Agriculture is a pillar of civilization but has always destroyed native intact ecosystems, flora and fauna. Animal agriculture does all of that and more, and also enslaves, torments, kills billions of sentient beings per year.
Organic vegan diet is the least unethical of all human diets, and in my personal experience,
the healthiest and most cost effective.
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Actually, this is badly derived.
The criticism of factory-farm agriculture involving livestock is valid; the equation of this and “animal agriculture” is false and misled.
There is no reason that there should be few animals on planet Earth. Animals have grazed and browsed and even burped and farted for millennia of millennia. It matters little which.
But humans have inserted ourselves in the cycle and partially stopped it: we have prevented the manure from going back to the soil, cut into the soil and let it blow off in the wind and let the Midwest dump fertile topsoil into the Sargasso Sea.
No, the most damaging agriculture are the factory farms, but this is also because they use many more acres of farmland to raise grain for animals that eat grass. Factory farms without animals also kill animals by destroying habitat, by fungicides, pesticides, herbicides, synthetic fertilizers, plowing, and removing fertility by “cleaning” badly.
No, a first-approach description of what has to happen is simple, though the systems are ultimately complex.
- Raise food without poisons so surplus returns to the soil.
- Surplus cellulose feeds herbivores
- Herbivores feed carnivores and omnivores
- The surplus of all animals returns to the soil to feed plants
This is “dust unto dust.” It is “carbon sequestration,” and houses tons of carbon per acre. But you have to do it. You have to quit dumping the plastics in the ocean. You have to plant the trees and guide the water.
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Animals are not the problem, factory farm greed is. Time to publicize humane and sustainable production of animal based food, which our children’s brains need.
Atul Jain believes it’s somehow wrong to impose vegetarianism onto others, but isn’t the opposite (meat eating) exactly what the meat industry does on a daily basis with help from Madison Avenue? How many commercials for fast-food – complete with close-ups of dead flesh – does the average consumer see daily? Worse, a majority of people believe it’s impossible to have a healthy diet without meat when the opposite is true: eschewing dead flesh lowers chances for hypertension, cardiac disease and cancer, besides being good for the planet.
I disagree with Atul Jain & suggest it’s time to treat meat eating as the health crisis it is, by carrying as many public interest spots against meat & for vegetarianism, as the wealthy ranchers, processors & distributors carry for this medieval practice.
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And reduce human overpopulation.
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Easier said than done. Just think of the people who refuse to wear masks!
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We can eat less meat, especially beef, trim the excess waistlines, AND grow some green stuff in the yard, patio or window.
An article from yesterday, on the lighter side, talked about the problems with nitrous oxide released from bovine pee, and how one farm is doing potty training so their cow’s pee can be collected and processed instead of hitting the ground and causing nitrous oxide to be released into the air. Says cows are as easy to train as children in this activity.
“New Zealand researchers attempt 'pott…”
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Make it a rule that we have to hunt, catch, and prepare any meat used for human diets. That at least would make it a level playing field. No helicopters or technology allowed.
Reducing meat eating could mean returning some grazing lands to forests. The problem as I understand it in Brazil’s Amazon areas is destroying jungle to make way for money making cattle grazing. Let’s take some of the money out of cattle.
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Plants feed herbivores, and by extension carnivores and omnivores. Meat is nothing but concentrated plant protein. And I’m an old herbivore.
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We should ban fast food as a major funding source of factory farming. Traditional diets had a much larger diversity. There needs to be a re-balancing of just about everything.
Actually, it’s fat, not animal protein.
If we wonder where factory farming comes from – the mentality and brutality of it – think “traditional” farming. Animal farming, whether in the form of traditional methods or modern methods, is merciless. Contemporary live animal markets are living proof of how “food” animals have been treated for centuries by traditional cultures. Modern industrialized animal farming is not a departure from but an extension of raising and killing animals for food. With the global human overpopulation expected to reach 8 BILLION, how do you “humanely” deprive animals of lives worth living then kill all the animals needed to supply all these mouths with all the meat, dairy, eggs, and sea-life they demand?
On the advice of a doc, I don’t eat anything from the ocean anymore. Yeah, I guess some depend on it. But it is sooo polluted.
“We’ve never really exploited the cognitive abilities of cows,” says Rushen, who has previously shown that the animals learn to recognize different people much faster than pigs do. “If we can use their ability to help keep barns clean, it’s not just good for the environment, it reduces the workload of the farmers.”
Still, Whistance isn’t convinced that potty training cows in the real world is realistic. The animals would have to hold their bladders for much longer distances in an actual barn and might have to muscle past dozens of other cows to get to the bathroom. “They already have to learn where to lie down and where to eat,” she says. “Now we’re telling them, ‘You can’t even have a wee when you want one.’”
If nothing else, Langbein hopes the work will burnish the reputation of the much-maligned bovine. “People think of farm animals as dirty and stupid—and that affects how we treat them,” he says. “When people realize that these animals are much smarter than we’ve given them credit for, maybe they’ll care more about their welfare.”
AND GO VEGAN FOR THE ANIMALS! No more self-serving “welfare” standards!
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China has taken factory farming to a whole other level. With billions to feed it is our dystopian future if we don’t re-think things.
Sure. It’s not hard to do, but yes, of course, convincing people can be difficult.
That does not change the solution, however. It only means that failure is an option, and I might not convince you to avoid it.
There’s no consensus for other ideas either. I will go with this, whatever you decide. I at least it works well when and where it 's applied.
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Think Smithfield.
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Did you know there are new methods for human remains, one is a liquid method that is now legal in some states and another which is freeze dried and compostable. Compostable in a grave site but not legal yet. It is called sustainable end of life care it has another name for the process.
Fascinating. There’s also an herb that when added to cattle feed, reduces methane & makes cows happier. Animals are a lot smarter than most believe and studies in animal intelligence are proliferating.
I did not. In Italy there is apparently a company that will plant the deceased, so to speak, underneath a tree in a biodegradable bag. Once again I wish I could remember names.