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Thu Apr 22, 2010 at 15:11:48 PM PDT
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| An EPA intern wrote a blog post called "Living Without Meat," recounting her experiences as a vegetarian along with several reasons why giving up meat and/or animal products is a greener way to live. (As a caveat for our blog, I'd like to add - even though the EPA blog post does not - that many of the statistics about the harm meat does to the planet are specific to factory farmed meat and if giving meat up is not an option for you, buying sustainably raised meat directly from a farmer or raising animals for meat yourself are great alternatives to the factory farmed stuff. Also, obviously, cutting down on meat is a happy medium between eating as much meat as the average American and giving it up entirely.)
The EPA blogger concludes:
Regulations can be made to help prevent the effects of meat production, but the easiest way to lessen the environmental impacts is to become a vegetarian or vegan. The vegetarian/vegan alternative can be easily accomplished in today's markets and restaurants.
Then the blog post says:
About the author: Nicole Reising is an intern at the Office of Children's Health Protection. She is a sophomore studying non-profit management at Indiana University.
Editor's note: As stated on the "About" page, "The opinions and comments expressed in Greenversations are those of the authors alone and do not reflect an Agency policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy of the contents of the blog."
Why should this be controversial? The author, who is interning at a place called the Environmental Protection Agency, is advocating action that would protect the environment. Yet the Farm Bureau is all pissed off.
"While this is a position taken by an intern of the agency, EPA should control its blog space," said AFBP President Bob Stallman. "What is written on its blog comes across as its official position toward farmers and ranchers that it regulates and shows a terrible disregard for them and the agriculture industry."
Right. You're just pissed off that the way Big Ag makes money is inconsistent with the needs of human health and the planet and that ultimately you'll be forced to change - whether by the EPA or by Mother Nature.
Note that Stallman is someone who believes that "there is no generally agreed upon scientific assessment of the exact impact or extend of carbon emissions from human activities, their impact on past decades of warming or how they will affect future climate changes."
Below, you can see a few other quotes from a speech he gave in January. This guy's pretty disconnected from the realities of climate change, pollution, and even human health. He's not somebody who should be commanding newspaper headlines, nor should he receive credit for speaking for America's farmers. |
| Jill Richardson :: EPA Intern Advocates Vegetarianism, Pisses Off Farm Bureau |
We hear much about "sustainability," which in my book is the most overused and ill-defined word in the policy arena today.
The first sustainability for agriculture has to be economic sustainability.
Already, there are too many external forces tugging at our seams. Emotionally charged labels such as: monoculture, factory farmer, industrial food, and big ag -- threaten to fray our edges.
We must not let the activists and self-appointed - and self promoting -- food experts drive a wedge between us.
Our adversaries are skillful at taking advantage of our politeness. Publicly, they call for friendly dialogue while privately their tactics are far from that.
Who could blame us for thinking that the avalanche of misguided, activist-driven regulation on labor and environment being proposed in Washington is anything but unfriendly.
The time has come to face our opponents with a new attitude. The days of their elitist power grabs are over.
General George Patton was very quotable. He said that in times of war, "Make your plans to fit the circumstances."
To those who expect to just roll over America's farm and ranch families, my only message is this: The circumstances have changed.
Are we going to let animal rights activists destroy our ability to produce the meat that Americans want to eat? I say: No, we are not!
Are we going to stand idly by as the proponents of a bigger government choke us with regulation? I say: No, we are not!
Are we going to let the hysteria of doom and gloom climate change rhetoric diminish our ability to produce food for Americans and the rest of the world? I say: No we are not!
About the effects of a climate bill on agriculture:
Food prices here at home would shoot up. The result? Less food security and our climate would not improve, not even by one degree.
I don't know about you, but that is not the kind of American agriculture I want to leave behind for future generations. |
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