Compassion in World Farming

[Seth]

We aren't talking about organic (the OP wasn't meant to anyway), but about keeping and slaughtering animals humanely. It may be a 'whim' to you as you referred to it above but if you can be bothered to take a look on the net (just type 'factory farmed chicken' for example), the facts and conditions aren't even hidden.

I suspect one day we will look back at the way we kept such animals in the way we look back at barbaric ways we looked after vulnerable people a century or two ago - with horror and disgust.

I doubt it. Beef cattle are treated as well as it's necessary to treat them. They are valuable livestock and livestock growers take care of them. It's not like a chicken, which is worth a dollar or two and therefore a certain level of loss can be accepted in order to generate the economies of scale required to make a profit raising chickens.

Cows are different. They are worth hundred or thousands of dollars each, so stock growers are generally very careful with them, I know I was. That's why I shot a lot of coyotes, so they wouldn't kill the calves during calving season, and why I stuck my arm up inside of no small number of cows to help deliver calves.

Even feedlot cows are treated humanely because the whole point is to fatten them up and deliver them to the slaughterhouse in top condition so you get top dollar. Slaughterhouses buy by the pound, so mistreating your cows is just shooting your own profits in the foot.

The extreme examples of mistreatment shown by "animal rights" organizations are the exception to the rule, and they usually have to look long and hard to find someone who is actually mistreating their animals so they can showcase such situations and then imply, or flatly lie and claim that this is how things are done as a matter of course. These "animal rights" zealots are flat-out liars with an agenda who will manufacture "evidence" and spotlight egregious, but rare examples of actual abuse as a way to condemn an entire industry unfairly.

[Seth]

Rum

With chicken we have a problem.
While I am inclined to agree that we should give them a bit more space while rearing them, we do not know what is optimal or correct for raising them. How much crowding before they suffer? I do not know, and neither do you.

I am not in favour of cruelty to animals. Mostly, we tell ourselves that we will know 'intuitively' what is cruel and what is not. Sometimes that is correct.......

Optimum? I'm not talking about optimum, just better. Don't look at this if you are feeling squeamish or are about to eat (chicken especially!) and tell me it is defensible. ..and it isn't just chicken. I won't touch pork.

Trigger Warning!!!1! :

Showing one photo of an unidentified chicken raising operation which could be in China for all we know and then implying that this is how ALL chickens are raised is flatly mendacious and dishonest.

Yes, there are egregious examples of poor farming practice, but one example does not an entire industry condemn.

[nellikin]

I find myself agreeing with Seth here.

The 'organic' business is not based on science...The basic problem with organic agriculture is that it is based on dogma, not science.

I think you should clarify this. Perhaps the organic business didn't grow out of science, but there is science to support organic agriculture. Numerous studies have shown, for example, that soils store loats more carbon under organic agriculture than conventional, and that converting a conventional farm to an organic farm can sequester large amounts of carbon in short periods of time (sometimes doubling soil carbon stores). This is beneficial to soil health and the environment generally, increasing biodiversity and retaining nutrients within the soil-plant system. An offshoot of this, for example, is that mineral nutrients such as phosphates, which are mined and transported around the world (mainly from South America), are not required. This reduces the fossil-fuel consumption associated carbon emissions of mining and transport associated with agriculture. (A note on phosporus - global stocks are running low, which will perhaps leadi to a reverse of the modern agricultural revolution we witnessed post-WW2 with the large-scale introduction of modern agricultural pratices and a break-down of world food procution). A similar scenario reveals itself for pesticids used in conventional agriculture, which are largely organo-phosphates, produced from fossil fuels. Monsanto has a very large carbon footprint!

With regards to health issues, I don't know the science a won't try to defend it. I don't know if there are any benefits to eating organic for my health, but I can distinguish a battery chicken from and organic one by taste, for sure.

The issue with organic farming, as I see it, is that it often isn't regulated by government, leading to wishy-washy definitions of what is organic and what not. In germany, the govt. legislated years back to define minimum standards for labelling of organic food. Many consumer / organic groups complained that the guidelines weren't strict enough, and have stricter guidelines themselves (for example Demeter or Bioland), but they still can label themselves organic as they exceed the minimum standards.

We aren't talking about organic (the OP wasn't meant to anyway), but about keeping and slaughtering animals humanely.

I hate the word humane. Humans go around killing each other, shotting wildlife without reason, destroying their envirnoment. Their is nothing good about that.

However, as a chicken owner - and all my chooks are / have been as dumb as they come - I still don't want to cause my animals any harm. They stop laying if they aren't happy and healthy.

Cows fart. Factory (feedlot) cows fart just as much as grass-fed cows do.

I thought studies had shown otherwise, and that grain-fed cows fart more, as they have a higher protein diet, which,when digested by the methanogens in their stomache, yields higher methane concentraionts and emissions.

There's legitimate concerns about water pollution from concentrated feedlot operations, but both the states and the feds have strict regulations about discharges into waterways. And free-range grass-fed operations are not currently subject to any regulations regarding runoff, although the feds are toying with them...which will put many small organic operations (like mine) out of business entirely.

And fracking takes place thousands of feet below the water tables, and there has been exactly ONE EPA confirmed case of fracking fluid in a water well, in Wyoming. So long as the well casing is properly cemented and sealed, which is required to keep the gas in the pipe anyway, fracking fluid does not contaminate any water tables. What does occasionally cause pollution are fracking fluid pits where local laws allow drillers to pump the waste fluid into an open pit, which they then cover up and abandon. In the past this lead to leaching of fracking fluid into shallow water supplies and adjacent water users were rightfully outraged at this.

In Australia, fracking doesn't always take place so deep underground, and there are legitimate concerns as to the effects of coal seam gas extraction on the environemtn, as all the studies conducted have been undertaken/commissioned by the mining industry. My supervisor, a professor of hydrology, is trying to establish Australia's first independant centre to investigate coal-seam gas extraction techniques and its effects on the environment. I'd be interested in who has investigated this in America, and who paid for the investigations. I thought Gasland came to some other conclusions.

This article appeared in the paper yesterday and is relevant...

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/fe ... 6311571424

[Santa_Claus]

If Allah says the meat is OK - then that is good enuf for me.

[Seth]

I find myself agreeing with Seth here.

The 'organic' business is not based on science...The basic problem with organic agriculture is that it is based on dogma, not science.

I think you should clarify this. Perhaps the organic business didn't grow out of science, but there is science to support organic agriculture. Numerous studies have shown, for example, that soils store loats more carbon under organic agriculture than conventional, and that converting a conventional farm to an organic farm can sequester large amounts of carbon in short periods of time (sometimes doubling soil carbon stores). This is beneficial to soil health and the environment generally, increasing biodiversity and retaining nutrients within the soil-plant system.

"Biodiversity" is not necessarily a valid goal in agriculture. Generally speaking, unless an organism is beneficial enough to the crop being grown that the reductions in yield suffered through "organically" supporting such organisms substantially outweighs increases in crop yields that can be achieved by using agricultural chemicals to compensate and balance the soil chemistry to achieve maximum productivity per square meter.

It is much easier, and more accurate, and provides substantially greater yields to add chemicals and nutrients to crops as they are growing, through spreading or irrigation, to deal with soil deficiencies which may vary widely even within a single field. Soil chemistry is no longer primitive, and soil testing combined with GPS can tell a farmer exactly what to apply, when, and where to maximize his yield. Some new cutting edge crop tilling systems (tractors) can do it all by themselves, being robotically guided by GPS and computer programming to apply fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides with great specificity and precise application

If organic farming were economically superior, everyone would be doing it. It's not. It's scientific Ludditism. America feeds the world because our crop yields per square acre are among the highest in the world, and in human history, as a result of our superior crop science and ability to tailor a particular piece of land to a particular crop for maximum efficiency and yield. Take that away and go back to "organic" methods and hundreds of millions of people will starve to death worldwide.

Organic farming is a luxury and a boutique industry fit for wealthy consumers only. It's costs and inefficiencies can only be overcome by massively increasing the price of the commodity to the consumer, and that only works where consumers are wealthy enough to pay the going rate, which means a first-world industrialized society with a strong economy. Third-world countries cannot afford to think in those terms and must maximize yields however it's possible and economically feasible to do so just to feed their people.

An offshoot of this, for example, is that mineral nutrients such as phosphates, which are mined and transported around the world (mainly from South America), are not required. This reduces the fossil-fuel consumption associated carbon emissions of mining and transport associated with agriculture. (A note on phosporus - global stocks are running low, which will perhaps leadi to a reverse of the modern agricultural revolution we witnessed post-WW2 with the large-scale introduction of modern agricultural pratices and a break-down of world food procution). A similar scenario reveals itself for pesticids used in conventional agriculture, which are largely organo-phosphates, produced from fossil fuels. Monsanto has a very large carbon footprint!

Phosphates are mined because they are plentiful and cheap. When they become scarce and expensive, phosphates will be created "artificially" at a higher cost, but will still be available. Or, crop science will figure out how to replace mined phosphates with other products that do the job as well, perhaps by extracting phosphates from water, both fresh (which would be beneficial to the environment) or from the ocean.

With regards to health issues, I don't know the science a won't try to defend it. I don't know if there are any benefits to eating organic for my health, but I can distinguish a battery chicken from and organic one by taste, for sure.

I'd like to see a double-blind experiment to confirm this.

The issue with organic farming, as I see it, is that it often isn't regulated by government, leading to wishy-washy definitions of what is organic and what not. In germany, the govt. legislated years back to define minimum standards for labelling of organic food. Many consumer / organic groups complained that the guidelines weren't strict enough, and have stricter guidelines themselves (for example Demeter or Bioland), but they still can label themselves organic as they exceed the minimum standards.

"Organic" is a label that the majority of people in the world simply cannot afford.

We aren't talking about organic (the OP wasn't meant to anyway), but about keeping and slaughtering animals humanely.

I hate the word humane. Humans go around killing each other, shotting wildlife without reason, destroying their envirnoment. Their is nothing good about that.

Wrong. Humans shot wildlife with very good reasons: eating them and controlling their populations. As for killing each other, I'm not so sure that's a bad thing altogether. As for the environment, plenty of other animals "destroy" their environments. Just take prairie dogs for example.

However, as a chicken owner - and all my chooks are / have been as dumb as they come - I still don't want to cause my animals any harm. They stop laying if they aren't happy and healthy.

Yup.

Cows fart. Factory (feedlot) cows fart just as much as grass-fed cows do.

I thought studies had shown otherwise, and that grain-fed cows fart more, as they have a higher protein diet, which,when digested by the methanogens in their stomache, yields higher methane concentraionts and emissions.

I seriously doubt it, but I'm open to the critically robust scientific evidence proving that assertion if you can produce it. Then again, I don't really care about cow farts because the REAL major methane source on the planet, the one that's really having an effect, is termites in the Amazon. Exterminate them before you bother with cows, because we eat cows, we don't eat termites.

There's legitimate concerns about water pollution from concentrated feedlot operations, but both the states and the feds have strict regulations about discharges into waterways. And free-range grass-fed operations are not currently subject to any regulations regarding runoff, although the feds are toying with them...which will put many small organic operations (like mine) out of business entirely.

And fracking takes place thousands of feet below the water tables, and there has been exactly ONE EPA confirmed case of fracking fluid in a water well, in Wyoming. So long as the well casing is properly cemented and sealed, which is required to keep the gas in the pipe anyway, fracking fluid does not contaminate any water tables. What does occasionally cause pollution are fracking fluid pits where local laws allow drillers to pump the waste fluid into an open pit, which they then cover up and abandon. In the past this lead to leaching of fracking fluid into shallow water supplies and adjacent water users were rightfully outraged at this.

In Australia, fracking doesn't always take place so deep underground,

Yes it does. Unless you're suggesting that your gas and oil fields begin a couple of hundred feet down, which is where most of the shallow aquifers lie. Now deep-well ancestral water can indeed be thousands of feet down, but those reservoirs are pretty well mapped, and the gas usually lies well below them. But, you may be right, which only militates for stringent borehole cementing regulations and mandatory monitoring of area wells both before and after drilling...but not bans on either drilling or fracking.

and there are legitimate concerns as to the effects of coal seam gas extraction on the environemtn,

Yes, coalbed methane is a fine source of energy that should be tapped. There's work going on here to mandate that coalbed methane byproducts of mining be captured and used as fuel somehow, perhaps to run mine infrastructure. But that methane is being created and released from coal beds all the time anyway. Moreover, one of the major sources of methane is products of biomass decomposition...specifically the dead and dying boreal forests of, for example, Canada and Russia. I've asked the question several times of some experts whether it's better for the greenhouse gas situation to let these vast forests decompose, thereby releasing gasses more than 30 times more harmful than CO2 into the atmosphere, or whether we should simply torch off all those dead forests and burn up the potential methane while emitting only the CO2 and particulates, which I think are less harmful than the decomposition products.

But coalbed methane has nothing to do with fracking.

as all the studies conducted have been undertaken/commissioned by the mining industry.

So?

My supervisor, a professor of hydrology, is trying to establish Australia's first independant centre to investigate coal-seam gas extraction techniques and its effects on the environment.

Good for him. However, that has nothing to do with fracking and contamination of water supplies.

I'd be interested in who has investigated this in America, and who paid for the investigations. I thought Gasland came to some other conclusions.

If you doubt the results and the data, then go collect your own data.

[nellikin]

HSeth:

I'd like to disclose that I am a enivronmental engineer with a bachelor and masters, currently 3 years into a PhD. My field of expertise is soil chemistry, so I think I know a lot about this. In fact, I am an expertise in soil chemistry and ecology, especially nutrient cycling in the soi-plant system. When you say biodiversity is not a goal, it reveals a lack of insight into the broad scheme of nutrient cycling and efficiency, as natural systems are generally optimsed to cycle nutrients, with very little waste. The only reason it is cheaper to use large scale mineral nutrient additions, is because the environmental cost of the fuels used to mine, extract, transport and produce these nutrients is not reflected in the economic cost. For example, before the modern agricultural evolution, the amount of energy expended in agricultural production was lower than the yield, i.e. it took less energy (in kilojoules or calories) to work the soil and grow things than the soil/plants yielded (because they harvest solar energy). Returning nutrients to the soil enabled cycling, though systems may not have been optimised. These days, with heavy machinery, we outstrip the energy input (by about a factor of 35, I believe) than we do the yield. This is because we use fossil fuels to a large extent in agriculture. This energy input results from the massive tractors/combine harvesters/heavy machinery used, to production of pesticides, to manufacturing of inorganic nutrients (mining of phosphates, production of ammonium nitrate, which is highly energy intensive. In fact, I just returned from an AN plant which has a power plant almost all for itself, because of the immensly high pressure yet low temperature required to turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium nitrate. Thank you Haber and Bosch). Oil and coal may be cheap, but they are inefficient and we are essentially trnasferring energy stored millions of years ago into our atmosphere to produce food, even though other production methods are available. You don't care about the environment, so obviously have no beef with this, but at the very least it isn't sustainable.

With regards to phosphate: how do you propose maunfacturing it? It has no atmospheric component (unlike nitrogen) and so is mined. Harvesting phosphate from sewage makes huge sense, but people are opposed to and concerned about the possible health impacts of putting pathogenic microorganisms ontoo our soils, as it presents a pathway to spread of disease. I personally believe we could manage this adequately (engineers will have ideas and solutions) and am an advocate of using treated sewage as an alternative to mineral phosphate fertilisers, as it makes huge sense to turn a waste product which is currently dumped in the ocean largely (at least in Australia), into a nutrient source. As an aside, we are currrently transferring phosphorus at a great rate from land-based minerals into the diffuse matrix of the ocean, where it serves as a nutrient which can pollute and disrupt ecosystems, it will not be an easy task to reclaim phosphorus from the ocean when our land-supplies run out. Perhaps you could start reading up on phosphorus stocks, eg: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 163110.htm

Generally, your discussion here shows a layman's understanding of soil science and nutrient cycling, and a short-sighted view of resource management. I like to take a cradle-to-grave approach when assessing our consumption of natural resources with regards to any produce, not just agriculture.

With regards to coal seam gas - here it is extracted using fracking, so I can't see why you would claim otherwise or dismiss fracking as not destructive to the environment. You have shown no scientific basis for this, merely dogmatic claims.

[Drewish]

I purposefully don't eat red meat. But I do it so that I don't help the cow population by reducing the amount of demand for their products. DIE COWS DIE!

[Rum]

I'm astonished that some people here appear to be defending cruelty to animals. There is no doubt at all that there is widespread abuse taking place in the rearing of animals for food and their slaughter. I have no desire to participate in a Seth style blow by blow, quote by quote discussion of the issue. If you think this cruelty is OK because we are human and somehow have the authority of power and being at the pinnacle of the food chain on our side then so be it, but to deny it is happening goes against the facts of the matter.

It isn't OK for me though and I am taking steps to avoid participation in the process. Its as simple as that.

[Rum]

I purposefully don't eat red meat. But I do it so that I don't help the cow population by reducing the amount of demand for their products. DIE COWS DIE!

This is a very relevant and valid issue too. The amount of protein produced through animal husbandry is actually very inefficient. I believe one can get up to six times more protein per acre through planting crops.

[macdoc]

Generally, your discussion here shows a layman's understanding of soil science and nutrient cycling, and a short-sighted view of resource management. I like to take a cradle-to-grave approach when assessing our consumption of natural resources with regards to any produce, not just agriculture.

With regards to coal seam gas - here it is extracted using fracking, so I can't see why you would claim otherwise or dismiss fracking as not destructive to the environment. You have shown no scientific basis for this, merely dogmatic claims.

word of advice - put the resident libertarian on ignore. The world is his for the raping.

[Seth]

HSeth:

I'd like to disclose that I am a enivronmental engineer with a bachelor and masters, currently 3 years into a PhD. My field of expertise is soil chemistry, so I think I know a lot about this. In fact, I am an expertise in soil chemistry and ecology, especially nutrient cycling in the soi-plant system. When you say biodiversity is not a goal, it reveals a lack of insight into the broad scheme of nutrient cycling and efficiency, as natural systems are generally optimsed to cycle nutrients, with very little waste.

Yup, crop rotation switching between nitrogen-fixing and nitrogen using plants has been done for a long, long time. But that's not "biodiversity" which I take to mean the presence of many different types of plants and animals. In agriculture, while crops may be rotated to help deal with soil nutrients, the goal during any one growing season is to reduce "biodiversity" so that only the one crop under cultivation is grown by eliminating weeds, competing plants and animals that may be harmful to the crop. Yes, other creatures like earthworms are beneficial, but my point is that "biodiversity" is really the wrong term to use in monoculture agriculture, which is the prevalent model today.

The only reason it is cheaper to use large scale mineral nutrient additions, is because the environmental cost of the fuels used to mine, extract, transport and produce these nutrients is not reflected in the economic cost.

This presumes that there is an "environmental cost" by assuming that the value of the mined area in it's natural "biodiverse" state is more valuable than the area after it's been mined and reclaimed plus the value of the minerals mined. That's a political position, not an economic one.

For example, before the modern agricultural evolution, the amount of energy expended in agricultural production was lower than the yield, i.e. it took less energy (in kilojoules or calories) to work the soil and grow things than the soil/plants yielded (because they harvest solar energy).

So what? Improvements in agricultural methods and the efficiencies of scale have increased yields many times over as compared to stick-grubbing ancient agriculture.

Returning nutrients to the soil enabled cycling, though systems may not have been optimised.

And today it's scientifically optimized, both by crop rotation and by amendments to the soil that increase yields dramatically, along with other technological advancements that make agriculture in technologically advanced countries more productive than at any time in the history of the world.

These days, with heavy machinery, we outstrip the energy input (by about a factor of 35, I believe) than we do the yield. This is because we use fossil fuels to a large extent in agriculture. This energy input results from the massive tractors/combine harvesters/heavy machinery used, to production of pesticides, to manufacturing of inorganic nutrients (mining of phosphates, production of ammonium nitrate, which is highly energy intensive. In fact, I just returned from an AN plant which has a power plant almost all for itself, because of the immensly high pressure yet low temperature required to turn atmospheric nitrogen into ammonium nitrate. Thank you Haber and Bosch). Oil and coal may be cheap, but they are inefficient and we are essentially trnasferring energy stored millions of years ago into our atmosphere to produce food, even though other production methods are available. You don't care about the environment, so obviously have no beef with this, but at the very least it isn't sustainable.

It depends on what you mean by "sustainable." If you mean that it's not sustainable in the long-term, then you have to define the "long term." I define the long term in geological ages, and all that carbon that was once in the atmosphere and was bound up by biological processes and turned into coal and oil over millions of years will eventually go right back where it came from. Of course that's probably longer than you or I will be around, but so what?

If you mean it's not sustainable in the short term, again so what? People gotta eat, and without the massive increases in productivity fostered by fossil fuels, billions of people will starve in short order...and I mean within a matter of months. Shut down modern agriculture over a misplaced concern about the "environmental costs" and you are dooming billions to an agonizing death. "Organic" agriculture is simply incapable of meeting the food needs of the world and it's idiocy to even try to argue it can.

If you're arguing for turning the clock back two hundred or a thousand years when it comes to agriculture just to eliminate the energy inputs from modern machinery then you don't care about the lives of billions of people and have no beef with watching them starve to death and die in agony.

And what other "production methods" are you suggesting for the production of food that will continue to sustain and increase the per-acre yields that are required to meet demand?

With regards to phosphate: how do you propose maunfacturing it? It has no atmospheric component (unlike nitrogen) and so is mined. Harvesting phosphate from sewage makes huge sense, but people are opposed to and concerned about the possible health impacts of putting pathogenic microorganisms ontoo our soils, as it presents a pathway to spread of disease. I personally believe we could manage this adequately (engineers will have ideas and solutions) and am an advocate of using treated sewage as an alternative to mineral phosphate fertilisers, as it makes huge sense to turn a waste product which is currently dumped in the ocean largely (at least in Australia), into a nutrient source. As an aside, we are currrently transferring phosphorus at a great rate from land-based minerals into the diffuse matrix of the ocean, where it serves as a nutrient which can pollute and disrupt ecosystems, it will not be an easy task to reclaim phosphorus from the ocean when our land-supplies run out. Perhaps you could start reading up on phosphorus stocks, eg: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 163110.htm

Nobody said it would be easy, or cheap. I'm all for sewage reclamation too, and in fact that's done around here, although lately there have been eco-fascist Luddite protests that have caused many farmers to give up on what was a useful way of increasing crop yields due to regulatory interference and obstacle. There are some serious concerns with heavy-metal contamination from over-use of sewage sludge, but all that you mention is merely a matter of technology. I'm completely confident that as natural sources of phospates dwindles (although how long that might be is anyone's guess) technology will find ways to compensate, or we will find new sources...comets perhaps...that can be mined.

"Organic" agriculture, however, is not a viable answer.

Generally, your discussion here shows a layman's understanding of soil science and nutrient cycling, and a short-sighted view of resource management. I like to take a cradle-to-grave approach when assessing our consumption of natural resources with regards to any produce, not just agriculture.

I take a pragmatic agriculturist's and humanist's view of agriculture. Having had a lifetime of practical experience in organically managing pasture land I well understand the dynamics of cattle ranch management and the cycle of life on the land. If I didn't, I wouldn't have been able to raise cattle for 50 years continuously without EVER adding a single ounce of phosphate or any other chemical to the property. I also understand that people gotta eat, and that "resource management" has to take that into account first and foremost. Unfortunately, too many eco-nuts who think they understand such things actually don't and do not understand the import of their agenda to preserve "nature."

With regards to coal seam gas - here it is extracted using fracking, so I can't see why you would claim otherwise or dismiss fracking as not destructive to the environment. You have shown no scientific basis for this, merely dogmatic claims.

Fracking is the process of fracturing deep sub-surface rock formations that contain natural gas using high-pressure fluids to create cracks in the rocks and prop them open with sand to allow the gas to flow more readily to the well-head. It's not destructive to the environment because it takes place deep underground, and unless the casing on the well is improperly cemented (which is against the economic interests of the gas company that drills the well), the fracking fluid does not escape the gas layer, but is pumped back out of the well, leaving the sand behind, and disposed of. I noted that in the past fracking fluid was often left in pits to evaporate, which left toxic residue that would leach into shallow water tables, but that practice has been mostly outlawed in the US due to clean water regulations, and now pits are lined to prevent leakage and seepage, the used fluids are either recycled or disposed of in a certified disposal site, and the pit liners and contaminated soil around the drill site are removed, disposed of and remediated.

There is no scientific basis upon which to conclude that fracking itself is harmful to the environment except in extraordinary cases that violate the law (in the US), and there has been only ONE documented case of a leak of fracking fluid into an aquifer in the US from an underground source.

Now, I suspect that you consider drilling for and using coal seam gas itself as "destructive to the environment," and you are conflating fracking with that basic objection, but that would be based on your belief in the global warming theory and the notion that the release of carbon inherent in using methane as an energy source is inherently "destructive to the environment."

But that has little to do with fracking and it's actual impacts on the environment.

[Seth]

I'm astonished that some people here appear to be defending cruelty to animals. There is no doubt at all that there is widespread abuse taking place in the rearing of animals for food and their slaughter. I have no desire to participate in a Seth style blow by blow, quote by quote discussion of the issue. If you think this cruelty is OK because we are human and somehow have the authority of power and being at the pinnacle of the food chain on our side then so be it, but to deny it is happening goes against the facts of the matter.

It isn't OK for me though and I am taking steps to avoid participation in the process. Its as simple as that.

Depends on what you mean by "cruelty." To the "animal rights" zealot, even owning a dog as a pet is "cruelty," but that's just ignorant tripe.

As to the food chain, nature itself is cruel, and red in tooth and claw, and as humans are just animals, as Atheists and Evolutionists like to say so often, why is it of concern that they treat food animals any differently than a lion or other predator would treat them, and in most cases far less cruelly?

Meat's meat, and folks gotta eat. It's good to be at the top of the food chain!

[Seth]

I purposefully don't eat red meat. But I do it so that I don't help the cow population by reducing the amount of demand for their products. DIE COWS DIE!

This is a very relevant and valid issue too. The amount of protein produced through animal husbandry is actually very inefficient. I believe one can get up to six times more protein per acre through planting crops.

But it's not as tasty, and you get all those nasty carbs and sugars. Protein is where it's at! Eat meat!

[Rum]

I'm astonished that some people here appear to be defending cruelty to animals. There is no doubt at all that there is widespread abuse taking place in the rearing of animals for food and their slaughter. I have no desire to participate in a Seth style blow by blow, quote by quote discussion of the issue. If you think this cruelty is OK because we are human and somehow have the authority of power and being at the pinnacle of the food chain on our side then so be it, but to deny it is happening goes against the facts of the matter.

It isn't OK for me though and I am taking steps to avoid participation in the process. Its as simple as that.

Depends on what you mean by "cruelty." To the "animal rights" zealot, even owning a dog as a pet is "cruelty," but that's just ignorant tripe.

As to the food chain, nature itself is cruel, and red in tooth and claw, and as humans are just animals, as Atheists and Evolutionists like to say so often, why is it of concern that they treat food animals any differently than a lion or other predator would treat them, and in most cases far less cruelly?

Meat's meat, and folks gotta eat. It's good to be at the top of the food chain!

Yep, for the likes of you I am sure it is. Celebrate your 'superiority' and enjoy the penned in pigs and filthy caged chickens and be proud!

[Seth]

I'm astonished that some people here appear to be defending cruelty to animals. There is no doubt at all that there is widespread abuse taking place in the rearing of animals for food and their slaughter. I have no desire to participate in a Seth style blow by blow, quote by quote discussion of the issue. If you think this cruelty is OK because we are human and somehow have the authority of power and being at the pinnacle of the food chain on our side then so be it, but to deny it is happening goes against the facts of the matter.

It isn't OK for me though and I am taking steps to avoid participation in the process. Its as simple as that.

Depends on what you mean by "cruelty." To the "animal rights" zealot, even owning a dog as a pet is "cruelty," but that's just ignorant tripe.

As to the food chain, nature itself is cruel, and red in tooth and claw, and as humans are just animals, as Atheists and Evolutionists like to say so often, why is it of concern that they treat food animals any differently than a lion or other predator would treat them, and in most cases far less cruelly?

Meat's meat, and folks gotta eat. It's good to be at the top of the food chain!

Yep, for the likes of you I am sure it is. Celebrate your 'superiority' and enjoy the penned in pigs and filthy caged chickens and be proud!

BACON!

Oh, and it looks like I'm headed for Dallas next week (they had tornadoes today!) where I may get the chance to use my brand-new Raytheon W1000 military-grade thermal weapons sight to night-hunt for some "free range" feral hogs!