Skip the cheeseburger, save the planet

[oldhat]

Yes, Yes!! I, am building a NEW Cadillac Escalade the same way! I am preparing to strip mine my land for iron ore, coal, copper, bauxite, chromium, lead, etc, and drill for oil to make fuel and plastics. I'm even planting rubber trees, too! I dammed up a stream to install a homemade hydroelectric plant, and built the shop buildings out of stone I quarried and trees I harvested and sawed into lumber. When I am through, I will have a vehicle I built, free of the costs connected with dependence on Foreign Oil and transporting materials long distance to my factory. See? I am saving the world, just like you and your home-made burgers! Thank Me.

You need to see this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_analogy

[bUU]

There's a difference between a flawed (really: "imperfect") analogy and a false analogy. All analogies are imperfect. (If they were perfect, they wouldn't be analogies.) A false analogy is one which varies from the parallels necessary for the expression to constitute an analogy, in the manner outlined in the linked entry.

[bUU]

[larknm]

My rule of thumb is if I'm not willing for someone to eat me, I won't eat someone. And I am on the side of saving the planet--I do see it that way.

[kally]

Has anyone watched Cowspiracy? http://www.cowspiracy.com/ Some really good and revealing information in this movie. Things you might not have thought about yet regarding the raising of meat animals.

[Suzanne]

Other viewpoints:
http://www.amazon.com/Cows-Save-Plan.../dp/1603584323
http://www.amazon.com/Meat-Benign-Ex...n+extravagance

I may have pointed this out before: at the time that Europeans came to the USA, there were some 60 billion bison roaming the Great Plains. The soil, under permanent grass cover, was deep and dark and rich, and got deeper year by year. The national cattle herd of the USA today is around 32 million. So what went wrong? Capitalism and the strip-mining industrial mindset that took over farming! The Great Dust Bowl was caused by ploughing for human crops - CAFOs hadn't been dreamt of yet (or nightmared, depending on one's viewpoint). By that time, the rich prairie soils were already worn down. Jokesters placed their ploughs upside down on tne roofs of their barns, to ensure that their soil would be thoroughly worked before it hit the ocean. They were growing wheat and corn, the bulk of which was going to the growing markets of the East and Europe. So, if the corn and soy were ploughed under and the prairies returned to grasslands (above and beyond what's required for human food), the USA could support the national herd on grass alone. At the same time, the ecosystems would have a chance to recover, and the aquifers to replenish. Deer, wolves, coyotes, rabbits, dozens of species of birds, small mammals, reptiles, and insects would co-exist with the cattle.

Great Dust Bowl: http://www.history.com/topics/dust-bowl

Clearly, regardless of the evidence that either side brings, the other will hew to its own line. But it's good to keep in mind that this is not a bipolar situation. Those who don't want to eat meat don't have to, and they have just as stringent a personal responsibility to make food choices that will not further strain our planet as do those who choose to make meat and other animal source foods part of their diet.