Too much meat?
There were some interesting articles over the weekend about meat farming. The New York Times warns that:
Global demand for meat has multiplied in recent years, encouraged by growing affluence and nourished by the proliferation of huge, confined animal feeding operations. These assembly-line meat factories consume enormous amounts of energy, pollute water supplies, generate significant greenhouse gases and require ever-increasing amounts of corn, soy and other grains, a dependency that has led to the destruction of vast swaths of the world’s tropical rain forests.
And, as the Guardian notes, where we recently thought the tide was turning against Amazonian rainforests being converted into cattle farms, that is not apparently the case.
Government satellite images show that at least 1,280 sq miles (3,235 sq kilometers) of rainforest were lost between August and December last year, mainly because of soy planting and cattle ranching. Environment ministry officials believe the true figure could be as high as 2,700 sq miles (7,000 sq kilometers).
“Never before have we detected such a high deforestation rate at this time of year…”
The New York Times notes:
Grain, meat and even energy are roped together in a way that could have dire results. More meat means a corresponding increase in demand for feed, especially corn and soy, which some experts say will contribute to higher prices.
This will be inconvenient for citizens of wealthier nations, but it could have tragic consequences for those of poorer ones, especially if higher prices for feed divert production away from food crops.
Hat tip - Treehugger
January 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
Frog,
Good to see you point out that most NZ meat, be it lamb, beef or venison, is almost entirely pasture reared, with perhaps some supplementary feed in drought or extreme snow conditions.
There is also a huge amount of farming land, currently used for rearing animals for the meat, that will not be suitable for dairy farming or for cereal crops.
January 29th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
You only have to look at Canterbury to question what suitable for dairy farming means.
January 29th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Canterbury? Suitable for dairying??
It means using enormous amounts of electricity (which means enormous amounts of hydro water) to extract huge amounts of water from the ground and then spread it around so grass can grow.
It’s very pretty, but hardly ecologically sound…
MainPower note that: “Peak loadings at Waipara and Culverden are now occurring in the summer period and are caused by irrigation load. This is expected to continue in the medium term as further new irrigation sites are established but future growth will be slower as competition for water increases and available land suitable for irrigation reduces.”
Traditionally, electrical peak loads are in winter due to heating requirements, and summer loads were relatively light. Not any more in Canterbury…
January 29th, 2008 at 2:50 pm
New Zealand soil is also deficient in selenium, which needs to be imported at great cost to food miles. Our present intensive rate of dairy production also involves importing large amounts of fertiliser, and totally denuding tropical islands like Nauru in the process.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:45 pm
Meat eating is immoral and greedy and voilent and for pseudo environmentalists who arent thinking through the logic and connecting the sprititual thing (Om…) and forget that animals are sentient beings.
we should be growing hemp which provides so many good uses and is drought resistent and mitigates dairy farming soil damage and dont need all those fertaliser s and pestacides (doenst it?) and with the green party policy of using the cellouse for bio fule, the seed is good food as god intended.
but the green party is as weak at advocating hemp as it is at advocating decriminalisation (no politician makes connection with criminalisation of half population and NZs youth crime problem??? or karmic connection between violence in our diet and violence in our streets?
regrds
January 29th, 2008 at 10:03 pm
p.s …and violence/violation - in our laws (negative karma). As they say in the 1894 Indian Hemp Drugs Commission “no good will come to he (they, kiwis) who trample the holy bhang leaf underfoot.”
maybe nandor was right about the social ecology of being first an Alcp candidate (remember 1996, and Meteria too….)
note - government coalition support agreement NUMBER 1 item - how symbolic is that, Frog, and why arent you guys fighting this the real environmental issue (hemp/cannabis)?
January 29th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Step up to the times weedeater! new rules permitting hemp cultivation came into effect last august. The Greens will continue to press for regulations to be further relaxed once a significant period has passed without incident. here is the link to the press release from MoH http://www.medsafe.govt.nz/hot/media/2006/NewHempRules.htm
January 30th, 2008 at 9:48 am
“You are what you eat” has always been a spiritual statement for me. Thus I am a sentient being, whereas ‘weedeater’ is a vegetable.
Good news on hemp production - now we can enjoy the prosperity and environmental sustainability of the other leading hemp producers - China and North Korea.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:07 am
joy..
“shine on..!..you crazy carnivore..!..”
eh..?
are you attempting to set a new benchmark in shortsightedness..?
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 30th, 2008 at 10:10 am
buchanan..a new bye-word for mindlessness..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 30th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
youre only fooling yourself sam buchannan and your statement is offencive, meat eaters are good at that (its a way of life). adn you are quite wrong because sentient means to have feelings and you obviously dont have many.
Gonna make a joke about killing a cabbage or slicing up a potato next?
then you ridicule hemp production as if its for peasants. the swiss grow it and dont have any stupid thc restriction (buying into prohibition ‘common sense’) such as the model Nandor and co brought into nz.
January 31st, 2008 at 12:00 am
“totally denuding tropical islands like Nauru in the process”
in the interests of accuracy in reporting, I must point out that Nauru is not totally denuded, only about 90%.
If you have a look at Google Earth (lat=-0.536305435595, lon=166.927775593) you can see that there is a green and leafy area with some well spaced out housing around a lake in the south of the island that has been left alone while the rest of the island was mined … clearly this is the enclave where the people who got rich selling the guano live.
According to the CIA World Factbook: … intensive phosphate mining during the past 90 years - mainly by a UK, Australia, and NZ consortium - has left the central 90% of Nauru a wasteland and threatens limited remaining land resources.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/nr.ht ml http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nauru
if anyone else has some Google Earth locations of environmental devastation I’d love to hear them.
January 31st, 2008 at 8:29 am
how about doing a website featuring them stuey..?..
(and local..!..)
y’know..!
..streaming vid of the cowshit pouring into/polluting our waterways (every day) could be quite an effective agit-prop tool..
bring the realities of what we are doing to our country to peoples computer screens..
phil(whoar.co.nz)
January 31st, 2008 at 4:33 pm
“youre only fooling yourself sam buchannan and your statement is offencive, meat eaters are good at that (its a way of life). adn you are quite wrong because sentient means to have feelings and you obviously dont have many.”
Sorry, weedeater, silly joke it was. I think your somewhat intolerant comment “Meat eating is immoral and greedy and voilent (sic)” sparked it.
By the way, don’t you think your statements that being offensive is a way of life for meat eaters, and that I don’t have feelings, are a trifle offensive?
I’ve nothing against hemp production, just the tendency of some to see it as a magic cure for economic and environmental ills. I think you’ll find hemp isn’t as great for the environment as its advocates claim.
February 3rd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
all right sam buchanan, sorry too, i am a militant anti-meat eater sometimes, but most of my friends are meat eaters and i generally turn a blind if disapproving eye.
its just a philosophical thing i get annoyed about because people dont want to think it through and i was there once myself making jokes about Morrisey’s lyrics on ‘meat is murder’ , making me hungry…
naturally you are defensive when faced with such condemnation but there is no argument that meat is not violent even if someone else is paid to do the killin, and by extrapolation, greedy and immoral.
it would be good if hemp could actually line up against its competition without all th noxious prohibition baggage it is tied to. Henry ford built a car out of it around 1940, so how much better ought technology to be now with non fossil-fuel plastics etc???
I for one would like to be able to grow it for the seed because it is badly missing from my diet - and it is all because of a stupid and corrupt war on drugs that the Greens wont advocate against. that really gets my goat a bit too in case u havent noticed
eg i dont like the purportedly holistic view on youth crime problem that neglects to factor in criminalisation (not sure what happend to my post on the boot-camp thread, frog?).
greens as dumb as Clark and Key - or just as intellectually dishonest?
rgds
February 3rd, 2008 at 9:44 pm
silly me !..stuey..!..eh..?
you only do what hq says..eh..?
(i forgot there for a moment..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)