A Very Inconvenient Truth

[Guest guest]

A Very Inconvenient TruthCommentary by Captain Paul WatsonThe meat industry is one of the most destructive ecological industries on the planet. The raising and slaughtering of pigs, cows, sheep, turkeys, and chickens not only utilizes vast areas of land and vast quantities of water, but it is a greater contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than the automobile industry.The seafood industry is literally plundering the ocean of life, and some fifty percent of fish caught from the oceans is fed to cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. in the form of fish meal. It also takes about fifty fish caught from the sea to support one farm-raised salmon.We have turned the domestic cow into the largest marine predator on the planet. The hundreds of millions of cows grazing the land and farting methane consume more tonnage of fish than all the world's sharks, dolphins, and seals combined. Domestic housecats consume more fish - especially tuna - than all the world's seals.So why is it that all the world's large environmental and conservation groups are not campaigning against the meat industry? Why did Al Gore's film, Inconvenient Truth, not mention the inconvenient truth that the slaughter industry creates more greenhouse gases than the automobile industry?The Greenpeace ships serve meat and fish to their crews everyday. The World Wildlife Fund does not say a word about the threat that meat eating poses for the survival of wildlife, the habitat destroyed, the wild competitors for land eliminated, or the predators destroyed to save their precious livestock..When I was a Sierra Club director for three years, everyone looked amused when I brought up the issue of vegetarianism. At each of our Board meeting dinners, the Directors were served meat - and only after much prodding and complaining did the couple of vegetarian Directors manage to get a vegetarian option. At our meeting in Montana, we were served buffalo and antelope, lobsters in Boston, crabs in Charleston, steak in Albuquerque, etc. But what else can we expect from a "conservation" group that endorses trophy hunting?As far as I know and I may be wrong, but my organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is the only conservation organization in the world that endorses and practices vegetarianism. My ships do not serve meat or fishever, nor do we serve dairy products. We've had a strictly vegan menu for years and no one has died of scurvy or malnutrition.There is not enough fish in the world's oceans to feed 6.6 billion human beings and another 10 billion domestic animals. That is why all the world's commercial fisheries are collapsing. That is why whales, seals, dolphins, and seabirds are starving. The sand eel, for example - the primary source of food for the comical and beautiful puffin - is being wiped out by Danish fishermen solely to provide fish meal to Danish factory-farmed chickens.This is a solid conservation connection between eating meat and thedestruction of life in our oceans.In a world fast losing resources of fresh water, it is sheer lunacy to have hundreds of millions of cows consuming over 1,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef produced.And the pig farms in North Carolina produce so much waste that it has contaminated the groundwater reserves of the entire state. North Carolinians drink pig shit with their water. But it's safe, the authorities say. They just neutralize it with chemicals like chlorine.Most people don't want to see where their meat comes from. They also don't want to know what the impact of their meat has on the ecology. They wouldrather just deny the whole thing and pretend that meat is just something that comes in packages from the store.But because there is this underlying guilt always present, it manifests itself as anger and ridicule towards people who live the most environmentally positive lifestyles on the planet - the vegans and vegetarians.And the truth is that you can't practice solid and constructive conservation work without promoting veganism and/or vegetarianism as something that promotes the conservation of resources.I remember one Greenpeacer defending his meat-eating by saying that he was a carnivore and that "predators" have their place and he was proud to be one.Now the word "predator" in relationship to human beings has a rather scary connotation having nothing to do with eating habits, but for any human being to describe himself as a carnivore is just plain ridiculous.Humans are not and have never been carnivores. A lion is a carnivore as is a wolf, as is a tiger, or a shark. Carnivores eat live animals. They stalk them, they run them down, they pounce, they kill, and they eat blood-dripping meat at body temperature. Nature - brutal red in tooth and claw.I've never met a human that can do that. Yes we found ways to run down animals and kill them. In fact, we've come to be rather efficient at the killing part. But we can't eat the prey until we cut it up and cook it - and that usually involves some time between kill and eating. It could be an hour or it could be years.You see, our meat-eating habits are more closely related to the vulture, the jackal, or other carrion eaters. This means that we can't be described as carnivores. We are better described as necrovores - or eaters of rotting flesh.Consider that some of the beef that people eat has been dead for months and in some cases for years. Dead and hanging in freezers, full of uritic acid and bacteria. It's a corpse in a state of decomposition. Not much that can be said to be noble about eating a cadaver.But a little dose of denial allows us to bite into that Big Mac or cut into that prime rib. But that one 16-ounce cut of prime rib is equal to a thousand gallons of fresh water, a few acres of grass, a few fish, a quarter acre of corn, etc.What's the point of taking a shorter shower to conserve water, as Greenpeace is preaching, if you can sit down and consume a 1000 gallons of water at a single meal?And that single cut of meat would have cost as much in vegetable resources equivalent to what could be fed to an entire African village for a week. The problem is that we choose to see our contradictions when it is convenient for us to see them - and, when it is not, we simply go into a state of suspended disbelief and we eat that steak anyway - because, hey, we like the taste of rotting flesh in the evening.Have you ever thought why it is that with a person, it's an abortion - but when it comes to a chicken, it's an omelette?Does anyone really know what's in a hot dog? We do know that the government health department allows for an acceptable percentage of bug parts, rodent droppings, and other assorted filth to go into the mix.And now tuna fish comes with a health warming saying it should not be eaten by pregnant women or small children because of high levels of mercury. Does that mean mercury is good for adults and non-pregnant women? What are they telling us here?Eating meat and fish is not only bad for the environment, but it's also unhealthy. Yet, even when it comes to our own health, we slip into denial mode and order that Whopper.The bottom line is that to be a conservationist and an environmentalist, you must practice and promote vegetarianism - or, better yet, veganism.It is the healthiest lifestyle and leaves the shallowest ecological footprint, uses the fewest resources, and produces the least greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a vegan driving a Hummer would be contributing less greenhouse gas carbon emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle.May be freely distributed, reproduced, and published with permission of the writer.PaulwatsonCaptain Paul WatsonFounder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (1977-Co-Founder - The Greenpeace Foundation (1972)Co-Founder - Greenpeace International (1979)Director of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006)Director - The Farley Mowat InstituteDirector - www.harpseals.org

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Bravo!!zurumato <zurumato wrote: A Very Inconvenient TruthCommentary by Captain Paul WatsonThe meat industry is one of the most destructive ecological industries on the planet. The raising and slaughtering of pigs, cows, sheep, turkeys, and chickens not only utilizes vast areas of land and vast quantities of water, but it is a greater contributor to greenhouse gas emissions than the automobile industry.The seafood industry is literally

plundering the ocean of life, and some fifty percent of fish caught from the oceans is fed to cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, etc. in the form of fish meal. It also takes about fifty fish caught from the sea to support one farm-raised salmon.We have turned the domestic cow into the largest marine predator on the planet. The hundreds of millions of cows grazing the land and farting methane consume more tonnage of fish than all the world's sharks, dolphins, and seals combined. Domestic housecats consume more fish - especially tuna - than all the world's seals.So why is it that all the world's large environmental and conservation groups are not campaigning against the meat industry? Why did Al Gore's film, Inconvenient Truth, not mention the inconvenient truth that the slaughter industry creates more greenhouse gases than the automobile industry?The Greenpeace ships serve meat and fish to their crews everyday. The World Wildlife Fund

does not say a word about the threat that meat eating poses for the survival of wildlife, the habitat destroyed, the wild competitors for land eliminated, or the predators destroyed to save their precious livestock..When I was a Sierra Club director for three years, everyone looked amused when I brought up the issue of vegetarianism. At each of our Board meeting dinners, the Directors were served meat - and only after much prodding and complaining did the couple of vegetarian Directors manage to get a vegetarian option. At our meeting in Montana, we were served buffalo and antelope, lobsters in Boston, crabs in Charleston, steak in Albuquerque, etc. But what else can we expect from a "conservation" group that endorses trophy hunting?As far as I know and I may be wrong, but my organization, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is the only conservation organization in the world that endorses and practices vegetarianism. My ships do not serve

meat or fishever, nor do we serve dairy products. We've had a strictly vegan menu for years and no one has died of scurvy or malnutrition.There is not enough fish in the world's oceans to feed 6.6 billion human beings and another 10 billion domestic animals. That is why all the world's commercial fisheries are collapsing. That is why whales, seals, dolphins, and seabirds are starving. The sand eel, for example - the primary source of food for the comical and beautiful puffin - is being wiped out by Danish fishermen solely to provide fish meal to Danish factory-farmed chickens.This is a solid conservation connection between eating meat and thedestruction of life in our oceans.In a world fast losing resources of fresh water, it is sheer lunacy to have hundreds of millions of cows consuming over 1,000 gallons of water for every pound of beef produced.And the pig farms in North Carolina produce so much waste that it has

contaminated the groundwater reserves of the entire state. North Carolinians drink pig shit with their water. But it's safe, the authorities say. They just neutralize it with chemicals like chlorine.Most people don't want to see where their meat comes from. They also don't want to know what the impact of their meat has on the ecology. They wouldrather just deny the whole thing and pretend that meat is just something that comes in packages from the store.But because there is this underlying guilt always present, it manifests itself as anger and ridicule towards people who live the most environmentally positive lifestyles on the planet - the vegans and vegetarians.And the truth is that you can't practice solid and constructive conservation work without promoting veganism and/or vegetarianism as something that promotes the conservation of resources.I remember one Greenpeacer defending his meat-eating by saying that he was a

carnivore and that "predators" have their place and he was proud to be one.Now the word "predator" in relationship to human beings has a rather scary connotation having nothing to do with eating habits, but for any human being to describe himself as a carnivore is just plain ridiculous.Humans are not and have never been carnivores. A lion is a carnivore as is a wolf, as is a tiger, or a shark. Carnivores eat live animals. They stalk them, they run them down, they pounce, they kill, and they eat blood-dripping meat at body temperature. Nature - brutal red in tooth and claw.I've never met a human that can do that. Yes we found ways to run down animals and kill them. In fact, we've come to be rather efficient at the killing part. But we can't eat the prey until we cut it up and cook it - and that usually involves some time between kill and eating. It could be an hour or it could be years.You see, our meat-eating habits are

more closely related to the vulture, the jackal, or other carrion eaters. This means that we can't be described as carnivores. We are better described as necrovores - or eaters of rotting flesh.Consider that some of the beef that people eat has been dead for months and in some cases for years. Dead and hanging in freezers, full of uritic acid and bacteria. It's a corpse in a state of decomposition. Not much that can be said to be noble about eating a cadaver.But a little dose of denial allows us to bite into that Big Mac or cut into that prime rib. But that one 16-ounce cut of prime rib is equal to a thousand gallons of fresh water, a few acres of grass, a few fish, a quarter acre of corn, etc.What's the point of taking a shorter shower to conserve water, as Greenpeace is preaching, if you can sit down and consume a 1000 gallons of water at a single meal?And that single cut of meat would have cost as much in vegetable

resources equivalent to what could be fed to an entire African village for a week. The problem is that we choose to see our contradictions when it is convenient for us to see them - and, when it is not, we simply go into a state of suspended disbelief and we eat that steak anyway - because, hey, we like the taste of rotting flesh in the evening.Have you ever thought why it is that with a person, it's an abortion - but when it comes to a chicken, it's an omelette?Does anyone really know what's in a hot dog? We do know that the government health department allows for an acceptable percentage of bug parts, rodent droppings, and other assorted filth to go into the mix.And now tuna fish comes with a health warming saying it should not be eaten by pregnant women or small children because of high levels of mercury. Does that mean mercury is good for adults and non-pregnant women? What are they telling us here?Eating meat and fish is

not only bad for the environment, but it's also unhealthy. Yet, even when it comes to our own health, we slip into denial mode and order that Whopper.The bottom line is that to be a conservationist and an environmentalist, you must practice and promote vegetarianism - or, better yet, veganism.It is the healthiest lifestyle and leaves the shallowest ecological footprint, uses the fewest resources, and produces the least greenhouse gas emissions. In fact, a vegan driving a Hummer would be contributing less greenhouse gas carbon emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle.May be freely distributed, reproduced, and published with permission of the writer.Paulwatson (AT) earthlink (DOT) netCaptain Paul WatsonFounder and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (1977-Co-Founder - The Greenpeace Foundation

(1972)Co-Founder - Greenpeace International (1979)Director of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006)Director - The Farley Mowat InstituteDirector - www.harpseals.org

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