Outstripping Our Resources?

[Conan71]

Scare tactics from cranks, or for real?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061024/ts_nm/environment_wwf_planet_dc

"The WWF report also said that an index tracking 1,300 vetebrate species -- birds, fish, amphibians, reptiles and mammals -- showed that populations had fallen for most by about 30 percent because of factors including a loss of habitats to farms."

Hmmm, more farms kind of pokes a hole in the theory vegetarians save animals []

[iplaw]

The WWF?!?  I didn't know wrestlers cared for the environment.

[Conan71]

Yes, Vince McMahon is branching out.[]

[iplaw]

Don't trust them...

I found out why the DoDo became extinct.

It was the WWF!!!

[rwarn17588]

On a serious note, do these farms that are mentioned raise crops or livestock? That's a big distinction, and it's important.

Any farmer will tell you that cattle are a lot harder on land and resources than crops are.

[snopes]

Generally, the term "farm" is used to define acreage to grow crops, whereas "Ranch" is used to denote cattle raising. It doesn't mean either term is always used correctly, however.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

On a serious note, do these farms that are mentioned raise crops or livestock? That's a big distinction, and it's important.

Any farmer will tell you that cattle are a lot harder on land and resources than crops are.

No distinction whatsoever in the article quoted.  The WWF has a web site that is pretty extensive, I just didn't want to spend too much time on a web site for a group proclaiming the sky is falling.  From my cursory scan, it looks like some ex-patriate tree-hugging Amercian(s) living in China.

[PonderInc]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

On a serious note, do these farms that are mentioned raise crops or livestock? That's a big distinction, and it's important.

Any farmer will tell you that cattle are a lot harder on land and resources than crops are.

"Oh, the farmer and the cow man should be friends..."

Just to clarify.  Cattle grazing on an appropriately large chunk of the right kind of grassland is a lot less damaging to the earth than growing crops that require irrigation, fertilizer, herbicides and/or insecticides.  

Bison and other grazing herd animals are a natural part of the prairie.  Tilling causes soil/wind erosion, irrigation leeches nutrients from the soil as well as causing salination of certain soils, insecticide kills good insects along with the bad (the good insects don't multiply as fast as the bad ones, by the way, so you end up with more of what you're trying to kill), and all of the chemicals end up in our water sooner or later.  Someone better educated than I could talk about the dangers of certain genetically modified crops (thanks Monsanto!).

Granted, cattle on factory farms/feedlots are bad.  And they don't belong in certain delicate habitats...but give me a nice big tallgrass prairie full of cattle any day over any crop being grown...as an example of natural biodiversity versus man-made monoculture.

[rwarn17588]

Ponder, I agree with you that cattle *should* be less damaging than crops.

However, having grown up on a farm myself, I've seen firsthand that it's all too easy for a farmer, aka rancher, to overgraze pasture if he's not careful. Trying to replicate what Mother Nature accomplished with grasslands and bison is much trickier with domesticated cattle.

And, in terms of food production, hogs and chickens are better than beef. But that's another issue.

[Conan71]

Two of my favorite mantras shared with my fellow carnivores:

"If God hadn't intended for man to eat animals, he wouldn't have made them out of meat."

"PETA: People Eating Tasty Animals"

[]

[iplaw]

This conversation is going nowhere...back to the pictures of the real story.



When will it be enough for these WWF jerks?  Will they stop at nothing to erradicate our endangered wildlife?

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by iplaw

This conversation is going nowhere...back to the pictures of the real story.



When will it be enough for these WWF jerks?  Will they stop at nothing to erradicate our endangered wildlife?

I just knew Hulk Hogan was a sadist, I knew it!