In Translation: Cutting Back On Meat To Save The Planet

[marmar]

from OpenLeft:


In Translation: Cutting Back On Meat To Save The Planet
by: Natasha Chart

Mon Mar 15, 2010 at 07:00


We hear a steady drumbeat of exhortation from various environmental activists and climate experts that we must cut back on red meat, or maybe all meat, to save the planet that provides our air and food.

It's explained that the animals we raise for food cause too many methane emissions and they're heating up the planet. This is sometimes put forward as an argument for a more humane food system. In both cases, the argument isn't really about the consumption of meat, but the number of animals now living, and how there need to be less of them. Allow me to put that another way:

Our planet, our only life support system in the big, cold, airless void of space, is too frakked up to safely support its current animal population.

This is deeply alarming on two levels. First, what kind of planet are we running that it can't support animals? That's just unfathomable incompetence. Second, arguing that the way to fix this is to reduce the number of non-human animals just seems so, so bloody wrong.

Were the buffalo and antelope that roamed North America before the European invasion bad for the planet? Were African ibexes a major global warming threat in their heyday? No. Were the wolves and bears and leopards that ate these grazing ruminants killing the ecosystem? No. It isn't the animals, it isn't eating the animals, it's us. .........(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.openleft.com/diary/17774/in-translation-cutting-back-on-meat-to-save-the-planet

[wtmusic]

1. If only we slaughtered *ourselves*, the buffalo could roam the plain again

(sings) "Bless the beasts, and the chiiiiildren...." :rofl:

[Tumbulu]

2. I just attended a most inspiring workshop on Holistic Grazing of Livestock

put on by my local NRCS office (which has helped me with a native plant restoration project on my hillside). It was fascinating and inspiring. It is a complicated way of planning where your livestock will be on your land. if done properly the soil will be improved, the number of species oif plants will increase, wildlife habitat will increase, soil water holding capacity will increase. it is based on the observations of a wildlife biologist named Allen Savory and I was left very inspired, and looking at how I can save more money to put up more separate pastures as the key is moving the animals frequently allowing plants to fully recover.

if you want to see pictures of some of the places where this system is in place go take a look at this website : http://www.holisticmanagement.org/index.html

[kestrel91316]

3. Intensive rotational grazing improves the soil and is the best way to go.

Read up on Joel Salatin's farming methods - he's got an amazing setup.