Vegetarianism, Life, and Death

In Barbara Kingsolver's novel Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, she makes an interesting point regarding being a vegetarian for the sake of saving animal lives. It turns out you can't sustain yourself without the death of other living beings. On the subject, she says,

I'm unimpressed by arguments that condemn animal harvest while ignoring, wholesale, the animal killing that underwrites vegetal foods. Uncountable deaths by pesticide and habitat removal--the beetles and bunnies that die collaterally for our bread and veggie-burgers are lives plumb wasted.

It's true, when you plant crops you are taking over the homeland of other living creatures who die either at the blades of the combine harvester or by taking so much of their land that there is no sustainable place left for them to flock to. If you follow the argument that plants provide other insects and animals food, this is quickly negated once you add all the pesticides that we add to our crops (see previous article). Cheating death for life is not an option.

Death is a part of life. Think about death on the human level. Part of the cycle of life involves the transfer of energy. When we die we pass along our energy back to the earth and atmosphere. If you look at the Law of Conservation of Energy, (swiped from the Wikipedia article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservation_of_energy),

The law of conservation of energy is an empirical law of physics. It states that the total amount of energy in an isolated system remains constant over time (is said to be conserved over time). A consequence of this law is that energy can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed from one state to another. The only thing that can happen to energy in a closed system is that it can change form, for instance chemical energy can become kinetic energy.

and apply that to the closed system of our known universe, it would follow that when we die, our energy is transferred back to the earth. For example, if you are buried your energy goes into the soil enriching it with nutrients allowing plants to grow. (I like to hope roses are planted over my grave.) Or if you are cremated your energy goes back into the atmosphere turning into molecules that could become anything, from a steam ship to a great river. This is comforting to me in a way, knowing that I am not only surrounded by the energy of relatives, friends, and pets who have passed before me, but I am also part of them and part of everything in the universe. Which reminds me of the Serbian proverb, "Be humble for you are made of earth. Be noble for you are made of stars."

By deciding to be a vegetarian merely for the sake of not taking lives we have now proven is impossible. It is however, a good idea to know where your food comes from. I agree with being a vegetarian to make a stand against the cruel treatment of our feed animals. I also agree with being a vegetarian if it makes you feel healthier. I just no longer buy into not eating meat because it spares animal lives. Death gives life, and if we can respect that, we can enjoy our meals.

Today's One Small Change:

1. Now that you are aware that even the growing of plant foods takes lives, start thinking about ways of food production that are the least harmful to the environment.

Musings on Pesticides

It seems a bit strange that we continually dump billions of pounds of pesticides onto our crops despite the fact that the insects and weeds evolve faster than we can develop new elixirs. For example, take a look at the numbers:

Source: Steven L Hopp in an article found in Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Over a 50 year period we went from 50 million pounds of pesticides on our crops to almost one billion. How many millions make up a billion? You need 1,000 millions to make just 1 billion. And did our weeds evolve to be able to handle all these pesticides? Yes. We put on twenty times as much pesticide and the plants didn't even loose double their numbers from the first year of losses from the spray. Man - 0, Nature - 1

Now let's talk a bit about the insects. When you spray, think about where the spray ends up. It instantly kills most of the insects it comes into direct contact with, but doesn't kill all of them. Some on the periphery don't get the whole dosage, and others even in the battle zone are not affected at all. The ones that live have some type of inherit protection against the pesticide being used, and will most likely pass that on to the next generation. The next generation gets a stronger version of this gene, and soon the pesticide is useless. The farmers are forced to use more pesticides in a continual cycle that can't last forever. Man - 0, Nature - 2

Let's look even closer at exactly what we are spraying on our crops. 20% of the approved-for-use pesticides are listed by the EPA as carcinogenic in humans (Hopp). And you know the pesticides are not sticking only to the crops. They're going into the soil that nourishes the crops, putting their toxicity directly into our food. They're leaking into the water supply being washed downstream from runoff. We might be able to filter our water, but we can't filter the shrimp, bass, haddock, lobster, and trout we enjoy and many depend on for their main source of protein. Today hobby fisherman know to throw their trout back after the photos have been taken because they are too full of mercury from pollution to eat. Man - 0, Nature - 3

Year after year, as we continue to spray on more and more pesticides onto our crops, our soil is getting depleted from the micro-nutrients it was once full of and filling our food source with toxins. Our insects have turned into Rambo-esque mutants, and our streams, lakes, rivers, and oceans are infected with alien chemicals. You can physically see the damage something like the Gulf oil spill has had on our environment, but we have been doing this invisibly for over half a century now.

What is the solution? Organic farming. What exactly is organic farming? Organic farming is the type of farming that has been in use for as long as humans have been agricultural as opposed to nomadic. A good farmer watches nature. He or she knows the cyclical rhythms of nature that keep everything in balance. He or she knows the cycles of bugs and plants and weather and weeds and how to harness this knowledge to keep pests away and plants growing strong. A good farmer knows how rotate crops and farm animals on fields to keep the soil rich and nourished. A good farmer can respect the harmony of the earth and use it to his or her advantage.

How many pounds of pesticides does the organic farmer use? Zero. Which brings us to a nice balanced number; Man - 1, Nature - 1.

Today's One Small Change:

1. Think about the food you buy at the grocery store and picture where it came from. Do you think pesticides were used in its production?