Climate Change, Meat eating and Quakers

Others show that CO2 emissions and other gasses are to blame for long term
climate change, which has probably gone past the point of no return.

My figures on my Chicken Chat and Pollution web pages show that meat eating
is as likely to be a major player in this scenario as aircraft emissions and
the emissions from cars. We need more land put down to forests to soak up
the present levels of CO2.

Can Quakers seriously consider this as a concern which affects us all, now
and in the future?

--
Martin Howard
Webbs Cottage Pottery
Woolpits Road, Great Saling
BRAINTREE, Essex CM7 5DZ
01371 850 423
mar...@webbscottage.co.uk
http://www.webbscottage.co.uk
Updated 6th July 2002

There is every possibility that this sort of thing happens every once in
awhile, "global warming" or not. Here in the US, there was flooding on a
similar scale in 1993 or so (I was in Illinois at the time, and got to see
some of it first hand).

I am not trying to say that global warming and its effects do or do not
happen, just that every natural disaster may not always have to be chalked
up to it. Although I do feel for those affected -- it was quite hard on
those in the Midwest at the time I can't imagine that those caught in it in
Europe would fare much better.

At one point I would agree with you. I don't think it is correct in blaming
a particular event or storm, or flood on "CO2." Whether the climate has
altered significantly due to the additional CO2 in the air is actually still
debatable, though the CO2 is not and the fact we have had a temperature rise
recently is not either -- though the rise may not be as big as a lot of the
pols would have us believe -- there is a book called _The Skeptical
Environmentalist_ you might want to check out for a counterpoint to the
current hand waving.

Flatulence and methane is far more of an effective "greenhouse gas" than
CO2. And if you round up all the people and cattle and feed us all a big ol
plate of beans, we still are only 20% of the total emitted -- the explosion
of ant population is responsible for over half!

I think most Quakers *do* feel concerned about climate change and the
linkaes to CO2, but not all agree that it is really there. \

Quakers are hardly monolithic - I joke that between 2 Quakers there are 3
opinions - so the point must be won one person at a time.

I personally do not know and am not 100% convinced that CO2 produced by man
is causing the current climate change. That will not stop me from trying to
limit the amount of mechanical burning based CO2 (and methane! :) ) I
produce, simply because I think emitting extra amounts of that stuff should
be limited.

Certainly it is right that Quakers take in interest in the well being of the
environment, and be agents for wise stewardship of natural resources.

It seems to me that it is also appropriate that those decisions be made on
the basis of good scientific evidence. Having a concern is best when it is
based upon good reason, rather than supposition and emotion. The climate
has always been subject to fluctuation. We have had numerous ice ages, and
extensive periods of tropical temperatures. In fact, there is coal to be
found in the Antarctic. I am not persuaded that we have an adequate
statistical base to justify some of the more expensive solutions that are
currently being proposed, and the issues are only confused by inserting
political motivations in what should be primarily a technological solution.
In the last presidential election in the US one of the candidates put forth
the theory that those who were funding his opponent's campaign were
destroying the earth and should therefore be put out of business, while
those who support his own party were saviors of the earth, and therefore
were worthy of receiving government subsidies. The resultant polarization
overwhelmed any merit that his scientific evidence might have otherwise had.

Likewise, I wonder what benefit planting trees to obsorb CO2 emissions might
have, when it is the oceans that are the primary processors of CO2
transformation. Also, I wonder about statistics leading to the
identification of "meat eating" as the primary cause of global warming, and
the conclusions that result from such speculation.

My figures are all on the web pages of Pollution and Chicken Chat. Get to
them via the Web map
They were bought from ADAS and MAFF as the result of scientific experiments
on chickens to measure just what went in and what came out. Afterwards ADAS
said to me that they were very sorry they had sold them to me, because I
used them in Town Planning Inquiries throughout GB to object to new factory
farms, with some success.

Unfortunately I cannot get hold of the same kind of figures for human
beings, so I did a spread sheet program using the known animal metabolism
figures for chickens.

The turkey industry provided me with similar figures for turkeys, but the
Government will not give or sell me any other animal metabolism figures,
even now saying that they don't have them!!

What industry today can afford to be ignorant of the inputs and outputs to
and from its factory?

Surely humans should know what they, personally, are doing to the
environment; what they take in from it and what they give out to it.
Odd that such figures seem to be lacking in all these otherwise wonderful
scientific studies of world climate and conditions.

Is there something to hide? Or are the facts too scary for us to know?

Guy writes:-
<Whether we eat plants or eat animals that eat plants has no lasting effect
on atmospheric CO2. >

Read my web pages in Chicken Chat and you can see the argument for the other
way of thinking. Animal farming takes up a lot of space which could be used
for plants or trees which could then be sequestered ad infinitum.

Animals, including human beings, give out CO2. We do not store it like
plants can.
So we are net producers of CO2. One way of reducing that is to cut down on
the numbers of animals; us or our meat, take your pick!

What I would like to see is a world spread sheet of CO2 emissions.
Just what does what in this complex field? Only bits and pieces of such a
spread sheet seem to exist at present; an incomplete picture. So many,
perhaps that includes me, pick choose what to present, depending on their
personal scenario or vested interests.
--
Martin Howard, Town Planner for 40 years. Now retired into:-

You have not looked at my page
http://www.webbscottage.co.uk/Chicken_Chat6.htm have you?!
There you will see the figures:-

The UK measures 24.4755 m ha. The area used (in 1990) for all agricultural
purposes was 18.51 m ha. The m means add 6 zeros!

The total agricultural land used for us "livestock" (that's the chickens
speaking) is c. 14.732 m ha

That is 80% of the agricultural land and 60% of the total UK land.

If that 14.732 m ha of land was not needed to feed us, (it is the chickens
still talking) you could use it for new forests, permaculture, growing
organic crops for your use and still leave lots of land for our wild cousins
and nature.

But with 57.6 m of you emitting well over 57.6m x 97tonnes (=5587.2 m
tonnes) of CO2 in your life times, you need 55.872 m ha of forest to lock it
away. No chance! You only have 14.732 m ha available, just over a quarter of
your needs, even if you stopped eating us today.

End of quote

Every factory farm closed means not just the land the buildings stand on
being released for tree growing, but most of the land it used, in this
country and abroad, for the feedstuffs, hay, straw and sawdust.

Vegetarians and especially vegans need only a small proportion of that land
to feed themselves. The rest is available for trees, commercial hemp (a
marvellous crop) and even bogs, heaths etc which really could sequestrate
long term some of the CO2 away.

Of course it is important is to reduce our production of CO2, methane etc.
So, cut down or eliminate the enforced animal breeding that factory farming
entails.

OR we could foment a few more wars,
fail to give help to Africa,
stop all aircraft flying and
enforce cycling everywhere by putting up the price of petrol and diesel to
that of gold!

Just a few alternative paths, Friends.

Waiting on the news from Johannesburg. Will they really do anything
positive?

--
Martin Howard

[snip]

Guy is asking you to think larger than that.

Nothing on your website, nor in your quotes for it above is carbon being
generated. It is being taken from the sources available readily in the
environment and it never leaves the environment. The carbon cycle -- the
amount of carbon is not being increased or decreased by the cycle you are
describing. Close down all the farms, or double their number -- the amount
of carbon in circulation remains the same.

Now, crop management, resource use, etc. are all good things. But they do
nothing to the amount of carbon available.

The carbon amount in the environment is the same whether we have them or
not.

Do they? Or are they used to grow plants which are used as food for other
plants and animals in which case the total available carbon has not budged.

I read "Diet for a Small Planet" as well as I am sure many have -- and do
not consume (much) meat. I do not think that we are particularly short of
commercial hemp (yuck). And if you want a heath or bog or trees, just plant
them or restore them. We are not yet so tight on resources that we have to
shut down any farms or switch to vegan and stop livestock farming in order
to have it!

Pet Peeve:
Also, I have gone through the "hemp clothes" phase -- they are totally awful
to wear (feel like homespun and cost 2-3x homespun!) -- I went right back to
cotton, wool and synthetics. I am convinced that people tend to want to use
"hemp" simply because its close cousin, intoxicating marijuana, is illegal,
not because they are environmentally sustainable.

Closing down a factory farm does not decrease the amount of carbon being
circulated, does it? The carbon remains in the environment, and will be
used for other purposes, yes?

The only source of "liberated" carbon you have described is the use of
fossil fuels. If you are concerned about this, the only thing you could do
is stop the use and pumping of fossil fuels.

awfulcccc

It's my pet peeve as well...though I agree that Hemp would be useful as an
alternative to wood pulp.
This weekend in Seattle: Hempfest, the "largest annual gathering for drug
policy" in the US. Turnout is expected to be 150,00 to 200,000 per day
(Saturday and Sunday). Hempfest celebrates Marijuana in all it's forms.
Clothing, as a sustainable crop, as an alternative to wood pulp in paper
products, etc. etc. etc. Merchants from all over the country set up kiosks
and sell their (legal) wares, and "educate" an already convinced
constituency of the benefits of Hemp. This is all very well and good, and I
am even in favor of decriminalizing of marijuana. However, I believe the
reason Hempfest has gotten so large in the past decade is the openness with
which people are able to use marijuana at this event. The city's policy is
to not molest in any way festival goers on the grounds or while coming or
going. There have been arrests outside previous Hempfests, but most of them
(IIRC) were for disorderly conduct arising from the use of alcohol. The
main objection I have to Hempfest is that it's supporters seem to use it as
a guise under which to openly consume marijuana in public...which is OK by
me....but why pretend it is about public policy when only a fraction of
those in attendance are truly concerned and involved in changing policy.
Most attenders and merchants don't even seem to be concerned with the
educational possiblities the event ould offer. Most just wander through,
smoke a few joints, sit on the grass and groove to some very good music
under the warm Seattle sun, buy some Hemp lip balm, or whatever, then go
home and continue to smoke marijuana in private until next year.
Dennis

I think it is the basic dishonesty of motive of a lot of folks. Basic
forthrightness and honesty is a defining mark of Quakers, so I can see how
this would get on our nerves!

> Also, I have gone through the "hemp clothes" phase -- they are totally

Well it's also supposed to be more durable. As one who avoids leather, I
have tried hemp shoes. But they very quickly looked extremely scuffed up,
so I don't recommend them for office use (my intention was to wear them
mostly on work days). I find it difficult to get suitable non-leather shoes
for my quite large feet.

Bill Samuel, Silver Spring, MD, USA, wsa...@mail.com
http://www.quakerinfo.com/ http://mywebpages.comcast.net/wsamuel/
Friends in Christ, Maryland, USA, http://www.friendsinchrist.net/
Member, Adelphi Monthly Meeting, Baltimore YM (FGC/FUM)
affiliate member, Rockingham Monthly Meeting, Ohio YM (Cons.)
"There is One, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition."

I did visit your web site, examined the figures, and found them to be
unpersuasive. I grant you that chickens to give off CO2. Your assumption
that the CO2 input into the atmosphere by animals (chickens or human)
therefore increases irrevocably the C02 levels of the atmosphere fails to
account for the tendency for the atmosphere to reach an equilibrium of CO2
content. Increase the relative CO2 levels and plant growth increases,
thereby increasing total CO2 uptake and reestablishing the previous
equilibrium. I believe that Guy is correct in his observation that the only
way to make a subtantive change in CO2 levels would be to affect the
availablity of Carbon at the earth's surface for bonding.

You might want to try:

www.veganessentials.com

They seem to have a large variety of non-leather shoes that look snazzy like
leather does.

I am not affiliated with them at all, and have not bought their shoes,
belts, etc. But they do link through the vegan.com website.

My personal solution has been to buy the most durable shoes I can and get
them repaired instead of replacing them.

> Having come to the same conclusion, I did a bit of research and found
> what I believe to be the longest-lasting and most repairable footwear
> available. See http://www.danner.com/products_landing.asp and
> http://www.danner.com/contact_recrafting.asp

Very cool! I tended towards Red Wing Shoes, but these look great as well --
I especially like how they will re-sole the shoes.

This carbon cycle is the most pernicious half truth around at the moment.
It has been repeated ad infinitum by the agricultural world and gained
authority similar to the lies the Nazis promulgated during Hitler's reign.
The accountancy of it is similar to that of Enron and pals.
Each time we repeat it without deeper explanation we act like Anderson,
underwriting it.

Consider virgin forest, or the climax vegetation of original prairie or peat
bog area, with a few animals and a few human beings. Most of the carbon is
locked up in the wood, the deep black soil with a high humus content, or the
deep layers of peat which are almost pure humus i.e. carbon heading to brown
coal.

Now, what happens when the forest is cut?
That wood carbon is released by burning. The air therefore has a greater CO2
content than before. Even if a growth of plant life is permitted by the
animals and humans, it is nowhere near enough to lock up the same amount as
before. The nearest plants to trees which could do something beneficial in
this respect is hemp. But that is not favoured in the USA and other
countries even though it has so many many uses for replacing paper, fabric,
oil, chemicals and medical supplies and insulation and construction
materials for buildings.

What happens when the prairie sod is ploughed and cultivated?
The soil is exposed to oxidation processes and a substantial amount of
carbon is lost to the air. Some drains off to water courses, polluting them.
As fertilisers are applied, the NPK makes the soil release more of its
locked nutrients so that they are available for the cultivated plants. The
soil's humus, carbon, content takes a dive, often to under 1% from an
original 10% or more; the depth of topsoil is reduced; wind blow takes its
toll.

Grazing animals, if kept in low enough numbers can slow that process, but
not if the land is resown with grasses that are more nutrient hungry than
the original.
More CO2 is loss to the air and there are insufficient trees and plants to
permanently or temporarily available to lock it up out of harm's way.

The more animals and the more humans settling on those areas means that more
CO2 is transferred from the soil (and plants) to the air, but only a limited
amount can return to the plants and none to the soil, except via leguminous
plants, but that is not a significant amount as far a climate change is
concerned.

Liming, adding CaCO3 to the cultivated soil, is the addition of Carbon as
well as Calcium to the soil to offset the balance caused by loss of Calcium
from water erosion and drainage through the soil. That chalk or limestone is
taken directly from locked mineral sources and cannot be returned except
over a very long geological period via sea-bed deposits, mountain orogeny
and subsequent weathering or and mining or quarrying (if human beings are
around at that time!)

Farming of animals and intensive agriculture as distinct from permaculture
often involve, in colder climes, the use of fossil energy to keep animals
and plants warm. Most broiler establishments have elaborate heating and
ventilation systems which are based on fossil fuel. I have not yet come
across any based on solar power in the UK, although the technology is no
doubt available to the industry.

All cultivation uses tools and machinery that are fossil fuel intensive in
their manufacture. They mostly use fossil fuel as their propulsion method.
In the future that could change, but I see little sign of it at present.
Most farm machinery is far heavier than needed to just make a seed bed.
Only little scratching of surface is required for a seed bed!
So other machinery is required to mole drain the fields because of the
earlier compaction.

Peat bogs would not have been used except for limited cutting of peat blocks
in poor societies. But western methods of agriculture have used them on an
extensive scale for bedding of animals and within the intensive market
garden and home gardening market. All that previously locked up peat has
been returned to the atmosphere as Carbon within CO2.

That is part of the background of why modern agriculture has distorted the
carbon cycle, so that far more carbon is loose in the atmosphere and we now
have global warming and climate change. It is the imbalance of the carbon
cycle which is the cause of climate change and our current problems. On the
macro scale even the use of oil and coal and peat are part of the macro
carbon cycle as geological time will created new reserves based on what
organic matter is deposited on land and sea and sufficiently quickly hidden
from the air's oxidation processes.

Infrastructure of modern farming, animal and vegetable production, involves
roads, vehicles, machinery, heating, excessive use of water, storage
buildings, earth moving for ponds, foundations etc etc. All involving extra
CO2 going to the air and not having enough carbon sinks on the ground to
soak it up.

Increase of animals and humans and decrease of forests and reluctance to use
set-a-side (a system in Europe to decrease agricultural over production) for
new forests all adds to this imbalance of carbon within the atmosphere.

It may be that the seas are now doing sequestrating most of the carbon for
us.
But that is likely to lead to a sudden new level of CO2 acceptance by the
sea and Gaia which will not be to the liking of human beings. See James
Lovelock on this subject for a very good scientific read.

I have had to explain this scenario many many times during the 20 years from
1979 to 1999 that I was representing Compassion in World Farming at Town
Planning Inquiries throughout the GB. Always the agricultural "experts"
opposing me tried to rubbish it, but never came over with any real
conviction. It seemed as if they were acting like robots, just repeating the
government mantra.

I hope the above is helpful. Perhaps I should add a page especially on the
carbon cycle within the Web site. It is a personal fault that I often take
up an argument half way through the logic, assuming the first half is
understood by all.

For pointing out that my line of logic in the Chicken Chat may be missing
this introduction, many thanks.

Actually that method of approach resulted in much more interest from Friends
than my previous dry, detailed, ultra scientific and laboured method at
Local Planning Inquiries over the previous 20 years! I was pleasantly
surprised, although the Quaker Green Group, which includes many who are not
even vegetarian, were sniping at it, but have yet to actually provide
alternative figures or any good arguments what I have said; other than the
carbon cycle fallacy which I have already addressed.

It seemed that talking down to Friends was necessary because the facts have
been so distorted in the agricultural world for such a long time.

Must get the latest figures and update! I still will use hectares as it is
the way planners and suchlike in the UK now consider land measurement.
A square kilometre does not register with the public IMHO.

Thanks for your help. I hope you understand why the chicken_chat pages are
as they are.

When I have human metabolism figures similar in a form similar to the
Gleadthorpe figures, then I will use them and we can go from there.

--
Martin Howard BSc

But that does not wash with me, because the area and volume of plant growth
is smaller than is needed to soak up the increased CO2.
Deserts are increasing and forests are decreasing.
But the oceans may well be what is causing an apparent re-establishing of
equilibrium, as James Lovelock describes.
However, geological history shows that there can be a relatively sudden
shift in the balance to a higher (or lower) level of CO2 instigated by Gaian
mechanics.
That would not, in all probability, be helpful to human beings.

--
Martin Howard

I do not appreciate being lumped together with Enron, Nazis, etc. It is not
accurate, and this type of ad hominem attack does not convince me of
anything

It makes me think that you are not listening to what is being said. You are
not I am sure. If you are not interested in actually discussing it, then
why bother to post?

Uh-oh--Completely Irrelevant Nazification. I'm outa here!

Elizabeth

Hum, everyone complains about the weather, but no one is doing anything
about it?

Hectares, I can deal with. Even we "Yanks" work in metric in scientific
matters.

However, I object to the suggestion that Lovelock's work is in any way
"scientific". He posits a superstitious theology that regresses to animism
and similar primitive religious perspectives that is not only unscientific,
but actually rejects the presupposition of an orderly universe upon which
modern scientific methodology was founded, and also the foundation of
western ethics that says that there is a value distinction between "right
actions" and "wrong actions". Furthermore, his assertion that the earth has
any sort of "consciousness" is totally unsupported by any observation. The
earth is as dumb as a rock.

I believe that chickens and other livestock operations do release CO2 to
the atmosphere. Perhaps even in undesirable levels (whether temporary or
not). However to advocate for a none animal use lifestyle jeopardizes the
economic stability of many rural economies and the families with children
who depend upon that economy. I really have a problem with the ethical
implications of advocating for their economic deprivation (in the absence of
any proposed viable economic alternative).

> They get the O2 portion of that CO2 from the air, but where do you
> think they get the C? That Carbon has to come from somewhere, and
> if you trace it back you always find a process that converts CO2 to
> O2, thus balancing the books and having no long-term net effect on
> the amount of atmospheric CO2.

The problem with chicken and livestock is not whether they burn up too
much carbon. Paul's wrong about that. The problem is that they
release huge quantities of methane, which is a greenhouse gas, and
which would not, otherwise, be entering the atmosphere.

> Fossil fuels follow this rule as well, but the CO2 to O2 conversion
> was thousands or millions of years ago, which allows a short term
> imbalance as the carbon is released.

This is a real problem. There is a vast amount of carbon stored in
the earth, and when we burn it and release it into the atmosphere, we
do alter that balance.

No, Paul is right. Just see the table of what goes in and what comes out of
broiler chickens at www.webbscottage.co.uk/broilers.htm or
www.webbscottage.co.uk/Chicken_Chat1.htm

Unfortunately the british group, ADAS. who did this experiment for the
government were not interested at the time with emissions of methane. They
were actually looking at the problem of blue baby syndrome and linking it to
run off from chicken farms. Hence the importance of nitrogen in the spread
sheets.
The CO2 figures were a side issue, for which I was very grateful.

Pity there do not seem to be similar tables for humans or other animals. At
least I cannot find them! And I've been searching since soon after 1979.

It was an accountant who first woke me up to the problem. He was objecting
to more broiler units in his village, causing a stink, increasing traffic
flow on narrow roads and, he thought, causing ill health in the village.

He just said to me "what goes in must come out".
If anyone wants my full and detailed spread sheet for a typical broiler
farm, or turkey farm, just ask and it will come as an attachment (virus
free!). It is in Excel and you can then use it by inserting the relative
bits of information for any local factory farms around you.

Just how much air pollution is that one down the road causing to your
family?
I do not think you will find anything unscientific in these spread sheets.
They have been tested at about 200 Local Planning Inquiries.

That does not call any person anything. It is the act of repeating something
which is a lie, or at very best a part truth, which is pernicious. It lets
all the dairy and meat farmers off the hook of being in any way responsible
for our current global warming.
That is what ADAS and MAFF wanted when they started it all up.

I, for one, will not let them get away with it.

What we need is a wider spread sheet which shows all the inputs and outputs
and what they do the atmosphere. That, so far, does not exist, largely,
IMHO, because of this block of the partial, time modified, selective quoting
about the carbon cycle.

Why has no one come up with a full table of the carbon cycle, including a
listing of how much of the CO2 emissions from each emitting agent stay up
there causing damage to our climate?
Why has no one come up with facts about how much CO2 can be withdrawn by
certain plants and trees and explained how with decreasing plant bulk
throughout the planet, those plants can absorb the increased CO2 from meat
production and the animals and humans themselves?
Why is it that no one has posted the figures for human metabolism so that
Chicken Chat can become Human Chat?

I may well be mistaken. But there are so many questions without adequate
answers that someone must keep questioning, even if the whole agricultural
community thinks it is whiter than snow.

Not just him, Howard. I think that of you as well.

Me three.

Elizabeth

Guy, you're insulting again.

I think that the message Howard is trying to get across is more important
than the flawed tack he has taken. As a vegetarian and a sometime vegan, I
think it is better to say that it is wrong to kill animals than to try and
convince people of not eating meat by making semi-scientific claims. Make
the claim directly from the heart. I believe more people will come to your
position that way than offering them a chance to intellectualize, and then
argue the foundations of your empiricism.

I have shown you where carbon is being removed from farmland. The lowering
of the humus content of soils and the depth of top soil is well understood
by all concerned. With the ban on straw burning in the UK, the humus
quantity has come back a little, but excessive cultivation prevents it
getting back to virgin soil levels.

New forests, like the one being very slowly planted in the East Midlands of
the UK will help store CO2 at the rate of 100 tons per hectare (figures
from Co2.com) If such forests are not cut down then the CO2 in those trees
is taken care of, temporarily.

<The part of the carbon cycle you are focusing in *is* *in* *balance*.>

The whole of the carbon cycle must be in balance. Yes, in the long term. It
is a basic commodity which cannot be made or destroyed. It is just stored in
different places at different times and in differing quantities. But more
carbon has been let loose by actions of human beings on the planet, causing
a present imbalance. At other times in geological history volcanism has
caused such imbalance, or could the over grazing by dinosaurs and the
emissions they gave off have caused a similar imbalance?

Now where are you saying that "my" part of the cycle starts and stops? That
is what is confusing. I don't see a logical stopping of the fossil fuel
carbon cycle at one point and the starting of a human/animal
metabolism/agricultural carbon cycle. If you have a point in mind, then
please tell us. In my science the cycle is one whole with certain parts
which produce free carbon causing too much for the environment to take at
the current time, without a massive change in the whole balance.

<For every gram of O2 that a human or a chicken converts to CO2, somewhere
there is a gram of CO2 that some plant converted into O2. That part of the
carbon cycle is in balance.>

Sorry, Guy. This just sounds like a mantra. It is not science. You do not
provide any proof. Survey shows that the volume of leafy matter throughout
the world is decreasing, not increasing. So how can increasing amounts of
CO2 emissions, whether from oil or factory farming, be changed to O2, unless
some aliens have brought in some special new kinds of trees and plants which
metabolise at a greater rate? The ocean organisms may be working their
little socks off to get us back to balance, but they are not getting us back
there, because the free CO2 in the air is still increasing.

So come on. It is you who need to do some explaining, rather than repeating
mantras of belief. I am trying to follow the logic of survey of the facts,
discussion of what they mean, leading to a plan of action. Most
environmental scientists, organic agriculturalists and permaculturalists
would be able to follow my argument, and agree with it, if only in part.
Why can't you?

> Let me again emphasise that I, Dianne/Brent and indeed just about
> everyone here strongly supports Martin is his quest to convince
> people to eat vegetables instead of meat. Dislike of the
> non-scientific argumkents presented by Martin in no way implies
> dislike of his goals.

Yes, I totally agree.

And, indeed, the truthful and heartfelt claims will win people over more
genuinely than making untrue and very tenuous claims.

I feel strongly that "One Above" would not have put animals on the
earth without a role. Some of them fulfill that role by supplying us
with food.

We would be wiser to curb our energy uses, our procreation, and land
use much more than worrying about eating meat or *gasp* wearing fur or
leather.

We *are* all related, and that includes the animals.

winyan

Well said, Martin. Even tree-planting programs in certain Latin American
countries cannot keep pace with the wholesale destruction of native rainforests
which are the greatest sink for atmospheric carbon. There clearly is an
imbalance and there is no knowing just how much damage has been done by humans
tampering with the natural carbon-oxygen cycle. Perhaps the droughts and severe
floods we are seeing are but a harbinger of much worse things to come.
Rick

> Rain forests are not a sink for atmospheric carbon. They are
> a temporary storage place for it. A mature rain forest neither
> adds nor subtracts carbon from the atmosphere. The amount of
> carbon that is converted from CO2 to wood through growth
> matches the amount of carbon that is converted from wood to
> CO2 through decay or fire. If it were not so, the amount of
> wood would increase without limit.

This is true only if the amount of wood is constant. If the amount of
wood goes way down, then this isn't true. In fact, biological
processes lock carbon up in a jillion ways; much sits a humus under
the soil for millenia, or did until it was churned up by people and
burnt.

I cannot claim that this is true or untrue for I do not know. However, it
is a *choice* I have made to not eat my friends. I don't expect others to
become vegetarian for any other reason than they feel in their heart it is
the right thing for them to do.

I think one may be concerned about energy, procreation, land use and *still*
refrain from eating meat. The two are not mutually exclusive. I like to
think I spend a great deal of time working toward making the earth a better,
more hospitalb eplace than what we've made it to be. I don't your use of
the word "gasp" is relevent here.You choose not to worry about what you eat,
and that is fine with me. I on the other hand would like others to not
pigeonhole me as a nut-job or overreacting in my choice to ask that no
animals be killed for my benefit. I believe humans are omnivores and
probably should eat meat regularly. I have simply made a conscous choice to
avoid meat and leather.
Dennis

Well, you could argue, and some do, that God put energy sources on our
planet so that we could use them, gave us procreative abilities lasting over
decades so we could "be fruitful and mulitply", etc. So I don't make the
distinction you do.

In fact, Genesis indicates that God's original intention was that humans eat
plants, not other animals.

Well, not quite. And late in Genesis, animal sacrifices are made to which
God approves.

I am not saying that vegetarianism vs. meat eating is right or not, I have
trouble supporting it with scriptures.

The touchstone ought to be your personal discernment.

Procreation is the number on reason we have environmental problems in
my opinion.

Ian.

[snip]

I happen to agree with you. (that was fun to type).

Ian. >>

Procreation with zero population growth (ZPG) would not constitute an
environmental stress provided there was a sustainable level of population to
begin with. It is so-called "development" (industrialization) that has lead to
so much environmental degradation. Out-of-control population growth accentuates
and compounds the problem, of course. I have read, however, that the upward
spiral of population increase is starting to taper. Still, by 2050 scientists
believe we will have 9 billion mouths to feed. Now *that* is environmental
stress.
Rick

Certainly more than today. Though someone said that if people were evenly
spread across the Earth, the population density would be approximately that
of Tennessee, and that state is not known to have environmental breakdown.
Still, wouldn't want to get into a Malthusian situation.

:)

The *gasp* was to indicate I knew I was going to shock others.

> Procreation is the number one reason we have environmental problems in
> my opinion.

My Nation (the Lakotah) knew it wasn't good to overburden the land
with overpopulation of any kind, be it human or animal. They
practiced restraint in procreation, and thinned the animals by
selecting the animals that would most easily not be missed (lame or
otherwise impaired) and utilizing the whole animal, unlike the later
settlers who would kill a whole buffalo, for example, and just take
the tongue and liver leaving the rest to rot.

I'm not saying we were a perfect society, just that since we lived as
one with Nature, we would watch and learn how to interact with Nature.

winyan
>
> Ian.

Do you think God thought things through when he made us warm blooded. Ian

Distributing the human population evenly would have people on top of the
Himalayas and in the tropical rainforests! The problem today is the
concentration of populations in so-called megacities (like Mexico City, Tokyo,
Guangzhou, Lagos, etc.), particularly in the developing countries. These same
locations often are hard pressed to provide adequate safe drinking water and
have major pollution problems. One could go on endlessly about sustainability
issues, but overpopulation is certain a major factor.
Rick

Ian,
Are you a Genesis fundamentalist (Creationist) or are you just making a funny?
:) If the latter, LOL!
Rick

The latter.. I have a dry sense of humour.. which invariably is mistaken for
being serious. The number of times as a child when I was confronted with "You
can't be serious" testifies to this. :-)

Ian.

> By contrast, "trophy" hunting takes the largest and healthiest
> animals, thus breeding smaller animals and animals with smaller
> horns or antlers. The good news is that it also breeds animals
> that are smarter and more likely to avoid humans.

Sounds kind of like a system that favors the boffin/nerd animals over the
jocks. I can't get worked up about that, being of the former and definitely
not the latter...

Perhaps it is more extreme population density in cities than a straight "too
many people"?

It is both. The more people there is, the more people tend to agglomerate in
cities because it is not feasible for people in large numbers to support
themselves on the land which is already pretty much taken up with agribusiness.
Megacities are a symptom, not the cause.
Rick

There has probably always been enough on our planet to feed every person
fully and soundly. The problem of course is the distribution of the food.
I believe the reports and figures I have read predicting this trend to
continue in the future...always enough food, nit enough distribution. My
opinion is that it is industrialization and the generating of toxins that
are the big bugaboos for us. I am not a luddite. I believe in furthering
the comfort, safety and leisure of people everywhere in the world, not
matter what economic class. However, I strongly believe that in the past
200 or so years 'man has payed less attention to the long-term goals, and
has opted for industry and technology in the sevice of making money. I have
no doubt that we could solve many of the challenges we face today if we were
to spend 25 years devoted to finding more efficient ways of producing and
using power, finding and developing alternatives to the combustion engine,
returning to traditional yet effective technologies in many industries and
in the home, and retrofitting business to accomodate what we have
discovered. If it weren't for the fact that it would cause some to lose a
part of their fortunes or the erase the indispensibiliy of our relience on
petroleum products and the industries which manufacture goods that run on
them or use them in their manufacture...well, we'd be halfway to a much
better world.
Dennis
>

I have read similar things. Given the huge surpluses of food we have here
to the point of piling garbage high with spoiled or unwanted food, and
others going hungry in other parts of the world -- I think supports as well
(though anecdotal).

The heartening thing is that without a great deal of government intervention
a lot of industries are discovering that not polluting and efficient use of
resources is usually good economics. I think the trend in this direction is
underway UNLESS the government does something to stop it through silly
regulations. [Man, I'm beginning to sound a bit like Guy, now! :)]

Look at Ford and their soon-to-be renovation of the River Rouge plant --
using all kinds of natural systems and natural light, etc. etc. And also
using other systems to clean up the waste much more efficiently and cheaper
than the EPA encase-the-place-in-concrete kind of solution.

I think the end of the petroleum era is upon us, actually. A million
political as well as economic reasons are building up and soon it will be
intolerable. We're due for an oil shock, and I think "W" might be pulling
the trigger.

bs> ...Genesis indicates that God's original intention was

Brent responded,

b> Well, not quite. ...

Bill is quite right.

When God creates humanity in Genesis 1, He tells them, "See, I
have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of all
the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed; to you it shall be
for food. Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the
air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is
life, I have given every green herb for food." This is followed by
the auctorial statement, "And it was so." (Genesis 1:29-30, NKJV)

This indicates that the original intention of God was a
vegetarian diet for both humanity and the beasts, and that, prior to
the Fall, humanity and the beasts *did* practice vegetarianism in
accordance with God's will.

The same idea shows up again in Genesis 2:16 -- "YHWH, God,
commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely
eat...."

This commandment to be vegetarian is replaced by permission to
eat "every moving thing that lives" after the Flood, in Genesis 9:3.
However, the context makes it clear that this permission to eat meat
is derived from God's acceptance of the universe's fallen state --
"The fear of you and the dread of you shall be on every beast of the
earth, on every bird of the air, on all that move on the earth, and on
all the fish of the sea" (verse 9:2) -- and *therefore* you may eat
meat. This is a far cry from the trust between humanity and animals
in the Garden -- the trust that permits Adam to name the creatures as
God brings them to him, one by one (Genesis 2:19); but it is a logical
progression in the Fall.

However, the Peaceable Kingdom vision, in Isaiah 11, foresees a
restoration of the before-the-Fall condition. For once again the
animals, even the lion, will be vegetarian (verse 11:7), and this will
be linked to a restored harmony between humanity and animal, such that
the human child shall lead the predator and its prey (verse 6) and
expose itself to poisonous snakes without danger (verse 8). It will
be a world in which "they shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy
mountain", which presumably means, among other things, that humanity
will cease destroying animal lives for food.

And all this is linked to the coming of Christ (Isaiah 11:1), who
will be given the breath of YHWH, the breath which conveys wisdom and
understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of YHWH (verse
2), and who shall bring to pass that the whole world will be full of
the knowledge of YHWH as the waters cover the sea (verse 9). In other
words, it will be by listening to the conscience through the gateway
of breath-centered awareness, as taught by Christ, that this shall
come to pass.

Brent also says,

b> ...Late in Genesis, animal sacrifices are made to which
>> God approves.

Not so late in Genesis either; the first such sacrifice is that made
by Abel, the son of Adam and Eve, for which his brother Cain slew him.

But like God's granting of permission to eat meat, all this seems
to have been keyed to the fallen state of humanity. The prophets
repeatedly declared that such sacrifices are not what YHWH wants
(Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, Isaiah 1:11-13, Jeremiah 7:21-23, I Samuel
15:22, Isaiah 58:1-9), from which we may conclude that they are only
what God *accepts*, not what He really hopes to receive from us.

With what shall I come before the LORD,
and bow myself before the High God?
Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams,
ten thousand rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has shown you, O man, what is good;
and what does the LORD require of you
But to do justly,
to love mercy,
and to walk humbly with your God?

-- Micah 6:6-8 (NKJV)

With all good wishes,
Marshall Massey <mma...@earthwitness.org>

snip..

Thanks for the strictly Biblical interpretation. It's a good defense
for meat-eaters who wish to rely on Scripture as the ethical grounds of
their lives. But it seems to me a bit problematic. And I mention this as a
topic of debate, not as a point of disagreement.
It presupposes that God shares an emotional and spiritual link with all
creatures. It would then follow (it seems to me) that animals have souls
and individuality. What happens to them when they are slain in order to
feed humans, be used for sacrifice, or for their fur? He has told us we may
not blithely murder one another...could it be He accepts blithely raising
caged animals, force-fed, in cramped, unnatural quarter only to be killed
for our "Sunday Roast"?
By the way I still believe that 'man is an omnivore. It is fully
within our physiological nature to eat meat. I simply *choose* not to. And
despite the calls of "fie! fie!...you kill plants to survive!"...well I am
now trying to practice fruitarianism. I am trying to find if it is a viable
way of sustaining myself. I am finding it would be viable if I kept a
garden, had the time to not work, but continually put up my provisions, etc.
I am about to delude myself <s> that simple vegetarianism is enough....the
life cycle of plants is so different than that of animals that I can justify
it to myself.
Dennis

<snip>

Unfortunately, you are destroying potential future plant which on moral
ground would be bad. The best and only way to survive on this path would be
to only eat things that have already died.

The central horror of life is that you must destroy a large swath of life --
be it plant or animal in order to survive. And eating fruit, seeds or
leaves, you limit, harm or actually destroy life or potential life -- all
are unacceptable to our moral compass but required if we are to keep on
living.

While I wish you luck in your fruititarianism (sp?) - I would suggest that a
reasonable balanced diet without overeating is probably the most moral thing
you could do. The amount of vitamins and protein you require is usually not
as much as we are led to believe -- and indeed it is difficult to eat as
little as we require and have a balanced diet, though small amount of meat
with healthy amounts of other things may be best I have found for me.

Best Regards,
Brent

> [snip] This indicates that the original intention of God was a

Cool. I didn't read it quite that way, but went back and saw what you
meant. I stand corrected on this part. There is no mention of eating meat
until the expulsion, and the exhortation was to eat form the garden, not the
animals. Perhaps that meant that in Eden, this was the rule.

Brings up another issue -- since we are fallen, does that mean that we need
to strive one way or another? I know my inner leadings are to not eat
(much) meat, but I do not feel the scriptures are anything but oblique.

I think that this is the strongest permission to eat meat. I do not see
that eating meat would be considered bad at this point, though, especially
at this point since the legalistic relationship between Man and God.

I am having some trouble understanding here - I see your logic, and I think
I am following along, but I think Isaiah is stronger support to this -- at
least on the "one day all will be well" -- but I was taught that this
harmony is not dietary based but means that in heaven (restoration of the
Kingdom) you don't need to eat at all, and/or when God restores His kingdom
it is in a place where there is no fear because of knowledge of what death
means and Gods presence.

Again, I do not see the connection between diet in Isaiah you quoted.

> However, the Peaceable Kingdom vision, in Isaiah 11, [snip]

Seems you were way ahead of me! :)

I agree mostly, except the breath I was taught (and agree with) is not so
much meditation, as sharing the knowledge and word of God since many time in
the ancient world air was a poetic symbol for knowledge. Meditation based
awareness would have been more watery (like the book of Thomas "Drink from
my mouth and become like me").

Meant Late-R -- sorry! :) But while the later prophets talk about the
harmony we need to strive for, in Genesis God is pleased and gets pleasure
from the sacrifices -- I do not recall any sort of caveat there that would
give a clue as to his preferences about a sacrifice if a sacrifice were all
that was on offer. Plus no guidance for diet.

Later the prophets are saying that God wants YOU not the sacrifice. It
would be applicable if the sacrifice were plant matter rather than animal
matter based upon the words. Again, no guidance on diet.

> But if you exclude, say, beef from your diet, aren't you destroying
> future cows just as surely as Dennis' eating of fruit destroys future
> plants? If less beef is eaten, then farmers will raise fewer cows.

A philosopher of my acquaintance used to use this argument. :) He was
so tired of the assumption that vegetarianism is more moral, an
assumption often shared even by those who happily eat meat, that he
developed an argument to the effect that vegetarianism is *less* moral
on utilitarian principles.

A utilitarian, recount, wants to maximize happines. The usual
vegetarian argument starts out by insisting that animal happiness or
unhappiness counts as much as human.

So one notes that animals in the wild typically die very painful
deaths, either by accident, painful killing, slow disease, or
starvation.

Assume that one has already agreed that agricultural meat production
should be humane--and that indeed many current practices are not.

A suitable example is for cattle and pork, which is are among the most
humane meat industries; free range poultry is usually pretty good as
well.

So if society doesn't eat meat, then there are way fewer animals,
because only those that breed in the wild are created, and they nearly
all die painful deaths. By contrast, if society does eat meat, the
animals lead mostly pleasant lives, have plenty to eat, and die quick
and fairly painless deaths (especially by comparison with what happens
in the wild).

Whether one counts average or total happiness, agricultural meat
production is thus *more* moral than vegetarianism, which consigns the
average animal to a very painful death, and by reducing population,
reduces total happiness as well.

Thomas

No. The premise of fruitarianism is to eat the parts of plants that
may be renewed. I may therfore take leave of lettuce, a tomato or two and a
few leaves of basil from my garden for a beautiful summer salad. I have
killed nothing....and what I eat is not even dead! The fruits of plants are
the parts by which they propagate. Most often I may eat these parts of the
plants and (if I am careful where I poop!) they will flourish in my own
waste and grow. This is the precept upon which Fruitarianism is built. It
is a very ancient concept that apparently was around during Christ's time.
Some Jewish sects are identified with this practice, and I have even heard
that Jesus followed this way of eating...though I don't particuarly care to
defend that argument...for I do not know if it is true or not true.
I have found that leading a fruitarian regime is very difficult in our
modern lives...at least *my* life. I believe a commitment to eating this
way would be better suited to those who are able to live off the land. It
will be too difficult for me to continue past the first frost. It was a
fine experiment, and I will look for ways to destroy less plant life....as a
practical rather than a moral issue.
Dennis

I think the trend started with government regulations that companies loudly
proclaimed were impossible to follow or too expensive to follow. But with
the incentives created by the regulations to be creative in changing
processes to be more environmentally responsible, they often found that they
could comply with the regulations at far less expense than even the
government had estimated in promulgating the regulations, and that sometimes
the process changes actually saved them money. Having had this lesson
prompted by government regulations, the companies that were intelligently
led began to look for ways to make similar improvements in processes even
where they weren't beig regulated.

EPA doesn't have a standard solution for dealing with waste. But the
requirement for polluters to clean up their waste has unleashed
entrepeunerial energy into finding better ways to do that. The conflict has
come because the old ways are proven and the new ones are not. What EPA
tends to do now is accept the private party's innovative proposal about how
to clean up their waste, with the condition that they resort to the old
method if the innovative one is not successful in achieving cleanup goals.

I believe that government controls can spur private entrepeunerial energy,
and that increasingly government is acting with that understanding and
intent.

NOTE: I work for EPA, but all views expressed are my personal views and not
expressed in my capacity as an EPA employee. They are based on information
that is in the public domain.

Perhaps we should take the same approach to humanity, and
overpopulation. Usually overpopulated areas are poor and miserable areas.
We could take care of overpopulation and misery if we painlessly killed off
a certain percentage of the population every year...or killed them upon
reaching a certain age. We could them assure that their and our lives
would be happier.
If you've ever spent time in a slaughterhouse, or even on a small working
farm, you will find that animals smell the blood of other animals and
express fear as they are led to die. I'm not sure what you consider a
painless death...would you prefer to have your throat slit ear to ear while
hanging upside down, have a high-voltage prod stuck up your ass, shot or
sledge hammered between the eyes, or have your neck broken cleanly and fast?
As I have stated earlier, I choose not to base my vegetarianism on moral
grounds. I simply like animals....no....I LOVE animals. I have learned
much from their behavior, have enjoyed their characters, and cherished their
loyalty (as in the case of my two beloved mutts). I am still unsure if
their lives are on par with that of humans, but I care enough about them to
urge others not to kill them on my behalf.
Dennis

> On a related note, if caloric intake is reduced to 20 percent below
> maintenance, you can extend your lifespan considerably. (For
> instance, if your daily maintenance is 2,000 calories you should
> eat 1,600 calories.) In animal experiments, lifespan was extended
> by up to 50 percent when they lived from birth on a near-starvation
> diet. The NIH (National Institutes of Health) is about to begin
> clinical trials on this method in humans.

I had heard something about this - fascinating, I wonder why? -- I guess we
might see 140 year old super models eventualy, then! Yuck... :P

Actually a lot of the initial ground would was done by Amory Lovins in the
Rocky Mountain Institute who proved that low impact usually created high
profits. As a consultant to businesses he has done a lot to show the way.
My argument would be that while the initial government regulations gave the
companies an "oh sh*t" moment -- they would have got there without the
regulations, and companies are going further than the regulations on their
own simply because of the profit motive. Some technologies are regulated
out of their hands as well, and that would be "bad policy" in my book.

Bottom Line: I don't think the government did good, or even sped things up
here anyway.

Ask them about their prohibition of gray and blackwater treatment using
man-made wetland ponds, though. The EPA serves to limit in this case, as
well.

I'll agree that the "must clean up" parts works.

I think there will always be private enterprises to comply with government
mandates -- because regulation distorts the marketplace. IN the case of the
environment, since we face the "tragety of the commons" since no natural
market based solutions exist, I can see where an EPA adds value.

>> [snip]
>
>[snip]

The point of the argument is not that the slaughter of animals is
hunky-dorey, but that vegetarianism is not necessarily a more moral choice,
which you agree with. We destroy life in order to live -- either by ripping
limbs off of, consuming whole, eating babies of plants or gruesomely
slaughtering animals. The only moral choice is finding an alternative to
this killing (like converting coal, or oil into food somehow), or to more
practically, do not overeat and try to make peace with what you are eating
since there is nothing on this menu that does not harm something.

b> ...Someone said that if people were evenly spread across

>> that of Tennessee....

If all the world had the carrying capacity of Tennessee, it would
certainly be less crowded than it is. However, most of the world is
oceans, lakes, deserts, near-deserts, mountains, icecaps, boreal
tundra, and other sorts of unproductive space. It cannot support as
many people per square mile as Tennessee can.

b> ...And that state [Tennessee] is not known to have
>> environmental breakdown.

If "that state is not known to have environmental breakdown", it is
only because speaker is not known to be following newspaper and TV.
Tennessee actually has very substantial environmental problems,
including severe erosion in the hill country, pollution damage to
aquatic and riparian ecosystems, and loss of wild species throughout.
All three of these problems -- severe erosion, damage to ecosystems,
and loss of species -- do definitely qualify as forms of progressive
environmental breakdown. Give 'em time, and Tennessee is going to
wind up looking like Greece: a wet desert.

dw> There has probably always been enough on our planet to

[etc.]

What troubles me is that this entire paragraph is written without one
mention of the needs of species other than humanity, or of the needs
of wild lands and natural ecosystems. The human tendency to neglect
such considerations may kill off the human species in the end, because
the human race is utterly dependent on the services provided it by
wild lands and wild species, and therefore on the health of those
lands and species, for its own continued existence.

Really, it is not enough to consider whether there is enough
comfort, safety and leisure for all human beings everywhere. If we do
not learn to care for others besides ourselves -- and by this I mean,
other species besides our own -- it is a dreadful future awaiting us.

I still am unsure if you understand fruitarianism. I do not advocate it as
a more ethical or moral way to feed the plant....though I fully understand
the argument.
If we can prune a tree or shrub in order to make it grow healthier, we
should be able to understand how fruitarianism works. If we understand the
benefits of deadheading flowers of plants in order to lengthen their season,
we should understand the benefits to the plant of fruitarianism. We do not
destroy plants by practicing fruitariansim, for it allows them to renew
themselves in a very vigorous manner.
Dennis

When I say "us" I mean ALL of us!!!!
Dennis

I meant Land Mass not including oceans, etc.

> Guy writes,
>
> gm> If everyone were to live at densities equivalent to the
>>> 1980 density of America's central cities (3,551 per
>>> square mile), they could live in a single city with four
>>> equal sides measuring 1,224 miles (i.e., about 41 percent
>>> of the U.S. land area).
>
> Such a city would be the CDC's ultimate nightmare: a breeding ground
> for contagion and a generator of pandemics on a scale we can scarcely
> imagine.

Given the air travel, etc, we kind of already have it. It would be possible
to design cities such that disease containment were possible. Also we could
also live in large structures leaving the outside Earth relatively fallow
(Arcologies -- see Arcosanti as a prototype)

> gm> If everyone lived in Texas, population density would be
>>> 20,304 per square mile (1,373 square feet of land area
>>> per person), slightly under twice the density of
>>> Singapore and three-tenths the density of Macau in 1987.
>
> Even that (32 people per acre over the entirety of Texas) would be a
> recipe for disaster. Imagine something like Ebola getting loose in a
> context like that, or even something like the influenza that followed
> World War I. A majority of the entire population could be exposed
> before scientists could even isolate the disease-causing organism, let
> alone develop a serum for treating it.

Given the communication network and ease of travel it is only a bit more
vulnerable than currently present. I think Guy wasn't suggesting we *do*
it, though, just overpopulation may not be the problem. Plus he was
correcting me saying that the density would be somewhat less than Tennessee.

Yes, however the context of the above post does not require the absence or
presence of other species to validate or invalidate his argument.

If comfort safety etc. for humans includes other species or we all perish,
his comments are still valid. He is all for comfort, safety, leasure, as I
am sure you are especially as you pointed out, would walk hand in hand with
good husbandry of the planet as a whole!

From you words, one could easily be led to believe that you do...

But assuming that I got something wrong - if there is no moral benefit to
practicing fruititarianism - then it is unclear what the benefits above a
sensible, right sized, balanced diet might be. Even if you were to say that
consumption of meat was to be occasional (which is what it was through most
of mankind's history), again the benefits, if not moral, are unclear.

If you eat the fruit of the tree, you have to admit you are eating their
offspring. There is damage. When you prune a tree, you put it under stress
again there is damage, IIRC, there was a study saying that when you pluck a
leaf from a plant, it "screams" as if it were in some sort of pain.

The truly moral endpoint of that philosophy (and I am not convinced you are
not taking a moral stance on this) is the consumption of things already dead
is the only moral alternative, and an abstention from the life/death cycle
itself is the best most moral alternative (even to the point of sequestering
the ex-life cycle carbon from you into some kind of long term storage such
as injecting it to fill the empty oil wells or something.

> If it's O.K. to rip the leaves off of innocent plants while they
> scream in pain, Would it then be O.K. to amputate limbs from
> pigs and cows for your dinner, as long as you don't kill them?

"While they scream in pain"? Are the plants talking to you Guy?

Fruitarianism is based on the premise that killing a plant is wrong.
It is certainly not based on the premise that plants feel pain, or
scream.

Killing plants is wrong, but hacking up, maiming and eating the babies of
plants is OK?

On the other hand, I have heard of a person who chose to be a vegetarian,
not because he loved animals, but because he *hated vegetables*!

:-)

Bill

--
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dw> Thanks for the strictly Biblical interpretation. It's a

No, it's a *lousy* defense for meat-eaters who wish to rely on
Scripture as the ethical grounds of their lives. It portrays meat-
eating as an expression of the fallenness of the world, as a type of
the disharmony and destruction that God never intended or wanted -- in
short, as a form of sin.

Recall that the Peaceable Kingdom of Isaiah 11, in which the
original (vegetarian and harmless) pattern of Eden is restored, is
part of a larger vision, expressed not only by Isaiah but by many of
the other prophets as well, of what the world will be like when the
Holy Spirit is again poured out upon the earth. Recall how, in Acts
2, the apostle Peter declared that, with the arrival of the Pentecost
and the pouring out of the Spirit upon the believers, the time for the
fulfillment of these things was now at hand.

Recall, finally, how in Romans 8, Paul said that the whole
Creation is groaning together in pain, waiting to be delivered from
the bondage of the Fall into the liberty of the children of God
(surely this is a reference to meat-eating as much as to environmental
destruction) -- and that in almost the same breath, he described
himself and his fellow Christians as "we who have the firstfruits of
the Spirit", meaning that the time when these abuses would end was not
far off.

It seems to me that, biblically speaking, meat-eating Christians
have no excuse. They stand in danger of condemnation, either as
people who have not the Spirit and repentance and therefore should not
be calling themselves Christian, or else, which is much much worse, as
people who *do* have the Spirit and yet do not heed its urgings.

dw> It presupposes that God shares an emotional and spiritual

And as a matter of fact, the Old Testament (the Bible of the Hebrews)
explicitly affirms that animals have souls and individuality. So your
reasoning is right on target. Proof texts on request.

dw> What happens to them when they are slain in order to feed

The Old Testament has an understanding of souls (human & animal both)
which says that they perish when the breath stops. However, the blood
of the slain will afterwards bear witness before God against the
killer, and the very setting where wrong is done will do so as well.
Proof texts on request.

The New Testament speaks only of the resurrection of the human
dead, neither affirming nor denying that the animal dead might have a
hope of its own. However, the resurrection is tied in Matthew 25 to
the teaching that "whatever you do unto the least of my brethren, you
do it to me," and that eternal life will be meted out accordingly. My
heart tells me that the non-human creatures are not excluded from that
"least". It is a burden on my heart that I still own and wear two
pairs of leather shoes. (They *are* Clarks, the Quaker brand, but
somehow I doubt this is enough to justify them.)

dw> He has told us we may not blithely murder one another...

Since He tells us, through His prophets and also in the place of our
own conscience, that our animal sacrifices are abhorrent to Him, I
think He can only be even more repulsed by the behaviors that you
mention. I doubt He approves of our bulldozing prairie dog colonies
and pack rat middens and suchlike to build suburban subdivisions,
either.

dw> ...I still believe that 'man is an omnivore. It is fully

Certainly. One might say in the same way that it is fully within our
physiological and psychological natures to be sexual swingers. But
God calls us to choose not to. This is the Christian path in a
nutshell: having the capability and the opportunity to cause hurt,
but choosing not to, even when the choice is costly.

dw> I am now trying to practice fruitarianism.

If you will reexamine what God gives humanity permission to eat in
Genesis 1 & 2, you will find it consistent not only with vegetarianism
but with fruitarianism. Note the stress on herbs and trees *that bear
seed* (such as grains and apples): the idea is clearly that one is
not to take the life of the plant, but only to take its produce.

I am not a fruitarian myself, but I've abstained from meat, fish
and eggs for thirty years. It is less than you have attained, and
certainly less than perfection, and I only began doing it because I
was bullied into it. But I do believe it is a step in the right
direction.

It is not lousy at all. God gives express permission to eat animals with no
caveats as you mentioned earlier. It may be interpreted as a compromise or
recognition of a fallen state, but it is never explicitly said. It is very
easy to draw other conclusions from those passages.

Right. They said it was a world without fear, at all. And they told people
that a direct experience of God was for the taking -- sacrifices not
required. They gave very little guidance about diet.

Separation from God as a source of pain. Not inadequacy of diet. Any
reference inferred to vegetarianism is grasping.

Where? Would very much like to look it up.

Please do so. However be careful about mixing verses in the Bible. The
souls of animals has been a very controversial, not always accepted concept.
Even by people who pride themselves in extensive knowledge of scripture and
Church do not always agree with you.

SO none can be inferred.

Depends upon definition of "bretheren"

Excellent! Inner guidance. Much more reliable than parsing and
interpreting the Bible.

I do not get that at all form the Bible. I get people offering sacrifices
to God and Him being pleased! Either way, animal sacrifices are NOT diet,
and you should not confuse the two. After all one reason to abhor
sacrifices, has nothing to do with the death of an animal -- it would be
that the sacrifice would cause too much hardship.