Letters to the Editor
vasumurti
Published Letters: 107 Editor's Choice: 2
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RE: Ethics versus religious dogma
[Read the article: Hey, skinny bitch!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're right: religion does not have a monopoly on morality. The animal rights movement is made up mostly of secular progressives, but could use the support of organized religion: not just new and alternative religious movements or Eastern religions, but mainstream churches and synagogues.
The fact that protection of all sentient species may not be a part of the present-day Judeo-Christian ethic does not make it invalid. Human slavery was once considered an acceptable part of the Judeo-Christian ethic. Professor Henry Bigelow observed: "There will come a time when the world will look back to modern vivisection in the name of science as they do now to burning at the stake in the name of religion."
Animal rights, as a secular, moral philosophy, may appear to be at odds with traditional religious thinking (e.g., human ‘dominion’ over other animals), but this is equally true of democracy and representative government in place of the divine right of kings, the separation of church and state, the abolition of human slavery, the emancipation of women, birth control, the sexual revolution, lesbian and gay rights, and perhaps every kind of social progress since the end of the Dark Ages and the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment.
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veg*ism: the solution to the problem of overpopulation
[Read the article: Hey, skinny bitch!]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]daymiou asked:
"And simply as a logistical matter, humans are already overpopulated enough, so if we didn't kill any animals, would there even be enough plants to sustain life on Earth...How exactly would worldwide veganism work?"
The American Dietetic Association reports that throughout history, the human race has lived on "vegetarian or near vegetarian diets," and meat has traditionally been a luxury. Studies show the healthiest human populations on the globe live almost entirely on plant foods--useful data, given our skyrocketing healthcare costs. Nathan Pritikin, author of The Pritikin Plan, recommended not more than three ounces of animal protein per day; three ounces per week for his patients who had already suffered a heart attack.
A report on the energy crisis in Scientific American warned: "The trends in meat consumption and energy consumption are on a collision course." Nor can fish provide any help here. There are signs that the fishing industry (which is quite energy-intensive) has already overfished the oceans in several areas. And fish could never play a major role in the worlds diet anyway: the entire global fish catch of the world, if divided among all the world's inhabitants would amount to only a few ounces of fish per person per week.
Obviously, then, the idea of providing the entire world with a Western-style diet is quite absurd. But what about satisfying today's demand for meat--which provides only a fraction of the population with a Western-style diet? If the world population triples in the next 100 years, and meat consumption continues, then meat production would have to triple as well. Instead of 3.7 billion acres of cropland and 7.5 billion acres of grazing land, we would require 11.1 billion acres of cropland and 22.5 billion acres of grazing land.
But this is slightly larger than the total land area of the six inhabited continents! We are desperately short of forests, water and energy already. On a vegetarian or vegan diet, however, the world could easily support a population several times its present size. The world's cattle alone consume enough to feed over 8.7 billion humans.