George Dvorksy -- with whom I disagree on many points related to technology and extraterrestrial intelligence -- takes aim at meat-eaters. And damned if I don't agree with him.
Do I think serial carnivores are "bad people"? Certainly not. But I'd challenge any of them to defend meat consumption on rational grounds. As I blogged a while back, the meat industry's environmental impact alone more than justifies ditching our collective craving for burgers and steaks (especially as it becomes increasingly evident that the attendant health hazards are casually ignored).
We hear a great deal about minimizing our ecological footprint. For my money, going vegetarian is the easiest way to make a difference. And you might discover a wealth of new recipes in the process.
12 comments:
My car and I are both vegetarians. It took a little convincing, but I now have it running on used vegetable oil that I get from a local sub shop.
No sulfur, non toxic, and because it runs on present day vegetable based hydrogen-carbon-oxygen instead of entombed hydrogen-carbon-oxygen it is carbon neutral.
Stan
Eating habits, like religion, is someething that is no one's business but your own. Patronizing proselytizers - whether by religious activists or new-age hippies - really piss me off.
In fact the tone of that article was so condescending that I have decided to eat double my normal protein intake tomorrow just for spite. Goofballs like that remind me of people who force their hapless pets into eating vegan diets.
Everyone has different ideas on what's best for the world and how to go about achieving those ends. Encapsulating veganism under the "You owe it to the world" banner implies that people promting those policies have the only valid solutions, and anyone who sees things differently is some sort of backwards neanderthal.
I reject tha claim that the environmental impact of the meat industry is even in the top 10 list of critical issues facing earth, and thus I reject the idea that vegansim is a duty one should undertake "for the good of the world"
tj,
We all do things that are bad for the environment. I live out in the boonies, and I don't recycle enough. I love air conditioning. On the other side of the balance sheet, I do very well with gasoline non consumption and I minimize non biodegradables. Almost everyone in the U.S. has an overall negative impact on the environment.
The point is, you can't be in denial. If you are doing something that has a negative impact, don't pretend that it doesn't. Meat eating is a big drain on the Earths resources, as is air conditioning.
Stan
I have decided to invite Mr. Dvorsky to my elegant, secluded mansion in hills, where I will sedate him, strap him to a Louis XVI sedan chair, scoot him up to my Charles Eames dining table, and, as he awakes, abrade his skull with the finest surgical rotary saw made, lift the top of his skull exposing his brain, and, while he pointlessly protests my culinary preferences, use an ancient Peruvian obsidian spoon to consume thinly scooped portions of his frontal lobes until he stops his incessant screaming.
Of course, fava beans and a nice chianti will also be served to my other guests, including the compliant Ms. Starling, who is so challenging a companion. There will be a discussion of Elgin Vs. Italian marble facades after dinner.
I've made some changes to my diet, and now eat less meat than I used to, but I refuse to give up my PETA* card altogether.
*People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
My biggest sins: minimal recycling (it's not easy in Kansas City, although I can't speak for the Midwest) and car-driving. I'm working on cutting the latter to a bare minimum.
People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
Bad joke! BAD joke!
I gave up driving a car 20 years ago, because I could see where it was taking us. I think I've earned enough carbon credits to have a nice juicy burger now and then. Anyone who disagrees can pry that burger from my cold, dead hands.
So, Mac, how long have you been a vegetarian and why did you become one? What were the determining factors in that change-over? And what do you think about vegetarianism vs. veganism? Like, do you still eat cheese and drink milk from animals?
What reasons would you cite for not going from vegetarian to vegan, if any?
Aside:
[I have to admit that Dvorsky's reasons and reasoning for becoming a vegetarian are persuasive, all things considered, even though he impugned his arguments for same by his insulting stridency. Sort of like his attitude toward the ufo phenomenon. Although I reject his attitude that meat-eaters are "bad", he did get me thinking.
He's a smart guy, but sometimes I think he lacks wisdom, breadth, and real-world experience. And sufficient tolerance.]
Always intensely curious...
Dvorsky always strkes me (as in this piece) as being WAY too limited by the kinds of academic logic games which, as your basic analytic philosopher, he's so evidently into playing. Lots of Occam's razor this and Copernican criteria that philosophical barber-shop quarteting -- personally, Dr. L., I think Dvorsky's brain would not make for good eatin' And then, of course, it has all those trans-(human) fats.
"Insulting stridency" -- yeah, Mr. I, that would work as the correct technical term for the untalented Mr. Dvorsky.
--W.M. Bear
Intense--
I stopped eating red meat early in college, so I've been meatless for over ten years. Initially I continued to occasionally eat poultry and fish, but quickly did away with that as well.
The decision was primarily ethical (I'd been bashing hunters and felt hypocritical) but involved some health-consciousness. (I immediately lost the extra weight I'd gained my freshman year of college.)
I've never gone vegan and don't plan to, although -- convenience permitting -- I wouldn't have any qualms about it. (Vegetarianism, as Dvorsky points out, is easy. Veganism is another matter, at least where I live.)
I don't think there are any substantial health reasons for not going vegan, but as I haven't actually done it (yet!) I'll let you decide. But as far as going vegetarian's concerned, count on losing unwanted pounds and feeling better.
I sometimes still eat fish, but only rarely and usually for special occasions. For whatever reasons, the ethical considerations that keep me from eating pigs and cows and chickens don't seem to hold up when fish are concerned. Especially anchovies!
No sulfur, non toxic, and because it runs on present day vegetable based hydrogen-carbon-oxygen instead of entombed hydrogen-carbon-oxygen it is carbon neutral.
"Carbon neutral".
And from where, pray tell, does that "vegetable" oil originate? Most likely a mass-monoculture grain or bean crop, which today requires somewhere around 8 - 10 calories of fossil fuel (oil & gas) to produce 1 calorie of crop. Ultimately a good percentage of that hydroCARBON input will still end up in the atmosphere.
Meat eating is a big drain on the Earths resources
No, it isn't. Humans have been eating meat for at least 2 - 3 million years, and for all but the last 10,000 or so it was not a "drain" at all. Only after the development of agriculture did our meat consumption begin to fall, supplanted now by eating grains, originally the grasses on which our evolutionary food of choice fed, directly rather than after they've become animal flesh (hmmm... wonder if the high rate of grain allergy versus the scarcity of meat allergy might be a clue to which is preferable from a biological standpoint).
I find it interesting that anthropologists track an 11% decline in average human brain size from the period prior to the Ag Revolution to the present. I also find it interesting that only after our particular brand of agriculture took hold did human "civilization" (hierarchical exploiter culture in our case) arise and the explosion of human population commence (since if you increase food supply you increase population. This is true of all known living species, as is the reverse).
This, is the problem. Not eating meat. 6+ billion of us eating meat, is the problem.
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