, such a trend cannot continue indefinately, so we'll either create crops which produce more food, find a way to create food from other resources (replicators?), have a large scale natural disaster to lower population levels or suffer a global famine, but probably only after several largescale wars over food supply.
And to be frank, going veggie won't do a bloody thing.
So, I'll have some fries with my steak please Aramike