The Rhinoceros Party

[Guest guest]

Long ago & far away, when in November 1969 I covered the

organizational meetings for the very first Earth Day celebration, in

Berkeley, California, some of the organizers trotted out

recommendations very similar to those circulated on AAPN yesterday by

the International Rhino Foundation, and--to be fair--by thousands of

other organizations participating in Earth Day.

 

Shortly after these recommendations were raised, several of

the eminent scientists who were participating in the planning pointed

out that the net benefit of all of these actions combined would be

just a tiny fraction of the ecological benefit that could be obtained

by just going vegetarian.

 

Then they said it again at the April 1970 Earth Day rallies.

 

I took notice of that, because although I had always been a

vegetarian this was the first time I had ever heard anyone prominent

say a public word in favor of not eating meat.

 

Rhinos don't eat meat, yet are among the largest & strongest

of all animals. Earth Day would have been the perfect time for the

International Rhino Foundation to point out that rhinos are well

worth emulating in their light ecological footprint, despite their

great bulk, by adopting a plant-based diet.

 

Instead, we get this blather:

 

>* I will change all the light bulbs in my house over to compact

>fluorescent bulbs and will make sure to turn off the lights and

>unplug all appliances and chargers whenever I leave a room.

 

But be careful not to break a compact fluorescent bulb,

because they contain mercury, & may well be recognized as a major

source of broadly distributing mercury pollution a few years from now.

 

I'm not sure where the balance of risk lies between compact

fluorescent bulbs & the conventional kind, but only because nobody

else does either. I have looked into it, & I guarantee you that

this is not a black-and-white situation.

 

 

>* I will start an organic vegetable garden this year and will stop

>using any chemicals (like fertilizers, pesticides and weed killers)

>on mylawn or plants.

 

I'm supposed to dig up the small but highly biodiverse and

ecologically complex wildlife habitat I have developed in my yard to

grow organic vegetables?

 

My yard is presently feeding deer, rabbits, raccoons,

squirrels, chipmunks, hummingbirds, bald eagles, coyotes, &

several dozen other interesting & often seen critters, & I doubt

that any net ecological benefit could be derived from evicting these

friends of mine to raise vegetables with just a tiny fraction of the

efficiency of a commercial grower.

 

" Organic, " meanwhile, is the biggest fraud ever perpetrated

on people who care about animals.

 

So-called organic agriculture has no less of a negative

impact per unit of production than conventional agriculture, in part

because yields are so much lower that much more land must be used to

obtain each ton of whatever is eaten.

 

Then, because the yields are lower, organic producers tend

to make even more aggressive efforts than conventional farmers to

shoot, trap, poison, burn out, etc. any wildlife who may snack on

their crops.

 

Take a good look at the annual reports of USDA Wildlife

Services. Killing coyotes & other predators on behalf of ranchers is

still their main business, but killing animals on behalf of organic

fruit & vegetable producers is right up there too.

 

I make a point of avoiding " organic " products--and not

because I am at all unfamiliar with the effects of agricultural

chemicals.

 

In fact, in the 1970s and 1980s I wrote many hundreds of

newspaper articles & won some journalism awards for exposing the

harmful effects of many then-common herbicides, pesticides,

fungicides, etc.; but most of the really bad ones are long since

out of common use & off the market, at least in the U.S. & Canada,

& not many of those now commonly used could be fairly accused of

having anywhere near the harmful effect of the " organic " alternatives.

 

Example: an organic corn farmer ploughs, instead of

seed-drilling. Seed-drilling involves the use of herbicides, but it

prevents soil erosion. Ploughing corn fields is the #1 cause of

topsoil loss in the U.S., has been since before chemical herbicides

were ever invented, & has negative ecological impacts visible even

from space.

 

 

>* I will use only environmentally-friendly house cleaning products.

 

I never cease to be astonished by friends who pay twice the

price for a " green " cleaning product, unaware that if they look it

up in the EPA/NIOSH Registry of Toxic Effects of Chemical Substances,

it will turn out to have been tested on just as many animals, and

will often have a greater cumulative deleterious environmental effect

than the stuff they could get at any supermarket.

 

Yes, I am talking about such substances as vinegar and lemon

juice. Concentrated vinegar, called acetic acid, is in fact one of

the more dangerous contents of many chemical herbicides.

 

A few months ago a young lady who saw my shopping cart

scolded me for using Mr. Clean. The chemical content of Mr. Clean is

substantially identical to the cumulative content of the two or three

products she uses instead. I pointed this out, by comparing the

labels.

 

She resumed speaking to me about two weeks later.

 

 

>* I will reduce my water consumption - 3 minute showers!

 

A much better idea is to take the shower of whatever length

is needed to get properly clean, hair included--especially if one

has been working around animals. Transmission of zoonotic disease is

a far bigger ecological issue than the difference in a 3-minute

shower & a 5-minute shower.

 

 

>* I will use cloth bags for grocery shopping, and remember to

>put them back in my car so that they are ready for the next time.

 

Little-known bag facts:

 

# Paper grocery bags are chiefly made from recycled paper,

cardboard, and millbroke (raw fiber unsuitable for processing into

fine paper.) They are completely biodegradable, and the net energy

consumption needed to make and transport one is a tiny fraction of

the energy that goes into producing a cloth bag (whether it is made

out of cotton, hemp, or synthetic fibers.

 

# Plastic grocery bags are really an ecological problem only

because so many people don't properly dispose of them. Indeed,

improperly discarded plastic bags kill thousands of Indian street

cattle per year, and also kill thousands of sea turtles, birds,

etc.--but the issue here is not the bags; it is that India has yet

to undertake a national program comparable to the program initiated

by the late Lady Bird Johnson in 1965 that made American roadsides

relatively litter-free.

 

If collected like other recyclables, plastic grocery bags

are actually relatively easily recycled into reusable raw materials.

 

# Cloth grocery bags need frequent washing. That by itself

could undo your alleged net gain from skimping on showers.

 

 

>* I will buy locally produced products (e.g., wine, cheese) rather

>than imported products to reduce my carbon footprint.

 

Numerous of my colleagues in environmental journalism have

busied themselves these past few months in actually comparing the

carbon footprints of local vs. imported food. What they are

consistently finding is that the carbon footprint is least if the

food comes from where it is most efficiently produced, regardless of

transportation distanced.

 

What they are also finding is that meat inevitably has a high

carbon footprint, regardless of where & how it is produced.

 

 

>* I will stop buying paper towels and use old, cut up t-shirts and

>socks for cleaning.

 

Paper towels, like paper grocery bags, are made chiefly

from recycled material, and are 100% biodegradable.

 

If the average person who has pets or children cut up

t-shirts or socks as often as he/she needs a paper towel to clean up

a mess, his/her carbon footprint would soar, because that person

would need new t-shirts & socks several times a week, or would be

washing filthy rags at a pace that would undo the net gains from

skipping showers altogether.

 

 

>* I will use a filtered pitcher for drinking water rather than

>buying bottled water

 

How about just making sure one has a clean drinking water source?

 

That's #1.

 

Beyond that, home water filtration by any method is hugely

inefficient, and tends to lead, inevitably, to producing filters

full of unsanitary accumulated crud. Then, instead of getting

microscopic amounts of crud in the water, one gets a huge load all

at once when the filter fails, & then must dispose of the filter.

Which is of course a mild ecological hazard.

 

Drinking bottled water is nonsensical where one can get clean

water out of the tap, but water bottles have the advantage of being

easily transportable, & can then be pitched at ecological idiots as

occasion demands.

 

 

 

About 10 years after covering the first Earth Day, I had

relocated to Quebec, & had occasion to cover the debut of a then-new

political party, called the Rhinoceros Party, headed by a gent

named Screwdriver Gingras.

 

Screwdriver Gingras explained that the purpose of the

Rhinoceros Party was to illustrate the absurdity of the politically

correct responses to practically everything.

 

The Rhinoceros Party proceeded to get about the same

percentage of the vote each year for the next decade as the Greens,

& over the years I came to suspect that the Rhinos actually had much

the stronger environmental platform.

 

Screwdriver Gingras, as it happens, was at least a

quasi-vegetarian, and he campaigned ardently against factory pig

farming.

 

He didn't waste resources fulminating about the minimal

difference in ecological impact of paper vs. plastic bags, or paper

towels vs. washing socks.

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

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Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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