Frank, Who is the arbiter of what 'ethical' is? Regards, Bob S.
On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 11:04 AM, frank theriault <knarftheria...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Sat, Dec 19, 2009 at 11:05 AM, Graydon <o...@uniserve.com> wrote: > > >> Why is that not letting nature take it's course? >> >> We're part of nature. > > We've decided to draw a line between things "natural" and > "artificial". I think we ~should~ act as if we're an integral part of > the ecosystem, but we don't. The argument that "we're part of nature" > can be used to justify the continuation of human activities that will > eventually lead to the disappearance of the polar icecaps and all of > our coastal cities ending up under water. Then we'll all ~really~ be > part of nature, won't we? ;-) > > <snip> >> Depends on how [the meat industry is] done. >> >> The guy ranching elk near Whitehorse is doing it on land that can't >> support a farm and would support elk (or similar ungulate) anyway; not >> quite as many as he's got without the management, but the ecological >> footprint is hard to determine. >> >> Feedlot beef has a large ecological footprint because it's driven by >> maize growing, which has a byzantine and complex set of subsidies >> driving it in the States. >> >> I mean, this is the traditional economic explanation for pastoral >> cultures; you can graze your herds places you can't farm. You are >> eating higher on the trophic web and that does change the efficiency in >> terms of converting sunlight into food, but that's not a determination >> of the fraction of the available sunlight you're converting into food. >> Plant farming that converts 50% of the available sunlight (at the basic >> initial 1%ish max efficiency of photosynthesis) gets rid of half the >> extant ecosystem (or more; consider California strawberries and bromine) >> where grazing on maintained grassland -- so short-grass prairie kept as >> prairie -- might not get rid of *any* of the extant ecosystem. >> >> Ecological impact has to be done with diversity and disparity counts and >> actually figuring out where the energy is going. It can't really be >> done by type of activity. (Arboriculture can _expand_ the diversity and >> disparity of the local ecosystem, even if it replaces a lot of the plant >> biota, for instance.) > > I agree with what you say, but I'm talking about how the majority of > meat (especially beef) that we in the West eat is produced. > > We don't have enough pastureland to raise all the meat that we > currently eat, if we let that livestock eat grass and gradually grow > to an economically feasible weight before slaughter. If we were to > make sufficient land for that purpose, the ecological impact would be > devastating. > > If we want to grow our animal-based food "ethically", our only choice > is to eat far less meat than we do now. > > cheers, > frank > > > -- > "Sharpness is a bourgeois concept." -Henri Cartier-Bresson > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > PDML@pdml.net > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow > the directions. > -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
