posted on Aug, 12 2006 @ 04:04 PM
1. ) I have also quit eating meat two weeks ago or so. I never thought I'd go vegeterian, I just plainly LOVE meat, be it döner kebap, hamburgers,
chicken...
I could quote a few reasons, but they're not very rational, it's more... a feeling, just a notion. Firstly, you have to kill an animal. I don't
really care if it's killed quick and painlessly in the slaughterhouse or even if it is sweetly sung into death on a meadow. You have to kill. Yes,
you have to "kill" that carrot too and I know plants have feelings too. But just ask a small child if it would rather kill a pig or pick a cherry.
Secondly, it is uneconomic. For one single kilogram of meat, you have to feed that herbivore seven to sixteen kilograms of wheat. You need 2,000 to
15,000 litres of water for one kilogram of meat, for wheat it's only 1000 litres. 90% of all soy beans are fed to animals, and this soy is imported
from developing countries. Large parts of the tropical rainforest, our "green lung", were destroyed to grow food for animals. 80% of agricultural
space serves the purpose to feed and kill animals. On one hectare of land, you can produce 22,500 kilograms of potatoes, but just 185 kilograms of
beef. One calculation says if only 10% of all Americans stopped eating meat, 1 billion humans could be fed. (I had to look these calculations up,
although I knew the facts. Now that I see the plain numbers, I'm even more convinced).
...AND...
...every time a cow farts, the methane makes the greenhouse effect become worse.
To put it in other, more drastic words: eating meat is killing humans in the third world. Meat lovers won't want to hear that. And I won't pretend
I'm sort of "enlightened" or so. I still have a bad feeling about milk, cheese and eggs, but I'll not go so far as to abstain from yoghurt; and I
won't throw my fathers leather jacket away so soon although an animal had to die for it.
Thirdly, meat isn't really healthy.
2.) I don't even have a car. I won't condemn cars, as I work as a cashier at a gas station and I'd loose my job if there weren't plenty of cars
that would consume our natural resources and poison the very air that we breathe. And I know many of my costumers really need their cars. If something
is farther away than 30 mins. of healthy walking, I'm going by bus, train or the Wuppertaler "Schwebebahn" (the oldest on earth). Again, I know
that if I were a world saving hero I should look for another job, but alas... this is Germany, so I'm glad to have one.
3.) I smoke tobacco. In Germany, cigarettes and tobacco are taxed to finance the war against terror, so I'm doing my patriotric duty by killing my
lungs (don't take this one too seriously, though. To be honest, I tried to quit but it's more difficult than with meat, pot and coffee alltogether)
:-)
4.) I talk to people. It is a futile attempt, it may seem, often even on the internet. Either they think I'm just plain nuts or they're
close-minded, I don't know what it is, the truth may be in between. Maybe people just don't want to talk about "let's save the world". It's okay
for them to make a donation here and there, thus buying their conscience free.
One week ago, I met a neighbor who told me happily she were high on drugs (and it was NOT marijuana, I'd never have objected). I hardly knew her, so
I just said I had found some other very fine drug, and that it's secret still. She begged me to tell her.
I told her to meditate, and how to. Guess what. Today she told me it worked and she hadn't even touched a bottle of beer since, let alone H. I
couldn't believe that. I still can't, but still it makes me somewhat happy.
Conclusion: Talking to people helps save the world.
5.) I make music.
6.) (still working on that) Find a girl, settle down, do my demographic duty, raise a few children, teach them by the ways of love and coexistence and
trust them to do better where I have utterly failed.
EDIT: I hate my English.
[edit on 12-8-2006 by Akareyon]