Environmentalists and Vegetarians

Its great when your 16 and have all the answers... so I will ask you this:

Have you driven in a car?
well then you CANT be an environmentalist because you are supporting the oil industry and the war in Irag.

Have you eaten food that has come by truck
well see above.

Look at your feet.. whats on them:
Birkenstoks? Animal products!
Tevas? Petrochemicals
Converse? rubber soles!

Nope you cant be an environmentalist.

so yeah I eat meat. i also protect endangered species for a living... I have personaly saved two endangered sea turtles this year; I can show you stands of old growth that are not cut because i found the marbled murrelets in them, and you know what... I have been doing that since before you were born! (really...) so dont tell me what I can and cant call myself. What the hell have you done to protect anything.... Oh yeah you dont eat meat.... right....

 

well put my friend. that was deep.

 

Before World War II, virtually all cattle were grass-fed. This method of production uses no grains, only about 1.3% of total water usage and generally uses marginal land were regular crops probably woulndn't grow well. All of the prior to WWII water contamination, soil loss and erosion, deforestation, air pollution and animal extinctions for agricultural lands before this were done for human used crops. It is usually more of the way foods are produced that cause enviromental degradation then the type of food in and of itself, wether it is vegetable or animal.

 

Starkmojo, thats awesome you protect endangered species that must be an awesome job ... ever since i seen free willy when i was little i wanted to help out ocean animals. Rock on man !

 

Like I said before " My own opinion is you should do what you want to do. Just because your an Environmentalists doesnt mean you should become a vegetarian/vegan" I think that if you want to eat meat go ahead do what u want to do .... but you should know whats goin on with the animals and the enviornment when you eat meat ... Iam not judging anyone if you want to eat meat eat meat ... how dare someone judge you by the food you eat . Yea iam a veg but everyone has there own thing ... and i respect that ....

 

W4- i wasntreplying to your posts. Informations is good- sweeping judgements (see the quote) not so much.

 

lol its cool stark

 

Some people feel that they aren't hippy enough if they're not vegetarian and so have to go around mouthing off their 'shantier than thou' spiel at people who do eat meat to make themselves feel better. After all, it is all about how cool your dreads look and whether you're wearing the right clothes or not if you want to join our 'hippy' clique. Like the people who'll buy an old van with much higher emissions than the newer model because it looks more 'hippy' despite being able to afford the new one. Or people who work for 'ethical' corporations haha.

I feel anyone on this thread who says that you can't be an environmentalist without being a vegetarian has a very skewed view of the subject.

Personally I do eat meat, I buy most of it from my local organic butchers (yes there is such a thing). If I didn't have this choice where I live then chances are I wouldn't eat meat.
The meat industry is disgusting but then eating vegetables sprayed with pesticides is almost as bad and encourages companies to continue doing so. And that meat substitute shit, tell me seriously you think that is a sensible alternative to meat eating. And do you eat any processed or non organic foods?, can you say that that is better than eating good quality, ethically farmed meat? And while you're at it, people who own/drive cars aren't really in a position to preach about the environment, where do you buy your petrol from? the local independent petrol farmer? What about people who buy things in plastic wrappers? Hell, the computer you're reading this on contains microchips made by some extremely dodgy companies manufacturing weapons of war.

I don't agree with all of what I've written above but was trying to show it's harder to pick out the faults in yourself than to slag other people down for not being like you.

Pleanty of my friends and my lady are vegetarians so by no means do I disagree with vege-ism.

IMO the two do not correllate as there are plenty of feckless vegetarians out there just as there are plenty of people who claim to claim to 'care for the environment'. "I recycle (when I can be bothered to drive to the bottle bank)" If you catch my drift.

Live and let live....


@ the original poster - Your links in the first post aren't really the best way of getting your point across.

As noble as they are PETA, The Vegetarian society of Colorado and 'Vegsource' aren't the best places to look for unbiased information.

Shall I post a link to the KKK website to 'prove' that white supremacy is actually a very good idea??? Or perhaps I'll link to the Pro-Life Campaign Committee to 'prove' that abortion is wrong.

Bah my 2c

 

Wow. This thread is so degressive.

EDIT: I have a friend who has been a vegetarian since she was 9. I've seen her puke when she has unknowingly consumed meat. She has always taken suppliments and ate very well. However, her many doctors have advised her to eat meat because of an abnormality in her blood. There is no other choice for her at this moment in time, none.

If vegetarians want to shoot themselves in the foot by assuming to be the only environmentalists in the world - then good luck to their efforts. I have a feeling that idea will go over like a lead blimp.

This thread is insulting.

 

As a vegetarian myself, I have to agree that indeed vegetarianism does help minimalize environmental impact in some ways.

However, it's not the only thing we can do.

You cannot say that someone who eats meat do not care about the environment, it's simply not true and borders on stereotyping. People decide in what ways they wish to appreciate and help the environment and to what degree they want to help.

What's more important is to get involved, do your part! While it may not be cutting meat from your diet, maybe ride your bike to work or school. Don't though away so much, reuse! Join a club, whatever! Vegetarianism is neither the beginning nor end.

Peace.

 

I try to concentrate more on what I can do to minimize environmental impact than on what others are or are not doing.

 

Why is it that most of the greatest humanitarians in history have been vegetarians? Read Einstein, Da Vinci, Gandhi, and many others, and you will see why.



It comes down to this...Yes, some meaters can be environmentalists.



1) Should you have the power to rob a creature of the joy of life to satisfy a completely unnecessary practice, which is filling your intestines will dead carcasses?



2) If a more advanced civilization came to earth, should they view humans as food?



3) Do vegetarians start wars?



4) Hitler WAS NOT a vegetarian.



5) Plants do not have brains, eyes, a heart, and mobility




For as long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. Indeed, he who sows the seed of murder and pain cannot reap joy and love."
Pythagoras, mathematician "

The time will come when men such as I will look upon the murder of animals as they now look on the murder of men."
Leonardo da Vinci, artist and scientist

"To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of man. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous. And that is the unpardonable crime."
Romain Rolland, author, Nobel Prize 1915

"If a group of beings from another planet were to land on Earth -- beings who considered themselves as superior to you as you feel yourself to be to other animals -- would you concede them the rights over you that you assume over other animals?"
George Bernard Shaw, playwright, Nobel Prize 1925

"What is it that should trace the insuperable line? ...The question is not, Can they reason? nor, Can they talk? but, Can they suffer?"
Jeremy Bentham, philosopher

"In their behavior toward creatures, all men are Nazis. Human beings see oppression vividly when they're the victims. Otherwise they victimize blindly and without a thought."
Isaac Bashevis Singer, author, Nobel Prize 1978

"Our task must be to free ourselves . . . by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."
"Nothing will benefit human health and increase chances of survival for life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."
Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel Prize 1921

"I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being."
Abraham Lincoln, 16th U.S. President

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."
Ralph Waldo Emerson, essayist

"As long as there are slaughterhouses, there will be battlefields."
"What I think about vivisection is that if people admit that they have the right to take or endanger the life of living beings for the benefit of many, there will be no limit to their cruelty."
Leo Tolstoy author

"I cannot fish without falling a little in self-respect...always when I have done I feel it would have been better if I had not fished."
Henry David Thoreau, author

"While we ourselves are the living graves of murdered beasts, how can we expect any ideal conditions on this earth?"
"Atrocities are not less atrocities when they occur in laboratories and are called medical research."
George Bernard Shaw

"The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."
"To my mind, the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being."
Mahatma Gandhi, statesman and philosopher

"I am not interested to know whether vivisection produces results that are profitable to the human race or doesn't...The pain which it inflicts upon unconsenting animals is the basis of my enmity toward it, and it is to me sufficient justification of the enmity without looking further."
Mark Twain, author

"Non-violence leads to the highest ethics, which is the goal of all evolution. Until we stop harming all other living beings, we are still savages."
Thomas Edison, inventor

​

 

^^^^^

Half of that made sense. The other half was born from the poor habit of intellectuals to box and stereotype and use the completely unnecessary example of hitler and completely disregard the fact that some of the above men ate meat.

Congratulations. Once again another vego has made the rest look like dicks.

 

Actually, you are incorrect. Abe Lincoln was said to be a vegetarian, but there is no confirmation. Everyone else is/was a herbivore or at least vegetarian.

There has been much propaganda by the meat-heads to say Hitler was a vegetarian, whuch has been proven many times to be false.

So the question should be positioned in another way.....Does an anti-war person make a room of Pro-War advocates look like dicks by stating facts?

 

Hmmm...Hitler...meat eating...hmmm?..

Should the fact that Hitler brushed his teeth change my morning routine?

 

Depends on what Hitler brushed his teeth with!

 

Suppose we should stop having sex too.

 

It is not good practice to grow food without any fertilizer.To do so only degrades the soil leading to less healthy plants that become suspect to disease. Bring on the pesticides.

There are two catagories of fertilizer: organic types derived from animals and chemical types derived from crude oil. So when you buy organic fruit and vegetables you are supporting the livestock industry. The problems with chemical fertilizers is that they are fast acting but kill the earthworms and other micro-organisms. It is estimated that there are 3-5 times the number of organisms living below the surface of the ground than ther are above it.The rich soup of micro-organisms are all part of the organic equation. Soil is a precious commodity! Another probelm with chemical fertilizer is run off. It is destroying the reefs of the Great Barrier reef in Oz. Downunder we also have a liquid organic fertilizer called Charlie Carp. It is made from European Carp - an introduced species that plays ecological havoc with the waterways. While industrial pollution is not nice it does eventually go away. Biological pollution once it gets a foothold never goes away.

 

Downunder there are two lables of greenie: light greenie and dark greenie. The former might drive a smaller car, buy organic food and visit national parks. The latter gets active, pulls out invasive exotic weeds from bushland, does real useful recycling and is largely self-sufficient. Joan and Eileen Bradley were unsung envirionmental heroes who in the early 1960's converted weed infested bushland back into native bushland. They were probably considered a bit eccentric at the time.

I once visited a dark greenie. She had built her own pole frame house in the bush and was largely self-suficient. She was almost vegetarian but would feed her dogs roadkill.
Although an animal liberationist, over the back of some chairs, I saw some cat skins.
She said ,
" I tried feed the meat to the dogs, but they would not eat it."

Getting back to vegetarianism and the environment, if you buy nile perch (a very oily fish that is good for your sex life) you are helping the environment because what happened in Lake Victoria this is one of the worst cases of introduce species along with the rabbit and fox in Australia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nile_Perch