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Vegan (alt.food.vegan) This newsgroup exists to share ideas and issues of concern among vegans. We are always happy to share our recipes- perhaps especially with omnivores who are simply curious- or even better, accomodating a vegan guest for a meal! |
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Posted to alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,misc.rural,alt.food.vegan,alt.food
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Anti-Vegetarian Article in Denver paper
On Sat, 6 May 2006 14:18:01 +0100, "pearl" > wrote:
>"Ms Libertarian" > wrote in message . 97.142... >> dh@. wrote : > >> > From a grass raised dairy cow >> > people get thousands of dairy servings. >> >> Yeah, AND meat. What could be more environmentally friendly. >> Input grass and get meat and dairy products! > >'.. 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 It didn't take you long to change the subject. Where grain is produced for cattle, and for you, it's harder on the environment than the grass raised animal products we're discussing: __________________________________________________ _______ Environmental Benefits Well-managed perennial pastures have several environmental advantages over tilled land: they dramatically decrease soil erosion potential. require minimal pesticides and fertilizers, and decrease the amount of barnyard runoff. Data from the Soil Conservation Service shows that in 1990, an average of 4.8 tons of soil per acre was lost to erosion on Wisconsin cropland and an average of 2.6 tons of soil per acre was lost on Minnesota cropland. Converting erosion-prone land to pasture is a good way to minimize this loss since perennial pastures have an average soil loss of only 0.8 tons per acre. It also helps in complying with the nationwide "T by 2000" legislation whose goal is that erosion rates on all fields not exceed tolerable limits ("T") by the year 2000. Decreasing erosion rates will preserve the most fertile soil with higher water holding capacity for future crop production. It will also protect our water quality. High levels of nitrates and pesticides in our ground and surface waters can cause human, livestock, and wildlife health problems. Pasturing has several water quality advantages. It reduces the amount of nitrates and pesticides which leach into our ground water and contaminate surface waters. It also can reduce barnyard runoff which may destroy fish and wildlife habitat by enriching surface waters with nitrogen and phosphorous which promotes excessive aquatic plant growth (leading to low oxygen levels in the water which suffocates most water life). Wildlife Advantages Many native grassland birds, such as upland sandpipers, bobolinks, and meadowlarks, have experienced significant population declines within the past 50 years. Natural inhabitants of the prairie, these birds thrived in the extensive pastures which covered the state in the early 1900s. With the increased conversion of pasture to row crops and frequently-mowed hay fields, their habitat is being disturbed and their populations are now at risk. Rotational grazing systems have the potential to reverse this decline because the rested paddocks can provide undisturbed nesting habitat. (However, converting existing under-grazed pasture into an intensive rotational system where forage is used more efficiently may be detrimental to wildlife.) Warm-season grass paddocks which aren't grazed until late June provide especially good nesting habitat. Game birds, such as pheasants, wild turkey, and quail also benefit from pastures, as do bluebirds whose favorite nesting sites are fenceposts. The wildlife benefits of rotational grazing will be greatest in those instances where cropland is converted to pasture since grassland, despite being grazed, provides greater nesting opportunity than cropland. Pesticides can be very damaging to wildlife. though often short lived in the environment, some insecticides are toxic to birds and mammals (including humans). Not only do they kill the target pest but many kill a wide range of insects, including predatory insects that could help prevent future pest out breaks. Insecticides in surface waters may kill aquatic invertebrates (food for fish, shorebirds, and water fowl.) Herbicides can also be toxic to animals and may stunt or kill non-target vegetation which may serve as wildlife habitat. http://www.forages.css.orst.edu/Topi...s/MIG/Why.html ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ ŻŻŻŻŻŻŻ |
Posted to alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,misc.rural,alt.food.vegan,alt.food
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Anti-Vegetarian Article in Denver paper
<dh@.> wrote in message news
> On Sat, 6 May 2006 14:18:01 +0100, "pearl" > wrote: > > >"Ms Libertarian" > wrote in message . 97.142... > >> dh@. wrote : > > > >> > From a grass raised dairy cow > >> > people get thousands of dairy servings. > >> > >> Yeah, AND meat. What could be more environmentally friendly. > >> Input grass and get meat and dairy products! > > > >'.. 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 > > It didn't take you long to change the subject. Where grain is produced > for cattle, and for you, it's harder on the environment than the grass raised > animal products we're discussing: '.. 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. ' http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases...stock.hrs.html 'Livestock grazing has damaged approximately 80% of stream and riparian ecosystems in the western United States. Although these areas compose only 0.5-1.0% of the overall landscape, a disproportionately large percentage (70-80%) of all desert, shrub, and grassland plants and animals depend on them. The introduction of livestock into these areas 100-200 years ago caused a disturbance with many ripple effects. Livestock seek out water, succulent forage, and shade in riparian areas, leading to trampling and overgrazing of streambanks, soil erosion, loss of streambank stability, declining water quality, and drier, hotter conditions. These changes have reduced habitat for riparian plant species, cold-water fish, and wildlife, thereby causing many native species to decline in number or go locally extinct. Such modifications can lead to large-scale changes in adjacent and downstream ecosystems. ... recent studies clearly document that livestock continue to degrade western streams and rivers, and that riparian recovery is contingent upon total rest from grazing. ...' http://www.onda.org/library/papers/BelskyGrazing.pdf 'The planet's mantle of trees has already declined by a third relative to preagricultural times, and much of that remaining is damaged or deteriorating. Historically, the demand for grazing land is a major cause of worldwide clearing of forest of most types. Currently, livestock production, fuel wood gathering, lumbering, and clearing for crops are denuding a conservatively estimated 40 million acres of the Earth's forestland each year. .. Worldwide, grasses of more than 10,000 species once covered more than 1/4 of the land. They supported the world's greatest masses of large animals. Of the major ecotypes, grassland produces the deepest, most fertile topsoil and has the most resistance to soil erosion. Livestock production has damaged the Earth's grassland more than has any other land use, and has transformed roughly half of it to desertlike condition. Lester Brown of the Worldwatch Institute reports that "Widespread grassland degradation [from livestock grazing] can now be seen on every continent." In 1977, experts attending the United Nations Conference on Desertification in Nairobi agreed that the greatest cause of world desertification in modern times has been livestock grazing (as did the US Council on Environmental Quality in 1981). They reported that grazing was desertifying most arid, semi-arid, and sub-humid land where farming was not occurring. [ '..while about 10% (3.7 billion acres) of the Earth's terrestrial surface is cropland, nearly half of this land is used to grow food for livestock. ' ] Seven years later UNEP compiled, from questionnaires sent to 91 countries, the most complete data on world desertification ever assembled. According to the resultant 1984 assessment, more than 11 billion acres, or 35% of the Earth's land surface, are threatened by new or continued desertification. UNEP estimated that more than 3/4 of this land -- the vast majority of it grazed rangeland -- had already been at least moderately degraded. About 15 million acres (the size of West Virginia) of semi-arid or subhumid land annually are reduced to unreclaimable desert-like condition, while another 52 million and acres annually are reduced to minimal cover or to sweeping sands -- more due to livestock grazing than any other influence. The world's "deserts" are expected to expand about 20% in the next 20 years. .......' http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter6.html 'The Forest Service defines range as "land that provides or is capable of providing forage for grazing or browsing animals [read: 'livestock']." By this definition more than 80% of the West qualifies as range, including a complex array of more than 40 major ecosystem types, all of which have been significantly degraded by ranching. .. ... Numerous historical accounts do confirm drastic, detrimental changes in plant and animal life, soil, water, and fire conditions throughout most of the West. These reports progressively establish livestock grazing as the biggest single perpetrator of these changes, particularly considering that it was the only significant land use over most of the West. One of the most useful and informative descriptions of the early West was that of Meriweather Lewis and William Clark on their famous expedition across the northern Midwest, Rockies, and Pacific Northwest from 1804 to 1806 (Thwaites 1959). Their descriptions of the unconquered West are of a world we can scarcely imagine: landscapes filled with wildlife; great diversities of lush vegetation; highly productive, free-flowing rivers, creeks, and springs; abundant, dark, fertile soil; unaltered, unimpeded fire and other natural processes. Of the Montana plains, one excerpt from Clark reads, "we observe in every direction Buffalow, Elk Antelopes & Mule Deer inumerable and so jintle that we could approach them near with great ease." Another states, We saw a great number of buffaloe, Elk, common and Black tailed deer, goats [pronghorn] beaver and wolves. .. In the West today only ungrazed Yellowstone National Park supports nearly this variety and density of large wild animals. .. Lewis and Clark's and other historic journals attest that buffalo, elk, deer, bighorns, pronghorn, mountain goats, moose, horses, grizzly and black bears, wolves, foxes, cougars, bobcats, beaver, muskrats, river otters, fish, porcupines, wild turkeys and other "game" birds, waterfowl, snakes, prairie dogs and other rodents, most insects, and the vast majority of wild animals were all many times more abundant then than now. So too were native plants; the journals describe a great abundance and diversity of grasses and herbaceous vegetation, willows and deciduous trees, cattails, rushes, sedges, wild grapes, chokecherries, currants, wild cherries and plums, gooseberries, "red" and "yellow" berries, service berries, flax, dock, wild garlic and onions, sunflowers, wild roses, tansy, honeysuckle, mints, and more, a large number being edible. Most of these plants have been depleted through the many effects of livestock grazing for 100 years and are today comparatively scarce. ... http://www.wasteofthewest.com/Chapter3.html 'Animal Enemies [i]n the eyes of graziers, basically there are 3 requirements for an acceptable environment -- grass, water, and livestock to eat and drink them. All else is questionable, if not expendable, a possible hindrance to profit and power. The ranching establishment's assault on the environment, therefore, includes campaigns against a huge number and wide variety of animals. Most of the score or so native large mammal species in the West have been decimated by ranching, both intentionally through slaughtering efforts and indirectly through the harmful effects of livestock grazing and ranching developments. Indeed, most larger and a great many smaller animal species are in some way assailed as enemies. The mass carnage carried out for the sake of privately owned livestock continues today throughout the grazed 70% of the West, including public lands, and even in adjacent ungrazed areas. Though definitions given by ranching advocates vary, most animal enemies fall into 4 main subdivisions: Carnivores and omnivores are (1) predators if able to kill a sheep, calf, or goat. Herbivores are (2) competitors if they eat enough forage or browse to decrease the amount available to livestock. Many smaller animal species are (3) pests if they occur in large enough numbers to affect production in some manner. And a huge number of animals are considered (4) no- goods, inherently "no good" because they are perceived as possessing some offensive characteristic.' http://www.wasteofthewest.com/chapter4/page7.html Next page- http://www.wasteofthewest.com/chapter4/page8.html |
Posted to alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian,misc.rural,alt.food.vegan,alt.food
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Anti-Vegetarian Article in Denver paper
On Sun, 7 May 2006 00:08:28 +0100, "pearl" > wrote:
><dh@.> wrote in message news >> On Sat, 6 May 2006 14:18:01 +0100, "pearl" > wrote: >> >> >"Ms Libertarian" > wrote in message . 97.142... >> >> dh@. wrote : >> > >> >> > From a grass raised dairy cow >> >> > people get thousands of dairy servings. >> >> >> >> Yeah, AND meat. What could be more environmentally friendly. >> >> Input grass and get meat and dairy products! >> > >> >'.. 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 >> >> It didn't take you long to change the subject. Where grain is produced >> for cattle, and for you, it's harder on the environment than the grass raised >> animal products we're discussing: > >'.. 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 You have already proven without doubt that you only care about promoting veganism regardless of human impact on animals. You've shown that even when animal products cause less death and suffering, and are better for the natural environment than vegetable products, you still favor the veggies. Not only do you favor veganism regardless, but you obviously oppose people understanding that some animal products involve less death and suffering than some vegetable products. Why won't you explain why you do that...or will you? |
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