Flu virus with 'pandemic potential' found in China

[NoXion]

I'd say the best solution of all would be to cut back massively on the eating of meat for a whole host of increasingly long list of bloody good reasons. It's not like there's not a fucking multitude of nutritious alternatives people could eat instead.

And I say that making improvements to land management, agriculture, and health systems would make a bigger difference than any of that. Malaria infects 200 million people a year. Becoming vegan won't change that.

 

[editor]

And I say that making improvements to land management, agriculture, and health systems would make a bigger difference than any of that. Malaria infects 200 million people a year. Becoming vegan won't change that.

*checks thread to see if I proposed "becoming vegan" as a solution
*no such suggestions found
*watches strawman burn. Again.

 

[NoXion]

*checks thread to see if I proposed "becoming vegan" as a solution
*no such suggestions found
*watches strawman burn. Again.

Alright, I'm happy to continue eating meat while everyone else who wants to can go with less. I'm sure your technique of missing the point will go down well with others.

 

[sunnysidedown]

And I say that making improvements to land management, agriculture, and health systems would make a bigger difference than any of that. Malaria infects 200 million people a year. Becoming vegan won't change that.

funny you should mention malaria. Clearcutting leads to soil compaction and habitat loss that results in huge amounts of stagnant water build up. Ideal conditions for mosquitos.

 

[NoXion]

funny you should mention malaria. Clearcutting leads to soil compaction and habitat loss that results in huge amounts of stagnant water build up. Ideal conditions for mosquitos.

So ban clearcutting. Regardless of whether it's done to make room for cows, or for soybeans or palm oil or...

 

[editor]

So ban clearcutting.

Oh yes. A ban would be sure to instantly stop all the illegal clearcutting that's already going on around the world.

 

[spring-peeper]

Oh yes. A ban would be sure to instantly stop all the illegal clearcutting that's already going on around the world.

Our municipality is trying to get a clearcutting ban in place.

There is a lot of resistance - mostly, "you can't tell us what to do with our land".

 

[Yossarian]

Malaria infects 200 million people a year. Becoming vegan won't change that.

Unless we can somehow persuade the mosquitos to go vegan.

 

[NoXion]

Oh yes. A ban would be sure to instantly stop all the illegal clearcutting that's already going on around the world.

Seems like it could be more effective than piggybacking on a global crisis to soapbox using bad faith arguments. Or maybe we could recognise that the problem is a mite more complicated than "meat bad".

 

[editor]

Unless we can somehow persuade the mosquitos to go vegan.

Yes! More VEGAN POINTS notched up!

 

[editor]

Seems like it could be more effective than piggybacking on a global crisis to soapbox using bad faith arguments. Or maybe we could recognise that the problem is a mite more complicated than "meat bad".

Let me just stand back a bit and admire that impressive strawman you've just constructed there.

 

[editor]

Our municipality is trying to get a clearcutting ban in place.

There is a lot of resistance - mostly, "you can't tell us what to do with our land".

Capitalism and a sky high demand for meat means that forests and are going to keep on being cleared until (a) something changes or (b) we're all fucked.

Revealed: rampant deforestation of Amazon driven by global greed for meat

Investigation exposes how Brazil’s huge beef sector continues to threaten health of world’s largest rainforest

www.theguardian.com

 

[NoXion]

Let me just stand back a bit and admire that impressive strawman you've just constructed there.

The point, which you have been carefully avoiding for a couple of posts now, is that reducing meat consumption won't save the world if agriculture doesn't otherwise change. They'll just carry on clearcutting and replace the cows with soy. Until countries like Brazil can move away from cash-crop style monoculture, the agricultural sector over there is going to come an unhappy ending sooner or later.

Capitalism and a sky high demand for meat means that forests and are going to keep on being cleared until (a) something changes or (b) we're all fucked.

Revealed: rampant deforestation of Amazon driven by global greed for meat

Investigation exposes how Brazil’s huge beef sector continues to threaten health of world’s largest rainforest

www.theguardian.com

You don't need to tell me to avoid Brazilian beef - I already do. Although I'd like more effective action than personal abstention to be taken, like an import ban on south American meat and soy products. Perhaps the crumbling of free-trade globalism is an opportunity in that respect.

 

[Supine]

I'm pretty sure not eating meat won’t stop pandemics. If anything you meat eaters should start eating as many bats as possible.

 

[spring-peeper]

Capitalism and a sky high demand for meat means that forests and are going to keep on being cleared until (a) something changes or (b) we're all fucked.

Revealed: rampant deforestation of Amazon driven by global greed for meat

Investigation exposes how Brazil’s huge beef sector continues to threaten health of world’s largest rainforest

www.theguardian.com

Actually, the fields are being used for cash crops.



*we refer to the areas that have been cleared as fields.

 

[editor]

You don't need to tell me to avoid Brazilian beef - I already do.

Good job I wasn't telling you that, then.

 

[petee]

Why Do New Disease Outbreaks Always Seem to Start in China? | RealClearScience

The Asian Flu in 1956 killed between one and four million people worldwide. SARS in 2002 infected 8,098 and killed 774 in seventeen counties. H7N9 emerged ten years later to strike at least 1,223...

www.realclearscience.com

careful, rightwing US site. they'd have an interest in fobbing it onto chinese "habits". the reporting of medical oddities from China or India seems part of an ethnically bigoted campaign. if they're right they're right, but the 1918 flu was first detected in GI's in kansas, a fact long obfuscated.

it's not China that's the problem, it's the reaction of state actors, whether PRC or US or whomever. things are going to happen. how to manage them?

 

[freakydave]

The point, which you have been carefully avoiding for a couple of posts now, is that reducing meat consumption won't save the world if agriculture doesn't otherwise change. They'll just carry on clearcutting and replace the cows with soy. Until countries like Brazil can move away from cash-crop style monoculture, the agricultural sector over there is going to come an unhappy ending sooner or later.

Agriculture needs to change and getting rid of mass produced meat is a part of it, not the only part of it, but it is still essential

We need to stop relying on meat for protein AND reform the way that we mass produce crops, these aren't arguments against each other, both are essential.

 

[NoXion]

Agriculture needs to change and getting rid of mass produced meat is a part of it, not the only part of it, but it is still essential

We need to stop relying on meat for protein AND reform the way that we mass produce crops, these aren't arguments against each other, both are essential.

I disagree. I think if reforming agriculture is on the table, then it can be done without the hair shirt bullshit.