Site Presented By
Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
No doubt our growing population puts a strain on the planet. But I'm amazed by how many here want to exterminate 3/4 to 9/10 of the human population rather than taking the easy step of changing the food they themselves eat. Selfishness is so easiy exposed. Privileged people who can choose "grass fed" beef or have the economic advantage to eat meat with every meal seem more willing to wipe the human populations of Africa and Asia off the face of the earth instead of willingly give up the luxuries of fried chicken, steak, and lobster for the planet. I'm shocked, and ashamed to be part of this forum. Yes, I said lobster. Lobsters don't contibute to global warming, but over-fishing is killing off so many species.
I agree overpopulation is the main problem and I don't have kids and won't be having them. However, I have seen up close how impossible it will be to get people to voluntarily have zero or one kid. We would have to make it a law, like China, and that brings up civil rights issues.
My brother and his wife have both worked for years as environmental lawyers. He worked on the Exxon Valdez case , wolf habitat, old growth forests, etc. She has been working on getting judges to rule against new coal fired electric plants. She works full-time for a non-profit enviromental law firm. They own a prius and a hybrid SUV.
So they have one 3 year old girl and what do they do? Adopt? no Foster? no She's pregnant again. And this is a couple who didn't enjoy the first pregnancy or the whole infant period very much and had said they probably wouldn't have another kid.
It reminds me of my work 15 years ago with my local Sierra Club chapter. The overpopulation committee chair was a guy with 8 kids. Apparently he saw the light a little too late.
Kind of a metaphor for humanity.
--Kieran
There's nothing ethical in putting animals above people. Clearly PETA is about treating animals BETTER than people. Superior to people. I just demand truth in advertising.
1) Tell the Fundies to back birth control. They're against it, and their bought-and-paid-for leader Bush has cut sensible family-planning aid both in the US and elsewhere. Result: Spiraling and unsustainable birth rates.
2) If you live in a rural or even exurban part of the US, take up deer hunting. The deer population in the US has grown waaaaay beyond sustainability, to the point where the deer are scouring the forest floor so that everything below the tree branches in deer-heavy areas is a denuded moonscape: http://www.citypages.com/detail.asp?ArticleID=12655
3) Grow at least some of your own herbs and veggies. Even a condo balcony can support a cold frame. If you've got more space, or even some dirt by a sunny wall of your house, try tomatoes or peppers. (If nothing else, you can grow chiles; they don't take much space to grow and are packed with vitamins and other good things.) Every little bit helps.
I am a fish vegetarian that quit eating meat, partly for ethical reasons and partly environmental.
It is always funny to see the fulminations of the American greedy when their beef is threatened, as you see here in the letters column. This article, while making fun of PETA in the headline, actually embraces their main point, which was also made by "Diet for a Small Planet" ... in 1970. I have stopped drinking milk and gone to soy. But eggs are a product of chickens, not cows, which is the only mistake I see in this article.
The development of oil-driven agriculture is what has lead to the large population rise. This agriculture has given a turbo boost to meat production at the same time. That and the idiocies of various religions, which oppose birth control methods, have lead to far higher populations.
People who want a 'die off' are not much different from Nazis. Peak oil will shut off the petro-agriculture so much of the world lives on. It will work to reduce populations. To avoid mass starvation, birth control has to be promoted and a sustainable agriculture, done most notably now by Cuba, has to be developed - now.
Living the way we do now is over. Chuckling about the Hummer PETA was using (sarcasm on their part?) doesn't suffice.
One does not need to eat meat in order to live well
Just because you can tolerate all the plant estrogens that come along with plant protein doesn't mean that I can tolerate that kind of diet.
I have an estrogen-sensitive autoimmune illness that almost killed me until I figured out that plant and chemical estrogens were the triggers.
Now I stay healthy by taking an immune suppressant that only works when I avoid plant estrogens, and the chemical ones in makeup and nail polish.
If I eat soy, or too many nuts, or bread with flax, or take a bath with lavender bath salts -- my medicine stops working and I get very sick very quickly.
It's interesting that my particular illness was extremely rare 20 years ago but now an increasing number of women are suffering from it.
I believe that my illness has exploded onto the medical landscape in the last decade because so many women have been convinced that overloading their bodies with plant estrogen is a good thing.
Will you vegans please stop spouting this ignorant BS that NOBODY needs to eat meat?
It's ignorant and thoughtless. And the more I hear this BS coming from you people -- the less I respect your cause.
And the more I think you people are controlling and cruel and not at all the good-hearted peaceful smart people that you like to see yourselves as.
Lydaking, if humans don't start using birth control worldwide (which Bush and his religious-wrong friends have done their best to fight), there will be a massive die-off -- and by the time that occurs, our planet will be so trashed that the sustainability level will not allow more than a few tens of millions of us at best.
It doesn't matter what you like or don't like: A 9/10 die-off rate is actually an optimistic scenario. It's much more likely to be around 99/100.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
