Sustainable Absurdity
Important new report counsels rationing of meat, booze and other good stuff to combat global warming. But this half-measure of a recommendation really doesn’t go far enough. UK Guardian:
People will have to be rationed to four modest portions of meat and one litre of milk a week if the world is to avoid run-away climate change, a major new report warns.
The report, by the Food Climate Research Network, based at the University of Surrey, also says total food consumption should be reduced, especially “low nutritional value” treats such as alcohol, sweets and chocolates.
Bread and water for everyone spreading doom and gloom based on half-baked science and herd-mentality panic. Starting with Cap’n Al.
The report goes much further than any previous advice after mounting concern about the impact of the livestock industry on greenhouse gases and rising food prices. It follows a four-year study of the impact of food on climate change and is thought to be the most thorough study of its kind.
Interesting. By whom? I guess I’ll give it a vote. Sounds like thorough crap.
Tara Garnett, the report’s author, warned that campaigns encouraging people to change their habits voluntarily were doomed to fail and urged the government to use caps on greenhouse gas emissions and carbon pricing to ensure changes were made. “Food is important to us in a great many cultural and symbolic ways, and our food choices are affected by cost, time, habit and other influences,” the report says. “Study upon study has shown that awareness-raising campaigns alone are unlikely to work, particularly when it comes to more difficult changes.”
Exactly. Everyone with a “Think Globally, Act Locally” bumpersticker must be compelled to stop eating the good stuff and burning up perfectly good gas driving to Code Pink disruptive anti-free speech actions. Leave the rum, red meat and horsepower for people who appreciate it.
I’d add that they should ration sex, too. Produces a lot of carbon dioxide and people, which are bad. Probably one of the worst things you can do to Gaia.
The report’s findings are in line with an investigation by the October edition of the Ecologist magazine, which found that arguments for people to go vegetarian or vegan to stop climate change and reduce pressure on rising food prices were exaggerated and would damage the developing world in particular, where many people depend on animals for essential food, other products such as leather and wool, and for manure and help in tilling fields to grow other crops.
Instead, it recommended cutting meat consumption by at least half and making sure animals were fed as much as possible on grass and food waste which could not be eaten by humans.
“The notion that cows and sheep are four-legged weapons of mass destruction has become something of a distraction from the real issues in both climate change and food production,” said Pat Thomas, the Ecologist’s editor.
Yeah, that and it was making the global-warming panicmongers sound even more ridiculous. Hence the retreat to half-ridiculous. It’s a laudable effort to achieve a more moderate, sustainable level of absurdity. It might fly in Europe, where people are more accustomed to being told what to do. Good luck in the United States, though a vote for Obama could go a long way toward making this important initiative a reality.
Topics: booze, food, sex, warmalism
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:42 am on Wednesday, October 1, 2008
4 Responses to “Sustainable Absurdity”
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October 1st, 2008 at 12:25 pm
Who knew that the pre-Gorbachev Soviet Union was a model of sustainability?
I suggest that Ms. Garnett should move to Zimbabwe, where she can have all the totalitarianism and deprivation she wishes on the rest of us.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:19 pm
Behold the new inquisition. Let’s keep this version from gaining any real power, shall we?
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:29 am
These do-gooders always want to get the whips out, don’t they?
This bunch sounds like an update of the Club of Rome and its famous Report that was a tissue of inanity. Such people always conclude that, whatever the crisis, we need to do the same thing. That is to turn ovber power to twits and power-hungry collectivists and content ourselves with whatever moldy scraps our betters will throw us. No, nay, never.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:21 pm
Ok, so let me get this straight…
They want us to limit our consumption of meat and dairy because the cows (pardon for the crudeness) burp and fart. Well, what would we replace the protein with? Why, beans, of course! Now, what happens when people eat more beans? Hmmm…..
I have had many complaints about this issue from husbands of my vegetarian friends.