{"id":521585,"date":"2010-04-09T03:24:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-09T07:24:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-4988845206653910334"},"modified":"2010-04-09T03:24:49","modified_gmt":"2010-04-09T07:24:49","slug":"stop-meat-eating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/521585","title":{"rendered":"Stop Meat Eating?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"separator\" style=\"clear: both; text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_Jx78YcF-F8U\/S77WNBYFG0I\/AAAAAAAABhE\/BoEygLLEwx0\/s1600\/meat.jpg\" imageanchor=\"1\" style=\"margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" height=\"238\" src=\"http:\/\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/_Jx78YcF-F8U\/S77WNBYFG0I\/AAAAAAAABhE\/BoEygLLEwx0\/s320\/meat.jpg\" width=\"320\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\"><br \/><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\">The argument that meat eating is ecologically wasteful is at best complete nonsense.&nbsp; Unfortunately it makes great propaganda and I certainly expect folks to buy into it heavily.&nbsp; It all hangs on the silly idea that all agricultural and natural plant materials are suitable for human consumption.&nbsp; <o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\">Quite bluntly we cannot eat grass nor can we eat bark and most tree based vegetation.&nbsp; We do well to have sorted out a range of plant materials that we can eat mostly in cooked form.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\">I have posted at length on the need to keep integrating all forms of animal life into a successful sustainable agricultural&nbsp; I am no fan of industrial farms operating at the expense of good husbandry.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\">We have recently come to understand that the boreal forests represent a good agricultural opportunity for mankind.&nbsp; Yet its basis is cattails and wetland pasturage consumed mostly by moose.&nbsp; The moose is the necessary intermediary.&nbsp; In modern agriculture cattle are the intermediary between grassland, poor grade grain and human consumption.&nbsp; In classic agriculture, pigs consumed what cattle and humans could not.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: small;\">In the lifetimes of most living, we will see the demise of the historic fishery as operated forever.&nbsp; It will be replaced by aquaculture.&nbsp; The wild fishery will then completely recover&nbsp; Aquaculture will again be an intermediary between trash fish and plant foods and our stomachs..<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 24.0pt; margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; margin-left: 5.05pt; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><b><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: black; letter-spacing: 0pt;\">Save the planet: Stop eating meat<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/b><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 24.0pt; margin-top: 5.25pt; mso-outline-level: 1; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 2.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 2.25pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #727272; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">The UN says so, and so do a growing list of school boards. Meet the new eco enemy.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"margin-bottom: 2.25pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 2.25pt; margin-top: 0in; text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">by Katie Engelhart and Nicholas K\u00f6hler on Tuesday, March 30, 2010 9:00am \u2013&nbsp;<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"letter-spacing: 0pt;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/2010\/03\/30\/save-the-planet-stop-eating-meat\/\">http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/2010\/03\/30\/save-the-planet-stop-eating-meat\/<\/a><\/span><\/i><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\"><o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">One drizzly Thursday last May, the townsfolk of Ghent, a Flemish burg of some 250,000 souls famous for its<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">stoverij<\/span>\u2014a stew of beef braised in beer\u2014gathered outside a centuries-old slaughterhouse in the town\u2019s historic core to sample soy fritters, pick up a map of local vegetarian eateries, and to watch as a boy in a banana costume did valiant battle against another dressed as a beefsteak. This was Ghent\u2019s inaugural&nbsp;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">Donderdag Veggiedag<\/span>\u2014Thursday Veggieday, literally\u2014a weekly holiday from the evils of beef, \ufb01sh, pork and poultry introduced last year by city council, which declared that the moratorium on animal protein would be \u201cgood for the climate, your health and your taste buds.\u201d Said a representative of the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, Belgium\u2019s largest vegetarian organization and a partner in the city initiative: \u201cIf everyone in Flanders does not eat meat one day a week, we will save as much CO2 in a year as taking half a million cars off the road.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">Though meatlessness in <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:city w:st=\"on\">Ghent<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> each Thursday is encouraged rather than required, the policy has made vegetarianism pervasive: 95 per cent of the city\u2019s children at 35 local schools, as well as the city\u2019s elected councillors and civil servants, now submit to the&nbsp;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">Veggiedag<\/span>&nbsp;menu each week. One poster promoting the policy depicts a polar bear adrift on a shrunken hunk of ice declaring with relief<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">Donderdag Veggiedag<\/span><\/i><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">&nbsp;was a global \ufb01rst, putting medieval <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:city w:st=\"on\">Ghent<\/st1:city><\/st1:place> on the cutting edge of efforts to combat climate change by changing the way people eat. But elsewhere, too, the moderate meat movement is gaining ground. A Meatless Mondays organization founded in the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">U.S.<\/st1:country-region> has now opened branches in <st1:city w:st=\"on\">Holland<\/st1:city>, <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">Finland<\/st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">Canada<\/st1:country-region>, <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">Taiwan<\/st1:country-region> and <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">Australia<\/st1:country-region><\/st1:place>. Following <st1:city w:st=\"on\">Ghent<\/st1:city>\u2019s lead, cities like <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">S\u00e3o Paulo<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> and Tel Aviv have created city-wide schemes. Last year, <st1:city w:st=\"on\">Baltimore<\/st1:city> became the first city in <st1:place w:st=\"on\">North America<\/st1:place> to mandate Meatless Mondays in its school cafeterias, for environmental as well as health reasons. A similar proposal has just been made for <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">New   York City<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> schools.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">Meanwhile, meatless manifestos are topping bestseller lists, from food phenom Michael Pollan\u2019s&nbsp;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">In Defense of Food<\/span>, with its subtle suggestion, \u201cEat food. Not too much. Mostly plants,\u201d to American novelist Jonathan Safran Foer\u2019s painfully graphic anti-meat treatise,&nbsp;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">Eating Animals<\/span>. Dwelling on all the nasty details of the livestock industry, Safran Foer reminds us that even meat from humanely raised cattle \u201ccame from an animal who, at best\u2014and it\u2019s precious few who get away with this\u2014was burned, mutilated and killed for the sake of a few minutes of human pleasure.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">Star power, too, is focusing more attention on the cause. In December, former Beatle and long-time animal rights crusader Sir Paul McCartney appeared before the European Parliament in Brussels to back his Meat Free Monday campaign, which seeks to cut CO2 emissions by encouraging people to go meatless once a week. An impressive score of celebrity endorsements followed, from such luminaries as singer Chris Martin, actor Alec Baldwin, \u201960s-era model Twiggy, former U.S. vice-president Al Gore and, most recently,&nbsp;<span style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: italic;\">American Idol<\/span>&nbsp;judge Simon Cowell. Gwyneth Paltrow issued a meatless edition of GOOP, her Internet newsletter, featuring a column by McCartney.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">For centuries, people have debated the ethics of killing for food (one clearly carnivorous Stoic philosopher, Chrysippus, wrote in the third century BCE that the purpose of an animal\u2019s soul was simply to keep the meat fresh). New is the focus on the environmental consequences of meat\u2014one rooted in science. Meatless proponents often refer to a 2009 study by researchers at the <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:placetype w:st=\"on\">University<\/st1:placetype> of <st1:placename w:st=\"on\">Chicago<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> that suggests the vegan diet is a more effective way of curbing climate change than driving a hybrid car. Or, for that matter, a 2008 Carnegie Mellon report that suggests that eschewing meat beats eating local. And they\u2019re quick to draw comparisons with more conventional ways of cutting greenhouse gas emissions\u2014things like public transit or switching off the lights. One oft repeated number is Carnegie Mellon researcher Christopher Weber\u2019s calculation that forgoing red meat for veggies just a day a week would save 1,860 km of driving a year (assuming the car did 10.6 km per litre of gas).<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">The numbers are compelling. According to one exhaustive report, \u201cLivestock\u2019s long shadow,\u201d released in 2006 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, livestock accounts for 18 per cent of worldwide greenhouse gases, more than those emitted by all forms of transportation combined, and is a leading cause of deforestation and water pollution. Other estimates put the percentage of greenhouse gases leaked into the atmosphere during the raising of animals for food even higher. Last October, Robert Goodland, formerly the World Bank\u2019s lead environmental adviser, and Jeff Anhang, a World Bank researcher, attributed a staggering 51 per cent of world emissions to livestock production.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333; letter-spacing: 0pt; mso-bidi-font-weight: normal; mso-font-kerning: 0pt;\">It\u2019s not just CO2 that\u2019s at issue. Thanks to our appetite for bacon, vast lakes of manure dot the North American heartland, steaming nitrous oxide into the air, while the antibiotics fed to our sick, grain-fed cattle ooze into our waterways. Such vistas have led to plaintive requests like that of Rajendra Pachauri, the now-embattled head of the UN\u2019s panel on climate change: \u201cPlease eat less meat.\u201d Pachauri\u2019s Nobel Prize-winning group has come under \ufb01re for a series of errors in its widely read 2007 report\u2014including the faulty claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035\u2014but its meatless message continues to strike a chord.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Indeed, the environmental concerns surrounding meat have helped make it the new nexus for a host of increasingly popular social concerns\u2014food, culture, politics and the environment. The idea of channelling meat\u2019s deepening carbon footprint into potent political rhetoric came to Tobias Leenaert, a long-time animal rights activist in <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Ghent<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, a few years ago. As a member of the Ethical Vegetarian Alternative, he had helped launch a pro-vegetarian campaign in 2000 that met with limited success. Then, in 2007, his group started looking for a campaign message with \u201ca bigger scope, an idea that was more approachable\u201d\u2014in other words, a collective face more agreeable than that of the dogmatic vegan preaching against the suffering of animals or the perils of saturated fat.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The group hit upon the \ufb02ourishing environmental movement and growing fears about climate change as a nifty marketing gambit. The new message made it \u201ceasier to get a lot of partners involved,\u201d says Leenaert. \u201cWe wouldn\u2019t have been able to get the city\u2019s support if we just had a go-vegetarian message.\u201d Now he hopes to convince even more of his neighbours by making the eating of animal \ufb02esh as embarrassing as owning a Hummer. \u201cJust as driving an SUV to the bakery around the corner is sort of shameful,\u201d he says. \u201cWe need the same thing with meat.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">When McCartney launched his Meat Free Monday campaign last June, it was \u201cLivestock\u2019s long shadow,\u201d the UN report, that he referred to, saying: \u201cWe thought cars were the villain of the piece, but it appears livestock produces more.\u201d Trust a pop-song virtuoso to boil an issue down to its snappy essence\u2014\u201cLess meat equals less heat\u201d is as easy on the ears as<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>beep beep\u2019m beep beep yeah<\/em>, yet it has broad backing from climate change scientists, who argue that meat, apart from presenting such risks as heart disease, obesity and<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>E. coli<\/em>, is a wasteful luxury. \u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of feed conversion efficiencies\u2014we\u2019re going to feed 10 times as much grain to cattle to get a kilogram of meat compared to if we just ate that grain ourselves,\u201d says Nathan Pelletier, an ecological economist at Dalhousie University and a leading expert in the environmental impacts of food. \u201cIt\u2019s the basic math of animal physiology.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Then there are the emissions stemming from the methane burps of cattle and other ruminants, and the fertilizer laid out over \ufb01elds of feed, not to mention the clear-cutting wrought by the demand for pasture. Estimates of the greenhouse gases associated with different meat products vary, but beef is undoubtedly king\u2014between 13 and 30 kg of CO2 equivalent per kg of beef, says Pelletier. That\u2019s followed by pork, with estimates ranging from 2.3 to 6.5 kg of CO2, then chicken, which ranges from 1.5 to three kilograms, roughly the same as the emissions associated with some food crops. The environmental impacts of \ufb01sh are more complex and vary enormously according to species; one <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:placetype w:st=\"on\">University<\/st1:placetype>  of <st1:placename w:st=\"on\">Chicago<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> study even suggests that \ufb01sh and red meat are almost equally energy inef\ufb01cient.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Though some argue that entirely grass-fed organic cattle\u2014animals not fattened up with grain or corn on massive feedlots\u2014generate less greenhouse gases because no energy is expended in producing synthetic fertilizer and growing feed, there\u2019s no clear consensus. On the one hand, cattle tend to be raised on grasslands ill-suited to food crops and, in their foraging, actually help pasture lands sequester carbon. On the other, they have a tough time extracting all the goodness available to them from hard-to-digest grass\u2014hence their four stomachs\u2014and on that diet generate even more methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than CO2.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Questions around the sustainability of meat are particularly pressing given the global rise in meat consumption in recent years. Consumption around the world has quintupled in the past 50 years and is set to double by 2050, according to the UN\u2019s Food and Agriculture Organization. Sixty years ago, producers generated around 18 kg of meat per person; by 1994, production had jumped to a staggering 35.4 kg per person. In 2008, the most recent Statistics Canada numbers available, Canadians ate just over 100 kg of red meat, fish and chicken per person, more than a quarter of a kilo a day.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Trends in developing nations like <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\">India<\/st1:country-region> and <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">China<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, where ballooning middle classes are boosting appetites for animal protein, suggest things will only get worse. Demand in <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">China<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> doubled between 1990 and 2005 and continues to rise with galloping intensity. As that demand grows, so do the ominous forecasts. \u201cIf you look at the impact on the planet of today\u2019s levels of meat consumption, it becomes absolutely clear\u2014there\u2019s no way that we can continue to eat meat at the rate we do or that developing nations are going to be able to satisfy their growing demand,\u201d says David Boyd, author, along with David Suzuki, of<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>David Suzuki\u2019s Green Guide<\/em>.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">These realities are creeping into policy discussions around the world. A tax on meat that would reflect its carbon output has been discussed in the Swedish parliament, and by the influential British economist Lord Stern. Princeton bioethicist Peter Singer, writing in New York\u2019s<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Daily News<\/em><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>in October, proposed a 50 per cent tax on meat and compared it to tobacco, going so far as to argue that \u201cthe reasons for a tax on beef and other meats are stronger than those for discouraging consumption of cigarettes, trans fats or sugary drinks\u201d because of meat\u2019s triple whammy impacts on health, the environment and animal welfare. Last year in the U.K., farmers feared Environment Secretary Hilary Benn\u2014a vegetarian known derisively in the British press as Veggie Benn\u2014would produce a policy document encouraging British families to drop red meat from their diets. (Instead, Benn said only that British consumers should choose less environmentally impactful foods, and encouraged food brands to participate in a voluntary \u201cgreen\u201d labelling program.)<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Not surprisingly, the war on meat has roused the attentions of a red-blooded conservative establishment, particularly in the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> Fox News pundit Glenn Beck has dismissed Meatless Mondays as \u201cindoctrination.\u201d Lou Dobbs, formerly of CNN, warns it is \u201ca real political storm in the making.\u201d Just as many, both in the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> and at home, are skeptical of the new anti-meat rationale. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that with individuals like Paul McCartney, that is a primary driver for them\u2014an animal rights agenda, not necessarily an environmental agenda,\u201d says Ron Glaser of the Beef Information Centre, a Calgary-based industry group.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The North American meat lobby, too, has been fighting back. Things came to a head last April in the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">United States<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, when the Environmental Protection Agency moved to declare that the climate change properties of greenhouse gases endanger public health. The effort prompted the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> National Cattlemen\u2019s Beef Association to file a court challenge arguing that future climate regulations would hurt beef farmers. For environmentalists, the cattlemen\u2019s gambit was a clear pre-emptive strike against what the EPA finding would mean for them. \u201cThey know full well that that\u2019s just setting the stage for carbon taxes,\u201d says Pelletier. \u201cEveryone sees it coming\u2014the smart companies are those that are acting early to get a handle on emissions in their supply chains.\u201d Even Wal-Mart has committed to slapping sustainability index labels on everything is sells, meat included.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">The livestock industry is certainly large and powerful enough to counter that message. On its recently launched website,<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>MeatFuelsAmerica.com<\/em>, the American Meat Institute claims the industry contributes US$832 billion to the <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">U.S.<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region> economy, almost six per cent of that country\u2019s GDP. It also estimates that the meat and poultry products industry employs some 1.8 million workers, plus another 2.6 million on the supplier side.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">As it is, the industry has been battling its share of problems. The Canadian beef industry, worth $20.3 billion, according to the Canadian Meat Council, has been battered by bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and last year\u2019s listeriosis outbreak. Producers so far haven\u2019t taken steps to counter anti-meat crusaders\u2019 claims, largely because the movement is not as well developed here as it is in <st1:place w:st=\"on\">Europe<\/st1:place>. But as the campaigns grow, the industry is left to wonder\u2014how far can all this go? \u201cWe have nowhere near the resources of a Paul McCartney,\u201d says Canadian Cattlemen\u2019s Association environment chair Lynn Grant. \u201cWe don\u2019t have the following that his entertainment business has generated, we aren\u2019t able to fight on the same kind of battlefield.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Meanwhile, the anti-meat crusade continues to grow. Meatless Monday, which started out as a rather ho-hum public-health initiative rolled out in association with the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 2003, went viral after shifting focus to \u201cthe health of the planet.\u201d Soon it spawned a weekly column in the<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Huffington Post<\/em>, a weekly segment on<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Air <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">America<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region><\/em><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>radio and reams of press. When <st1:city w:st=\"on\">Baltimore<\/st1:city> last year mandated the program in its schools and brought in items like homemade eggplant dip and whole-grain pizza, the move made <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Antony<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> Geraci, head of the Food and Nutrition Services Department for Baltimore City Public Schools, an international culinary icon, with pro\ufb01les in foodie bibles like the now-defunct<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Gourmet<\/em><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>magazine.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Political activists have succeeded in giving the issue a sheen of cool, and young people, a demographic prone to such fashions, are therefore in the vanguard of meatlessness. A study by Aramark Limited, a massive food supplier that services schools, businesses and hospitals, found that a quarter of university students now demand vegetarian and vegan options. \u201cThere\u2019s de\ufb01nitely a revolution happening in food services,\u201d says Tina Horsley, Aramark Canada\u2019s director of wellness and sustainability, a position the company created just a few years ago. <st1:placename w:st=\"on\">McMaster<\/st1:placename> <st1:placetype w:st=\"on\">University<\/st1:placetype> (the most vegetarian-friendly university in <st1:country-region w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Canada<\/st1:place><\/st1:country-region>, according to PETA), has a separate dining facility where meat is strictly prohibited and where students down 200 litres of vegetarian chili each week.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Likewise, when students at Branksome Hall, a Toronto private school for girls, championed the Meatless Monday campaign, the new menu put it on PETA\u2019s \u201cTop \ufb01ve most vegetarian-friendly high schools in Canada.\u201d The veggie fare served there is a far cry from soggy french fries: baked mushroom caps with bruschetta and cheese, edamame and homemade hummus are a few favourites.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">If those dishes sound a tad highfalutin, that\u2019s in keeping with the anti-meat movement\u2019s affinity with the chattering classes\u2014it\u2019s the well-to-do who are most likely to turn against the most expensive food out there: animal flesh. Indeed, moderate meat-eating has escaped the fringes of granola activism to become a place where even gourmands can feel at home. \u201cFood politics used to be sharply differentiated from an interest in \u2018fine food,\u2019 \u201d notes <st1:place w:st=\"on\"><st1:placetype w:st=\"on\">University<\/st1:placetype>  of <st1:placename w:st=\"on\">Toronto<\/st1:placename><\/st1:place> sociologist Jos\u00e9e Johnston, who studies food and \u201cfoodie\u201d culture. \u201cA lot of social movements are now realizing that by tying themselves to consumer politics they can get more traction.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">In <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Paris<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, the food elite was shocked when Alain Passard, whose restaurant l\u2019Arp\u00e8ge boasts three Michelin stars, scrapped meat from the menu to create a vegetarian oasis. In between waxing poetic about \u201cthe freedom of inventing a new universe\u201d of vegetable delights, Passard has argued for the need to \u201creplant the earth.\u201d \u201cThe people who are into foodie culture now use the environmental credentials of their food as a source of status,\u201d says <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Johnston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. \u201cThat puts low-income shoppers, or even middle-income shoppers, in a difficult position, because they don\u2019t have the economic or cultural capital necessary to participate in high-status eating.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Such a display of conspicuous conservation apparently needs its own nomenclature. Hence the adoption of labels like \u201c\ufb02exitarian,\u201d voted the year\u2019s most useful word in 2003 by the American Dialect Society, which de\ufb01ned it as \u201ca vegetarian who occasionally eats meat.\u201d Dawn Jackson Blatner, a Chicago dietician, \ufb01rst heard the term then. \u201cI was like, \u2018Oh my God, I\u2019m \ufb01nally something. I\u2019m not just a lazy vegetarian. And I don\u2019t have to feel like I\u2019m secretly eating pork chops in a closet.\u2019 \u201d Since then, Blatner\u2019s 2009 book,<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>The Flexitarian Diet<\/em>, has earned her celebrity status. She has toured the of\ufb01ces of the \u201c<em>People<\/em><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>magazines of the world\u201d as an ambassador of \u201cthis minimizing meat movement.\u201d<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">Cookbook authors Tara Mataraza Desmond and Joy Manning, a reformed vegan\u2014she realized she missed eggs and bacon too much\u2014grabbed attention with<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Almost Meatless<\/em>, which offers such not-quite-vegetarian recipes as cod cakes cut with corn. Mark Bitt man, a<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>New York Times<\/em><span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span>food writer, is another foodie who has scaled back on meat but hasn\u2019t given it up. Bittman found fame with his cookbook,<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>How to Cook Everything<\/em>. He has since changed his mind, publishing<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>How to Cook Everything Vegetarian<\/em>; Bittman himself is vegan until every night at 6 p.m., when he permits his appetite anything it wants.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">As with any sort of privation, cutting down on consumption has elevated meat\u2019s status. A more discerning attitude may be transforming the way we consume meat, with the emphasis on quality and connoisseurship rather than quantity and endless choice. Such a reappraisal of animal protein as a complement to the meal rather than its focus has for some turned its role into something more akin to that of wine at dinner. Important, sure, but better savoured than swilled.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div style=\"line-height: 15.0pt; margin-bottom: 15.0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 15.0pt; text-align: justify;\"><i style=\"mso-bidi-font-style: normal;\"><span style=\"color: #333333;\">That brand of \u201cmindful\u201d meat-eating has made butchers into culinary stars and charcuterie into the new sushi. \u201cWhat\u2019s emerged alongside \ufb02exitarianism is an interest in butchery and nose-to-tail eating,\u201d says <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Johnston<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>. At his <st1:city w:st=\"on\">London<\/st1:city> restaurant, the <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">St. John<\/st1:place><\/st1:city> Bar &amp; Restaurant, Fergus Henderson serves dishes that include generous heapings of offal. Gordon Ramsay, the celebrity chef famous from TV\u2019s<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>Hell\u2019s Kitchen<\/em>, has raised his own livestock on his most recent show,<span class=\"apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><em>The F-Word<\/em>, slaughtering pigs and turkey for service on the series \ufb01nales. In <st1:city w:st=\"on\"><st1:place w:st=\"on\">Toronto<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>, the model has been taken up by the Black Hoof. \u201cIf you\u2019re going to kill the animal, you might as well have enough respect for it to use every part,\u201d says co-owner Jen Agg. Specializing in homemade charcuterie, a rarity in the city, the Hoof keeps its own hogs. \u201cI\u2019m looking forward to the challenge of raising our own pigs and looking them in the eye and understanding that the walk from farm to table is an ugly walk for the pig,\u201d Agg says. That kind of visceral awareness, too, will tend to promote meat moderation\u2014if not exactly the kind Sir Paul is after, then something not far off.<o:p><\/o:p><\/span><\/i><\/div>\n<div class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/1752027331714385066-4988845206653910334?l=globalwarming-arclein.blogspot.com' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The argument that meat eating is ecologically wasteful is at best complete nonsense.&nbsp; Unfortunately it makes great propaganda and I certainly expect folks to buy into it heavily.&nbsp; It all hangs on the silly idea that all agricultural and natural plant materials are suitable for human consumption.&nbsp; Quite bluntly we cannot eat grass nor can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-521585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521585\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}