In message , Dave J.
writes
In on Wed, 19 Mar 2008
15:52:34 +0000, in uk.current-events.bird-flu, 'Oz' wrote:

Meat is (I believe) an inefficient use of resources in the production of
food. It also has a vast (and compared to decaying plant matter unavoidable)
amount of methane as a byproduct.

That depends. If you are talking about most of upland britain, its
impossible to grow arable crops there so the ONLY resource is grazing by
livestock. In this case of course its NOT an inefficient use of
resources.

Yes, that makes a good justification for minor meat consumption. Though
not for the American style gullet stuffing that's threatening to infect
the globe.

Also to note that all decaying plant matter emits methane, remember the
fuss when they recently discovered vast amounts were being emitted by
topsoils worldwide.

I've always figured though that the emissions from decaying vegetable
matter are more easily either controlled, reduced, or harnessed for
burning than those from animals.

Make no mistake, I'm in no way an advocate of humanity turning vegetarian,
I just see both sides of the debate and accept that we're swinging too far
into rain forest destroying hamburger-gulping greed that caries a massive,
almost karmic, future health cost.

Dave J.

I'm obviously suffering from mental constipation but could someone
enlighten me as to what this rubbish has to do with a ng dedicated to
British birdwatching? By all means discuss this in the fullest possible
detail in the vegan, veggie, environmentally aware landfill sites,
methane and related gases and such focussed groups but please don't dump
this rubbish in the British birdwatching group. After all you have
around 60,000 other newsgroups to choose.

Hopefully an ill controlled rant will not ensue.

And I know I'm crossposting. Irritating isn't it!

--
Tom Withycombe
NW Dorset/UK