I met yet another stupid human who thinks that cows just "give" us milk. I tried to explain that cows must become pregnant and have a baby, and the milk is meant for the calf and that we are _stealing_ the milk. I have now talked to two people who think cows don't need to have babies in order to make milk...

How is it that people can disassociate cow milk from cow babies? Think about humans: humans are mammals, humans do not make milk until they have a baby. Cows are mammals as well, and they follow the same process... But humans are so separated from animals and nature that they believe these illogical ideas (milk without a baby).

But here are the facts. A cow is raped, gets pregnant. Her pregnancy lasts about 9 months, just like ours. A baby is born. Mom makes colostrum for the baby for about 24 hours after the birth... Colostrum is a special, thick milk that's full of antibodies and other goodness for newborns. It's useless for the farmer, so he lets the baby stay with mom during that time to drink it.

The next day, the baby is taken away from mama cow. Mama cow is hooked up to a milk machine. If the baby is a boy, he gets killed for veal. If the baby is a girl, she get's fed milk replacer and other crap, grows up and when she hits puberty she gets raped just like her mom. And she'll be forced to get pregnant again every year to keep the milk flowing. All the mama cows are killed when they are four to six years old. They are usually terribly sick by this time, because they cannot eat enough to keep up with the nutrients they are losing in their milk. Their dead flesh goes into hamburger, canned soups and pet food.

That's how it is.

Go vegan.

And now I have to complain about a movie I've not even seen yet, An Inconvenient Truth. The movie probably does a good job of telling people what the problem is. The website with the solutions is somewhat lacking, tho.

sighs. Do you know what you can do to help the earth? Go vegan. Do you know why? Because we farm and kill billions of animals every year... and those animals are making some major pollution.

These animals, born to die, create a lot more shit than humans do (because many of them are bigger than us, and there are a lot more of them than us). And guess what? There is no sewage system in place for these animals! The animals' waste, full of antibiotics and hormones and pesticides, is just dumped, where ever. The toxins get into the air, into the water, into the dirt and thus the vegetables, everywhere.

The other kind of pollution created by farmed animals is methane. Methane is, of course, a green house gas... and it's about 20 times as potent as that other green house gas that gets all the press, CO₂. CO₂ rates have climbed about 35%, while methane has risen about 123%. And that's all about cows.

When you buy and eat a pound of hamburger, it's the equivalent of driving your car for more than three weeks.

Did you get that?

Al Gore didn't. "Eat less meat" -- the easiest thing you can do to save the earth and the biggest impact you can make to save the earth -- isn't #1 on the list... it's hidden at the very end of the list, the fourth page, of how to Reduce Your Impact at Home. And "eat less meat" is not even listed on the "10 things to do to help stop global warming".

Arg.

Go Vegan.

And, by the way, that "pound of meat ~= three weeks of driving" and other stats came from this article: Al Gore Avoids Inconvenient Truths by Bill Phillips

So. Yep, I get pissed off about these things. But now I'm better because you're eating vegetables today, right?

Static8 > Journal > Archive > 2 Sept 2006 Entry