At 22:15 26/02/1999 +0100, you wrote:
>Hi Axel,
>
I sure would also like people to be
>more health-conscious, respect the environment, etc, but:
>
> -You say that you can "educate" people to eat better food. What I see
>is that in industrialized countries, education has dramatically
>improved over the last 100 years, but average food quality is
>deteriorating. People are certainly vaguely conscious of what is good
>or bad: ask anyone in the street whether they believe soft drinks,
>French fries, candies, alcohol are healthy or not and 90% of them will
>say they aren't. Ask smokers whether they think smoking is healthy or
>not, and they will likely answer "no" (it's written on all cigarette
>packs). But they don't care. They prefer to eat their junk food
>because it's convenient, start smoking at young age because they want
>to behave like "grown-ups". They prefer to have tasty meals at
>restaurants and then take medications for cholesterol or whatever.
of course this is the way our western world works today, all i am saying is
that it is possible to educate more and more people to start eating good
food (whatever this means -:)
> -About the price of organic fruits and vegetables: even in developed
>countries, there are many people who earn barely enough to eat even
>conventional food (pasta, meat, etc). These people don't care about
>quality, they need quantity, and prefer to buy food in supermarkets at
>the best prices. Even people who earn a little more prefer to save
>their money for something else (like clothes, vacation...). They are
>certainly aware that high-quality produce tastes better, but they are
>not ready to spend much more money.
true, but letīs consider this: when you buy conventional produce ladden with
pesticides, do you pay for the environmental damage you are helping to
create? do you pay for the health problems of the workers at the
conventional farm because of the pesticides? of course not. do you pay for
dead fish because of this pesticides? no way. there are hidden costs that we
do not pay for.
So, the result is that high-quality
>produce will probably constitute a small part of total production, and
>therefore will never become affordable for low-income households.
hopefully the trend is the opposite. as more and more organic produce is
avaliable in more variety and closer to where the people are, it should be
cheaper overall. for some low-income households, there are ways of having
high quality organic produce with little money.
In
>addition, you are certainly aware that not many fruits grow in colder
>climates, not in the center of cities
in La Habana, Cuba, there is a ambitious program created by a permaculture
team from australia where they turned many abandoned city blocks into
organic gardens working under permaculture principles. so now they have some
extra good produce to eat.
Given that
>there is a trend towards urbanization that I don't see how you could
>expect to reverse,
i remember now that one of the reasons of massive exodus to the big cities,
specially in third world countries like mine, is... COWS! yes, as more and
more cows are raised by wealthy people, fewer and fewer people are needed to
work the land in small scale farms and in individual or family-sized farms.
so they go to the city. in the amazonas rainforest, cattle ranching is the
activity that takes the least number of people. you need a few cowboys to
take care of a lot of cows so people are displaced.
> -You say "we have no spiritual/natural right to use the land of the
>world to produce meat". Well, that's your opinion,
what is your opinion? is it just fine to destroy the whole world in many
ways, to change the environment, to push to extintion lots of species, all
so we can eat meat? for me it is wrong. unethical, not correct. it is not a
little thing! it is planet earth!
but you must be
>aware that no one knows which "rights" you have or you don't
>have.
this is a common fallacy. we all know about many rights. the right to live,
to eat, not to be tortured, not to be stolen, to do what you please as long
as you do not interfiere with otherīs right to do the same, etc. this is not
nature, we are not living in nature, there are no rationalizations to
justify destroying the world.
Nature is blind about rights and duties; the concept of "rights"
>has been invented by humans and saying that Nature gives you rights or
>responsibilities is anthropomorphic.
we are not only subjected to the supposed rules of nature. even if there
were no rights in nature, that would not mean a thing, since we have lots of
extra duties because we do unnatural things.
Humans, like any species, haven't
>demanded to be alive, to live on earth. They just happen to be there,
>and do their best to survive. The only responsibility we have is to
>try to prepare a better world for our grand-children. As long as we
>are doing that, we have the right to use the land of the world as we
>wish (to produce meat or fruit or whatever).
you can not use the land of the world as you wish because it is not yours.
it belongs to all species, and also to all people that are displaced for
animal husbandry.
> -You say "it is very simple to avoid animal products if you
>want". Well, I don't think so.
i meant that it can be done. i was not talking about health and i said so.
> -You say "nothing in the world is more damaging at all levels than
>animal husbandry". Well, it depends on which area of the world you are
>talking about,
if you take the whole world and you have to name one activity that is the
most damaging, it will be animal husbandry. it destroys a lot in ANY
country. i am not making this up. this is not MY opinion. it is very easy to
check it out. there is plenty of info on all this in the web, specially if
you go to a vegan web site.
>
>> you know, before humans decided to use the whole world to raise animals,
>> there were not so many cows and sheep and poultry in this planet!
>
>I know... There were not so many cereal fields, apple trees... and
>humans either. The only viable "solution" is to reduce the world
>population... if that can be done at all.
>
reducing animal products worldwide is easier than reducing the worldīs
population, me thinks. both are difficult, though.
axel
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