"Dutch" > wrote in message news:X0Rti.40467$rX4.36280@pd7urf2no...
> pearl wrote:
> > "pearl" > wrote in message news:...
> >> "Dutch" > wrote in message news:f2qti.32785$rX4.9684@pd7urf2no...
> >>> pearl wrote:
> >>>> "Dutch" > wrote
> >>>>> Watch the second video, the only con speaker he refers to specifically
> >>>>> is Germaine Greer, the rest he dismisses without comment in his rude,
> >>>>> condescending manner like a doddering schoolmaster.
> >> Projection. Dr. Regan is a great speaker. Here's the link for others:
> >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG1Ad...elated&search=
> >>
> >>>> What "valid points"
> >>> Watch the second video dimwit.
> >> I just watched it again. '... the work of ethologists, and so on...
> >> "we know _nothing_ about what is beneficial to other animals"?
> >> "We know *nothing* , -scientifically- about what is harmful or
> >> detrimental to other animals"?' Where /are/ you living, ditch?
> >
> > Why do you believe that '"we should -not- mandate that
> > what is in their interest be protected as a matter of right."'?
>
> Because it's completely absurd, we have no such capability, except in
> some completely ad hoc token manner. Give your head an examination. If
> we protected the interests of animals as a matter of right our species
> would not last one more generation. Is that what you're going after? At
> least then your ideas might make *some* sense.

That is completely absurd. As it is, we're looking at ecological
disaster: climate change - drought, storms, floods, extreme
heat and cold; soil-erosion and advancing desertification;
emptying aquifers and pollution of ground water, waterways
and bodies of water. This is all fact and increasingly obvious.
Stockpiles of food are gone, and we've reached the bottom
of the barrel - not enough can be produced. As it is, over 800
million human beings are hungry and dying because land has
been taken over for livestock, and food fed to livestock. In
many areas there are conflicts and war over these resources.
Meanwhile millions of people are sick and dying because of
the meat, eggs and dairy they consume. It is you who is in
dire need of a head an examination, ditch. Respecting other
species interests is exactly what the world needs right now.

> > It can only be because you consider your interests to be of
> > more value to you than the interests of others are to - you.
>
> Of course I do. When I go to the store I buy food for *myself*, my
> family, guests, not others. When I go to the movies I buy a ticket for
> myself and my wife, when I go to the doctor we talk about *my* health.
> The interests of the others are *their* business, not mine.

An admission that you are too self-centered to consider the
very real and devastating impact your choice has on others.

> > Your interests being as follows: eating "meat and gravy"
>
> Tonight I ate broccoli, potato salad, artichoke, and a free range
> organic chicken breast. No gravy, I never eat gravy.

Whatever.

> > and
> > financial profits of the animal exploitation industry.
>
> I assume that all of the people involved in producing the
> above-mentioned food made a "financial profit", I certainly hope so,
> since that's what makes our economy function.

Tell us about all the subsidies and grants, and taxes.

> > Can you
> > derive equal satisfaction and nutritional needs from a vegan
> > diet?
>
> No.

False.

> Yes, and more,
>
> No, been there, failed to thrive, not an option any more, not for me or
> my wife.

Or the kids you never had... You have zero credibility.

> > and anyway there is *no* comparing
> > a transient sensory pleasure to the life and killing of another.
>
> Food is not a mere sensory pleasure, but enjoying one's food is an
> essential part of nutrition.

How often do you eat raw flesh? No? Raw bloody flesh is
a turn-off for humans. Cook it and smell the addictive fat.

> > Their loss is far greater if you take a rare moment to actually
> > consider what it is you are demanding attached to that pound
> > of flesh.
>
> Animals gain and lose constantly by human agriculture, I couldn't change
> that if I wanted to. I don't believe that the meat I eat causes
> substantially more harm than anything else I consume, and even if
> somewhat so,

'Livestock are directly or indirectly responsible for much of the
soil erosion in the United States, the ecologist determined. On
lands where feed grain is produced, soil loss averages 13 tons
per hectare per year. Pasture lands are eroding at a slower pace, at
an average of 6 tons per hectare per year. But erosion may exceed
100 tons on severely overgrazed pastures, and 54 percent of U.S.
pasture land is being overgrazed.
...
The 7 billion livestock animals in the United States consume
five times as much grain as is consumed directly by the entire
American population.
...
About 26 million tons of the livestock feed comes from
grains and 15 million tons from forage crops.
...
More than 302 million hectares of land are devoted to
producing feed for the U.S. livestock population -- about
272 million hectares in pasture and about 30 million hectares
for cultivated feed grains.
...'
http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases...stock.hrs.html

'U.S acres
Total dried beans and peas 2,140,851
Peanuts 1,436,034
Potatoes 1,309,963
Rice 2,424,864
Total sugar 2,172,550
Vegetables 3,264,343
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/circ1131/table2.html

= 12,748,605 acres; (* 0.4047) = 5,159,360 hectares.
+
Orchards, vineyards, and nursery 4,462,591 acres
(= 1,806,010 hectares)
http://ca.water.usgs.gov/pnsp/circ1131/table6.html
+
6 million hectares grain (based on the above from Cornell).
=
Total: 12,965,370 hectares, round to 13 million hectares.

> that's not a reason to make the sacrifice you seem to think
> is necessary.

Let live, and live. Kill, and die. -That-'s your chosen sacrifice.

> As for financial benefit.. there's plenty to go around.
> > Get a better job, like in veganic horticulture, or as mr. balloon..
>
> Your arguments are a failure and your bitterness is not doing you or
> anyone else any good.

Projection.

'Cornell Ph.D. student works the land by hand at Bison Ridge
Farming in harmony with nature

By Lauren Cahoon
Special to The Journal
August 4, 2006

VAN ETTEN - What if every farmer decided to turn off his machinery and
go without fossil fuels once and for all? And along with that, what if they
all stopped putting pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers on
their fields?

What if every gardener stopped pulling out their weeds and tilling their
soil? Chaos, you say? Mass shortages in crops and foods, gardens choked
with weeds? Perhaps so. But Rob Young, a Ph.D. student and lecturer at
Cornell University, has done all of the above with his small farm - and
the business, like the crops, is growing.

"We just got a new client who's running a restaurant in one of the local
towns - we brought them some of our lettuce and they went crazy over it
..... our lettuce just knocked them over, it's so good."

Young's Bison Ridge farm, located in Van Etten, runs almost completely
without the use of fossil fuels, fossil fuel-derived fertilizers, or pesticides.

The land has been farmed since the 1850s. Young and his wife, Katharine,
purchased the farm in 1989. Before that, Young worked as the Sustainable
Business Director for New Jersey governor Christine Todd Whitman. When
he discovered Bison Ridge, Young started working the land even while he
was still living in New Jersey. Eventually, Young and his wife moved to the
Ithaca area so they could start their graduate program at Cornell.

"We started doing a little gardening... then added more and more fields
..... at first, we just wanted it to be an organic farm" Rob explained.
Running an organic farm is admirable enough, but at some point, Young
took it a step farther.

"I had an epiphany," he said. "I was transplanting beets after a spring
rain, and I noticed how the land felt all hot and sticky - almost like
when you wipe out on your bike and you get a brush burn. I know it sounds
cheesy, but I could feel how that (farmed) land had gotten a 'brush burn'
when it was cleared and plowed.

"That's when I decided, I want to work with this land rather than against it."

After that, Young started throwing common farming practices out the
window. He reduced weeding, adding copious amounts of composted
mulch instead and, because of the life teeming in the healthy soils and fields
around the farm, Young lets natural predators get rid of any insect pests.

No mechanized machinery is used except for the primary plowing of new
fields. In fact, except for driving to and from the farm (in a hybrid car,
no less), no fossil fuels are used in any part of production. Irrigation
of crops is either gravity-fed from an old stone well dug in the 1800s or
through pumps driven by solar energy. Super-rich compost is used on all
of the crops along with clover, which fixes nitrogen and adds organic matter
to the soil. Crops are grown in multi-species patches, to mimic natural
communities (insect pests wreak less havoc when they're faced with diverse
types of vegetation).

In addition, the farm has a large greenhouse where most of the crops are
grown as seedlings during the late winter/early spring to get a head
start. The entire structure is heated by a huge bank of compost, whose
microbial activity keeps the growing beds at a toasty 70 degrees. During
the spring and summer, most of the plants are grown in outdoor raised
beds - which yield about three times as much per square meter as a regular
field.

"When people visit the farm, they comment on how we're not using a lot
of the land - they don't realize we're producing triple the amount of crops
from less land," Young said. "It is labor intensive, but you can target
your fertility management, and the produce is so good."

Young's passion for earth-friendly farming has proved to be infectious.
As a student, teaching assistant and teacher at Cornell, Young has had the
chance to tell many people in the community about Bison Ridge, which
is how Marion Dixon, a graduate student in developmental sociology, got
involved with the whole endeavor.

"I had wanted to farm forever - and was always telling myself, 'I'll do it
when I'm not in school,'" she said. But when she heard Young give a
speech about recycling and sustainable living at her dining hall, she knew
she had found her chance to actually get involved.

Dixon and Young now work the farm cooperatively, each contributing
their time and effort into the land.

"I've had a lot of ideas," Young said, "but the work has been done by a
lot of people - it's a community of people who have made his happen."

He said that because of Dixon's input, they now have a new way of
planting lettuce that has doubled production.

Although Young and Dixon are the only ones currently running the farm,
during the summer there are always several people who contribute, from
undergrads to graduate students to local people in the community - all
united by a common desire to work with the land.

"There's personal satisfaction in working the soil, being on the land and
outdoors," Dixon said. "You get to work out, and get that sense of
community - plus there's the quality, healthy food. ... It's about believing
in a localized economy, believing in production that's ecologically and
community-based."

The combination of working with the earth's natural systems and community
involvement has paid off. Over the course of several seasons, Bison Ridge
has grown a variety of vegetables, maple syrup, wheat as well as eggs from
free-range chickens. They have a range of clients, including a supermarket
and several restaurants, and have delivered produce to many families in
CSA (Community Sponsored Agriculture) programs.

Although small, Bison Ridge Farm has prospered due to its independence
from increasingly expensive fossil fuel. Young said that, since little if any
of their revenue is spent on gas, advertising or transportation, it makes
the food affordable to low-income people, another goal that Young and
Dixon are shooting for with their farming.

Although Young and Dixon are happy about the monetary gains the farm is
producing, they have the most passion and enthusiasm for the less tangible
goods the farm provides.

"It's such a delight to work with," Dixon said. "You feel alive when
you're there."

http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps...608040306/1002