Ecolog:
What would the actual effect on species diversity of universal
vegetarianism? Has anyone done the math?
WT
----- Original Message -----
From: "James J. Roper" <jjro...@gmail.com>
To: <ECOLOG-L@LISTSERV.UMD.EDU>
Sent: Friday, September 11, 2009 11:58 AM
Subject: Re: [ECOLOG-L] Are ecologists the problem?
A well-known statistic is that there are as many domestic animals bred
for food for people as there are people in the world, or more. If we
consider a 10% conversion of food to mass of the consumer, the logic is
undeniable that if all ate lower on the food chain, we could use less
land to do it with. Also, we could do it with less energy. Another
detail is that more land is used to grow food for those animals than to
grow food for people. Just switching the land to grow food for people
instead of animals would mean that we could do this on much less land.
Habitat loss is one of the driving forces of extinctions world wide.
But also, pollution from high efficiency animal production is another
huge issue (pigs and chickens). Not to mention land degradation due to
grazing.
Also well known - vegetarian diets can provide all the nutrients that
normal people need.
QED - a vegetarian diet would be better for the planet (and we would
have much smaller problems with obesity!).
Cheers,
Jim
malcolm McCallum wrote on 09-Sep-09 0:50:
I tend to believe that any absolute answer that is declared an end all
answer
is probably not the answer. For example, I'm not convinced that everyone
jumping into a vegetarian diet is going to suddenly or even slowly
save the world.
Especially, considering that some of these stats are based on unrealistic
estimates.
For example, suggesting that x acres of corn would feed x number of cows
and
that would feed x number of people whereas the x acres of corn would feed
way
more people is flawed. Humans cannot survive on a corn diet. Even if
we expanded
this to grains and soybeans, humans cannot survive on a corn-soybean
diet.
Why? because vegetables in general are low in two or three essential
amino acids
that humans must get in their diet. those amino acids are produced by
animals
and so you must ultimately get them from animals or artificially
produced products.
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