IPCC chairman insists on eating less meat

Gent, Belgium. On Saturday, Rachendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Nobel Peace prize winner, lectured at length about the effects of meat consumption on climate change. Dr. Pachauri was invited by the Belgian vegetarian organisation EVA and addressed more than 600 people at the University of Ghent. The event was called “Less Meat, Less Heat” and was organized together with Greenpeace Belgium and WWF Belgium.

Dr Pachauri said that in order to counter climate change, lifestyle changes are very important. One of the potentially most beneficial lifestyle changes, according to the IPCC president, would be the switch to a diet with less meat and more vegetarian meals.

Addressing his Belgian audience, Dr. Pachauri made the following comparison: if during one year, all Belgians would just have one meatless day a week, this would have the same beneficial effect on greenhouse gas emission as taking almost one million cars off the Belgian roads for an entire year.

Dr. Pachauri said meat production is responsible for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions, mainly due to emission of methane from ruminants (cows, sheep and goats), emissions from manure, and the effects of deforestation for cattle grazing and animal feed. He also pointed out that producing a kilogram of beef requires about 15.000 liters of water.

Dr. Pachauri ended his talk by a quote from Gandhi: ‘be the change you want to see in the world’. He said we each need to take our responsibility and can create a big effect by individual actions, decreasing our meat intake being one of them.

After the talk, Tobias Leenaert of vegetarian organisation EVA presented five policy recommendations for meat reduction, signed by about 20 environmental NGOs, among whom Greenpeace Belgium and WWF Belgium. Leenaert: “A lower meat intake would be beneficial on many levels, not just on climate change and other environmental problems, but also on public health, the world hunger problem. and animal welfare. Still, government and politicians are currently not taking this issue seriously.”

The policy recommendations include setting a good example by offering sustainable vegetarian food in government funded restaurants, focusing more on sustainable food in school lunch programmes and education in general, a government campaign about the benefits of eating less meat, and making the production and sale of sustainable food products more profitable, among others.

“Eating less meat” is what people respectfully suggest to an unyielding and unreceptive society who is not ready or willing to take the personal initiative to give up all meat, and/or all animal by-products. Read between the lines whenever you hear the expression. I’m still waiting for environmentalists, who are not already aligned to the animal rights movement, to get on board with this issue, if they care about Global Warming. When will enough people get serious about this — or at least serious enough to talk about it?! Why won’t Al Gore mention it? I mean, is Global Warming a serious threat or not? If it is, then people should change the way they live immediately. If it isn’t, they can continue to “consume away…”, as the Psalm says.

Matthew Scully, who (ironically) wrote Sarah Palin’s speech which made her so wildly popular, also wrote this article during the last presidential campaign: “Sportsmen” for Bush and Kerry. It’s worth reading again now, when looking at what candidates do to win the support of the pro-gun, pro-hunting voting blocs. And Palin doesn’t have to pretend to enjoy killing animals for votes. It is part of her unapologetic resume. I wonder what Matthew thinks of Sarah’s trophy hunting and ordering of the aerial gunning of wolves and bears.

Well, I just found this article: The Man Behind Palin’s Speech

“The Palin-Scully pairing is anything but a guaranteed fit, though. Palin is known as an avid hunter; Scully is best known for his vigorous defense of animal rights. A vegetarian who is regularly critical of the NRA and much of the hunting community, he is a passionate advocate for doing away with the more brutal versions of blood-sport, including aerial hunting, which Palin supports.”

My original problem with Sarah Palin is that she’s an animal killer.

Chillin’ amid the dead ones.

She doesn’t represent my views or values. And I believe her to be more conservative than George Bush, which makes her pretty scary — being potentially one heartbeat away from the presidency, if McCain were to win. (She sued the Bush Administration for listing polar bears as an endangered species, apparently because it would get in the way of oil drilling. See the last link below, for The Episcopal Church’s position on drilling in the ANWR.)

I can see that Palin epitomizes the conservatives’ best hope to protect their interests and their worst stereotype of “God, Guns, Guts” — a “Pro-Life killer” who is anti-abortion but enjoys hunting and fishing, and is a member of the NRA — pro-drilling, pro-nuclear power, apparently pro-Iditarod — and as I learned last week, pro-aerial gunning of Alaska’s wildlife, etc.

But I found this picture on a forum board, and felt the need to post it here:

As the poster said, “Nice dead animals on your shoulders.” I wonder if she killed them, herself.

Reading on, on the forum board, I decided to find the original source for this:

WASHINGTON– Senator John McCain just announced his choice for running mate: Governor Sarah Palin of Alaska. To follow is a statement by Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund.

“Senator McCain’s choice for a running mate is beyond belief. By choosing Sarah Palin, McCain has clearly made a decision to continue the Bush legacy of destructive environmental policies.

“Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP, has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.

“This is Senator McCain’s first significant choice in building his executive team and it’s a bad one. It has to raise serious doubts in the minds of voters about John McCain’s commitment to conservation, to addressing the impacts of global warming and to ensuring our country ends its dependency on oil.”

Here’s something from Care2’s site regarding the gunning of wolves.

Here’s what the HSUS has to say about where the VP candidates stand on animals on the “Animals & Politics” page. (I see that this is where the picture I posted came from.)

This was sent to me by a friend: Protecting polar bears gets in way of drilling for oil, says governor , which links to this:
Oil Drips With Money for Alaska (although that was written in 2002).

And I just found this from the Alaska Wildlife Alliance: Palin’s Wildlife Cartel Represents Circumnavigation of Ethics, Truth

And this:
When you think things couldn’t get any worse
Forget John McCain
We need to Defeat Sarah Palin!
Commentary by Captain Paul Watson

This may very well be the election where animal advocates, environmentalists and anyone concerned about protecting wildlife could impact an election, based on their issues. But who will inform them? (The Humane Society of the United States has “10 million members and constituents”. How many members do the other organizations have? I know they can’t endorse, but they can put out the information.) Maybe the Obama campaign will….

For environmentalists, conservationists, animal people, etc., the choice is clear….

Today, someone found my site on a Google search for “Sarah Palin animal cruelty”. Google brings up a lot of sites with commentary that I didn’t list earlier above. Check out what comes up on Google.

McCain’s VP Pick, Sarah Palin, No Friend to Animals

“Sarah Palin and the Environment” (Defenders of Wildlife)

PRESS STATEMENT
SARAH PALIN SUPPORTS SHOOTING WOLVES AND BEARS
FROM AIRPLANES
Governor is Strong Proponent of Controversial Alaska Program

Environmentalists Blast McCain’s Choice of Palin as VP

The Criminal Cruelty of Governor Sarah Palin
Also, Huffington Post has a lot of interesting articles.
Here are a few. When I have time, I’ll make them hyperlinks. For now, I’m just going to copy & paste what I collected:

Dems React To Palin Speech: “Formidable,” “Shrill And Sarcastic” (VIDEO)

McCain’s New Palin Strategy: Blame The Media
Ironically, “The speech was written by Matthew Scully, who met Palin for the first time last week.” Ironic, because he is the author of Dominion: The Power of Man, the Suffering of Animals, and the Call to Mercy. I appreciate his sarcastic style more, when he’s writing about animal abusers/exploiters. But hey, the liberals can be just as sarcastic.

8 Reasons Sarah Palin is More Qualified than Barack Obama

Sebelius Accuses Palin Of Deceiving Voters

The “Other” Base
I agree with the last two paragraphs:

In large part America is tired of fire breathing partisanship. They have seen the 50+1 percent presidency of Bush devolve into a 24% presidency. People, especially those in the middle, realize that a president that every day is focused on “winning” the base turns out to be a loser with people in the middle and in the other party. It is not a way to govern a nation — and it stymies the effectiveness of the presidency. People like Reagan and Clinton had presidencies that worked for better or worse because they hadn’t written off half of the country on inauguration day.

For those who needed reminding, the Republican convention has done the job. Mission accomplished.

Obama Raises $8 Million After Palin Speech

Palin’s Church May Have Shaped Controversial Worldview

Alaska Police Union Files Complaint Against Palin

Palin Also Supported The “Road To Nowhere” (And May Still)

Obama Is The Only Remaining Green Candidate, Says Times’ Friedman

About Sarah Palin: A Letter From Anne Kilkenny
NPR’s audio interview with Anne Kilkenny, “Letter About Palin Goes Viral”

Episcopalians: Washington office opposes ANWR drilling in federal budget

There are ten more videos on this site, “Secrets of Sarah Palin”. The last video is the same as the last one above. Below it is the caption that says

“Sarah Palin supports shooting wolves from planes. Palin promised to pay $150 for each left leg of a freshly killed wolf.”

I’ll reserve my comments (except that I’m reminded of Herod or Hitler ordering the killing of the innocents). But this is basically why I chose to devote space to her.

Even hunters with any kind of conscience should have a problem with this form of hunting, just as they do with canned hunts of that on-line hunting site that was in the news a year or so ago.
I’ll bet Sarah’s speech writer would have a problem with it, too.

Isn’t Alaska big enough to share with the wildlife?

(Disclaimer and disclosure: This is my personal blog. I’m a nobody. And I’m not speaking on behalf of any organization or institution that I belong to. And freedom of speech is still allowed in this country, just like “the right to bear arms” is. The only people who should have a problem with my views are animal killers who want to justify their cruelty-of-choice. And I don’t care what they think. I did remove my “Vote Obama/Biden” lines, though, so as not to be perceived as partisan, or a “surrogate”. In reality, I’m not. I’m for the animals and the environment, and have to go with the least-harmful choice. I also want to point out that I’m a Christian, who disagrees with the politically-minded Christian Right “extremists”.)

VegSource’s SPECIAL BULLETIN from 9/19 linked to this page: Matthew Scully: Animal Protection
Champion & Speechwriter for Sarah Palin

I’m posting a three-part set of videos of Paul Watson’s Keynote Address from AR2008 below. It is so important, especially the last part, not only because of what he and his group does for animals, but what he says about the fishing industry, the killing of the oceans, and things I never heard before, like around half the fish caught goes to feed livestock, and that more tuna goes to feed our cats, than humans consume. Feeding fish to livestock is a totally, and obscenely unsustainable practice, when all of the world’s fisheries are already in a state of collapse, and in light of the scientists’ predication that if the fishing industry doesn’t change the way they fish, there will be no fish left by 2048. (Let’s not blame the seals or the sharks for eating fish. Let’s blame the fishing industry and the meat industry — who are keeping up with consumer demand — and consumer waste.) He also talks about the species of fish who are killed before they reach sexual maturity — so those species aren’t likely to recover. This should be reason enough for environmentalists to want to adopt a plant-based diet, and preach it to others. It isn’t even just about the horrendous treatment of farmed animals that people don’t want to hear about. It’s about mass extinctions — maybe including us. Wake up! Speak out! Do more than change your light bulbs! Do more than rearrange the chairs on the Titanic, as you Episcopalians like to say.

Here’s a link to the transcript of Rabbi David Saperstein’s statement at last year’s Senate hearing on climate change, because he had some good things to say.

Here’s a link to our Presiding Bishop’s talk from the Healing Our Planet Earth Conference who also talked about the dying oceans, overfishing, eating lower on the food chain, and the suffering we cause others in poor parts of the world by our choices.

Paul Watson, Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Here’s something I found while Googling for “mass extinctions”:
Mass Extinctions And ‘Rise Of Slime’ Predicted For Oceans

ScienceDaily (Aug. 13, 2008) — Human activities are cumulatively driving the health of the world’s oceans down a rapid spiral, and only prompt and wholesale changes will slow or perhaps ultimately reverse the catastrophic problems they are facing.

Read it all….

This is more along the lines of what I was searching for:
Fish and pigs and chickens, oh my!
Farm animals consume 17 percent of wild-caught fish

Excerpt:

“Each year we feed 14 million tons of wild-caught fish (including anchovies, sardines, mackerel, and herring) to pigs and chickens around the globe. That amounts to 17 percent of all the wild fish we catch. Pigs and chickens eat double the amount of fish that Japan consumes annually and six times more seafood than the entire U.S. population eats each year.”

The hyperlink in the original links to this: On the Multiple Uses of Forage Fish: From Ecosystems to Markets.

This is just one aspect of the meat industry that is new to me since going to the Animal Rights conference earlier this month.