Last week we had a people in New Zealand saying we need edible pets. This week we have England’s “premier climatologist” saying we need to give up meat. You first, me Lord. However, this sort of tactic risks marginalization of his cause. Poll numbers are already falling. What’s really needed here is “steak watch”. Since as we’ve seen with many prominent people who give worldly advice, they often don’t follow it, we need some British paparazzi at restaurants and public banquets to see if Lord Stern follows his own advice. When in Japan, maybe someone can offer him the new Windows 7 Whopper to try. Why no “OSX Snow Leopard” Burger? – Anthony
From the London Times: Climate chief Lord Stern: give up meat to save the planet
People will need to turn vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.
In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”
My mom is sending me a package of Omaha Steaks. They will arrive tomorrow.
http://www.omahasteaks.com/servlet/OnlineShopping?Dsp=1
My mom really loves me.
Barry Foster (12:24:48) :
Stefan. Our ‘natural’ diet is a mix. It would therefore be ‘unnatural’ to be either a carnivore or a herbivore. I don’t need to “try it sometime” as I was a omnivore. However, I’ve been veggie for 26 years now and enjoy perfect health. I’m not saying it would give you that too, as I believe health is primarily genetic, I’m just saying it works for me. I don’t care if someone eats meat as I’m not a veggie campaigner – I just do what I want, and hope you do too. I was merely pointing out that in the future pretty much everyone WILL be veggie because of land use/space. It will happen, it’s just a matter of time:
http://www.worldometers.info/
Barry Foster,
You and worldometers are caught up by science and technology already.
New crop production techniques have been developed and they can be applied indoors.
These techniques not only generate a very high yield per square meter but also optimize the use of water and fertilizer.
The real problem we face are the dire predictions and assessments of doomsayers and apparatchiks who believe humanity and population growth is a threat to the world. They are so blinded and obsessed with their views that they forget to see one of the most formidable properties of man.
The ability to think, learn, invent and develop science and technology with the potential to solve any problem or address (almost) any crises or threat.
The sum of all those properties is A D A P T I O N.
And we have become the masters of adaption.
All it needs is to look back and see how far we have come since the Industrial Revolution and imagine where we could be heading in 100 years from now?
Just think about all those doomsayers like the Club of Rome who predicted the end of the world in the sixties, an ice age and mass starvation in the seventies, mass deforestation due to acid rain caused by industrial emisions, nuclear armageddon, the ozone hole and Global Warming in the eighties, the flooding of New york due to melting icecaps in the nineties and the crash of our entire computer system (The Millennium Bug if you already have forgotten it) in 2000.
They were all wrong and non of their predictions have materialized.
Do you know that the current rate of our “knowledge” doubles every 8 months?
That is why it is a pretty frustrating experience to find the world’s focus directed at a non problem, pushed by a bunch of half wits who have decided to reduce the world population with the use of a false ideology based on semi science, fraud, lies and propaganda.
There are kids in Boston who have pledged to sleep outside until Copenhagen. I am encouraging them.
Me too! I would encourage them to live outdoors all winter without benefit of anything depending on emitting CO2 like electricity, heat, and food deliveries.
We could call it the “Taking The Cure Tour”. If enough kids did this the hysteria over CO2 would be over by spring. One way or another.
How much methane is produced naturally compared to how much is produced by man? More powerful? What does that mean in measurable terms? How much of the GHG is methane compared to CO2 and how much warming (theoretically) is produced by each?
Finally, how much extra methane is produced by garbage landfills compared to composting? I keep hearing that I will save the planet if I sort my garbage. In San Francisco they say that composting food scraps “protects” the environment.
Eating grass-fed beef (not grain finished which tastes good, but has had the natural meat chemistry ravaged) is one of the best things you can do for your health. There are myths that have been foisted on the trusting public that tell us eating beef is an incredible waste of energy, water and land, but if you do the research you will find that ranching (cattle raised naturally — not shipped to feedlots which does cause all sorts of problems) is much less wasteful of resources than the farming of grains or soybeans (which are a health hazard) . It is true there are some people who should not eat much, if any, beef due to their individual body chemistry, but other types of meats are usually fine for them. Eat your veggies, that’s for sure, but stay away from sugar — and all grains are digested to sugar so they should be used only in moderation. The Lord has jumped the shark — how come there is so much of that going on now? It’s like they are trying to tear down their own “urban legend”. Every single person should read Dr. Weston Price’s 1936 masterpiece, “Nutrition and Physical Degeneration”, it will show you just how far the truth has been manipulated. Our ignorance is expected and counted upon.
mr.artday,
I find my body seems to agree. I can eat a large or small portion of meat, and my stomach feels good, perhaps full, but good, and no flatulence. When I eat veggies, I find I can’t quite consume as much comfortably. When I eat processed grains like bread or pasta, I end up with a “brick” like feeling in the stomach, and a mental fog. Actually the mental clarity that’s come from eating meat is what convinces me of its importance, more so even than the shrinking waistline, which shrank quite noticeably. And that was even before I started losing weight, as the meat simply occupies smaller volume.
There’s some great info on Dr. Eades’ blog about the human rib cage’s shape, which tapers inwards at the waist, to give us potentially narrow waist, whereas in vegetarian apes it tapers outward to give them room for the larger guts.
The madness goes on. I just heard a report on Marketplace (NPR) that flatly blamed climate change for the pine beetle infestation in the area around Helena, Montana. Higher winter temperatures supposedly prevented the winter die-offs of the beetles.
I checked the weather data for Helena (winter temperatures 1900–2006). The trend is slightly negative for the period, with many periods warmer than today in the early and mid-twentieth century.
What can be done to debunk such reports?
Re: Jeh Custer (see above).
A followup:
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/012529.html#comments
More:
“sustain one – Jeh Custer
I travel EARTH to experience, contribute to, and become part of revolutionary and sustainable communities. I blog here to sensitize communal consciousness as I want live in a world where we feel inspired, energized, and motivated from our interconnected stories.
I long to see that light in your eyes where the UNIVERSE dwells because when we realize our ONENESS, together we can shatter destructive molds of apathy and take action for our collective future.
But we must believe, not with naïve optimism, but with realistic confidence that when we cooperate and work together we can coexist peacefully, end poverty, revolutionize the economic system, provide universal healthcare, implement clean energy, sustain planetary life, and give birth to a global community!
Our story is one of many colours and this is a painting of my path… ”
http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/sustain-one/
Please refrain from using “The Lord” in vain. There is only one “The Lord” and He isn’t some British politician. What kinda of world is this? It is looking to be a near thing to put off Armageddon but some will tempt fate. Fine. I have my ticket off planet.
All this talk of food is making me hungry. I think I’ll drive my SUV down to that nice steak restaurant on the other side of town and order a T-bone.
Lord Stern clarifies for us the old adage: To err is human, to fart bovine.
It will interesting to see the animal rights bubbas take on the environmentalists on this one. While at first glance they may be one and the same, on this issue, they can’t be.
You see, it doesn’t spare the world any bovine-generated methane simply to turn the poor creatures out to pasture (or meadow). The global population of cattle would have to be drastically reduced or it would make no difference whether they were eaten or not. Without meat (and leather), we have little need for cattle (I assume he objects to dairy products as well). The remainder will end up in zoos.
Since I am a dietitian, I have to make a few remarks about food choices. Starchy tubers and grains do no give anyone Type 2 Diabetes. Type 2 Diabetes happens when you weigh so much that your body shuts down you insulin receptors to make you lose weight. Not surprisingly, Type 2 Diabetes was unknown during WW1 and WW2 and the depression in between. What is the one universal thing we are seeing now and have been seeing for the past 30 years? Overweight people. When I was growing up there was one fat kid in my whole school. Go to any grade and high school now and you will see that most are overweight.
Pasta and bread causing mental fog. Yes, that is carbohydrate dumping. If you do not have any protein with your meal and you eat a whole lot of carbohydrates like bread, pasta, grains, etc, they go from your stomach to your intestine very fast resulting in a rush of blood to the area around your intestines to absorb the nutrients.
Vegetable oil causing cancer. Unknown about the polyunsaturates such as corn oil, sunflower oil, saflower oil but we do have a culture using olive oil for a long time, the Mediterranean diet. Have no incidence of more cancers in these people.
We are ominoves for a reason. We need some protein, I think with each meal, but some means an ounce or two or three. North Americans are overweight because they eat too much of it. Also we have stopped eating complex carbohydrates and changed to simple sugars. Complex carbohydrates contain fiber which fill you up and you must chew, slowing you down. Candy and soda are fast. I think I can eat a bag of chips without taking a breath, I certainly can with a bag of cheesies.
I just voted to count myself out, adding the following to my comment:
“Small natural variations in temperature do not mean the sky is falling. As a former weather observer, I have seen the gradual increase in the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect, as more rural weather stations have gone offline and the remaining ones are badly sited. I used to walk out to Stevenson screens mostly located on grass and well away from buildings (well, there WAS one on the railing of the control tower). The digital readouts are handy, but the cable runs seem to be conveniently short, at least for the installers. See Anthony Watts’ project at surfacestations.org; 89% are badly located enough to introduce significant (upward) errors into the supposedly warming temperature data.
“That’s just one of the reasons I do not believe in Anthropogenic Global Warming, pardon me, “Climate Change.””
At the end of the comment section, they asked for nationality. Wonder if they’ll accept opinions from us non-Brits.
CrossBorder
If God didn’t want us to eat meat, why did he make animals so tasty?
All joking aside, I saw the communist manifesto in his “Lordship’s” diatribe. Pay the poor people, you rich capitalist pigs! Your conspicuous consumption and easier life is an affront to the oppressed poor!
They don’t call themselves commies, but they are. Communism and socialism are unsustainable because an unfortunate side-effect is they removes any motivation to work harder and thus everyone becomes someone who needs a handout. Why work harder when a lazy person gets everything handed to him or her? What will happen in the eco-communist ideal is the rich nations will pay the poor nations, but the rich nations will stop working so that they too can get payment too. Eventually there will be no wealth to re-distribute but by then, we are all screwed. Which is what the eco-commies want to save Gaia. Oh, but the enlightened UN and its bickering nations will solve all our problems.
If it wasn’t so true it would be like a very scary movie. Mark my words here and now, even if Copenhagen fails, even if “Lord” Stern fails to ban meat, even if climate change is denounced as the next cold fusion by everyone, the UN will find another way to flex its muscle over everyone. The fear may change, but not the goal.
Barry Foster posted(10:33:36) :
People DO need to give up meat, but not because of any climate nonsense, but because of the land and resources required to provide for animals. If everyone went veggie then there would be MUCH more land available and much less use of resources like water and energy.
Incorrect, the amount of land needed to grow a similar amount of vegetable calories would greatly exceed said tasty meat.
Alvin. that is correct. We would need double the amount of calories without meat plus we humans are omnivores and need some animal protein. We do not need as much as we are presently eating but we need some. I am thinking of past times, Greek villages who would roast a lamb once or twice a month. The rest of the time they ate fruit, vegetables, nuts and grains with cheese or eggs.
Eve, not that I want to turn this into a diet thread, and I only have the reactions of my body to go by, but why do we need carbs like bread, pasta, and potatoes?
The other evening I had dinner with my somewhat obese friend. His meal was carbs with some meat. Mine was meat. After the meal he was still hungry. I, having eaten a smaller portion, was satisfied.
I remember when I used to mix with bread and pasta. I’d invariably end up eating more carbs and soon I was going from bagel to muffin to donut to cake. By staying away from carbs, I find I have no hunger nor desire for them anymore. I’ve repeated this test a few times, to see how eating or avoiding carbs affects my cravings. This may or may not fit with what you know, but it is what my body does on its own, uninformed and spontaneously.
I just don’t see what I need the complex carbs for? (I eat leafy salads of course.)
Alvin (18:05:17) : Not precisely true, as for example soybean it is 50% protein (japanese “Tophu”-a terrible choice-) and it is used now (soybean cake-the residue after extracting soybean oil-)) for making compressed panels for construction. Protein from soybean cake can be extracted by boiling soybean cake in an alkaly medium, pH:9-10, then filtered it out solids, and protein reprecipitated by lowering pH to 4,5, filtered, washed, and redissolved in alkali, to be spray-dried afterwards. However it lacks two aminoacids, which, in any case can be added from corn protein.
(Roughly from three tons of soybean cake 1 ton of soybean protein extract is obtained).
But, But, nothing like an american angus beef steak.
How can you guys keep overlooking the obvious? Human beings are the problem right? We need to thin the human herd… no need to give up meat… the documentary on how to do it is decades old:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0070723/
BTW I wonder how long before government’s mandate the CO2 footprint be printed on every product along with the other ingredients. Also, we should not criticise heavy individuals… they are doing their utmost to biosequester carbon. They deserve medals /nod
Veggies anyone.
It took me awhile to digest that eating meat was like drinking and driving. Kind of like AGW is about always telling the truth.
I agree, lets not turn this into a diet thread but yet the global warmists have. All animal life and plant life on this planet are based on carbon and everything we eat contains carbon. In fact this planet is a carbon based planet. As Carl Sagan said ” we are star stuff” changed by Joni Mitchell to star dust, 8 million year old carbon.
We need carbohydrates because all our cells run on glucose. Carbohydrates are 100% glucose. Fruits and vegetables are carbohydrates and 100% glucose. Half of protein can be converted to glucose and 1% of fat can be converted to glucose. So trying to run your body on protein and fat is like trying to burn coal in a wood stove. It may work but there is waste. The problem in humans is that your body uses glucose. The brain only uses glucose. If you do not provide it, the body will burn your muscle to provide glucose. This is why carb free diets work. It is also the reason why when you go back to eating normally you gain weight. You have lost mucle mass and mucle mass burns more calories than fat.
Your friend has more cells than you. Each cell requires glucose which is why he was still hungry. This is why I tell people to eat 6 small meals or snacks a day, eat only foods that they have to chew (I don’t think you chew muffins or even bagels) and include some (1 to 3 oz) of protein each meal. On the other hand, it does not matter to me or your body if you get your carbohydrates from grains, bread, pasta or fruits and vegetables. Just get some and pick the ones that are hardest to chew or get into. Try some of that hunters rye bread with chunks of (what looks like) bark in it. An example is the time between peeling and eating an orange or drinking the 1 to 2 oz of juice that orange might provide.
“JT (10:44:32) :
Which creates more methane.
70 million cattle or 70 million buffalo? There were up to 70 million buffalo 200 years ago in the US.
How did their methane affect the climate?”
Termites produce more methane than all other living, dying or dead animals and plants put together. The planet seems fine.
The production and use of concrete generates more CO2 than all other forms of CO2 production in the use of fossil fuels and energy production (In the UK at least).
“Bulldust (18:32:07) :
BTW I wonder how long before government’s mandate the CO2 footprint be printed on every product along with the other ingredients. Also, we should not criticise heavy individuals… they are doing their utmost to biosequester carbon. They deserve medals /nod”
Already happening in the UK.
http://www.meatprocess.com/Industry-markets/Food-firms-to-trial-UK-carbon-footprint-standard
He predicted that people’s attitudes would evolve until meat eating became unacceptable.
I have a couple of vegetarians in the extended family (ovo lacto), and my immediate family eat vegetarian about 2 to 3 days a week. It isn’t easy (and I don’t mean that in the sense of “comfortable”, I mean it in the sense of “to do functionally well without effort”). The book “Transition to Vegetarianism” (or something close to that) is written by an M.D. and gives the specific biological needs that are filled by meat, and how to get the same things from plants.
It conveniently takes you, stage by stage, from dropping red meat, dropping white, then fish, then eggs, then milk, then… At each stage you must be ever more careful about exactly what you eat, and when, to keep your nutritional status correct.
What I learned from it was 2 things.
1) You can happily live a vegetarian and even a vegan life.
2) It is so darned hard to “get it right” that eliminating all animal products (or even all warm blooded animal meat) is just not worth it. We are clearly evolved and adapted to eating meat. We need it and we will be ill without some meat unless we take very unnatural actions and are extraordinarily careful in what we consume.
And that probably explains some of the oddities about some vegetarians. They are surviving, but without careful actions, are having some nutritional issues they do not recognize.
With that said, most of us could well live a bit better with a chicken alfredo every so often instead of roast chicken and some beef stroganoff instead of roast beef and a "ham and potato casserole" instead of straight ham.
But I see no reason that ought to be anyones business than the person with the fork.
So if Lord HoHa thinks folks are going to become vegetarian, he needs to read up on the "issues" involved (B vitamins, Iron, Omega 3 fatty acids, just for starters. Yes, there are plant sources, but how many folks know to eat a lot of spinach, beets, flax seeds, … or want to…) before recommending it.
Oh, and male children ought not to eat large quantities of soy. The "phytoestrogens" are not a good idea… Not all that great for girls, either, but those issues are more manageable. So you will also need to watch out for vegetarian diets that raise the protein ratios with lots of soy products.
Basically, after "giving it a go" we decided that it was just too darned hard to do it right. Easier to have the occasional scrambled eggs, the glass of milk, and a beef burger or some fried chicken. Did learn how to make some really good vegetable dishes in the process, though.
Eve, I guess the question I’m left with is, how much glucose does the body need?
I lost weight and then it levelled out and stayed constant, whist on a diet of meat, fruit and veggies. I found my energy levels, contrary to what your description might suggest, my energy levels actually went up. For example, I had to move out of the apartment and the lift was broke. I was amazed at how I managed the stairs to the 3rd floor 20 times carrying boxes. I simply couldn’t have done that before. So I guess I am left wondering, do a few fruits and veggies provide all the glucose I need? They seem to. My weight levelled out, and my energy went up. Eating potatoes and pasta at this point seems completely superfluous.
Anyway, I just find it interesting.