At 15:13 11/03/1999 -1000, you wrote:
>>axel:
>>
>>just, by chance, did you read any of the books? i mean, since you have not
>>read them, you have no idea whether they are "pop" books or "scientific"
>>books (that maybe explain how "viruses" do all sorts of things).
>
>I love good pop books. It wasn't meant as a disparaging remark. No, I
>haven't read the books, which is part of why I was interested in your
>summary of the arguments presented. But truth told, from your comments I
>suspect the books to be full of hyperbole and overgeneralizations. FWIW, I
>love reading Rifkin books once in a while. It's part of the big picture.
>It's just not the gospel, you know?
here i have to apologize to you and the rest in this list for being
aggresive.
>>i know you
>>eat animal products and think they are good for human beings, but you seem
>>to know nothing about the environmental impact of them.
>
>I know more than you imagine. My point was against your hyperbole and
>overgeneralization.
of course it can all be false and i am completely misled, but from what i
have read so far, i do think, like other people, that animal husbandry WAS
the worst environmental evil. it is an opinion. you might not share it, but
it is not necesarily a generalization.
>
>>does it bother you
>>that something SO good and healing and biologically appropiate is by far the
>>worst environmental offender in the history of mankind?
>
>No. Because it is simply your opinion that it is "by far the worst
>environmental offender in the history of mankind". An opinion you haven't
>supported much at all.
again, i will bring here some reference for you to look up if you want. the
best i am aware of is by far rifkinīs book.
>no, i am not
>>exaggerating, we have been raising too many animals for a long time, and
>>they have destroyed the world in untold ways.
>
>Untold ways. Yeah, I agree with that adjective. ;)
;) too.
>>cattle is bad for the environment. not a little bad, but very bad. they are
>>like big locusts that are all over eating eating eating, walking all over,
>>displacing native species, forcing forests to be cut and burn so they can
>>eat eat eat, so we can eat eat eat them (not me, though :)), eating a lot of
>>the world=B4s grain, wasting, oh wasting so much FOOD no matter how=
>> imperfect
>
>Again, it sounds like monocropping grains are the culprit.
cattle is as "guilty" as moncropping. we raise the animals to eat them, in
big numbers. for them to eat and grow fast, we grow grain. of course they
do not eat all the grain of the world, just half of it, according to rifkin
and the world watch institute.
>> do
>>you think all this manure might be slightly harmful for the environment? no,
>>it is not like the manure in a natural ecosystem, no, because there are
>>feedlots, there is cattle ranching with many animals in not that much space,
>>etc).
>
>Feedlots are problematic, I agree. Cattle ranching on pasture is much less
>problematic.
if you could see the pictures in "waste of the west", by Jacobs, you would
not think so! cattle ranching on pasture is EXTREMELY damaging, at least in
the way it is generally practiced in the western world today. akin to
eating junk food. it is SO unnatural, that who knows if the earth can
regenerate itself back to how it used to be before we came up with this
cattle mania. Jacobs says many times that because cattle has been around
for a long time, many of us just have no idea of how really beautiful and
exhuberant was the land where cattle is right now before cattle.
Indeed, many such ranches are on land that wouldn't support
>most other kinds af agriculture. Cattle and sheep eat grasses which are
>indigestable by humans. It is part of a healthy and sustainable ecosystem
>which benefits humans.
i do not think this is true in most cases. it is not healthy and it is not
sustainable at all. in fact, it is the opposite. does it sound natural and
balanced to have too many animals of a few species in a big part of the
planetīs land? isnīt it crystal clear that it is plain wrong
environmentally-wise?
you can have some animals in a lot of land and with sustainable practices
and not pasturing permanently, etc, it can work out. but why going into all
this hassle, when you can have with less effort, less polution, less work
per food produced, way more food simply by growing vegetable foods?
land that can not grow vegetables can be also left alone. we are not here
to use THE WHOLE WORLD to produce any kind of food we want! we have to
leave some areas for other species, in my opinion, also lots of trees are
needed even to our survival, so we can spare some land and grow trees and
have less cows.
Why people don't rally for better livestock
>practices instead of flaming meat or cattle ranching in general has always
>puzzled me.
the answer is simple: better livestock practices is some improvement,
whereas NO livestock is a heck of a lot of improvement!
>>cattle is also responsable in part for the current use of pesticides,
>>because A LOT of the world=B4s grain is given to animals!
>
>Most pesticides are used on fruits and vegetables, axel. It is often
>impractical to use them on the acreges involved in grain agriculture.
i found the following info:
-amount of total herbicides used that are applied to corn and soybeans
(primarily feed crops): 61 percent (from a 1989 book, the hidden cost of beef)
herbicides are not pesticides, but anyway this is a lot of chemicals that
are used ultimately to feed animals so we can eat them.
>>rifking also talked about social problems caused by cattle, but i guess this
>>is enough for me for today.
>
>People talk about all sorts of things, axel. That doesn't make it fact. All
>conclusions are jumped to--sometimes the jump is small and sometimes it is
>huge. If you wish to research the topic of agricultural impact you must
>look into all the different conclusions that are jumped to.
yeah, like asking the sugar industry for their ideas on sugar, and asking
the tobacco industry about how harmless and calming smoking really is. no
need to read propaganda to have a more balanced idea of things, me thinks.
Not just the
>writers with particular agendas.
if you research a subject and write a book with a certain point of view, it
does not mean necesarily that you have an agenda. rifking comes very
strongly in the book, but it did not sound like an agenda to me.
>
>>no matter how good animal products are for your health (something i do not
>>know about) they are a nightmare for the environment unless of course the
>>population is drastically reduced.
>
>That's the problem with most of the deep ecology arguments. In the end, the
>best thing one can do to help the cause is die early. ;) The vegetarian
>propaganda doesn't take it that far. They seem to stop at: "don't eat
>animals and everything will be OK"
>
>Why is it such an important issue to you? Actually, I tend to think that if
>it were such an important issue to you you would look into it more
>carefully--ie, read a variety of points of view and see if you can get the
>bigger picture. The better question might be: why is it so important to you
>to believe that cattle of the biggest environmental problem on the
>planet--ignoring grain agriculture, clorine compounds, politcal genecide,
>etc etc etc?
i do not ignore anything, we are talking about animal husbandry. and i like
the subject because it is unknown to many, many important world problems
are mainly caused by the mere existence of the cattle complex, we can do a
lot about it (just by not consuming animal products). it is a way of
feeling you can make a difference in the world today. there are lots of
others. this is powerful. i like it.
regards,
axel makaroff
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