I'm afraid I cannot agree that the vegetarian vs omnivore arguement is
irrelevant in the context of asian countries. With the rampant rush to
globalisation, there is also a push to "bring everyone up to the western
standard of living". Of course this can never happen, but we will see the
development of large (in numbers, but not as % of population) middle
classes who may start to demand, in addition to televsions, more Mc### 's
hamburgers, and beef steaks. Even if this middle class amounts to only 1%
of the population, in a country like China, thats one hell of a lot of
people. They'll start their cars up one fine morning, and there goes the
atmosphere. So, should we be "feeding them contraceptive cake" or hoping
that grain feeding livestock will deprive them of the food that some people
so simple-mindedly seem to think makes them breed? Yes, what a great idea,
send them some grain fed beef to stop them eating migratory waders (which
arent on the menu anyway). Perhaps we could send them some beef fed on
grain produced on the North American Prairie, where migratory shorebird
breeding areas have declined by some abusurd figure (over 75%, I think) as a
result of conversion to cropland. To those who want to cut resource
consumption by reducing the population, if you live in Australia, the USA or
Canada or Germany, etc etc, may I invite you to do yourself in, first,
before waggling your hypocritical finger at others? This will be a good
example to everyone else. Oh yes, and by the way, you'll be conserving more
resources than would be conserved by the elimination of 100 of the unwashed
masses. (Estimates place resource consumption per head in western countries
at over 100 times that per head in countries like India, which always gets a
bad press).
May I also point out that bad diet and poor food security increase birth
rates, while birth rates tend to fall when there is an adequate and reliable
supply of food, and "reasonable" living conditions. People can then stop
having children as often to keep up with the high infant mortality rates,
and it wont be as necessary to have a large family as a form of social
security to support the old and the sick.
Get real and stop flogging the same old simplistic arguement that "its the
third world bringing us all down". Its everyones problem. We must take our
particular share of the blame for our absurd levels of resource consumption,
and for electing governments which continue to do whatever they can to force
the rest of the world into an economic system which is completely
unsustainable.
How much land is being cleared in Queensland to provide beef for people who
don't really need it? Have we put a stop to that yet? Changed our own
cultural practices which allow us to excuse this terrible waste? Or is it
easier to point the finger at Brazilian peasants? Its time we tried
providing a good example as a way of convincing others. It works so much
better than preaching.
Scott O'Keeffe.
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael J Hunter <>
To: Birding-aus <>
Date: Friday, 2 June 2000 6:20
Subject: Re: vegies
>Are you all aware that most Asian [mainly grain-eating] populations have
>doubled in the last 25 years, and are set to double again in the next 25
if
>they can feed themselves.
>
>The vegetarian vs omnivore argument is almost irrelevant in that context,
>but if anything comes down on the meateaters side, fewer livestock but more
>grain means more people.
>
>The people plague is the problem. Let them eat contraceptive cake.Send a
>beef carcase up to every seaside Asian village in exchange for not eating
>migratory waders.
>
>
>
|
