Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to a group of ageing rockers, green organisations, Vegan food sellers and mostly B-grade actors, going Vegan will not only save the planet from climate change, it will also reduce the risk of future pandemics like Covid-19.
2021 IS THE YEAR FOR POSITIVE CHANGE –
TOGETHER WE CAN BUILD A BETTER FUTURE2020 has been an unforgettable year, with our attention divided between fears over coronavirus and anxiety over climate change.What has become increasingly obvious is that these two threats have something in common; both are heavily linked to our consumption of animal products.
Animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14.5 percent of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions. Oxford University researchers found that almost every animal product creates far more emissions than almost every plant product. Quite simply, we cannot tackle climate change while we farm and eat animals on an industrial scale.
Pandemic experts warn that because of overcrowded, squalid conditions, factory farms – especially chicken farms – are breeding grounds for the next global pandemic.1 Already these farms have given us H1N1 (swine flu) and H5N1 (avian flu), the latter having a 60 percent mortality rate.2
More than one billion tonnes of food must be grown to feed the billions of animals we farm3 – far more than is needed if people were to eat plants. That farmland has to come from somewhere, and all too often it is taken from the wild.
In recent years, more than 80 percent of deforestation in Brazil was to graze farmed animals,4 and still more forests are destroyed to make way to grow crops to feed animals on farms around the world. Deforestation is serious for lots of reasons. It pushes wild species to extinction. It displaces indigenous peoples. It drives climate change. And it brings us in ever closer contact with wild animals and any viruses they may harbour, raising the risk of another pandemic.
Catastrophic climate breakdown and global pandemics could not be more serious, but they are not inevitable. If we act now, the future can be better. So, let’s go into 2021 with positivity and a determination to do all we can to protect our planet, its wild spaces and the health and wellbeing of all its inhabitants. To do that, we must change our diets.
Today, we are urging everyone to help build a better future by signing up to try vegan this January with Veganuary. Together, we can create a world that is kinder and safer for all.
Read more: https://veganuary.com/letter/
Signatories include Paul McCartney, Greenpeace, Quorn, Jane Goodall and Friends of the Earth.
Interestingly Greta Thunberg’s signature does not appear on the list. Perhaps someone forgot to ask her.
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<blockquote>”Catastrophic climate breakdown and global pandemics could not be more serious, but they are not inevitable.”</blockquote>
Global pandemics are actually one of the things that are almost certainly inevitable. Especially so, now that we have rapid worldwide mass transport of humans and various food products, both animal and vegetable.
Natural climate change, too, is also inevitable. It is the catastrophic breakdown part that is highly subjective and debatable. The depressing thing is just how many people apparently earn a living being paid to trot out such claims day-in and day-out as part of their job in the media, in government, and in the bureaucracies.
Mods, I guess the new site doesn’t accept html codes etc the same way as before. Do you have an advice page for commenters?
Use the icons at the bottom of the post window.
When I walk to my local shop/store there is a “sign” spray posted on the footpath/sidewalk that says “Eat Ass. Not animals”.
I will have a 12oz rump, medium rare, steak, with mushroom and garlic gravy. I have not mentioned veggies.
“fears over coronavirus and anxiety over climate change.”
…..these two concerns cannot be used as equals. Opinion polls give repeated examples of the publics unconcern with “Climate change™” or “Global warming™” or “Inadvertent Climate Modification™” as they used to call it back in the day.
https://ibb.co/djnMSsp
I doubt the level of anxiety even qualifies to be described as anxiety. It’s 4th on the list of major concerns even for our friendly green Norwegians. 10th for the vocal Germans, and 13th for those eternal heretics the Brits. What a surprise, immigration and unemployment occupy the majority of thoughts these days, and this is what we were thinking before it all kicked off.
“Together, we can create a world that is kinder and safer for all.”
Oh please get me the bucket…..
Get your Linda McCartney soya (don’t ask where it comes from) burger here!!
I found Gretas car full of CANS rather amusing
she might eat beans but not ecofriendly ones;-)
though from the look of her undersized n scrawny bod shes still on the anorexia trail n dad prob ate the majority
CAFO setups as well as the filthy stressed cramped chinese animal keeping IS a recipie for disease.
jamming bulk antibiotics into the animals in CAFO to keep infections ewtc down is how the 1st world covers n reduces risks
other places..either too little the wrong sort or none at all
throw in wild animals with god knows what bugs and zoonoses are a given. free ranging farm animals arent ill much, most issues of flus are from migratory birds crapping over the farms, or in the water they drop in to share use of, ie victorias birdflu outbreaks this year
Cows eat vegetables, pigs eat vegetables, chickens eat vegetables, therefore I am a vegetarian.
This is about as dumb a campaign as is possible Going vegan means no dairy products, fish and other sources of vitamin D. People in the northern hemisphere lack vitamin D during winter. Vitamin D greatly helps our immune systems so cutting it means we are reducing our resistance to things such as Covid 19 and influenza. So good luck and happy sniffly winter, Paul and your mates.
If one does a simple mass balance for a cow – carbon in versus carbon out (actual carbon here contained in vegetable matter) it works out that they actually help to sequester carbon!!
Dairy, eggs and even meat are also good sources of K2 MK4 which also plays a part as well as most animal products containing abundant amounts of available zinc which are also used in our immune response. Zinc in plants can be locked up by the various defenses plants have developed to stop being eaten as they cannot get away.
From the article: “Animal agriculture is responsible for an estimated 14.5 percent of all human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.”
Is that all? That’s not bad. Especially since CO2 has no discernable effect on the Earth’s atmosphere.
They lie… Even in the US it’s only about 4%
Years ago I read a German study that said that before trying IVF in infertile young women, They should be gain 10lb and stop jogging. This apparently reduced the infertility rate dramatically. A psychiatrist recently told me that there was a ‘new’ eating disorder common among young women involving avoidance of first class protein (meat) and carbohydrate rich foods. The key as a disorder is obsessive focus on what they ate. It seems Sir Paul might qualify.
Just remember, it takes killing billions of animals so you can enjoy your “organic” vegetables. Most die in sticky traps. But go ahead, pretend you are virtuous.
Great bass player, but not too bright!
These are the same mental midgets that think hemp solves everything.
“Already these farms have given us H1N1 (swine flu)”
Swine flu is not animal related, so wrong, doofus.
The stupid in this is epic.
it primarily depends on the belief that if we stop eating cows, sheep and goats, cows, sheep and goats – along with a bunch of other ruminant animals, will stop eating grass.
I have – and I kid you not – had vegans tell me that animals only breed because we force them to.
The 7th Day Adventist Church is essentially the western religion arm of veganism. They have powerful corporations that they own (Sanitarium being one, Kellogs was created by one of the early 7th day adherents as well) , medical facilities that they own and also have far outmatched input in the fields of nutrition and lifestyle. Since their increased interference in our diet over the past century we can see the devastation caused, not only at an environmental level through monocropping for their cereals and grains but also on our health through the use of added seed oils at the cost of less oxidised animal fats for example.
This said, when vegans talk of saving animals it conjures up the image of one walking through the forest surrounded by animals etc, in fact this article indicates they actually want nothing to do with animals and must be eradicated altogether. A task their farming methods are doing quite effectively..
1) Vegan diet can negatively intelligence
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200127-how-a-vegan-diet-could-affect-your-intelligence
2) Vegan diet kills more animals than cow-based carnivore diet, though smaller ones.
https://www.carnivoreisvegan.com/carnivore-diet-is-vegan/
Interestingly Greta Thunberg’s signature does not appear on the list. Perhaps someone forgot to ask her.
No, she is getting married in the Maldives on the one island that seems to be growing so its appearance on the photos will be splashed across the world to highlight the catastrophic seal level rise we all face.