Okay, I’m probably going to get in trouble for putting my oar in here. But I’m cranky about this suggestion by Lord Stern that we should all go vegetarian to stop global warming. Ken Neilsen has already done a good post at the Cat on how climate change politics seems to cause some people’s brains to fall out of their ears.
I noted somewhat maliciously that Al Gore hedged a little bit at Lord Stern’s suggestion, and admitted he was not vegetarian himself:
Climate change campaigner Al Gore believes turning vegetarian could aid the battle against global warming.
But he’s stopped short of asking everyone to turn their back on meat, acknowledging getting a global agreement on fighting climate change is already hard enough.
The former US vice-president turned environmental campaigner said on Wednesday he agreed with the UK’s Nicholas Stern that meat eaters have contributed greatly to increased global carbon emissions.
“I’m not a vegetarian, but I have cut back sharply on the meat that I eat,” he told ABC Television from New York.
I am a liberal person. I don’t mind what eating habits other people have, as long as they don’t eat other people or endangered species. If people want to eat snails or civets or dogs, that’s okay by me (as long as I don’t have to eat them). If other people want to be fruitarians, and eat only fruit which has dropped off trees, and not eat anything which has been harvested, that’s also okay by me (again, as long as I don’t have to follow that diet). If some others want to cut pork out of their diet, that’s also fine. In fact, I did not eat pork for a number of years, but the lapse started with dumplings, and it has been a slow downhill slide from there. Oh Xiao Long Bao, how I love you.
I have always tried to cater to the food habits of others, and be respectful of religious or cultural precepts. Sometimes it’s hard. My Indian friends and I have had some difficult meals due to contradictory eating requirements. The Muslims must eat halal meat, the Sikhs must not eat halal meat, some of the Hindus are vegetarian or vegan, some of the Hindus do not eat beef. Finally someone found a vegetable noodle dish which they thought would be acceptable to all…I looked at it. It had cashews in it. I have an anaphylactic reaction to nuts. Nope, that wouldn’t do either. (Really, when you get to that point, you have to laugh).
I really don’t mind what diet people choose to follow. Although, as an aside, I should say that when self-conscious, high achieving teenage girls announce they are vegetarian, I do get suspicious. That’s not because I have a problem with vegetarianism per se. It’s just that I’ve known a lot of girls with eating disorders, and my observation is that vegetarianism or veganism can be used by a girl with an eating disorder an excuse as to why she has stopped eating anything, or will no longer eat with her family and friends. I’ve seen it in action a few times. If my teenage daughter announced she was vegetarian, I’d watch her like a hawk to check that she ate healthily.
I’m a meat eater. Why? Well, I like meat. More than that, I would not be able to be vegetarian even if I wanted to be. Because I am very allergic to nuts, I would not be able to have the necessary proteins I need. In fact, my sister and I often have problems at vegetarian or vegan restaurants for this reason. So much vegetarian food has nuts in it. I tend to avoid vegetarian restaurants for this reason, or question them very closely about whether the food has come into contact with nuts. By contrast, I have some vegetarian friends who are fantastic cooks. They know about me and the nuts, so I have no hesitation in eating what they cook.
What really annoys me is the moral judgment which sometimes comes with vegetarianism or veganism. I had some friends who used to hassle me, “Do you know you’re eating a cow? How can you do that?” So I took to moo-o-oing as I ate, saying, “This is a delicious leg of cow.” Yes, I know I am eating another animal. I’m a fairly reflective human being. I’ve thought about that. Yes, it doesn’t seem very fair to eat another sentient being, but nature is not fair. One flinches at the killer whales eating the baby seals, but if I were hungry and had to fend for myself, I’d eat them too. Another friend once asked me accusingly, “Would you kill a baby sheep?” Yes, I would if I needed to do so. I’d be sad, but I’d do it.
It’s all a question of where you draw the line. Some people don’t eat animals. Some people don’t eat animal products. Some people don’t wear products made from animal hide (although I’ve always wondered exactly where the line is drawn here – do strict vegans wear wool? silk? I presume not). A friend is vegan, and got attacked by an acquaintance for her choices – personally, I think that is totally out of line. It’s her choice what she puts into her body, and as long as she’s healthy and happy, that’s what’s important to me.
But this vegetarianism-stops-global-warming adds a whole new layer of piety to the whole vegetarian thing. I just think it’s a crock. How many rainforests would we have to cut down to feed everyone on vegetables? Think of the rainforests in Indonesia which are being felled so that people can harvest palm-oil for so-called “green fuel”. And we’d have to get our protein from somewhere, even if it was from tofu – so we’d need lots of soy beans. As this article in the Huffington Post illustrates, it’s an incredibly complex thing to work out what actions will have a greater impact on CO2 emissions, and the author (a vegetarian and environmentalist himself) cautions people against pious grandstanding about the benefits of vegetarianism vis a vis climate change. If only there were more like him.
Update:
Now when we talk of vegetarian piety, let’s have a look at this little gem from Natalie Portman, talking about Jonathan Safran Foer’s new book Eating Animals:
I say that Foer’s ethical charge against animal eating is brave because not only is it unpopular, it has also been characterized as unmanly, inconsiderate, and juvenile. But he reminds us that being a man, and a human, takes more thought than just “This is tasty, and that’s why I do it.” He posits that consideration, as promoted by Michael Pollan in The Omnivore’s Dilemma, which has more to do with being polite to your tablemates than sticking to your own ideals, would be absurd if applied to any other belief (e.g., I don’t believe in rape, but if it’s what it takes to please my dinner hosts, then so be it).
A trifle melodramatic?
107 Comments
Legal Eagle!
Welcome back! I hope you are very well. I have been quietly sending you ‘get better’ vibes, but that’s not much good if I don’t let you know!
I, too, have issues with vegetarianism – I was one for a good 6 or 7 years (reckon I also fall into your category of self-conscious high achieving teenage girls when I became vego, but, swear, it was not because I had an eating disorder, alhtough being vego did, eventually, make me very ill; because I exercised a lot and did not get enough energy or iron from my diet).
My family’s food (and my health, I guess) was my vegetarian downfall.
I very much disagree with preachy vegetarianism. I don’t mind persuasion about why I should become a vego but I don’t like the whole, “Do you realise you’re eating a cow?” I’m not stupid, I know it was a cow / pig / chicken etc. I know those creatures were cute and sentient.
Equally, I disagree with preachy / militant meat-eaitng aka Anthony Bourdain (although I rather like his writing).
I read and really enjoyed Peter Singer’s book, The Ethics of What we Eat. Yes, it talked about the potential benefits of a vego diet on the environment, but it also considered other ethical factors – such as not offending your hosts or trying different foods or food production. And what about the animals that have thrived because of human dependence upon them as food?
And economics: I might try to eat local, organic, free-range, less meat etc, but it’s also more expensive and I can afford it. But the family of 7 with only one salary down the road from me? Who am I to look askance at their food purchases/decisions?
Out of curiousity, why did you cease to eat pork? (Xiao long bao *is* irrestible.)
Menstruating women should not be vegetarian or, even worse, vegan. End of. There’s a reason why we all belt our heads on medieval doorways but not modern or Roman ones. There’s a reason why women have such significantly improved upper body strength since the onset of industrialisation (and no, Victorian ladies were not hitting the gym). There’s a reason why so many vegetarian and vegan women cannot make the required body weight to donate blood.
It’s got that way that environmentalism is turning into holy writ, and to the extent it does so, I’ll actively campaign against it.
/Former HS physical education teacher.
I says let the greenies go vegan and not worry about it.
If enough do the price of meat falls which is obviously a good thing for everyone.
In fact we should be actively campaigning for more greens to go vegan… to help our own wallet.
I would also actively encourage as many people as possible to start riding bikes and walking too, as this helps to soften the price of petrol.
Pure self interest puts more money in our pocket.
Menstruating women should not be vegetarian or, even worse, vegan. End of.
True and v. important. In fact the data does not support the idea that being a vegetarian is better for your health.
Conversely, according to Perl et al in “Living to 100″, there is the speculation re “iron maidens”. That being women who never had children and hence menstruated on a frequent basis had the advantage that the regular menstruation washed out excess iron thereby alleviated the potential inflammatory mediators being driven by free iron in biological tissues,. There is probably some truth to that but I also suspect that menstruation also has the benefit of washing out other nasties in the blood, hence reducing systemic inflammation.
Iron levels accumulate with age, this is particularly true of the brain. In various experimental paradigms iron is introduced to initiate oxidation events. Iron + high Victamin C is an excellent way to markedly increase systemic inflammation.
Wow – we really are on the same wavelength!
‘Eating Greens’ just happens to be my solution to overpopulation, global warming, whale hunting and indeed the whole militiary industrial-political environment-crushing complex, too
(1) The meat and climate change /is/ real, and is Oz, by replacing herbivores with methanogenic gut bugs that are used for meat with kangaroos for human consumption, ANU has calculated a 5% drop in Oz CO2-equivalent emissions. (Besides roo is healthier, tolerates dry conditions, etc). I don’t have the taste for meat, but force myself to occasionally support the roo industry… hence “I don’t eat things with bellybuttons”, although this does break my rule of “not eating speciesI haven’t killed myself at some stage” but being loose with the definition of species when it comes to fish.
(2) But problems! Poor thing! Yes, a good selection of nuts does make it easier to be vege… unless you use the highest quality proteins… milk and eggs, and you roughly need 1g per kg body weight per day of high quality protein… otherwise you turn it to carbohydrate anyway. (One experiment we did in nutrition involve altering protein intake for a month… the two males in the class picked the ultra-high protein one – no objection from the women – so lived on mountains of eggs and milk… YUM!)
(3) A major factor in longevity is not what you eat, but that you don’t eat much – indeed MILD starvation is good for you, as is going all hunter-gatherer and having very little one day in about three.
(4) That all said, the energy and water inefficiency each time you go through an animal is considerable… so if you must eat meat, it’s slightly gentler on the environment (not to say healthier) to have herbivores rather than meat-eaters (like pigs)… besides, the higher up the food chain, the more heavy metals and nasty chemicals accumulate.
(5) I couldn’t stand the smell of cooking red meat, so with a zillion cheap healthy eats within five minutes walk, I could eat what I wanted, allowing my daughter to eat red meat when her body told her to eat it.
But on the need for fresh fruit, veges, etc, when studying with dieticians, there was a saying “Shhhh! Don’t mention the eskimos!”
I meant “Nut problems! Poor thing!” Having a bad day with right hand accuracy.
“If my teenage daughter announced she was vegetarian, I’d watch her like a hawk to check that she ate healthily.”
This is one of my big issues with the subject. Why is it than when someone actually makes a conscious choice about their eating habits do we then apply scrutiny? Why wouldn’t you check that she ate healthily under any (“normal”) circumstances? I think it’s because most people just assume that if it’s in the majority, then someone else must’ve checked out that it’s OK for us… right? I mean, cigarettes are OK, right? And just on that topic – I get more comments being a vegetarian than I did being a smoker!
On the environmental (and ethical) issues associated with Vegetarianism/Veganism – I’d highly recommend reading “The Ethics of What We Eat” by Peter Singer/Jim Mason. I’d be keen to see any updated thoughts you have after having read it.
I mostly agree with you Legal Eagle. I consider myself a Greenie but I’m not going to stop eating meat. However this statement is simply silly and ignorant:
“How many rainforests would we have to cut down to feed everyone on vegetables? ”
The answer is none. Simply eliminating grain/soy fed beef etc would free up many tens of millions of hectares of land because it takes about 10-12 kilograms of grain/soy to produce one kilogram of meat. In America, Europe and various other places the great majority of food crops are fed to directly to animals, for instance about 70% of all American grain and 90% of soybeans.
There is simply no way on God’s green earth that a global population of 9 billion people, which is the UN’s prediction for 2050, can consume meat like us Westerners do. In fact it isn’t even possible with the current global population unless every last vestige of forest is hacked down.
Accordingly when you say your prayers tonite spare a thought for the malnourished brown people whose lack of purchasing power puts the meat on your table.
(3) A major factor in longevity is not what you eat, but that you don’t eat much – indeed MILD starvation is good for you, as is going all hunter-gatherer and having very little one day in about three.
Yes the data does point to that but there are a number of practical problems:
(caveat: “MILD”not quite sure what you mean by that Dave).
Constant starvation may deplete the immune response, induce hypoglycemia, loss of gonadal hormone production.
Constant starvation induces autophagy, this process has some very good qualities but if sustained can induce cell death. Autophagy is something that you don’t want going full pelt all the time but it is vital for health to induce it on a regular basis. Thus, as numerous studies on mice have indicated, intermittent fasting provides nearly as much benefit as sustained CR>
It is important to remember that the CR experiments were in labs, not the real world. Big important difference.
There is some evidence to suggest that sustained starvation may induce cerebral atrophy but I’d have to look more closely at the data.
Recent findings suggest that starvation may not even be necessary, it appears that in humans the key factor is amino acids. This relates to what they call the mTOR pathway(insulin related). So simply starving oneself of amino acids might be just as effective.
In “Living to 100″ the authors noted that the centenarians, while most certainly not being health nuts, most certainly were frugal eaters.
Well yes, I should’ve put a smiley after my closing para above
I should make one more point- the strict environmental vegetarian argument is faulty and this is best illustrated by an example. In the Vietnamese rice paddies with which I am familiar the farmers supplement their diets with the fish that swim in the paddies, the rats that munch the crops and the chickens that mostly eat bugs etc around the crops and the house. This gives the rice paddy farmers a meagre ration of protein at no environmental expense.
Dave – yes, I totally agree that scientifically speaking, it is more energy efficient to eat vegetables – I seem to recall some chart in A-Level biology which showed that you lost at least 90% of the energy in each successive level of the food chain.
What gives me the irrits is this idea plain and simple that being vegetarian will “fix” climate change (which is how I’ve seen it touted around the traps). That’s where I get cranky. It’s far more complicated than everyone going vegetarian, even if that were possible for all.
I just don’t react very well to people telling me “you HAVE to do this” in a very pious knowing way. What I was trying to get across in this post was the importance of personal choice, the presence of cultural and religious differences and the presence of factors which might make it difficult for some people to become vegetarian. I think moderation in all things is a good idea, generally speaking.
I read somewhere that they found evidence that the Picts ate mostly meat. I suspect I have a Pictish meat-eating gene – at any rate, I was and my children are very much carnivores. I had great difficulty getting Eaglet No. 2 onto solids until I fed him an entire strip of roast beef. When he sees someone carrying past a piece of meat, he begs for it. Now that I’m an adult, I like vegetables (apart from brussel sprouts) but it took until my teens to get there.
My Dad was quite old-fashioned in many things with us kids, but not that strict about eating vegetables… Last year, when my mother was away, I realised he was having barbecued meat with salad rather than vegies – the truth was out – he never liked his vegies much either, which is why he was never that strict with us!
“(3) A major factor in longevity is not what you eat, but that you don’t eat much – indeed MILD starvation is good for you, as is going all hunter-gatherer and having very little one day in about three”
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I think you mean that mild starvation keeps rats and other creatures with comparatively short life spans compared to humans alive longer. Let me know if it does humans any good in 50 years when all the people experimenting on themselves find the answer for us.
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On this note, even a decent diet keeps you alive longer, without starvation. It’s no doubt a big reason why the Japanese have the longest life expectancies in the world.
Patrick, we are allowed to eat meat if we must, so they tell us, just not the Greens.
Are we or are we not, by natural selection, carnivores? Hve I missed something.
All this fuzzy vegan political correctness leaves me cold that nothing to do with climate change either.
I hate tofu. Does anyone else hate tofu or am I just not politically correct enough to like it.
Anyway, I don’t invite vegans to my house for dinner, nor Greens just to keep them safe from harm.
Legal Eagle,
The issue is not so much the efficiency thing, it’s that cows and sheep burp and fart methane. Lots of it. Roughly 10% of our contribution to global warming – on currently accepted accounting methods – is methane from ruminants.
But it’s more complicated than that. The immediate impact of methane on climate is even stronger than that, but it gets a discount because it doesn’t last as long in the atmosphere as CO2.
Given that the *current* levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will lead to long-run impacts that I think you would agree are unacceptable, the fact is that even if we were to stop *all* anthropogenic CO2 emissions, we’ll have to cut anthropogenic methane emissions as well if we are to avoid unacceptable climate outcomes.
As for feeding everyone on vegetables, it’s pretty much indisputable that land requirements would go down if we all started eating a vegetarian diet – Melaluca’s important point about reusing waste vegetable matter taken into account, of course.
So while, clearly, vegetarianism is very far from the whole answer to climate change, I’m afraid (as somebody who greatly enjoys eating meat) that in this case the science indicates that changing our diets away from red meat *would* make a very substantial contribution to mitigating climate change.
Legal Eagle,
You mentioned Lord Stern & Al Gore as being proponents of the movement to save the planet by eating less meat but, as far as I can see, you completely overlooked the movement’s most influential member – Rajendra K. Pachauri.
Dr Pachauri, the Chairman of the IPCC, is completely committed to saving the planet and he does, apparently, completely refrain from eating meat. Perhaps he was also personally responsible for converting Al Gore . He would have had an opportunity while they were lining up to collect their joint 2007 Nobel Peace Prize.
It’s still in my life plan to become a hojillionaire and pioneer a move into L5 colonies. Gather soil from the moon and fertilise it with chemicals gathered from comets or Titan. Raise an unlimited number of whatever.
Of course, it’s more likely that scientists will come up with vat-grown meat before space colonisation becomes economic.
Though it turns out that vat-grown food will have ethical dilemmas all its own. Borrow Arthur C Clarke’s Collected Stories and read Food of the Gods for an example.
Of course what Merkel doesn’t tell you is that nearly 80% of this methane is from animals in the 3rd world, which are for the most part used for work. It’s the result of food intake that determines what comes out.
Robert when was the last time you donated money to buy poor world farmers modern farming equipment? I have and I do because I’d rather see a 3rd world farmer drive a tractor than a cow.
I’m sorry but your simplistic, almost cartoon like description of meat eating causing/contributing runaway global warming is nonsense, as it’s a little more complex than looking at a cow and saying. “Bad”.
It’s a little like the food you eat, Robert that determines the sounds that come out of your backside. Same with cows.
Andy @ 8, I’ve read Singer’s book. The thing I like about Singer’s book is that it concedes vegetarianism and veganism are not for everyone, and that you can still be a decent person even if you do not embrace it.
Because,as I’ve said in my post, I’ve seen a number of friends use vegetarianism or veganism as an excuse to hide eating disorders.
Have a look at this link, which I think does a great job of teasing out the complexity of the issue. It is written by a woman who is vegetarian and a recovering anorexic. She notes that research shows that there’s a much higher proportion of teenage vegetarians have a healthier diet than average, but also within that group there’s a much higher proportion of eating disorders. So it’s not just my imagination. Vegetarianism can positively lead people to have healthier diets; but it seems it can also give people a socially acceptable excuse to hide unhealthy obsessions with food.
As I’ve said above, I don’t think it’s appropriate to question someone about their dietary choices in the normal scheme of things. If you’ve chosen to become vegetarian, that’s your choice, and I respect that. If you have received negative feedback when you turned vegetarian, then that says more about the ignorance and rudeness of your interlocutors than it does about you. I would never criticise your personal choices, regardless of whether they square with my own personal choices. It’s really none of my business from my point of view.
Mel @ 11: sometimes I feel that this whole debate is just a decadent luxury. If you’re a rice paddy farmer you don’t have the luxury of passing up adequate protein when you can get it.
But then again, vegetarianism and veganism have been around for a long time. I was recently reading about the Manicheans, a heretical early Christian group who were essentially fruitarians – they didn’t believe in killing animals or cultivating plants. And earlier than that, the Pythagoreans were vegetarians because they believed animals had souls. Of course, Buddhists are vegetarians for similar reasons.
LE:
It’s beginning to feel that self-righteous cost accountants actually think they have a right to take over the world and moralize how people should live and eat. Stalinism sounds positively super in comparison to a bunch of sermonizing basket weaving nth Fitzroy residents. trying to tell us what to eat.
Oanh @ 1: hello! Much better thank you, but still tired and worn out. And probably crankier than usual, hence the cranky tone of the post.
Yes, for some people it is difficult to maintain a healthy vegetarian diet. While I was pregnant, I felt that I actively needed meat from time to time. I’m sure my body was giving me some kind of a message. I also really loved sour things. I mean, I love them anyway, but I loved them even more… Who knows what that was all about.
As for why I didn’t eat pork? That’s a complicated question. Partly I thought pigs are more like dogs than cows in my own personal line drawing exercise. Partly it was because I have a strong affiliation with Judaism. But then, after I’d had kids, my daughter loved ham when she had it at my parents’ place, and when she was down to eating only vegemite sandwiches, chicken nuggets, hot chips and ham, I folded and allowed ham in the house… And I do love pork dumplings.
The problem with this (and I’m not picking on you, Robert, but this encapsulates the issue nicely) is that it prioritizes climate change above other things with which people may legitimately be concerned. John and I raised health and feminist concerns (as did LE in her original post). There is currently a post over at Club Troppo advocating that western powers use their military/economic might to force countries like India and China to reduce their greenhouse emissions. Now (despite Conrad’s slightly over-hopeful comments in the thread), I know full well this could be done. China’s economic growth depends to a large degree on having a pegged currency (it is deliberately undervalued, thus keeping the prices of their exports artificially low). Using this as leverage would contract China’s manufacturing base considerably, and yes, it would reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emission — massively.
But, as most literate people know, China has been — in relatively recent times — afflicted with terrible instability, much of it due to lack of development. Until someone makes me an argument that the effects of climate change on China would be worse than another ‘Great Leap Forward’ or ‘Cultural Revolution’, then I’d much rather China develop along western lines and we all just mitigate the effects of climate change, thanks.
And that’s just China, boys and girls. I haven’t discussed India, or Thailand, or Vietnam, or any other poor country that happens to be developing quickly and finally coming to enjoy the fruits of development.
then I’d much rather China develop along western lines and we all just mitigate the effects of climate change, thanks.
Something that is increasingly worrying me is the frequent calls for “revolutionary” action to address AGW. We need to evolve our cultures to meet this threat and suggesting we start using the military or heavy handed govt intervention is going to cause more problems than it solves.
The call to vegetarianism is an example of this. That anyone could think seriously about this as a proposal is beyond my comprehension. I fully respect Singer’s arguments and know it is the most consistent position one can take with respect to our understanding of the :”reality” most mammals experience. Nonetheless we have evolved to eat meat and eat it we shall. The irony of the vegetarian issue is that if we did adopt that strategy we may well fart ourselves into global warming.
China faces such huge environmental problems that it is not going to be any position to change things soon. 80% of Chinese river water is undrinkable, respiratory complaints are through the roof, stomach and liver cancers rising inexorably due to ground water pollution … . Don’t be surprised if those pragmatic Chinese end up leading the way in environmental matters.
John, I was going to make the point that when I eat vegetarian for a day or so, I get a lot more erm, gas, than normal. Does this mean I make more methane? I presume plants are more difficult to digest than meat (I mean cows have to have 4 stomachs to digest grass).
LE,
You’re probably right. You could try the old school trick, you know, a lighter handy when you fart … . It’s the cellulose, we have these bugs in us to degrade the plant cellulose, my understanding this produces the gases but that’s a guess.
It’s a totalitarian movement, John. You see in their behavior and their reasoning, which is to save the earth from the human predator. It can’t stand or will not accept any views contrary to their own and will vilify anyone academic etc. that stands in their way.
If it ends up in the streets and it’s sorted out like that then that’s the way it may have to go.
If a stranger is going to dictate how and what we eat then we’ll end up sorting out and let the best men win…. (and ladies).
It’s a frequent thing to read in environmental websites these days that “Democratic liberalism may have to be suspended while we implement a green community”.
That nutjob, Hives Hamilton has made that assertion. The joke is that there’s as much chance for the military to listen to his commands, as there is a clown with a big red nose.
One of the commenters here illustrates of what I mean. It was only recently that Merkal proclaimed in a comment on a website that he would be dogmatically rude and objectionable to anyone that took the skeptic view as the earth is too important to lose to sceptics.
Read Roger Pielke’s recent thread about this sort of thing.
Oh, I’m not a sceptic, by the way as I think AGW could end up being a serious management risk problem
Here’s the comment: Talking to a sceptic.
And that’s why there’s a tendency to be abusive towards people who hold views like yourself (and I’m perfectly prepared to accept that you are sincere in them, if utterly wrong). The potential consequences of your view being adopted, in what we regard as the very likely event that you are wrong, are quite literally catastrophic.
If this catastrophist is wrong, is he going to pay me back the money I lost out or are we going to head to another meander around the outer edges of his sanity on our buck?
What essentially this means is that he wants to buy a Chubb insurance policy when little to no insurance may be needed. He’s doing this in a unique way though, he wants to use our money.
Don’t mention clowns, JC. I have a phobia.
Yes, but we have to let them, not force western ideas down their throats. Let no-one be deluded: Maoism was a toxic combination of the worst of western culture and the worst of Chinese culture, and it took a lot of people a long time to put the genie back in the bottle. And the bottle has only been stoppered; the genie wasn’t destroyed.
SL:
The Chinese have as far as I can see made a pact with the devil. The devil (the regime) in this case will do all it can to give its people what they crave, which is an American lifestyle.. Specifically a southern Californian one. The rivers etc. can take go and get stuffed as far as they are concerned until such time as they are satisfied they’ve reached that point.
Perhaps in 20-30 years they reach the same conclusion the US did when parts of the lake system caught fire as they were throwing too much crap in there. At that point in time they may be rich enough to begin wanting to clean up the shit they’ve created for themselves like the US began to do under Nixon. However until such time nothing is going to stop them and to be honest I find it pretty reprehensible that anyone in the west ought to be dictating to them how they should live and do. It’s their rivers after all.
The other point about chest diseases that John brought up… on the whole their lifespans are increasing and everything has a trade off. On balance, despite these issues it’s far better for humanity to have a wealthier China than the opposite. That goes for every poor country too.
JC,
I think you might be missing the thrust of my argument. As SL stated, China is a potential powder keg, if the govt continues to refuse to address these problems it may find those problems will constitute sufficient cause for uprising. Additionally, the health costs will be enormous. If our health systems struggle with our popn levels, the situation for China is going to be far worse.
Possibly academic because China has already made a number of commitments to addressing these environmental issues.
I’m not arguing for progress to stop in China, I’m arguing that their particular situation, specifically their popn, will require they act sooner than we did. They are doing that now.
“I was going to make the point that when I eat vegetarian for a day or so, I get a lot more erm, gas, than normal”
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Me too — and the reason it happens to me is that I have really poor digestion of fructose (I know — I’ve been tested for it — this is apparently really common). I’m also allergic to soy. This means I don’t have a whole lot of diet options that don’t include meat.
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On that note, is it the case that birds fart and burp too? Or is eating birds environmentally friendly? That’s a serious question.
Exactly.
It’s more of a spectrum than a dichotomy, all this. I have a (not-very-strict, actually) vegetarian friend who always makes a huge point of making sure she feeds me meat at her house, as though the only possible other position from hers was to chow down on a T-bone every morning for breakfast. And I say, for the gazillionth time, ‘Look: it’s not that I eat meat, it’s that I don’t not eat meat.’
‘There’s a reason why so many vegetarian and vegan women cannot make the required body weight to donate blood.’
Or the haemoglobin level either, I should think.
Conrad, my hamster used to burp and hiccup. I wouldn’t be surprised if it farted too. I know my dog used to do terrible farts, and then sniff around at his bottom as if saying “who did that?”
But (seriously) I don’t recall seeing my budgie do these things. I guess birds evacuate everything at once from their cloaca. Who knows whether this includes methane?
I think that I really can’t eat much soy (and I’m serious). If I eat too much I get a stomach ache. Perhaps I have the same problem as you.
john@26 : No, cows/sheep/roos have bugs that digest cellulose… all cellulose does for us is keep our guts well exercised – which is a good thing, although it DOES slow down sugar absorption (and thus sugar rushes and less fat synthesis).
The /real/ farts come from high-energy things we can’t digest… think lactose intolerance, or those “no-calorie” sugars (often left-handed) that we can’t metabolise but some bugs can.
Mind you, as a general rule, rear-end outputs of both varieties overall are big on volume for vegos, but lower on stench.
Update: the answer to whether birds fart is almost definitely no according to this Birding Blog. Sounds like they produce a lot less gas too. Gee the internet is a marvellous thing.
Who feels like some Peking Duck?
Although someone in the comments reckoned they heard a kiwi fart (the bird, not the nationality or the fruit).
LE, you are an eagle. Surely you already know whether birds fart.
This is very funny. Just sayin.
PC, I’m far too much of a lady to admit it if I do.
Gut bacteria and Colon Cancer protection:
The anti-cancer effect of probiotic Bacillus polyfermenticus on human colon cancer cells is mediated through ErbB2 and ErbB3 inhibition.
Ma EL, Choi YJ, Choi J, Pothoulakis C, Rhee SH, Im E.
Inflammatory Bowel Disease Center, Division of Digestive Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
A wealth of data implicates that ErbB receptors have essential roles in tumor development. Probiotic bacteria are known to exert an anti-cancer activity in animal studies. Bacillus polyfermenticus (B.P.), a probiotic bacterium, has been clinically used for a variety of gastrointestinal disorders in East Asia. Here we investigated the effect of B.P. on the growth of tumors and its putative mechanism of actions. Conditioned medium of B.P. cultures (B.P. CM) inhibited the growth of human colon cancer cells including HT-29, DLD-1 and Caco-2 cells. Moreover, B.P. CM suppressed colony formation of HT-29 cells cultured on soft agar and reduced carcinogen-induced colony formation of normal colonocytes. Furthermore, data from the mouse xenograft model of human colon cancer cells showed reduced tumor size in B.P. CM-injected mice when compared to E.coli conditioned medium-injected mice. Exposure of B.P. CM to HT-29 cells for 24 h, 48 h and 2 weeks reduced ErbB2 and ErbB3 protein expression as well as mRNA levels. Moreover, cyclin D1 expression which is required for ErbB-dependent cell transformation was decreased by B.P. CM. Furthermore, transcription factor E2F-1 which regulates cyclin D1 expression was also decreased by B.P. CM. These results show that B.P. inhibits tumor growth and its anti-cancer activity occurs, at least in part, through suppressing ErbB2 and ErbB3. Taken together, our study suggests that this probiotic may be clinically used as a prophylactic treatment to prevent colon cancer development. (c) 2009 UICC.
PMID: 19876926 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
I love it, John. Someone, somewhere, has come up with a paper on it. Absolute pure gold.
sl,
Yes, climate change could be a lot worse than the cultural revolution. equally locally catastrophic, but the consequences will be global and last for centuries. Read the ipcc report.
as for jc, one of the basic tenets of risk management is that it is worth paying substantial premiums to mitigate low probability, but high impact risks.
Robert, that is a huge claim (I’d be interested to hear what our resident Chinese people on this blog have to say; there are 3 of them of which I’m aware). I don’t think it’s sustainable by recourse to the IPCC report (which I have read, by the way — I’m not an AGW skeptic, unlike some others).
In addition to abusing people that disagree with you, right, Robert?
Actually it’s not worth paying substantial premiums for the tails. In fact in options markets, deep out of the money puts and calls are always the cheapest per dollar contracts for the simple reason that they are the least likely outcomes. It simply doesn’t make sense.
The reason it doesn’t make sense is that you’re desperately attempting to make a least likely event appear more likely then it is. As an aside when people try and place an unrealistic value on a derivatives book, they end up going to jail. Do that in climate science and you end up with a knighthood.
Here’s the thing Robert, I’m quite happy to use the IPCC report 2degs expected possible rise global temps this century. Are you? It doesn’t appear that you are and therefore you’re equally outside the bounds of science… in fact the mirror tail of the sceptics.
I think you’re peddling another variation of the precautionary principle dressed like a movie starlet.
jc on risk management: “In fact in options markets, deep out of the money puts and calls are always the cheapest per dollar contracts”
Yeeeeesss.
Robert and other AS 4360 lovers come from a domain where the disasters bite those responsible.
Here’s the other thing if you’re so concerned with the tails, Robert.
If the tails are so concerning for you, your real beef (no pun intended) ought to be with the anti-science crowd you seem to hang around with that seem to think nuclear energy = a nuclear bomb that could explode at any moment.
Nuclear energy has to be the only way forward to achieve zero emissions, not to reduce them but to eliminate the core of emissions, such as energy production and transport, which together form around 86% of global emissions.
Tying people in knots about the food they eat is simply ridiculous and actually borders on misanthropic, seeing that we know where the vast, vast bulk of emissions derive. The rest (14%) is a mopping up operation over a longer period of time. That’s the sort of number only a cost accountant schlep would be worried about and we know what weight cost accountants carry in any enterprise. Zilch.
So the problem is far easier solved over a period of 20 to 30 years than the concern about AGW if we apply decent thinking. In other words AGW is actually not a huge problem to solve as nuclear power with 3rd and soon 4th generation reactors coming on stream would simply end emissions issues and give us all the power we need and then some as modern industrialized civilization cannot exist without huge amounts of energy.
Paradoxically the people that would support nuclear power would be the skeptics almost to a man and the people that are the anti-science seem to reside on your side of the fence. Amusingly the people you therefore ought to be abusing are those schleps that have some emotional breakdown whenever nuke is mentioned.
As for the ETS. It’s bust. Without Nuclear in the suite of options it’s a pathetic bust. We would be better off simply offering 20-year tax holidays to nuclear operators and forgetting about this ridiculous policy.
Here’s the thing Robert, I want to not only reduce emissions, but eliminate them entirely for at least 86% while the rest can be mopped up over the century through such things as reforestation to allow us to eat the food we choose without food Nazis telling us we’re destroying the planet. Who knows over this time various nano technologies could be introduced that squeeze out the last vestiges of the carbon we emit.
Where exactly do you sit with this and why aren’t you abusing the anti-science types like the present government that refuses to entertain nuclear in order to assuage their ridiculous emotionally laden constituency.
moderation… sorry…
Dave:
Robert and other AS 4360 lovers come from a domain where the disasters bite those responsible.
Sorry dave, you want to expand a little on that?
Sorry JC just had to let people out of the spammer. Now LE has gone to bed and I’ve got work to do/errands to run over here, so play nice or… the cutting tool will come out on my return. DEM may be along later this afternoon but AFAIK she is still at work (yes we are 10 hours behind over here).
I’ll play nice. I always do, you know that.
I will… cut out anything you don’t like if you want SL. No problems with that.
To quote Uhura from Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country… “well the thing’s gotta have a tail pipe!”.
Oh and Jacques, I have some bad news about that vat grown meat… Soylent Green is people. We actually already have commercially available, vat-grown protein/meat-substitute called Quorn which you can buy in any British supermarket.
jc, i have argued repeatedly and loudly on larvatus prodeo and elsewhere that unpopular technologies like nuclear power will have to be part of the toolbox to deal with this issue.
Robert:
For the industrialized West and the industrializing parts of the world, Nuclear won’t be/shouldn’t be “part of the toolbox” it will and the only part. Quite simply sticking a propeller on a stick or a magnifying glass on a panel isn’t going to cut it. You’re an engineer and you know that.
Can you think of one scpetic that wouldn’t support nuclear? I can’t. So the real beef is with the anti-science environmentalists that somehow manage to equate nuclear reactors with all sorts of silly things.
Cut the drama queen act, JC. Plenty of Greenies are happy to look at the nuclear option, we’ve had a seismic shift in that regard over the past few years. I’m greener than a snow pea but I’ve always maintained that nuclear power should be an option provided it doesn’t rely on government tilting the playing field, for example caps on insurance claims or government organised insurance.
In any event nuclear has always been overhyped, as RMI continually point out, see here for example: http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
One of Big Nuke’s claims is that it can reliably churn out baseload power. Even that turns out to be a myth:
” Of all 132 U.S. nuclear plants built (52 percent of the 253 originally ordered), 21 percent were permanently and prematurely closed due to reliability or cost problems, while another 27 percent have completely failed for a year or more at least once. Even reliably operating nuclear plants must shut down, on average, for 39 days every 17 months for refueling and maintenance. To cope with such intermittence in the operation of both nuclear and centralized fossil-fueled power plants, which typically fail about 8 percent of the time, utilities must install a roughly 15 percent “reserve margin” of extra capacity, some of which must be continuously fueled, spinning ready for instant use. Heavily nuclear-dependent regions are particularly at risk because drought, a serious safety problem, or a terrorist incident could close many plants simultaneously.
Nuclear plants have an additional disadvantage: for safety, they must instantly shut down in a power failure, but for nuclear-physics reasons, they can’t then be quickly restarted. During the August 2003 Northeast blackout, nine perfectly operating U.S. nuclear units had to shut down. Twelve days of painfully slow restart later, their average capacity loss had exceeded 50 percent. For the first three days, just when they were most needed, their output was below 3 percent of normal. The big transmission lines that highly concentrated nuclear plants require are also vulnerable to lightning, ice storms, rifle bullets, and other interruptions. The bigger our power plants and power lines get, the more frequent and widespread regional blackouts will become. Because 98–99 percent of power failures start in the grid, it’s more reliable to bypass the grid by shifting to efficiently used, diverse, dispersed resources sited at or near the customer. Also, a portfolio of many smaller units is unlikely to fail all at once: its diversity makes it especially reliable even if its individual units are not.”
jc/mel: What is telling is the lobbying by denialists/skeptics for nuclear, on the basis that nuclear is necessary.
And it’s not just whether governments underwrite nuclear, it’s the total reactor lifecycle emissions accounting.
Personally, I’m partial to microreactors if nuclear is necessary, but of course, this doesn’t suit the large generation/distribution consortia, because they are cheap enough for individual town councils to buy and operate.
BTW: uranium supplies at 50% of current per capita use in the US when applied per capita to the current world population would only last 50 years approx anyway.
But whether we are talking emissions or resource availability, it’s population that is the main determinant of the problem and amelioration… but even the masses making noise about climate change don’t want to face the fact that the biggest difference they can make is have only one or no kids. (Hmmmm. Catholicism!)
Mel:
France has been operating with nuke, producing 75% of its energy, selling surplus to surrounding countries.
Sweden is in the same camp.
The US produces 25% of its energy with nuke. To suggest that nuclear power’s reliability is questionable is the myth, not the other way around.
Lastly, your promoting propaganda as nuclear plant installation stalled after the mid 70s in the US due to hissy fits and brazen dishonesty from environmentalists so the reactors there are essentially 3o years old.
No one is suggesting we install 60s nuclear technology here, Mel.
For further study you ought to perhaps visit Barry Brooks site to get you up to scratch on nuke as he’s doing a good job of promoting a reliable source of energy.
Dave:
I think the skeptics wish this whole thing went away and or some detest the economic damage the stupidly thought ETS is going to do.
I think the micro reactors that are coming on the market appear terrific.
I wouldn’t be too worried about the current supplies of Uranium as I’m sure lots more will be found and 4th generation reactors promise to use a fraction of what old style reactors do while leaving a small trace of waste compared to the older style that Mel seems to be focusing on.
I wouldn’t worry about population. As people get richer they have less kids. China for instance is a ticking time bomb and has possibly the worst demographics of any large nation. By 2050 it will be a nation of old geezers with the overall population falling off a cliff and halving by 2100. Those are horrendous stats in way.
Wrong again JC:
“In its first half-century, nuclear power fell short of its forecast capacity by about 12-fold in the U.S. and 30-fold worldwide, mainly because building it cost severalfold more than expected, straining or bankrupting its owners. The many causes weren’t dominated by U.S. citizen interventions and lawsuits, since nuclear expectations collapsed similarly in countries without such events; even France suffered a 3.5-fold rise in real capital costs during 1970–2000. Nor did the Three Mile Island accident halt U.S. orders: they’d stopped the previous year. Rather, nuclear’s key challenge was soaring capital cost, and for some units, poor performance. ….
[A] 2003 MIT study found new U.S. nuclear plants couldn’t compete with new
coal- or gas-fired plants. Over the next five years, nuclear construction costs about tripled ….
http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/2009-10_NuclearNonsense.pdf
Nuclear always needs Government mollycoddling to get off the ground. As you’ve said repeatedly, France is a hardline socialist country.
Mel:
I don’t know what you’re trying to say here, as it doesn’t seem relevant to the discussion.
It’s not a shock nuke is more expensive energy to produce than coal or at one stage oil fired plants (the US was using).
The question is that if we place a price on carbon what is next in line in terms of economic efficiency and utility. It’s also the question to ask if you want to eliminate carbon emissions entirely.
So bringing up stuff going back a few decades isn’t that relevant. We want to get rid of emissions. Not reduce them, but eliminate them once and for all.
I’m pleased you’ve come around to nuke as we used to have pretty big arguments in the past if I recall with you taking the side of no nukes. But lets leave the past behind.
You mention that nuke power has to be molly coddled by the government. That’s been true in the past, however I would also ask you to take into account the billions wasted on other alternatives such as solar which has been on perpetual promising technology for the past 50 years. Every single alternative could not exist in the open market without huge subsidies. I’m not against these technologies but I’m a little skeptical now and would prefer to see it before I believe it.
I would also add that I’m not suggesting that we simply take up one source however there’s no way in hell that the ETS will work without nuke in the mix. You can take that as a given. Clean coal? Despite what the rent seekers are saying that’s 20 years away from the possibility of commercial adaptation.
As for France… Yes you are quite correct in pointing that the decision was primarily statist, which was made in the 70s to remove itself from reliance on energy importation etc and also national security reasons. However that decision has sort of put them in the driver’s seat now.
However, the question now is do we want to eliminate emissions and which is the best way forward?
Countries like France and Sweden, Japan and to a lessor extent the US are living labs that nuke can work. Mind you I’m suggesting our take up ought to be 3rd generation and the promising 4th generation reactors which are a technological marvel by the sounds of things, so it seems your link is a little out of date. You do seem to have issues with links, don’t you?
I am personally anti-nuclear for the simple reason that we have yet to settle the waste issue. It’s incredibly dangerous and polluting with a half-life measured in thousands of years. (Dumping it in a hole somewhere is NOT making it safe, it’s deferring the problem.) Until we have the technology to make it safe then there’s no way I can support a nuclear in good conscience. I’d rather take the hit in lifestyle.
The fact that the French ‘picked a winner’ in the 70s is neither here nor there. Sometimes states (and large industries) can pick winners. Sometimes they pick things that go tits up. Fact of life. The point is we now have the French example and should be learning from them (not everything will have been perfect, either — it never is for early adopters). No doubt we can learn from their mistakes.
I’d rather use nuclear energy and not take a hit to my lifestyle. But, I can understand why some might be concerned about the side effects of nuclear reactors.
I like meat. It tastes good. And it’s often funner and more challenging to cook than veggies alone. I like both.
Deux:
The newer generation of reactors use much less fuel and the waste has a 1/2 life of around 300 years.
I implore you to read Barry Brooks website and get up to scratch as his site is easy to navigate. He’s a professor of climate change at Adelaide university and his green credentials are impeccable.
As I wrote (in a long winded way) in an article called Marx and meat on my blog I think the immediate question is the inhuman way capitalism treats animals for our consumption. The longer term question of eating meat is something people after the revolution can determine.
SL says:
“The point is we now have the French example and should be learning from them (not everything will have been perfect, either — it never is for early adopters). No doubt we can learn from their mistakes.”
Sigh. The French example would have been impossible without statism.
Nuclear programs never get up anywhere without statism. If you have so much as a single example that contradicts this claim by all means fill me in as I would love to be proved wrong.
What’s the signing and yawning about, Mel. If you’re not getting a good nights sleep go and see your doc.
Read what SL said:
There’s nothing to say statism can’t stumble on something workable. I would argue that events have led us that way, but that’s another matter.
Is the introduction of nuke an act of statism? Well yea, however the degree also depends on how it is implemented.
it would also be worthwhile also taking into account just how much statism renewables and this pathetic ETS has and will require.
Sigh.
It appears that egotistical man has descended to a realm where raising the moral issue of livestock cruelty and a call to mercy is only propagated by nutters.
The science is established on the environmentally destructive methods of raising cloven hooved animals for consumption – particularly in Australia. Acres and acres of precious land is used to grow crops to feed food animals which are force-fed pharmaceuticals which humans are also consuming through the food chain.
Industrialised factory farms are an abomination but we lemmings remain indifferent, despite the fact that some 70 percent of diseases afflicting humans are now of zoonotic origin. The animals are fighting back. So be it.
Take a few minutes to view the footage on the link provided. Then one must ask which species is the most destructive of all – which species is the most feral? Hmmmmm?:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIjanhKqVC4&feature=related
#14 Bling Bling:
“Are we or are we not, by natural selection, carnivores? Hve I missed something.”
Perhaps so Bling Bling for natural selection has not provided homo sapien with the teeth and the claws to rip the flesh from its prey or to chew and digest the bones from a carcass.
Homo sapien lacks the athletic ability to run an animal down and he also lacks the digestive system in which to quickly eliminate the decaying flesh of an animal, a result of his extraordinarily lengthy intestine.
If homo sapien was meant to obtain protein from animal flesh, why is the powerfully built gorilla a herbivore?
Flower:’
How about you eat what you like and people eat what they choose. That way everyone should be happy and perhaps guilt free.
JC @ 71, amen to that.
#71, 72
“How about you eat what you like and people eat what they choose. That way everyone should be happy and perhaps guilt free.”
But of course gentlemen – it’s still a “free” country isn’t it? Even for the guilt free denialists. And I daresay the Big Ag. shills would delight in your comments.
“Think occasionally of the suffering of which you spare yourselves.”
LOL, what makes you assume I’m a gentleman?
Flower:
I’m not denying anything about the potential pain we are causing sentient creatures……. and those less so like chickens and fish.
However you’d do yourself a great favor in trying to convert people to your way of thinking by not couching this in a leftist-ridden way and you may find yourself getting better response.
“Big Ag” as you call it has been a god-send to the world in being able to help us find ways to improve our productivity on the land. Large-scale farming in all its forms whether its finding ways to produce more soy or corn and new farming methods such as the introduction of the tractor has helped feed the world with cheap food. This is a god-send. We can only do this with large-scale farming where we’re able to get comparatively huge production per acre through economies of scale. So “big- Ag” isn’t a demon and in fact is possibly a saint.
What you need to do is not demonize commercial enterprise in your endeavor to persuade people to your way of thinking about animals and why we should not be cruel to them. There are plenty of people who are doing this without feeling the need to demonize large agricultural concerns.
Why don’t you try something different then? Try to persuade people rather than demonize and perhaps you could find them moving to your way of thinking about animal cruelty and why it’s wrong.
Big ag is not evil and those that say such a thing are ignorant twats.
Linky please, JC? That site is massive.
Hey… then there’s this ruling… ‘green’ may be the new Catholic. Money quote:
Hi Deus:
I got it from Here, but can’t recall which thread.
http://bravenewclimate.com/
read this thread as it’s a good intro.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/16/ifr-spm/
and then this one about energy demand in 2050
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/10/11/tcase3/
I can’t even understand what the argument is about nuclear and whay there are naysayers. I also can’t even figure what all the fuss is about in terms of switching over to nuke to eliminate emissions and why there are all these arguments between skeptics and those that are concerned.
With the 3rd generation reactors and the 4th generation you’d even support the adoption from a technology point of view without emissions coming into it as they seem unquestionably the right choice. These things are amazing.
There simply shouldn’t be any arguments between skeptics and those concerned with emissions when we have virtually limitless supply of nuke energy.
Renewables don’t even enter the picture and further subsidies to these sectors simply discarded.
Some of the smaller reactors can virtually be buried, have a line extended out and they would operate for a decade or so without have to go underground providing energy to small regional cities.
All we need is governments allowing these things to be built and avoid stupid move to these cap and trade systems.
Seriously, why are we even arguing any more?
“I also can’t even figure what all the fuss is about in terms of switching over to nuke to eliminate emissions and why there are all these arguments between skeptics and those that are concerned.”
.
Even if it was more expensive, I’m sure in many places of the world where smog really is a problem, some people (like me) would prefer it over coal anyway. I think many people in Aus don’t realize this because our smog problems are miniscule compared to most places in Asia.
#75 JC:
“Big ag is not evil and those that say such a thing are ignorant twats.”
JC – You’d do yourself a great favour by not labeling other posters for I am not left, not right but forward and frankly, I care not what other people’s food choices are since I personally adhere to the old adage that “you are what you eat.”
Your feeble attempt to slay the messenger is noted by the red herring you threw in to construct an image of a benevolently beneficial factory farming industry. The scientific facts reveal that far from benign, factory farms are responsible for a massive amount of environmental damage.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has identified a number of pollutants associated with the discharge of animal waste into rivers and lakes, and into the air. The use of antibiotics have created antibiotic-resistant pathogens; parasites, bacteria, and viruses which may be spread; ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus can reduce oxygen in surface waters and contaminate drinking water.
“Pesticides and hormones may cause hormone-related changes in fish (as seen in Australia’s two-headed fish); animal feed and feathers may stunt the growth of desirable plants in surface waters and provide nutrients to disease-causing micro-organisms; trace elements such as arsenic and copper, which are harmful to human health, may contaminate surface waters. ”
MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
Naturally I am aware that you cannot give “ignorant twats” more information than they are prepared to receive. Alas, these “ignorant twats” to whom you refer, lack the ability to comprehend or even acknowledge the most basic scientific literature on environmental and medical toxicology.
“Seriously, why are we even arguing any more?”
Because anyone with a brain larger than a thimble knows that from day one the nuclear industry and its spruikers have promised much but delivered very little.
I’ve digged a little deeper on the situation in France because several people mention it above. France suffers the typical supply/demand problems associated with nuclear. This had led to artificial demand creation such that France has significantly higher per capita energy consumption than comparable countries like Germany. France is also forced to offload excess capacity at below cost from time to time. Why would anyone hold this up as a desired model?
I also found this observation from this year interesting because it demonstrates how the spruikers’ Golden Haired Boy is just the same today as it was 50 years ago-
“The depth of the rot is revealed by the [nuclear] industry’s flagship Finnish project, led by France’s top builder: after three years’ construction, it’s at least three years behind schedule and 50% over budget.”
http://www.rmi.org/images/PDFs/Energy/E09-01_NuclPwrClimFixFolly1i09.pdf
Over budget, over time, riddled with technical difficulties and in need of Big Government TLC is the only constant with nuclear energy.
Oh FFS it’s not always easy being a lefty.
“Perhaps so Bling Bling for natural selection has not provided homo sapien with the teeth and the claws to rip the flesh from its prey or to chew and digest the bones from a carcass. ”
We have compromise teeth – the ones half way back will tear any meat from any carcass- and have used tools for millions of years (via our predecessors).
“Homo sapien lacks the athletic ability to run an animal down”
Slackarse postmodern homo sapiens has lost such ability but it is definitely there, this is with respect a bit ignorant and ethnocentric:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persistence_hunting
=Among primates endurance running is only seen in humans, and persistence hunting is thought to have been one of the earliest forms of human hunting, having evolved 2 million years ago.=
“and he also lacks the digestive system in which to quickly eliminate the decaying flesh of an animal, a result of his extraordinarily lengthy intestine.”
Again my understanding is we’ve evolved a compromise system, one that demonstrably manages the task.
Further isn’t the fact that we’ve lost the ability to produce certain aminos (such as BCAAs etc, no?) reflective of the fact that we obtain them through meat, and have done for a long time?
“If homo sapien was meant to obtain protein from animal flesh, why is the powerfully built gorilla a herbivore?”
Why is an Elephant bigger than a Cheetah?
I suspect (perhaps this is a sad thing) that going on Chimp behaviour, which we are likely to be closer to, that we have more cunning and aggression and that’s what gets us by. Gorillas probably use most of their size to protect themselves, and or in battles based on natural selection.
I think there’s a case to be made for reducing meat intake, from an environmental point of view, and for making that which we do eat come from relatively ‘humane’ origins.
But for people like me who will never stop eating meat completely, a more selective approach to argument advancement is likely to be more persuasive.
With respect.
Because anyone with a brain larger than a thimble knows that from day one the nuclear industry and its spruikers have promised much but delivered very little.
As against the solar panel spruikers that have been on a perpetual “we’re almost there” for the past 40 years eating up government subsidies like a pac man machine? ……..Or say the propeller on a stick spruikers? Please.
I’ve digged a little deeper on the situation in France because several people mention it above.
Last time you dug a little deeper you ended up giving us The Rocky Mountain “Institute” as an authority on nuke when in fact they’re anti-nuke and a huge spruiker of solar and propellers on stilts. So please enough of your digging deeper.
France suffers the typical supply/demand problems associated with nuclear.
Like what exactly. Expand a little.
This had led to artificial demand creation such that France has significantly higher per capita energy consumption than comparable countries like Germany.
You really need to explain this sentence. What is exactly is the point of saying that France has a higher energy per capita consumption than Germany? So what?
France is also forced to offload excess capacity at below cost from time to time.
Mel, selling “below cost” can be caused by countless permutations so trying to turn this into an argument against nuke is silly. Energy production is basically a probability gamble and the game/business is matching future short-term production with forecast short-term demand. Screw that up and you can end up with shortages or surpluses. That’s why there are different returns on capital and stock prices differences between the producers amongst other things. They really need to be good at their bets.
You also don’t know what the French government requirements in terms of this specific point. Government regulation could be so that it requires the plants to always overwork their probability estimates so they don’t come up short. So selling their surplus “below cost” has really no meaning in your suggestion that nuke isn’t what it’s racked up to be. In any event Electicite De France (EDF) is actually quite profitable so I wouldn’t worry too much. EDF trades on a multiple of 20 times earnings, which is around 30% more than the rest of the Frog stock market.
Are reactors generally pretty good are responding to baseload? Yep and the newer models are even far superior than the French plants which by and large are 15-20 years old.
Why would anyone hold this up as a desired model?
That the plants produce surpluses? Possibly as you don’t really want to plants to be cutting to the edge and produce a shortage. It all depends on how close to the edge of a government approved probability curve you allow the plants to work.
I also found this observation from this year interesting because it demonstrates how the spruikers’ Golden Haired Boy is just the same today as it was 50 years ago-
“The depth of the rot is revealed by the [nuclear] industry’s flagship Finnish project, led by France’s top builder: after three years’ construction, it’s at least three years behind schedule and 50% over budget.”
The more political intervention in the construction of a plant as the building process begins the more the costs associated with the end cost. It’s like building a home and through the middle of the process the owner comes up with changes to the plan and the cost overruns the original cost. Here’s the secret with any construction. Don’t ever make changes during the construction process, as it will end up costing you a boatload. Decide on a plan and go with it.
Over budget, over time, riddled with technical difficulties and in need of Big Government TLC is the only constant with nuclear energy.
Mel, there’s no libertarian in the world who doesn’t realise that there will be heavy government intervention in the energy markets. We can hope there isn’t, but reality is that there will be. So from this the libertarian will ask what is the best possible way going forward that’s least economically damaging with reduced economic interference from the government.
Installing 15 nuclear plants here (with gas propelled turbines in case of emergency pick up) and say allowing a 20year tax-free holiday to the operators is certainly better than alternatives of subsidizing the solar and wind rackets and putting forward an ETS that is hugely damaging in the distortions that it creates and the rent seekers it will attract.
Mel nuke is great, please don’t be scared.
“a bit ignorant and ethnocentric:”
On reflection, unnecessarily ad hominim and a bit rude, I withdraw. I’m no expert, we’re all learning. Peace.
Armagny, I was thinking of the teeth argument too – clearly our teeth are adapted to both tearing meat and to chewing vegetables.
Also, I understand that chimpanzees do eat meat on occasion. Certainly, they use tools to extract insects from nests to eat them.
““Perhaps so Bling Bling for natural selection has not provided homo sapien with the teeth and the claws to rip the flesh from its prey or to chew and digest the bones from a carcass. ””
Yup, arguments like this are dishonest and worthless alright. Humans have no problems digesting meat yet we are unable to digest 99.99% of the leaves, grasses and other plant materials that most herbivores consume. We now know that many of the plants eaten by our ancestors tasted like shit (things like fern roots) and required laborious processing to remove toxins (like cycad seeds).
The plants that form the basis of the modern vegetarian’s diet are all artificially bred. There is nothing even remotely natural about such a diet.
Armagny, your points were perfectly civil; please don’t apologize!
Flower:
The scientific facts reveal that far from benign, factory farms are responsible for a massive amount of environmental damage.
Does agricultural production have an effect on the environment and in some cases adversely so?
Of course it does. This is what trade offs are all about.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “has identified a number of pollutants associated with the discharge of animal waste into rivers and lakes, and into the air. The use of antibiotics have created antibiotic-resistant pathogens; parasites, bacteria, and viruses which may be spread; ammonia, nitrogen, and phosphorus can reduce oxygen in surface waters and contaminate drinking water.
Well, i can imagine all of that, but exactly is your point?
Cheap food production has been a miracle in terms of feeding people. Turning this into a sin instead of a miracle really takes some doing.
MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria is now killing more Americans each year than AIDS — 100,000 infections leading to 19,000 deaths in 2005, according to estimates in The Journal of the American Medical Association.
And how is this point related to eating a juicy burger with the lot?
Look, longevity tables are looking fine. you can read things that scare you 1/2 to death but in he big picture our species is doing fine for the most part.
And how is this point related to eating a juicy burger with the lot?
The point is this JC. There is a clear relationship between various types of chronic conditions and exposure to various pollutants. Thus cancer rates are steadily rising, even in children, there is a huge increase in various immunological disorders, and there are any number of studies now showing that humans are being increasingly exposed to pollutants that have the potential to harm.
The data is unequivocal the problem is what to do about it. We don’t need to go reckless and try to return to a pollution free scenario. That is impossible and pointless. We do most definitely need to recognise these as emerging problems that have serious public health implications and choosing to ignore these risks is not only anti-science it is anti-common sense.
John:
What am I missing here? Life in the west has never been longer, happier (yes) and richer. Are there some trade offs that need to be made and acknowledged? Of course there are. I haven’t yet seen evidence that medicine is by and large hitting a brick wall. In fact life spans are increasing at the rate of 1 year every 5 years we move on in time.
The point is that we can’t sit down and say to ourselves that we have solved all the illnesses humans are and will experience as that won’t happen. We’ll simply go on trying to defeat the odds that nature places in out pathway.
In the old days huge numbers of people were dying of typhus. These days several thousand may unfortunately be dying or carrying illness of the modern age. However by and large human life has got better for us and will continue to.
JC,
You go the doctor and are advised your cholesterol level is elevated. Do you ignore that fact and just keep on keeping on or do you try and address a biomarker that at present is not symptomatic but all the evidence indicates it is a risk? (I imagine you would do something but I’m old enough not to care! Besides, post 70 years slightly elevated cholesterol might even be a good thing.)
The situation is the same here. There are risks apparent and we will need to address these. Canaries in the gold mine dude. At present the problem is not that severe but if we choose to just keep treating the environment like a garbage dump of course it is going to come back and bight us. There are now many examples of toxins that have been removed from the market because of the dangers and their prevalence in the environment.
We don’t need to turn the world upside, we don’t need to go back to horse and buggy, but we need to be realistic about the ongoing environmental contamination. I’d rather not wait for rivers to catch on fire.
PS: Trust things are improving re your child.
#86 Melaleuca
1. ““Perhaps so Bling Bling for natural selection has not provided homo sapiens with the teeth and the claws to rip the flesh from its prey or to chew and digest the bones from a carcass. ”
“Yup, arguments like this are dishonest and worthless alright.”
And I daresay your argument Melaleuca is derived from the annals of the “ignorant twats” whose members, astonishingly, JC associates with those who oppose factory farming !
Now he enquires “how is the point related to eating a juicy burger with the lot,” when I referred to MRSA, the antibiotic-resistant strain of Staphylococcus bacteria.
This is question is also most surprising from one who confidently offers an “expert” opinion on factory farming when in fact up to 70 percent of all antibiotics in Australia and the US are administered to food animals.
However, I suspect the animals in the following footage are beyond the help of any antibiotic and have now had their throats cut, their final resting place on someone’s dinner plate – minus the maggots and gaping sores of course!:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120122116182915297.html
On the matter of human teeth, our dentition evolved for processing starches, fruits, and vegetables, not tearing and masticating flesh. Our oft-cited “canine” are not at all comparable to the sharp teeth of true carnivores.
If you have any doubt of the truth of this observation then go look in the mirror – you may have learned to call your 4 corner front teeth, “canine teeth” – but in no way do they resemble the sharp, jagged, blades of a true carnivore – your corner teeth are short, blunted, and flat on top (or slightly rounded at most). Nor do they ever function in the manner of true canine teeth.
From our lips to our anus our digestive system has evolved to efficiently process plant foods. Digestion begins in the mouth with a salivary enzyme, called alpha-amylase (ptyalin), whose sole purpose is to help digest complex carbohydrates found in plant foods into simple sugars.
There are no carbohydrates in meats of any kind (except for a smidgen of glycogen), so a true carnivore has no need for this enzyme – their salivary glands do not synthesize alpha amylase.
And on a happy note, there are many meat eaters who also object to the abuse of food animals – though I see few of them on this thread.
Alas, with such public outcry elsewhere, Meat and Livestock Australia are afraid – very afraid and are flat out promoting the product of their instruments of torture.
After all when knuckle draggers are consumed with human greed and empire building, why should they be concerned with the trivialities of animal abuse – a mere peccadillo!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=mJEQToveb_s&feature=related
Whoops – wrong link in previous post – apologies:
http://www.australianpigfarmers.com.au/archives
Well no, they’re not improving at all,John , unfort. but thanks for asking
I’m trying to be difficult here as I always enjoy our exchanges, but I can’t see where the huge problem with environmental degradation is in the places like Australia and say the US.
People really need to understand that there are trade offs which is what I’m trying to hammer home.
People really need to understand that there are trade offs which is what I’m trying to hammer home.
JC, I accept the trade offs. Not the issue. What I’m arguing is that we keep a careful eye on things and be ready to address these issues as it becomes obvious that individuals are being impacted because of the same. This is particularly relevant now because recent studies are highlighting that many “safety thresholds” for exposure are too high. As I say to people, as a general rule, perceive a “safety threshold” as the limit at where we can detect damage.
Take lead for example. There is an argument going around that the decrease in crime rates in some USA areas is in part a result of reduced lead levels in urban environments. Lead “safety thresholds” have been markedly lowered over recent years and lead contamination in childhood not only can induce significant IQ issues but also behavioral issues.
Doesn’t this type of issue represent a problem to you? We are advised to eat oily fish but need to be careful about what types of fish and how often because so many fish species now carry high toxin load.
Yeah dammit, insomnia again … .
We’re not carnivores we’re omnivores and everyone knows we’re primarily designed to eat veggies, that doesn’t mean we aren’t designed to eat some meat. I don’t think any of my points were addressed at all so I’ll wander on…
#96 Amagny:
” I don’t think any of my points were addressed at all so I’ll wander on…”
Aw…….quit ya sookin’ Amagny- nor were my points acknowledged – predominantly because this forum is for the human club of “me, mine and myself.”
And who was it who said: “it’s the economy stoopid?” Or should that be “tradeoff?”
And may their Gods forgive them!
“The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy”
http://www.curledup.com/domianim.htm
Hasta la vista!
No, good comments Armagny. You made some decent points.
Flower @ 97, Armagny did try to address your points and to point out where there are clear arguments to the contrary. The point is that there’s shades of grey. Okay, maybe there’s not for someone like you, but for most people, there’s a middle ground between doing what you want and looking after the environment, animals etc.
What happens if you get a cockroach infestation in your house? Do you just let the cockroaches roam free? I’m willing to bet that you don’t. If you do, I’d rather not eat at your place.
For the record, personally, I support the idea that farming methods should be as humane as possible. And I’d be prepared to cut down on meat – in fact, my husband and I did so a few years ago. We generally buy free range stuff too.
But the thing is that it’s not even worth discussing the issue a person who is as black and white as you are. I’m prepared to concede that we should farm animals responsibly and take care of the environment when doing so. You’re not prepared to concede a thing. As far as you’re concerned, it’s bad, there are no positives about my point of view, and until unless a person believes exactly as you do, they are wrong and bad.
It doesn’t matter how many guilt-tripping books and videos and photos you point me to. I’ve read or seen it all before, believe me. As I said in my post, I have thought about these issues. But I just happened to have responded differently to these things to you. You can say that I’m wrong and cruel and selfish all you like. As far as I’m concerned, we’re all cruel and selfish in some way or another in the way we interact with our natural environment and the animal world (think about what you’d do about those cockroaches above). You’ve chosen to minimise your impact in a particular way, others chose differently.
As a matter of argumentative technique, I don’t find the “you’re wrong, cruel and selfish” argument to be a particularly effective one. (Really I think that’s about making yourself feel good about your choice, not persuading me). If you want to persuade people, you do far better if you engage with them and come to a compromise, rather than just say that they are wrong over and over and over.
#99 Legal Eagle
“Flower @ 97, Armagny did try to address your points and to point out where there are clear arguments to the contrary.”
With respect Legal Eagle – that point was raised by Bling bling , not me: “ Are we or are we not, by natural selection, carnivores? Have I missed something.”
The issue I have raised is animal abuse which, throughout a hundred posts, has not been acknowledged but we do have a few grim reapers here who prefer to cherry pick!
Now we have the moderator throwing in the red herring of cockroaches. If a cockroach invades my house, or threatens my health, I step on it – instant death, which is a far more humane than an Australian rouseabout incarcerating a bellowing cow in a steel crush and hacking off its ovaries.
Behold – in post 99, you finally alluded to animal abuse. I would advise those (including yourself) who condescend to criticize my “argumentative technique” that I am not here to make an impression but to provide information so perhaps you all need to take your hand off it.
And what a revelation Legal Eagle that you have seen all the footage before. So what are you doing about it while you raise a thread to criticize those who have become vegetarians (which I am not) for the very reasons I have raised?
Perhaps you could do your bit for the environment and the hapless food animals by becoming a member of the Barristers’ Animal Welfare Panel, a Victorian Bar committee which, I believe, comprises of 90 Victorian barristers including 25 silks.
You might even manage to make a buck or two representing a few of the animal abusers.
Flower:
You really are a pretentious, moralizing, sermonizing git and you would not convince anyone with your attitude, in fact you would turn people further away.
First it was the big bad corporations and then we find we’re not worthy of you.
Seriously, get lost with your attitude. We’ll eat what we want to eat and that’s just the way it is, you grandstanding, know-nothing git.
Flower,
Your arguments are dreary and unconvincing. Most farmed animals live the lives of kings. A farmed sheep, such as those across the road from my acreage, never have to fear hunger or thirst, they are treated for worms and diseases and even though in the end they are slaughtered for food they probably still live longer and better lives than their wild ancestors.
Life in nature is nasty, brutish and short. Hunger, thirst, the possibility of being viciously ripped to shreds by a predator, disease and infestation by parasites ensure many, possibly even most, wild animals lead miserable lives.
Having said that, some industrial farming practices, such the battery hen system, are undoubtedly cruel. But frankly my dear I don’t give a shit. Mother Nature is a callous bitch and I cheerfully accept my place her pecking order
Well, just to prove that not all vegetarians are quick with the ‘moral judgment’ thing …. I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life, dearly wish I wasn’t, and am the one my siblings call on to lecture to their teenage girls who start the vegetarian/vegan thing!
One amusing thing I read recently referred to the famous study that showed that rats fed on half rations lived longer: oh yes, they lived longer, but not reported was that they were bad tempered and hard to handle, unlike the well fed ones. The semi-starving rats liked to bite!
Russell – I should clarify that the vast majority of vegetarians/vegans of my acquaintance are not at all morally judgmental or preachy. The anecdotes in the post involving the preachy vegos occurred when I was at high school. I think when you’re young, you tend to be more preachy and sure of your own righteousness.
In fact, some of the most relaxed vegos or vegans I know have been that way for years, or indeed, all their lives – so they’re comfortable with who they are and accepting of the choices of others are too. Cheers to them!
Yeah, I’ll go for the eat well and die happy option myself I think.
“Aw…….quit ya sookin’ Amagny- nor were my points acknowledged – predominantly because this forum is for the human club of “me, mine and myself.” ”
I can’t believe I had the grace to retract my own, entirely reasonable but nonetheless impolite, bit of ad hominim. I wasn’t sooking at all. I came to continue the debate, noted that you’d avoided everything I said, I moved on to another site.
Linking me in with ‘this site’ is an extraordinary narcissistic piece of exceptionalism. I’m one of the more left wing visitors here, others above could affirm that. In my particular response I acknowledged the potential value in meat eaters being reasonable and considering lowering their consumption and showing a preference for more human sources.
But I suppose if you want to feel special it’s easy to just write everyone else off as a single voice, a single narrative against which you can construct your own pillar of wisdom.
Feel special. You are. You can ignore those unnatural Kalahari bushmen and they, not being special, can’t even get on the internet to explain to you why they might disagree.
And don’t shy away from using generalisations and personal ridicule to make a point!
“more human sources. ”
=) Freudian slip?!
Humane…
Further to Armagny’s response above, saying that “this site” has a particular view is rather ridiculous considering that we are one of the few sites to combine very different political approaches.
I’m a pragmatist, not an idealist. That’s one of the things that has come to me through blogging. I will compromise to achieve a desired result.
Anyway, unpleasant and rude ad hominem attacks are not what we want on this site. Flower is in moderation. The kind of debate he/she was trying to provoke goes precisely nowhere.
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