A Modest Proposal: Butchering Animals for PETA and Green Sex

Glenn Reynolds wants to know where we can purchase “sirloin offsets” since, as Eric Scheie points out the raising of livestock for food may be the single largest contributor to the greenhouse effect:

This morning, PETA sent a letter to former vice president Al Gore explaining to him that the best way to fight global warming is to go vegetarian and offering to cook him faux “fried chicken” as an introduction to meat-free meals. In its letter, PETA points out that Gore’s film, An Inconvenient Truth–which starkly outlines the potentially catastrophic effects of global warming and just won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary”–has failed to address the fact that the meat industry is the largest contributor to greenhouse-gas emissions.

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The effect that our meat addiction is having on the climate is truly staggering. In fact, in its recent report “Livestock’s Long Shadow–Environmental Issues and Options,” the United Nations determined that raising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined.· Researchers at the University of Chicago have determined that switching to a vegan diet is more effective in countering global warming than switching from a standard American car to a Toyota Prius.

I suggest reading Eric, but one of the odd things which is implied, but not stated explicitly, is that the near elimination of meat from our diets is something that should be viewed as not only more effective than reducing vehicle emissions, but is far less costly!

The problem with reducing energy consumption precipitously is that energy is a core requirement for economic growth. It isn’t just the oil industry that is devastated, but everything else by scarce energy. At this point any move to curb energy use to the extent that it would actually make a reasonable difference would be devastating.

With meat, not really. Obviously the livestock industry would suffer, but capital would eventually be redeployed to other uses. The economy would go merrily along.

Of course, as Al Gore himself has shown, most of this is about the ability to feel morally superior, not because we are willing to actually give up using energy. It is just impossible for him or us, so it is a constant source for moral preening. I am not saying he allows himself to view it that way, but there it is.

Meat however is a different thing, we don’t discuss something actually feasible, that possibly has an even larger impact, because we might have to put our foot where our mouth is on that one. No mere pontificating and indulging in carbon offsets, we would have to actually stop eating meat, and politically advocating something which could actually be done! Politically that is death. Typically politicians don’t want problems to be solved and go away, or not be viewed as amenable to government action. Such things are their raison d’etre. So we don’t hear much at this point.

Of course I have to wonder what PETA’s strategy is here? It isn’t as if not eating cows makes them go away. Are we going to have one last global barbecue first? That would solve a lot of issues and be a heck of a lot of fun (I volunteer my patio for starters.) That however would seem to go against PETA’s grain, so we would still have the cows, and I assume we would have to treat them well, which means they would breed (or would we sterilize them? Is forced sterilization of cows ethical? I don’t know how PETA would view that.) Certainly they couldn’t just be released into the wild, they are domesticated. Either way, the cows have to go. So ending meat consumption isn’t the answer, it is ending their breeding. As they die off, or are eaten, the price of meat would increase like the ever present “around the corner” we are “running out of oil” predictions imply. If we really care about methane emissions however, we just go ahead and have the barbecue, freeze what we can and PETA can live with the holocaust they have encouraged.

We still have issues. There are lots of ruminants out on the hoof in this world. Thank God we already got rid of most of the Buffalo. It is often said sarcastically about idealistic thinking “and I want a pony too!” Well, you can’t have one, and they pretty much need to be marked for extinction.

We’ll need to give particular attention to Africa, which still has vast plains of herd animals, and they pass gas as well. My guess is that elephants are rather large offenders relative to the ease of eliminating them. It will also be inexpensive to do so as the ivory poachers can just be given the green light. Environmentalists can stop avoiding ivory, instead they can wear it as a badge of their commitment to doing what it takes to save the planet. It is humane as well. Barring such an effort, curbing greenhouse emissions at a level and speed necessary to have a real effect would certainly have doomed millions to poverty and early death. It isn’t nearly as chic to wear the bones of children, at least not yet.

Groups like PETA will have an important role of course, because in choosing which species need to be controlled we need a deeply ethical group such as them to monitor the process. We don’t want species eliminated because some people just don’t like them. I am sure snakes will be put up before the methane commission by someone as an offset to some cute species (Maybe rabbits? We don’t want to be killing cute little bunnies do we?) It’ll be up to them to make the unpopular and politically dangerous case that it isn’t ethical to kill 10,000 snakes to “offset” the emissions from some Senator’s daughter’s cute little pony.

Of course there are other issues as Joe Thompson points out in Eric’s comments. At least those are more fun:

You’ve heard of green cars, green tourism and green weddings. Now Canadians should ready themselves for green sex.For those who like to make love to the soundtrack of the global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth, Greenpeace has released a list of strategies for “getting it on for the good of the planet,” suggesting “you can be a bomb in bed without nuking the planet.” TreeHugger, an online magazine edited by Ontario’s Michael Graham Richard, has just published a guide on “how to green your sex life.” The famed adult store Good Vibrations announced last week they would no longer sell sex toys containing phthalates, controversial chemical plasticizers believed by some to be hazardous to humans and the environment alike.

Fair enough, but what about these?

people who want to pleasure the planet can now buy everything from bamboo bed sheets to organic lubricant and “eco-undies.”

Bamboo bed sheets? I guess more research is needed, but that just doesn’t sound as nice as cotton or silk.

wearing lingerie made with renewable fibres such as hemp (Enamore), bamboo (Butta) and other organic goodness

Uh, I need to be convinced:

ensuring S&M paddles are made from sustainably harvested timber

Ouch, but I can see the point, or the flat, of the matter:

“The general concern for trying to live lightly on our planet has transferred into all areas of people’s lives,” says Labchuk, the Green party’s press secretary. “So, even though what goes on in our bedrooms as a nation is somewhat hidden, we know that’s somewhere people want to green-up.”

So it seems.

Well, I see one other difficulty. If I understand correctly we humans emit more methane when we eat lots of carbohydrates and other plants. Luckily science can come to the rescue there as well. We can all be required to take Bean Zyme.

It is a good thing too, because I am not giving up my beer. So Glenn, I don’t think you need “sirloin offsets.” I think you need to look into bamboo sheets and fire up the barbecue!