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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Grainne who wrote (106496)	6/27/2005 11:58:36 AM
From: The Philosopher	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

If you want to talk about pollution in minute terms, yes, everyone pollutes. However, the pollution from just moving around and breathing in and using the computer and taking showers, etc., is a much more defensible and benevolent pollution than that involved in factory farming. Actually, the pollution from basic living in large cities is NOT defensible, except for the fact that we treat the pollution. So it's not that there isn't a lot of pollution (think if New York City didn't have sewers but all human waste was dumpted in the streets as it was in cities centuries ago). It's only made tolerable because we treat it. The pollution from factory farms is in the same category. The pollution from one factory farm is a lot less than the pollution from one factory city like NYC or LA, but it's more noticable because cattle don't use flush toilets, and the waste isn't treated in waste treatment plants, so the pollution is present instead of hidden. Not less pollution, just a different (and not as appealing) a way of handling it. And sometimes even with humans it's out of sight, out of mind. The city of Victoria, Canada, only a few miles from us, quite recently used to dump, and as far as I know still does dump (I don't want to say outright that they do, because they may have changed things in the past 10 years, though I doubt it), untreated sewage straight into the Haro Strait. Yep; untreated sewage right into the water. A major Canadian city. Is that really any worse than factory farming pollution? As to whether factory farming is essential, this basically depends on whether you think affordable meat for our population is an important goal. If so, then I think factory farms, perhaps not in their present condition but as a general principle of efficient production of beef, are essential; I am satisfied that the farmers of the world couldn't provide plentiful, affordable meat without the efficiency of factory farming in some form. Of ocurse, you may not consider affordable meat to be an essential. And that's your right. But of course, other people believe that affordable books, or paper towels, or even toilet paper, aren't essential to life, and I suppose they aren't, people lived without them in the past, but they are important enough that I don't want to shut down paper mills in Maine even though they do pollute.