Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan has suggested in an interview with The Guardian, that people should switch to eating insects, to reduce the need for traditional cattle farming.
According to The Guardian;
Should we be encouraged to reduce their meat consumption?
The global livestock industry is indeed a major threat to the climate as it represents 14.5% of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. A growing population and a rapidly growing middle class are increasing pressure on the traditional protein sources, beef and poultry meat, making it more difficult to meet demand. We cannot continue the way we are producing and consuming meat. Obviously, this should not go as far as governments telling people what to eat. However, keeping meat consumption to levels recommended by health authorities would lower emissions and reduce heart disease, cancer, and other diseases. And of course there are alternative sources of protein. For example, raising insects as an animal protein source. Insects have a very good conversion rate from feed to meat. They make up part of the diet of two billion people and are commonly eaten in many parts of the world. Eating insects is good for the environment and balanced diets.
It is nice to know the UN has a plan, to ensure we all have something to eat, after they decommission the world’s fossil fuel infrastructure.
That is ridiculous. How does he expect people to get enough insects for a day’s meal. Does he expect everyone to run around in the forest all day pecking on trees like birds? Or is he expecting people to farm insects? Did he do his scientific calculation that the amount of energy ( and feed ) needed to farm insects for consumption is lower than that needed to farm cattle? So we raise plants and carcasses to feed the insects that we eat.
Many birds catch them on the fly, it must be the challenge 🙂
Why is it that these alarmists always propose a cure that is worse than the disease?
Because one of their goals is to reduce the human population of the planet.
I can’t think of any other logical reason for them to try to make things worse than anything nature is likely to do, can you? The dead giveaway is that they are unwilling to do these things themselves.
Fen’s Law:
The Left believes none of the things they lecture the rest of us about.
There’s no way the UN/IPCC delegates are gonna chow down on bugs.
Because they are very very sick.
My suggestion: let them start by eating the mosquitos that spoil my summer evenings outside
At least they would be doing something of value for once
Mr. Annan, can lead the way by example……..
I suspect this was based on ground breaking WHO work in South East Asia. There were communities with no meat, no protein source. It was noticed in some villages that the children were doing well, and others, the children were dying from malnutrition. The difference was the healthy villages were eating insects collected in the rice paddies. Excellent study. Well worth the read. However, in my country, it would be difficult to grow enough insects in many areas (it’s dry like Namibia).
I have been watching since as the news has spread, and now the pressure is on for the rich (read Western nations) to eat insects. Nothing wrong with that, it will come, but eliminating beef???? You’re kidding.
The issue I have with this is that if raising animals for meat causes CO2, what about the wild animals like kangaroos, monkeys, giraffes. By logical extension, as wild animals produce prodigious quantities of CO2 and methane, they should also be eliminated. The birds, possums, snakes, lizards in my back yard all have to be cleared out. Then you can go further, decaying plant matter produces CO2 and in some situations methane…….
Normal Green lunacy
Novel idea time:
All food served at UN functions from here on out must be wholly bugs. Lets see how long that idea lasts when it is they who have to eat their own ideas.
Great plan! They should ask French chefs to get started planning only insect meals for the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris later this year. That might lower attendance.
Proposing eating insects is goofy.
The environmentalists/cult of CAWG have picked the wrong bogie man (climate change), to push as they have done zero actual research into the issues. They do not know what is or is not a problem and they do not know what are the solutions to the problems.
There is a more than two fold reduction in agricultural land and agricultural inputs, to grow fruits and vegetables that are consumed directly by people, rather than growing feedstock for livestock which is then consumed by people.
The number one factor for extinction of wildlife is habitat reduction, not ‘climate’ change.
What the environmentalists should be pushing, is what the health care agencies of every developed country are pushing:
A drastic reduction in meat consumption (reduction to multiple meatless days per week and a maximum meat consumption per day of no more than one card deck size portion on the meat days) and an almost complete elimination of sugary food/sugary drinks and a switch to the consumption of 5 vegetables and 2 fruits per day, as it is win-win.
That change in diet to a ‘Mediterranean’ diet/similar to the Chinese, Japanese, Thai and so on traditional diets has astonishing health benefits and significant real environmental benefits. Changing the majority of people’s diet would half the amount of agricultural land that is required to feed the developed countries and would reduce health care costs by 50% to 60% and would stop the increase in health care costs. US health care costs are now 18% of GDP, the highest of all developed countries.
The diet change and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption reduces the risk of the most common cancers by a factor of four to five, reduces the incidence of type 2 diabetes by a factor of five, reduces the incidence of autoimmune diseases such as arthritis by 50%, and will eliminate almost all weight problems. Study after study looking at how diet affects health confirms that assertion and new studies are working out the biochemistry and biological reasons why that is true.
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/274841.php
I would take all of that with a large grain of salt. From what I have seen in the news lately about fraud in medical studies, they could teach climatologists a thing of two about achieving the desired results. I wonder how much CO2 those herds of Buffalo that “darkened the plains” produced before we replaced them with a few less cattle?
“The diet change and an increase in fruit and vegetable consumption reduces the risk of the most common cancers by a factor of four to five, reduces the incidence of type 2 diabetes by a factor of five, …”
You’ve got to believe that epidemiology is an exact science to believe this!
—
From http://acsh.org/2010/04/dispatch-vegetables-and-cancer/
“The popular wisdom dictates that eating vegetables prevents cancer, but here is one very large study saying that might not be the case,” says Stier. “But somehow, I doubt this will be in headlines on the news tonight.”
—
From http://acsh.org/2014/04/diet-cancer-little-evidence-direct-link/
“As described by George Johnson in his essay in the New York Times — aptly titled “An Apple a Day and Other Myths” — the gap between science and wishful thinking is still present, and isn’t likely to close soon. Reporting on the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), Mr. Johnson noted the dearth of presentations linking dietary intake and cancer prevention. In 1997, by contrast, the AACR reviewed over 4,000 studies and concluded in a massive report that green vegetables helped prevent lung and stomach cancer. Ten years later, the AACR found no benefit for such intake.”
“The global livestock industry is indeed a major threat to the climate”
Have some patience! I’m trying to eat them as fast as I can.
But I have to wonder, do these people think that there are no other plant eating bacteria that produce GHGs other than in cow’s stomachs? If the grass and other plants eaten by cows are left in the fields, what happens to it? Won’t it either decompose or get burned by fire and release GHGs anyway? Do they propose to spray everything with Roundup to prevent all the plants and weeds that cows eat from growing? Besides, the cows are not eating coal or other forms of sequestered CO2. They eat renewable plants. I thought that was okay. The methane breaks down into water and CO2, which gets taken up by future crops of cattle feed. It’s the cycle of life.
You actually hit the nail on the head with your very last sentence, cycle of life. This is what they are really after to destroy, life, well most unwanted human life that is, of course they need x amount of slaves to do their bidding, like making them nice beef steaks.
Kofi Annan will have to “rip the ribeye steak out of my cold dead hands” (Kudos to Charlton of course).
If we were meant to eat bugs why do we have canine teeth ?
I have some suggestions for exactly what Kofi can eat; (snip, snip, snip and more snip).
Cheers, KevinK.
let them lead by example, we await the example they set.
as committed believers of their words they will adopt this immediately. the biggest problem will be getting airline to support their diets in first class where they always fly.
what sort of fools and idiot do they think we are. and what fools and idiots they continue to look like.
Hey! Fair is fair. We eat the worms. We die. The worms eat us.
If humans were not meant to eat meat, vegetarians would have never invented foods designed to taste like meat. It would taste like…hmmm…a cross between brussel sprouts, hubbard squash, and lima beans.
“Let them eat….bugs…” ~Queen Marie Antoinette
(I’m familiar with history, so no lectures on this phrase’s origin, please)
Life is not looking like its going to be much fun for the insects in Canada in around 7 to 10 days time.
Just checked out the jet stream forecast and it looks like its setting up for a real blast of cold air to go streaming right across Canada and into the northern Atlantic. So its looking like winter has not quite finished with Canada just yet. Also with this cold air moving into the northern Atlantic it could setting the UK up for some very stormy weather in 10 to 14 days time. This is one l will be watching closely.
Fruit blossom out at the moment here in Cheshire , but no insects due to the cold, wet, windy weather – could be a bad year for fruit here . Difficult to reconcile with this being the warmest period of this country’s recent history.
I am so sick of the disconnect in the idiotic cattle farts cause global warming. What these zarking cretins fail to recall is that, up until about 1900 there were about 60 MILLION North American bison roaming and farting their way – and that was just plains bison. Considering that African cattle displaced wildebeast and other even-toed ungulates, and ditto other places, the world is no worse off than in its natural state in terms of bovine flatulence.
thank you
Hah! 🙂
Yes, but American Bison flatulence was “Methane Free” and “new and improved” with a clean fresh scent (TM proctor gamble)”. Anything non human cannot cause any problems ever, so it is written, so it is believed.
Cheers, KevinK.
Exactly.
somebody commented that the estimates of domestic animal populations can’t be terribly accurate (since to have any idea of CO2 at all this would also need to include age, size, health etc. same must be true of wild ungulates) so how does anybody come up with a number that is anything but a wild ass guess within wide “error bars”. Sounds like a job for Mikey Mann!
What a fun town- OKC. What a day. Nobody paid any attention to the 5 or 6 quakes, today. They’re routine. This 7+ inches of rain with over 3 1/2″ in the past hour is a pain. Might not have been too bad, but it rained all night and the ground is saturated. The Interstates are flooded, with over a foot depths at underpasses and widespread flooding all over the place. The hail isn’t helping anything and I do wish they’d quit blowing that damn tornado siren every 5 minutes. We get it- it’s awful. I know we have now had maybe a dozen tornadoes, this evening, but what can you do? Certainly can’t drive to evacuate. Just ride it out. Vehicles are getting washed down the creeks and rivers. What a day. The weatherman just said it’s gonna get worse before it gets better and the current tornado is stationary and just grinding away.
Not sure how it can get worse- maybe we’re due for a volcano, tomorrow. Or raining frogs.
Maybe the skies will be darkened with locusts. “It’s what’s for dinner.”
We’ve now had 6+” rain in past 2 hours. On top of all we’ve had in past 24 hrs. The drought might be ending…
Might not have to eat bugs, just yet. A nearby private Zoological park, “Tiger Safari”, just got hit by one of the tornadoes, or was damaged by the straight 85-90 mph winds with this storm. Exotic critters are now loose and roaming around. Gnu stew? Wildebeest barbecue? Quick, the tiger rifle!
http://www.tigersafari.us/
Just confirmed on the news…TIGERS ARE LOOSE in the Metro area.
Whoopee.
Suddenly, pink slime doesn’t seem so bad:
http://collapse.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Pink-Slime.jpg
I’m no John Milton but this recommendation by the UN spells the loss of paradise for me.
Help me design the nine circles of hell on earth.
1) Constant hunger, with only living insects to eat
(Circle lead by Koffi Annan)
2) Freezing homes due to lack of fuel
( Circle Leader is Al Gore)
3) Empty cribs due to mass sterilization
( Circle leader is Maurice Strong)
4) No old people due to mass mandatory euthanasia at 55.
(Circle leader is Kevorkian)
5) Elimination of inferior gene pools and races
(Margaret Sanger is the Circle leader here)
6) Destruction of Truth
( Circle lead by Michael Mann)
7) Mass infection by Chimeric viruses mutating the remaining living people
(Circle leader ?
8) War
(Circle leader is a peace keeping committee run by the UN)
9) Criminalizing of ownership of Water?
(??)
Please feel free to design your own contributions to the 9 circles of hell on earth thanks to the UN.
Criminalization of self-defense
(Circle-jerk leaders — all of the whiny anti-gun nellies.)
http://unitedstatesman.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/150507_Knotted_gun_sculpture.jpg
Invoke Rule 5.56.
“Invoke Rule 5.56.”
Is that rule based on the .223 or .308 guidelines, or directive 7.62x subpart 54 section R
Soylent Green is People!!!
You should have seen Greg Gutfelds monologue on the 5 today it was hilarious.
This info has been bopping around again in recent weeks. Can’t find the reply that there’s not much food/nutrition advantage exists if you feed insects the amount of food needed for them to become human-quality food.
If you can only afford enough chicken feed to make skinny chickens, then you can only afford enough cricket food to raise skinny crickets.
Now even your dinner plate is bugged.
Good one Max! 🙂
Several points, humans have semi recently killed large numbers of large grazing animals that used to walk the earth and do not currently. This never seems to be accounted for in these figures. Also goats are something like 4 times more efficient at food to meat conversion then cattle, rabbits even better then that. With tilapia and carp species of fish being better still. Ive seen tilapia set up where they ate mainly greenwater algae fueled in large part by their wastes alone that had decent growth rates. Point being, even if this was a legit issue which I do not think we can say, we have other options to drastically lower the numbers here, and stick with meat and things people actually want to eat.
Having been involved in the lake management biz, I have detailed knowledge of tilapia and grass carp (if that is the sort to which you refer).
Regardless of the species fish few on a diet of algae taste like…guess what they taste like?
Have all you like.
Few will be able to join you, and if they do, I would point out that little nutrition is to be gained from a meal which is quickly expelled as vomitus.
Momma always said; “you are what you eat”
Beg your pardon: …of the species, fish fed on a diet of…
I love beans. At Costco, a 25lb/11.4kg bag of yummy pinto beans is $20 US. That’s a lot of nutritious meals!
And contrary to the stereotype, if beans are properly prepared, gas is not an issue.
Yes, but what about the price of nice plump fava beans… “Some fava beans and a nice chianti” to “share” with a neighbor perhaps….
Cheers, KevinK.
Sorry Max, I just could not resist the “Fava bean” joke. I too love beans (fresh green beans. Lima beans, etc), but I will never give up my steak based on the “advice” of some UN plutocrat like Kofi, Once he starts eating bugs I’ll gladly watch in amusement while eating an nice Filet with a Lobster Tail, or some King Crab legs (boy it must suck to be so delicious that humans risk their lives on boats in the Bearing Sea to try and catch you in a trap).
Cheers, KevinK
I routinely surf totally alone in great white shark territory, so ‘just desserts’ is a double entendre in my world.
Ehh, great whites aren’t that scary …
You realize if we adopted such a diet that we’d be accused then of taking food out of the food chain and out of the beaks of birds, etc., etc., etc. In the same way, if windmills ever worked and became the one and only, the human-haters would suddenly wake up to the fact that windmills are bird-mincers and we’d have to give them up as well. They want us to get used to less and less and eventually have nothing.
No matter what we do, we will be still doing something wrong in their eyes, and considered the lowest of the low.
After insects, I suppose they’d say we can eat grass (no, not that sort of grass). While we’re working through the insect phase, however, in the world they want for us, you do realize, yes, that we won’t be allowed fire to cook them?