Guest guest Posted December 28, 2002 Report Share Posted December 28, 2002 - " karin ridgers " <veganessex Saturday, December 28, 2002 1:04 PM Fwd: article in Guardian > > -------- ----- > Why vegans were right all along > > Famine can only be avoided if the rich give up meat, fish and dairy > > George Monbiot > Tuesday December 24, 2002 > The Guardian > > The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism > stole it from the Christians. But one feature of the celebrations has > remained > unchanged: the consumption of vast quantities of meat. The practice used > to make sense. Livestock slaughtered in the autumn, before the grass ran > out, would be about to decay, and fat-starved people would have to survive > a further three months. Today we face the opposite problem: we spend the > next three months trying to work it off. > Our seasonal excesses would be perfectly sustainable, if we weren't doing > the same thing every other week of the year. But, because of the rich > world's > disproportionate purchasing power, many of us can feast every day. And this > would also be fine, if we did not live in a finite world. > > By comparison to most of the animals we eat, turkeys are relatively > efficient > converters: they produce about three times as much meat per pound of grain > as feedlot cattle. But there are still plenty of reasons to feel > uncomfortable > about eating them. Most are reared in darkness, so tightly packed that they > can scarcely move. Their beaks are removed with a hot knife to prevent them > from hurting each other. As Christmas approaches, they become so heavy that > their hips buckle. When you see the inside of a turkey broilerhouse, you > begin to entertain grave doubts about European civilisation. > > This is one of the reasons why many people have returned to eating red meat > at Christmas. Beef cattle appear to be happier animals. But the improvement > in animal welfare is offset by the loss in human welfare. The world produces > enough food for its people and its livestock, though (largely because they > are so poor) some 800 million are malnourished. But as the population rises, > structural global famine will be avoided only if the rich start to eat less > meat. The number of farm animals on earth has risen fivefold since 1950: > humans are now outnumbered three to one. Livestock already consume half > the world's grain, and their numbers are still growing almost exponentially. > > > This is why biotechnology - whose promoters claim that it will feed the > world - has been deployed to produce not food but feed: it allows farmers > to switch from grains which keep people alive to the production of more > lucrative crops for livestock. Within as little as 10 years, the world will > be faced with a choice: arable farming either continues to feed the world's > animals or it continues to feed the world's people. It cannot do both. > > The impending crisis will be accelerated by the depletion of both phosphate > fertiliser and the water used to grow crops. Every kilogram of beef we > consume, > according to research by the agronomists David Pimental and Robert Goodland, > requires around 100,000 litres of water. Aquifers are beginning the run > dry all over the world, largely because of abstraction by farmers. > > Many of those who have begun to understand the finity of global grain > production > have responded by becoming vegetarians. But vegetarians who continue to > consume milk and eggs scarcely reduce their impact on the ecosystem. The > conversion efficiency of dairy and egg production is generally better than > meat rearing, but even if everyone who now eats beef were to eat cheese > instead, this would merely delay the global famine. As both dairy cattle > and poultry are often fed with fishmeal (which means that no one can claim > to eat cheese but not fish), it might, in one respect, even accelerate it. > The shift would be accompanied too by a massive deterioration in animal > welfare: with the possible exception of intensively reared broilers and > pigs, battery chickens and dairy cows are the farm animals which appear > to suffer most. > > We could eat pheasants, many of which are dumped in landfill after they've > been shot, and whose price, at this time of the year, falls to around £2 > a bird, but most people would feel uncomfortable about subsidising the > bloodlust > of brandy-soaked hoorays. Eating pheasants, which are also fed on grain, > is sustainable only up to the point at which demand meets supply. We can > eat fish, but only if we are prepared to contribute to the collapse of > marine > ecosystems and - as the European fleet plunders the seas off West Africa > - the starvation of some of the hungriest people on earth. It's impossible > to avoid the conclusion that the only sustainable and socially just option > is for the inhabitants of the rich world to become, like most of the earth's > people, broadly vegan, eating meat only on special occasions like Christmas. > > > As a meat-eater, I've long found it convenient to categorise veganism as > a response to animal suffering or a health fad. But, faced with these > figures, > it now seems plain that it's the only ethical response to what is arguably > the world's most urgent social justice issue. We stuff ourselves, and the > poor get stuffed. > > www.monbiot.com > > > _______________ > The new MSN 8: smart spam protection and 3 months FREE*. > http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail & xAPID=42 & PS=47575 & PI=7324 & DI=747 4 & SU= > http://www.hotmail.msn.com/cgi-bin/getmsg & HL=1216hotmailtaglines_smartspampr otection_3mf > Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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