Must see: Luc Besson's "Home: A Movie Happening"

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by groar

Thanks to this film I finally discovered why red meat, build by and for occidental people is so bad for environment.

Ahh, I'd be a veggie if it weren't for the porkchop in breadcrumbs...

In recent years I've been weaning myself away from meat (not only red meat, but poultry also, I don't eat fish at all), at first for ethical reasons, later for ecological reasons as I started to understand them. When I met my Wife she had given up meat a year earlier. The only reason was taste. I personally like a few dishes, very much like, but I am getting closer to not eating meat. Other than taste, there are three things still holding me back. First, I don't eat fish, so balancing a diet would be hard. Second, I have an active lifestyle and am a blood donor. Giving up almost a half liter of blood every 2-3 months puts a strain on my body. My hemoglobin level is naturally low, even when taking iron supplements. Every doctor tells me to eat more red meat and I always reply that I already eat more than I want. Third, I always cook at least two dinners: one for the Wife, who doesn't eat meat, and one for Dad-in-law, won't eat a meal without it. So since there is meat on the table anyway, I eat some. But 2-4 times a week I go without.

On the other hand, when we go to visit relatives who have a small farm, I have nothing against eating meat. I know it didn't come from some poor hen locked up in a cage, beak and claws chopped off for safety, stuffed with meal, anti-biotics, etc. This was a hen which ran around the barn picking at seeds and worms. Or a cow that spent most the day in a pasture, wasn't force-fed all sorts of junk, and the pasture wasn't sprayed with even worse junk.

[blueflame]

Cities are the real problem. Decentralise away from the factory farms! Head for the hills! Pig flue and plagues would never happen! Respiration problems, obesity, pollution...nearly all our diseases would disappear

[Piwoslaw]

Originally Posted by blueflame

Last edited by blueflame; Today at 01:23 PM. Reason: trying no to be offensive

Hmm, I wonder what the first version was...

Whenever I think about cities, how many people live there, how much land has to be used to feed them, how much 'stuff' has to be transported to and fro, etc., I remember Isaac Asimov's description of the totally urbanised planet-city Trantor. I don't remember the exact wording (someone borrowed my book a few years ago seems to have liked it), but it was something about 20 agricultural worlds being dedicated solely to feeding Trantor's population, a fleet of ships larger than any military navy transporting food and goods to Trantor, and rumor has it that the waste left the planet in those same ships.

[captainslug]

Originally Posted by blueflame

Cities are the real problem. Decentralise away from the factory farms! Head for the hills! Pig flue and plagues would never happen! Respiration problems, obesity, pollution...nearly all our diseases would disappear

I'm sorry but that's complete baloney.
While certain segments of the meat production industry are over-engineered to the point of being dangerous (pig farms and meat-processing in particular) there's nothing you can do to completely eliminate any of those maladies, nor is there any way to completely negate the potential for plagues.
Cities are not the cause of any of those, nor would getting away from current zoning methods do any thing to drastically improve them.

However I am in agreement that there is a point at which populations become too dense.