I am writing to respond to Jade Finn’s letter [“We Pay a Terrible Price for Indifference,” March 21], in which she responds to Davis Spangler’s letter [“Who Defines Dialogue?”, March 7]. Isn’t it wonderful that you have the right to express your opinion? And to disagree? Do you think you need to apologize for your personal opinions? Of course not. I feel confident that you have carefully come to the conclusions you have expressed regarding animal rights. I would wager that David Spangler also has thoughtfully arrived at his opinions. I must admit his article seemed somewhat less hostile than yours.
I agree that life is sacred, especially the life of human beings. The reason is that we are made in the image of God. God gave us His creation to steward, and we have an obligation to do that. How we carry out that stewardship is a matter of personal decision.
Stewardship suggests respect for the natural world, sustainable environmental practices, and a a genuine concern for the well being of plants, animals, and people (not to mention future generations of people not yet born). I honestly don’t see anything like that in our mass consumption society that values profit over life. Do people have the right to disagree with me? Of course they do, but personal rights only go so far. When your actions negatively impact the world for the rest of us, you tend to loss some of those rights. If the letter came across as angry, its because I have a daughter, and the world she’s being raised in is one that at its core has no respect for life, and because of that fact we’re faced with an environment that is becoming more toxic and declining in viability. You have rights, but not at the expense of my daughter’s future.
You claim that human life is sacred, I agree. If you really believe that, then make peaceful demands for a vegetarian diet that will save lives, both human and animal, and bring us closer to being true stewards of the land and her inhabitants.
The day I become a vegetarian is the day you pry a steak from my cold dead hands.
Jason your type of narrow minded thinking has resulted in
environmental catastrophe- The temperature of the earth is rising. This global warming, known as “the greenhouse effect,” results primarily from carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels, such as oil and natural gas. Three times more fossil fuels must be burned to produce a meat-centered diet than for a meat-free diet. If people stopped eating meat, the threat of higher world temperatures would be vastly diminished.
Trees, and especially the old-growth forests, are essential to the survival of the planet. Their destruction is a major cause of global warming and top soil loss. Both of these effects lead to diminished food production. Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet
War to protect the huge amounts of oil we expend in the terribly inefficient animal agriculture industry- It takes nearly 78 calories of fossil fuel (oil, natural gas, etc.) energy to produce one calory of beef protein and only 2 calories of fossil fuel energy to produce one calory of soybean. If every human ate a meat-centered diet, the world’s known oil reserves would last a mere 13 years. They would last 260 years if humans stopped eating meat altogether.
Starvation in other lands- Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock. The percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock is calculated by experts as 90%. This year alone, twenty million people worldwide will die as a result of malnutrition. One child dies of malnutrition every 2.3 seconds. One hundred million people could be adequately fed using the land freed if Americans reduced their intake of meat by a mere 10%.
And the list goes on and on.
What you’re telling me, in effect, is that you don’t care. About the planet, about starving children, the war waged in your name, because as long as you get your steak, nothing else, literally NOTHING ELSE matters. That level of carelessness and selfishness is horribly unethical and you should be ashamed of yourself
Jade Finn
In a sense, no I don’t care. Does that make me a bad person? Possibly. But I’ll leave that for someone else to decide. I understand all of the reasons for people going veggie, but I don’t do it. No amount of shaming on your part is going to make me decide to become a vegetarian any quicker.
I’m an omnivore, and it’s a lovely life. I highly recommend it.
Notice that I’ve never passed judgment on you.
passing judgement on me for doing what? Trying to walk more softly so I can leave a living planet for our children? Your lack of caring about something so vital, so important (after all, what could possibly be more important than life and a future that is peaceful and sustainable) suggests that you are either a pathological monster or uninformed of the consequences of your actions. I hope, for your sake, its the latter case.
Actually I’m an uninformed pathological monster who enjoys getting a rise out of people like you, Jade.
Thanks for responding with nothing in the way of an intelligent conversation, I’ll file your response under “a complete waste of my time”. Give me a hollar when you can add something valuable to the dialogue instead of clever and meaningless one liners.
I’ll be sure to do that, and you be sure to give me a yell in the 3 or 4 days it takes you to come up with a mediocre defense of why you are arrogant enough to think that you can save the world.
But hey, I’m sure you’re a nice person, so nice in fact, that I’m willing to invite you over for hot dogs sometime.
“Meat-eating is the number one driving force for the destruction of these forests. Two-hundred and sixty million acres of U.S. forestland has been cleared for cropland to produce the meat-centered diet.”
As a person who happened to grow up on a farm I would like to know your source for this rubbish you just posted. Most farms in this nation have existed for 100’s of years. Now do some fact checking and homework. Never mind, I will do it for you. THE FARMS ARE VANISHING and becoming housing developments. Last year the state of NC was the leader in the nation for farm loss. Over 1000 of them vanished. Excuse me, but I do believe you failed to consider this in your equation before you decided to blame farming for global warming. It is commonly know that deforestation in the US is mostly happening due to urban sprawl along with several other factors. Even if we stopped eating meat and shut all the farms deforestation would still be occurring and we would become a country that depends totally on other countries for food which I say no thank you to. Maybe you would like to depend on third world countries to provide you with poisoned food supplies like our pets ended up depending on and becoming ill in which some died?
Perhaps you didn’t read the rest of my post.
Twenty percent of the corn grown in the U.S. is eaten by people. Eighty percent of the corn and 95% of the oats grown in the U.S. is eaten by livestock.
Further,
Of the grain consumed within the United States, 24% of the wheat, 50% of the soybeans 56% of the barley, and 93% of the sorghum gets fed to farm animals. Combined with the 61 million acres of hay harvested and fed to livestock, approximately 200 million acres of the United States’ 334 million acres of cropland (60%) is used to feed farm animals. Another 650 million acres of land consists of pasture and range used for grazing cattle. About 35% of all the land in the United States is thus used by the animal agriculture industry! A mere 7 million acres is used to grow all the fruits, vegetables, and nuts in the US.
If we stopped eating meat and shut all of the farms dedicated to feeding farm animals, we could convert hundreds of millions of acres back to forest, even when taking into account greater planting of fruits, vegetables, and nuts, and urban sprawl.
Farms are in fact vanishing, replaced by factory farmed warehouses for animals and multi-national corporations controling massive farming operations. I’ll bet, of your 1000 farms that have vanished, all were family owned or small farms, almost none were farming corporations. As for urban sprawl, its the result of a selfish society that wants instant gratification above common sense community planning. I think we agree on more than we disagree.
The land you are talking about converting back into forested areas has more then likely been pasture and crop land for 100 to 200 years and has had absolutely zero to do with the growth of global warming that is the problem with your argument in earlier statements. Additionally the vast majority of feed for farm animals now comes from outside the United States.
Actually the vast majority of corn, wheat, etc that you talk about is actually exported and then our stupid government ends back importing grain. The other issue with your argument is that these massive farming operations you are talking of in most cases started off as small farms and over time have bought out smaller farms to increase their landholdings/pasture and crop growing areas thus not creating one new acre of farm land. Additionally, I believe you will find if you research this even further that the amount of new farm land acreage being created, if any at all is relatively small so it is not contributing to deforestation as you have accused the agricultural business of.
By the way, these massive farming operations have also as of late been going out of business which is why the amount of food that the United States produces will not even feed its own population any more even if you stopped feeding the meat producing animals you are so in favor of getting rid of which is sad. So now not only are we dependent on outside countries for energy needs but your idea would actually increase our dependence on outside sources for food. For me, that is not a very good idea with tainted wheat from abroad and the world we live in today.
I was confused by your response because you didn’t post anything in the way of facts, just opinions that seemed beyond reason. For example, if we converted about a billion acres used in animal agriculture back into forest, we would see a direct positive influence in global warming over the long term, the amount of time such land has been used as crop or grazing land seems a mute point. you also say that, “the vast majority of feed for farm animals now comes from outside the United States.” Do you have anything backing up such a claim? Considering that 334 million acres are used to grow farm animal feed in the US, where is this “vast majority” coming from? You mean to tell me we need a billion or more acres of farmland to grow food just for American animals? it just doesn’t make sense.
I would also submit that every single acre used in animal agriculture is an acre we can’t use for wild forest, its a simple matter of a finite resource of land availability. So whether the forest was cut down 200 years ago, or last year, its still a lost opportunity to create forest instead of crop land feed for animals.
Corporations like Archer Daniels Midland and the privately held Cargill, with 2004 revenues of $62.9 billion aren’t going out of business, in fact they’re making more profits than ever before.
I preach sustainable farming and a vegetarian diet, not importing crops from abroad.
With all do respect I do know that the majority of feed for cattle now comes from outside the US or is manufactured outside the US. I know this from being raised in farming all my life. I am not someone such as you that reads one sided PAC reports that are slanted to support their views which you are obviously subject to. Your earlier statements were that farmers or the farming industry for beef was responsible for global warming which is a total farce. Crop lands have been cleared way before global warming started is basically my point. I also asked for the source of your data which as of yet you have failed to provide. My belief as to the reason you will not provide your data sources is that it will merely prove my point as to that you are using a study that was not a blind study and the data has been manipulated by a PAC that to prove their point. Until you are willing provide multiple unbiased sources and data to support your theory that farmers are destroying the world your argument is stupid and holds no merit.
As to the farm corporations lets look at all the stupid laws that your PAC’s and lobbying groups have had put on the NC law book who have basically devastated and destroyed the agricultural business in the eastern part of NC. Also, one of the last remaining dairy farms in our area, a very large one, is scheduled to stop operations soon and become a housing development.
I will not sit here and let you defame/slander and liable the American farmer who basically built this country from a person who has zero practical and hands on knowledge of the business simply because the lobbying group they belong to tells them their study is the absolute truth and gospel.
And I am still waiting for you to provide all the sourced and documentation to the facts you have continually rattled off the defame the agricultural business as I asked you to provide in the beginning. Until you do your opinions are worthless to me!!!
The world would be a much better place if Jade cared as much about his two disabled children as he does trying to save the world. Yes, I agree the world is going out of control, but it will take more than one little man to save it.
hey jason you can eat my hot dog with me or i will come over to see you. I love hot dogs and I hate them emvironmentles just like you
Rachel you’re such the long suffering victim of another man’s abuse and blahh blahh blahh. You haven’t taken an ounce of responsibility for anything in your life because you’re to busy playing the victim card. Yes you’re raising two disabled children and yes it must be hard but I would suggest getting off your precious high horse for a moment and learn the value of being humble and accepting people mistakes and all. If the tables were turned everyone could be brutally judged and the world would be a cold, dark place but I don’t buy your nihilism for a moment.
“If the tables were turned everyone could be brutally judged and the world would be a cold, dark place…”
I thought this was already the case.
can some one please tell me what personal stewardship means