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Vegetarianism and the Environment

I think growing your own vegetables or raising your own animals for slaughter are both environment-friendly. But as for which is better for this planet, I think that depends on more than what it is. The best thing is to raise/grow your own or if you can't do that, buy local produce and support local farmers markets. The worst thing is to buy things at a big chain grocery store. Hunting or raising your own meat to me seems more environmentally friendly that eating vegetarian but buying foods that have been trucked in all prepackaged and processed.
 
ghosthousecorns said:
I think growing your own vegetables or raising your own animals for slaughter are both environment-friendly. But as for which is better for this planet, I think that depends on more than what it is. The best thing is to raise/grow your own or if you can't do that, buy local produce and support local farmers markets. The worst thing is to buy things at a big chain grocery store. Hunting or raising your own meat to me seems more environmentally friendly that eating vegetarian but buying foods that have been trucked in all prepackaged and processed.
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Unfortunately, the vast majority of inhabitants of this planet simply cannot grow their own food. We simply do not have access to land, water, or soild upon which to do this. As well...a solid majority do not have immediate access to hunting grounds where we can hunt our own meat products.

There are too many people and not enough planet. You can't grow enough food to support a family of 3 for an entire year in a 2 bedroom apartment...It just doesn't work that way...
 
tyflier said:
There are too many people and not enough planet. .
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I agree completely with this statement. And unfortunately the only solution that is not horrific like genocide or a disease that wipes us out is for us to curtail our own breeding. I am not going to get into that again here but I have made many posts about overpopulation and my feelings about it in this forum.
I am under no delusion that everyone is able to grow or raise their own food. That was not the point I was trying to make. My point was that you can be a vegetarian and still have more of a negative impact than someone who eats meat. My point was that if you can support local producers it's better than buying food at Safeway. If you do have a farmers market or local farmer that you can buy food from, you WILL have less impact than if your corn comes in Green Giant can.
 
I am never one to argue how a person lives their life. Some people drastically change their lifestyles because they are following a code of some sort, they are guilted into it (save the cows!) or just decide to do it because. My cousin went vegan a few years ago. She runs in marathons. She actually participated in a 3 day marathon across Arizona... and ran pretty much the whole 3 days. She takes more supplements that anyone I know. My sister in law had a brief dance with vegetarianism because after her hysterectomy... she couldn't stand the site, smell, or taste of meat. That only lasted about 3 months.

The point is that any side can come up with a fantastic all encompassing argument if they argue it right. For example, the sea kittens thing. My response was "What about the fish in lakes and rivers?" If you truly believe in whats being argued, and you feel that you should pass the word to others, than so be it. However, don't try to shove something down another's throat if you can't back up your reasoning 100%.

Personally, I enjoy meat. So we don't run the risk of ingesting more treatment medicines and hormones than I can count, my family has always raised their own meat. Sure we buy meat at the store, (hey we don't raise lamb) but for the most part our beef and poultry comes from our own backyard. So do our eggs. Its less expensive, and we know what goes into our animals. Milk is a different story.. I do buy my milk. I have tried to grow veggies before, and have failed miserably... I do not have a green thumb at all. I love wild game. I'm not completely environmentally ignorant, but I'm not an active environmentalist. I don't drive a hybrid (lets not even go into how un-safe those cars are for the environment), but I do use energy saving light bulbs :)
 
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KJUN said:
Personally, I've complete the entire cycle here. I have a septic system that throws nutrients in my yard, I have a cow that eats the prolific grass, and I have a hose coming out of that cows butt. The hose goes directly to my BBQ pit, and I use the methane to cook the meat of the previous cow. I eat the cow and put nutrients back into the septic system. Water vapor is collected above the BBQ pit to be used to water additional grasses in the yard!
KJ
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Remind me never to eat your BBQ.
 
"Save the environment, be a vegetarian" and "Save a horse, ride a cowboy" hold about the same truth, one's a lot funnier though. I think it's armchair environmentalism with an agenda. If reducing our livestock would save the environment by reducing methane then it's a good thing we killed off the sea's of buffalo that used to rome the USA. They would have produced a lot of methane. If anyone does not like to eat meat for any reason what so ever that's is a freedom you have in this country. I just don't think the environment would see the benefit if American's ordered their Whoppers without the hamburger patty. Just my brief thought's on it. LOL
 
Bingo. In 2000, there were 98 million cattle on farms in the US. Bison, when white man arrived, were estimated at being at least 60 million (some of those in Canada, of course). Let's be realistic - when you look at the higher productivity and survival in cattle (meaning a greater proportion of the population being young animals), it isn't like cattle produced methane is THAT much more damaging the the amount of methane historically produced by bison. Cattle are some of the greatest tools available to help replace some of the ecological functions that WERE filled by bison. Removing cattle ranching would remove all of the benefits they give WHEN PROPERLY MANAGED to wildlife habitats. Anything, however, can be mismanaged.
 
tyflier said:
Unfortunately, the vast majority of inhabitants of this planet simply cannot grow their own food. We simply do not have access to land, water, or soild upon which to do this.
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Maybe vegetables could be grown hydroponically and in rooftops... Just alternatives to the lack of space and soil.

I was just watching a show on Science Channel that dealt with this issue of methane coming from cows...
 
Originally Posted by tyflier View Post
And for a healthy environment...we need less people. There's no way around that. With the population of the planet where it is, we absolutely MUST produce as much and more consumable food items, including meat, in order to survive.
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wade said:
I wish more people understood this. There isn’t an environmental problem you can name that wouldn’t be solved if 50% of the people on this planet would move to another. It is really that simple. Any other species would be riddled with disease if they were allowed to overpopulate the way we have. Our intelligence has allowed us to survive long enough to grow into a real problem.
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I agree with both here. THE NUMBER ONE problem on this planet is overpopulation. This problem creates more tangential problems than anything else. I have one son and a serious consideration that I made when my former wife ( she already had a daughter from a previous marriage)and I were considering more children was how responsible it would be to have more. I think at most you are entitled to "replace" yourself once.
 
ForkedTung said:
I agrhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soylent_Greenee with both here. THE NUMBER ONE problem on this planet is overpopulation. This problem creates more tangential problems than anything else. I have one son and a serious consideration that I made when my former wife ( she already had a daughter from a previous marriage)and I were considering more children was how responsible it would be to have more. I think at most you are entitled to "replace" yourself once.
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I think I have the answer to all our problems here.....LOL
 
jpccusa said:
The idea is to reduce, not eliminate meat production...
Do you wanna compare the amount we produce w/ the amount cows produce? Really?!?!?
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Reducing won't help anything!!!!!!! The amount cows produce is trace. It won't do anything!!!!!!!!!! Yes, I want to compare. They are practicly the SAME!!! are they gonna do a people tax soon? with all of these crazy people in charge of the senate, and congress, IT MIGHT HAPPEN!!! :blowhead:
 
ForkedTung said:
I agree with both here. THE NUMBER ONE problem on this planet is overpopulation. This problem creates more tangential problems than anything else. I have one son and a serious consideration that I made when my former wife ( she already had a daughter from a previous marriage)and I were considering more children was how responsible it would be to have more. I think at most you are entitled to "replace" yourself once.
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There is actually an organization called "voluntary human extinction movement" or vhmet. While I think wishing our whole race to become extinct is going too far, I have to agree with some of what they have to say... Here is their website. Controversial!!!
http://www.vhemt.org/
 
ghosthousecorns said:
There is actually an organization called "voluntary human extinction movement" or vhmet. While I think wishing our whole race to become extinct is going too far, I have to agree with some of what they have to say... Here is their website. Controversial!!!
http://www.vhemt.org/
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I've heard of this group before and find them interesting. I agree with the means ( voluntary non-reproduction) but not the ends ( extinction of humanity).
I am not a fan of comedies ( it's just most of the humor is so poor it's insulting) but if you haven't ever seen the movie Idiocracy, you should. It has a not so subtle and predictive ( very scary) social commentary.
 
That's how I feel about that group too -I agree with the means but not the ends. But that raises just as many questions for me because, theoretically if we were to curtail human reproduction in some way but still wanted some people around, and that made it OK for SOME people to reproduce but not ALL, then what criteria can you use to decide who gets to have kids? And how do you get people like the family in this thread to go along with it?
I am going to try and rent that movie soon. I am wondering how did I miss it when it first came out? It looks really good.
 
Cornsnake124 said:
WRONG WRONG WRONG. Only trace amounts of methane come from cows, and it is from there BURP.. And now they want to TAX the farmers for the cows!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! And the pigs don't let anything off, and they want to tax for those to!!!! You wouldn't cut back at all!! you would just put thousands of farmers bankrupt and make the economy worse!!! :realhot::realhot::realhot:
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As Chris (Tyflier) said, you need to back this up with sources... You are just wiggling your fingers (the forum equivalent to "flapping your gums") when you post something like that... :blowup:

And although the majority of the methane is burped by cows, there are still a smaller portion of it being farted and yet more being released by the feces (microbes still working on the feces after it left the body).
 
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