"With increased prosperity, people are consuming more meat and dairy products every year. Global meat production is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/2001 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, while milk output is set to climb from 580 to 1043 million tonnes."
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation have released an interesting report, detailing how livestock are significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems we're facing on this beautiful planet.
"Livestock now use 30 percent of the earth’s entire land surface, mostly permanent pasture but also including 33 percent of the global arable land used to producing feed for livestock"
They also list a number of feeble "remedies" that could be used to help the situation. These include "Improving animals’ diets to reduce enteric fermentation and consequent methane emissions". Somehow I don't think it's the diet of the livestock that we should be re-examining.
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
Revolt
It has long been apparent that every large, land-based animal on this planet is ultimately fighting a losing battle with humankind.
And yet entirely befitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, elephants are not going out quietly. They aren't leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are beginning to pay close attention. [source]
I watched earthlings not so long ago (well, as much as I could anyway - sometimes I had to look away and switch to reading the script instead). It contains the fairly well known footage of Tyke found online here. That footage seems incredibly significant to me, for some reason that I haven't quite put my finger on. Other footage in Earthlings fills me with more familiar feelings of horror, shame, sorrow, pity, rage, regret - y'know the typical range of feelings a compassionate human experiences when viewing such material.
But Tyke seems to be showing us something else... something that I dare say that most humans who willingly uses animals for food and entertainment don't want to admit to. I guess it's that animals have interests that are every bit as important to them as our own interests are to us.
The very deliberate intent behind Tyke's actions suggest she had a very strong desire to follow her own interests - she wanted out of the circus business and had reached her breaking point. I get a little bit of that sometimes. Work might suck, and I'd rather be doing something else. Of course, I can always quit if I want to - I have that choice. Or I can keep my job but take a day off and do whatever the hell I want, anything that makes me feel a little bit more human. I think Tyke wanted to feel more like an elephant. I don't blame her for mauling her captors and making a run for it. She wanted to break out and escape from the life that she was trapped in. What did she hope to find when she busted out that gate? A savannah? An Acacia to stand under? Or a running stream to drink from? Certainly not heavily armed police I guess.
And I'm again left with an uncomfortable feeling that comes from glimpsing some truth that perhaps I would rather not know. I'm getting that a lot these days...
And yet entirely befitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, elephants are not going out quietly. They aren't leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are beginning to pay close attention. [source]
I watched earthlings not so long ago (well, as much as I could anyway - sometimes I had to look away and switch to reading the script instead). It contains the fairly well known footage of Tyke found online here. That footage seems incredibly significant to me, for some reason that I haven't quite put my finger on. Other footage in Earthlings fills me with more familiar feelings of horror, shame, sorrow, pity, rage, regret - y'know the typical range of feelings a compassionate human experiences when viewing such material.
But Tyke seems to be showing us something else... something that I dare say that most humans who willingly uses animals for food and entertainment don't want to admit to. I guess it's that animals have interests that are every bit as important to them as our own interests are to us.
The very deliberate intent behind Tyke's actions suggest she had a very strong desire to follow her own interests - she wanted out of the circus business and had reached her breaking point. I get a little bit of that sometimes. Work might suck, and I'd rather be doing something else. Of course, I can always quit if I want to - I have that choice. Or I can keep my job but take a day off and do whatever the hell I want, anything that makes me feel a little bit more human. I think Tyke wanted to feel more like an elephant. I don't blame her for mauling her captors and making a run for it. She wanted to break out and escape from the life that she was trapped in. What did she hope to find when she busted out that gate? A savannah? An Acacia to stand under? Or a running stream to drink from? Certainly not heavily armed police I guess.
And I'm again left with an uncomfortable feeling that comes from glimpsing some truth that perhaps I would rather not know. I'm getting that a lot these days...
Tuesday, September 26, 2006
A different language
I was awoken by a knock on the door on Saturday and greeted by two salespeople from one of the major electricity retailers. They launched into a spiel about the potential savings I could obtain if I switched my account over to them (on a five year contract of course). Now normally I'd quickly disengage, but I'm kind of curious since I deliberately switched away from this retailer about a year ago. They are hurriedly scribbling numbers on a pad, showing me how much extra money I would "have in my pocket" etc. They seem quite sure that I should be excited by that prospect. I attempt to inform them that I choose to pay an extra ~5.5c/KWh (or about 40%) for green electricity with their competitor since they have a better range of plans based on sourcing electricity from different mixes of renewables. They seem a little put off by this and not quite sure how to respond. It's only momentarily though and they quickly resume scribbling bogus numbers and making promises of large savings.
Sigh.
Given their apparent unwillingness to realize I'm not so interested in the cost of my electricity as I am about pollution in the Latrobe Valley from coal burning power plants I say goodbye. It's not their fault of course - they know their market, and that market probably IS mostly concerned with economics. At least for now.
Sigh.
Given their apparent unwillingness to realize I'm not so interested in the cost of my electricity as I am about pollution in the Latrobe Valley from coal burning power plants I say goodbye. It's not their fault of course - they know their market, and that market probably IS mostly concerned with economics. At least for now.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Growing without limits
'The idea that we can address climate change matters successfully at the expense of economic growth is not only unrealistic but it also unacceptable to the population of Australia which I represent.' - Prime Minister John Howard, at the Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership [link].
Arh, the growth at all costs mantra. Perhaps that's one of the reasons we find ourselves in this predicament? As ecologist Paul Ehrlich says, endless growth in a finite world is the creed of the cancer cell, and the result of adhering to it is death. In any case, I think I might pick up a copy of “The Ecology of Commerce” and send it Mr Howards way. Maybe he will be able to sneak in a page or two between re-reads of his favourite Bradman biography or something.
"Howard told a conference of Asia-Pacific nations and corporations that growth was the only way many nations could reduce poverty levels among their populations."
Surely the problem is not lack of wealth, but the inequality in the distribution of that wealth? In “Naked Ape to Superspecies”, economist Herman Daly says:
“We’ve built the modern economy around the idea of growth, I believe at least partly, in order to avoid facing up to the problem of sharing. If you don’t continue to grow, and you still have poverty, then you have to redistribute. You have to share in order to cure poverty. How do you cure poverty without sharing? Well, the only way we’ve been able to come up with is growing.”
So it seems you can either keep growing (and hope the poor see some of the benefits) or you can share the wealth around more evenly. The latter is a moral problem of the type that we humans apparently aren’t very good at solving. So we tend to favor the technical problem of chasing continual economic growth – with its inherent detrimental effect on the environment.
Arh, the growth at all costs mantra. Perhaps that's one of the reasons we find ourselves in this predicament? As ecologist Paul Ehrlich says, endless growth in a finite world is the creed of the cancer cell, and the result of adhering to it is death. In any case, I think I might pick up a copy of “The Ecology of Commerce” and send it Mr Howards way. Maybe he will be able to sneak in a page or two between re-reads of his favourite Bradman biography or something.
"Howard told a conference of Asia-Pacific nations and corporations that growth was the only way many nations could reduce poverty levels among their populations."
Surely the problem is not lack of wealth, but the inequality in the distribution of that wealth? In “Naked Ape to Superspecies”, economist Herman Daly says:
“We’ve built the modern economy around the idea of growth, I believe at least partly, in order to avoid facing up to the problem of sharing. If you don’t continue to grow, and you still have poverty, then you have to redistribute. You have to share in order to cure poverty. How do you cure poverty without sharing? Well, the only way we’ve been able to come up with is growing.”
So it seems you can either keep growing (and hope the poor see some of the benefits) or you can share the wealth around more evenly. The latter is a moral problem of the type that we humans apparently aren’t very good at solving. So we tend to favor the technical problem of chasing continual economic growth – with its inherent detrimental effect on the environment.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
We have children too!!
"The people who run the private sector . . . they too have children, they too have grandchildren and they too live and breathe in the world and they would like things dealt with effectively, and that's what this (meeting) is all about," - US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman speaking at the inaugural meeting of the Asia-Pacific Clean Development and Climate Partnership [as quoted here]
This sounds suspiciously like something John Stauber (author of Toxic Sludge is Good For You and Trust Us We're Experts) describes as being part of the standard anti-environmentalist spiel:
“A typical corporate rap might be to sit down with a concerned group of people and say, ‘Look, you know no one is more concerned than the people at XYZ corporation about chemicals in the environment. After all, we have children too. And we live in this community and we’re just like you. If we’re put out of business, we can’t provide jobs for our community. So let’s sit down and work for a common solution’ ”.
This approach is apparently part of the divide and conquer technique used to combat environment and social grass-roots activists. PR companies hired to make polluting corporations look better divide social activists into three or four categories – the radicals, the idealists, and the realists (and sometimes the opportunists). The above, “we’re just like you, we breath the same air, but want to keep our [polluting] industry thriving because we all need jobs, right?” shtick is intended to “educate” and sway the realists (and to a lesser extent the idealists) away from the radicals. By presenting a “solution” favorable to industry that sounds reasonable to realists, the radicals (no matter how rational and just their demands) will seem extreme and thus have less credibility. At least, that’s the theory.
This sounds suspiciously like something John Stauber (author of Toxic Sludge is Good For You and Trust Us We're Experts) describes as being part of the standard anti-environmentalist spiel:
“A typical corporate rap might be to sit down with a concerned group of people and say, ‘Look, you know no one is more concerned than the people at XYZ corporation about chemicals in the environment. After all, we have children too. And we live in this community and we’re just like you. If we’re put out of business, we can’t provide jobs for our community. So let’s sit down and work for a common solution’ ”.
This approach is apparently part of the divide and conquer technique used to combat environment and social grass-roots activists. PR companies hired to make polluting corporations look better divide social activists into three or four categories – the radicals, the idealists, and the realists (and sometimes the opportunists). The above, “we’re just like you, we breath the same air, but want to keep our [polluting] industry thriving because we all need jobs, right?” shtick is intended to “educate” and sway the realists (and to a lesser extent the idealists) away from the radicals. By presenting a “solution” favorable to industry that sounds reasonable to realists, the radicals (no matter how rational and just their demands) will seem extreme and thus have less credibility. At least, that’s the theory.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Over-seafooding
“Every fish, plant, insect, bird and animal that disappears is a part of me dying. I know all their names, and I touch them with my spirit.” - Okanagan elder Jeanette Armstrong [as quoted in From Naked Ape to Superspecies].
Fortunately, I’m nowhere near a TV when Today Tonight is on. Unfortunately, I was subjected to an advert for this evening’s episode. Yet another weight loss scheme, and [adopting overly dramatic voiceover] “The unthinkable is happening, the ocean is running out of seafood.” From the 10 second blurb, it seems that illegal (and usually foreign) fisherman are depleting our, err, “seafood” stocks.
Blaming collapsing fish populations on illegal/foreign fisherman is conveniently comfortable for TT viewers I'm sure. But could the fact that Australia exports some $1.5 billion worth of seafood and aquaculture products (and is actively trying to create larger export markets) be indicative of “taking more than our fair share”?
And calling it “seafood” instead of say “fish” or “marine life” is telling. Just like trees, birds and other animals, fish are seen as nothing but machines useful for economic production - a resource to be exploited.
A slightly more sensible news piece on the same topic can be found here: The fished-out planet.
Fortunately, I’m nowhere near a TV when Today Tonight is on. Unfortunately, I was subjected to an advert for this evening’s episode. Yet another weight loss scheme, and [adopting overly dramatic voiceover] “The unthinkable is happening, the ocean is running out of seafood.” From the 10 second blurb, it seems that illegal (and usually foreign) fisherman are depleting our, err, “seafood” stocks.
Blaming collapsing fish populations on illegal/foreign fisherman is conveniently comfortable for TT viewers I'm sure. But could the fact that Australia exports some $1.5 billion worth of seafood and aquaculture products (and is actively trying to create larger export markets) be indicative of “taking more than our fair share”?
And calling it “seafood” instead of say “fish” or “marine life” is telling. Just like trees, birds and other animals, fish are seen as nothing but machines useful for economic production - a resource to be exploited.
A slightly more sensible news piece on the same topic can be found here: The fished-out planet.
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