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We must face facts - meat is the problem

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mspohr

Well-Known Member
Jul 27, 2014
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18,798
California
Surely the link between abusing animals and the world's health is now clear

Surely the link between abusing animals and the world's health is now clear | Nick Cohen

The boast that “when the facts change, I change my mind” is a proud one. “When the facts change, I reinforce my prejudices” is truer. If you want proof, look at the coronavirus that has changed everything and consider the undisputed fact that it spread because of humanity’s abuse of animals.

Imagine a world where facts changed minds. The United Nations, governments and everyone with influence would now be saying we should abandon meat or at a minimum cut down on consumption. Perhaps my reading is not as wide as it should be, but I have heard nothing of the sort argued. Making the case would be child’s play and would not be confined to emphasising that Covid-19 probably jumped species in Wuhan’s grotesque wet markets. The Sars epidemic of 2002-04 began in Guangdong, probably in bats, and then spread to civet cats, sold in markets and eaten in restaurants. The H7N9 strain of bird flu began in China, once again, and moved to humans from diseased poultry.
 
Surely the link between abusing animals and the world's health is now clear

Surely the link between abusing animals and the world's health is now clear | Nick Cohen

The boast that “when the facts change, I change my mind” is a proud one. “When the facts change, I reinforce my prejudices” is truer. If you want proof, look at the coronavirus that has changed everything and consider the undisputed fact that it spread because of humanity’s abuse of animals.

Imagine a world where facts changed minds. The United Nations, governments and everyone with influence would now be saying we should abandon meat or at a minimum cut down on consumption. Perhaps my reading is not as wide as it should be, but I have heard nothing of the sort argued. Making the case would be child’s play and would not be confined to emphasising that Covid-19 probably jumped species in Wuhan’s grotesque wet markets. The Sars epidemic of 2002-04 began in Guangdong, probably in bats, and then spread to civet cats, sold in markets and eaten in restaurants. The H7N9 strain of bird flu began in China, once again, and moved to humans from diseased poultry.
While I agree with the general premise that moving away from consuming/farming animals, especially wild animals, is more humane, I would dispute that animal abuse is the reason for viruses to jump from animals to humans. The virus jump is more of a statistical certainly, given that viruses evolve (you know, natural evolution) to opportunistically find new hosts (like humans), and given that animal and human habitats are being more closely compressed by human expansion and natural habitat reduction, and given that piling animals and humans in close quarters in wet markets just increases the odds of the jump. Certainly animal abuse and cruelty is rampant in wet markets (having seen these close up in China and Thailand myself), but abuse per se is not the key ingredient in the virus jump.
 
While I agree with the general premise that moving away from consuming/farming animals, especially wild animals, is more humane, I would dispute that animal abuse is the reason for viruses to jump from animals to humans. The virus jump is more of a statistical certainly, given that viruses evolve (you know, natural evolution) to opportunistically find new hosts (like humans), and given that animal and human habitats are being more closely compressed by human expansion and natural habitat reduction, and given that piling animals and humans in close quarters in wet markets just increases the odds of the jump. Certainly animal abuse and cruelty is rampant in wet markets (having seen these close up in China and Thailand myself), but abuse per se is not the key ingredient in the virus jump.
I think the author equated raising and keeping animals in concentrated conditions with abuse. Most animal farms don't actively abuse animals but the crowding and lack of freedom and socialization can be considered abuse.
It's not just wild animals. Concentrated pig and chicken farms, for example, have been sources of disease. (Swine flu, avian flu)
There is also the issue of antibiotic resistance from use in animal farms.
 
I think the author equated raising and keeping animals in concentrated conditions with abuse. Most animal farms don't actively abuse animals but the crowding and lack of freedom and socialization can be considered abuse.
It's not just wild animals. Concentrated pig and chicken farms, for example, have been sources of disease. (Swine flu, avian flu)
There is also the issue of antibiotic resistance from use in animal farms.
 
I agree that conditions on mass factory farms often seem revolting when humans imagine themselves in the same situation. Simple respect for life, and respect for our own human spirituality, would dictate that we not treat animals with less regard than humans.

Interesting though, that recent epi/pandemics (various flus, SARS, MERS, AIDS, Ebola, CV19) have been viral, against which antibiotics are not effective, and against which antibiotic resistance is not relevant. The most egregious precipitating factor appears to be mass close contact, as I mentioned.
 
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I agree that conditions on mass factory farms often seem revolting when humans imagine themselves in the same situation. Simple respect for life, and respect for our own human spirituality, would dictate that we not treat animals with less regard than humans.

Interesting though, that recent epi/pandemics (various flus, SARS, MERS, AIDS, Ebola, CV19) have been viral, against which antibiotics are not effective, and against which antibiotic resistance is not relevant. The most egregious precipitating factor appears to be mass close contact, as I mentioned.
Yes, close contact animal agriculture seems to be a common factor in recent viral epidemics.
The problem with industrial animal agriculture is that they use large quantities of antibiotics (about 10x the human use) which gives rise to antibiotic resistance. We now have several strains of bacterial infections resistant to most/all antibiotics which is a growing problem. (>100,000 deaths and millions of hospitalizations worldwide... on par with Covid morbidity/mortality)
 
The World might be a better place if people stopped eating meat, but that should be a personal choice, not a government edict.

Burn baby burn!

It's certainly not government's business what anyone does to the planet, it's all
"personal choice."/s/

COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.
 
Burn baby burn!

It's certainly not government's business what anyone does to the planet, it's all
"personal choice."/s/

COWSPIRACY: The Sustainability Secret

Animal agriculture is responsible for 18 percent of greenhouse gas emissions, more than the combined exhaust from all transportation.
Yes, yet another reason to stop eating meat.
- It's bad for your health
- It's bad for the environment
- It's bad for the animals
 
Pandemic shines harsh light on Trump's failure to protect pangolins

Pandemic shines harsh light on Trump's failure to protect pangolins

For more than five years, wildlife conservationists in the US have been clamoring for the government to provide Endangered Species Act protections to pangolins, a group of imperiled ant-eating mammals that are widely, and often illicitly, trafficked for their scales and meat. The Trump administration, however, has refused to act and that refusal has suddenly taken on grave new implications.

What scientists know for certain is that the emergence of such zoonotic diseases occurs when humans disrupt healthy ecosystems, invade wildlife habitat, and trade and traffic in wild animals, whether bats, pangolins, birds, rodents or civets, a type of cat-like mammal that is often illegally trafficked and played a role in transmitting Sars to humans in the early 2000s. In this way, they expose themselves to deadly new pathogens, said Dr Jonathan Epstein, a vice-president at the EcoHealth Alliance, an organization dedicated to protecting wildlife and preventing zoonotic diseases.
 
As one of the great thinkers of our time said.

"We choose truth over facts."

The WHO supports reopening of the wet markets..........

The wet market is a scapegoat here, they are horrific places and should be Closed as they have caused problems. There is mounting evidence though that this was a mistake at a bioresearch facility. Poor PPE practices at the facility were flagged on 2018 and the bats that were the original carrier and are researched there are only found wild hundreds of kilometers away.

For clarity I am making no accusations this was a weapon or intentional. I am saying sloppy research hygiene practices is where the jump occured. Then even as Taiwan blew the whistle on H2H transmission the WHO paroted the CCP propoganda that is wasn't happening and the CCP was arresting doctors who spoke out.

Wet markets are terrible they can do and will contribute to future disease issues but if China believed they were the real problem here they wouldn't have reopened so quickly. China knows the research facility is the root cause and the reopening of the wet markets should prove that to the world.

Anyone who wants to bash Trump for this is a BLIND PARTISAN HACK, unless they are even more critical of Bill DeBlasio who was still pushing life as normal on March 11. If you honestly believe Trump did wrong then you have to believe DeBlasio did worse in handling this.

Everyone wishes they could do things differently knowing what they know now but past decisions were based on information available at the time. Not information available today and a couple months ago the world was working off Communist propoganda.
 
As one of the great thinkers of our time said.

"We choose truth over facts."

The WHO supports reopening of the wet markets..........

The wet market is a scapegoat here, they are horrific places and should be Closed as they have caused problems. There is mounting evidence though that this was a mistake at a bioresearch facility. Poor PPE practices at the facility were flagged on 2018 and the bats that were the original carrier and are researched there are only found wild hundreds of kilometers away.

For clarity I am making no accusations this was a weapon or intentional. I am saying sloppy research hygiene practices is where the jump occured. Then even as Taiwan blew the whistle on H2H transmission the WHO paroted the CCP propoganda that is wasn't happening and the CCP was arresting doctors who spoke out.

Wet markets are terrible they can do and will contribute to future disease issues but if China believed they were the real problem here they wouldn't have reopened so quickly. China knows the research facility is the root cause and the reopening of the wet markets should prove that to the world.

Anyone who wants to bash Trump for this is a BLIND PARTISAN HACK, unless they are even more critical of Bill DeBlasio who was still pushing life as normal on March 11. If you honestly believe Trump did wrong then you have to believe DeBlasio did worse in handling this.

Everyone wishes they could do things differently knowing what they know now but past decisions were based on information available at the time. Not information available today and a couple months ago the world was working off Communist propoganda.
You'll need to provide some references for your partisan attack on WHO and support for our psychopathic president.
 
As one of the great thinkers of our time said.


Anyone who wants to bash Trump for this is a BLIND PARTISAN HACK, unless they are even more critical of Bill DeBlasio who was still pushing life as normal on March 11. If you honestly believe Trump did wrong then you have to believe DeBlasio did worse in handling this.

Everyone wishes they could do things differently knowing what they know now but past decisions were based on information available at the time. Not information available today and a couple months ago the world was working off Communist propoganda.

I would point out that facts, by definition, are truth.


Blaming Trump for traffic in pangolins is different than blaming him for reopening of wet markets. Your outrage is misdirected, and seems politically motivated.

At any rate, there seems to never be a shortage of stupidity emanating from Trump wrt CV19. Neglect of pangolin protection is the least of his idiocies. He had plenty of advance warning from his own experts months before he acted, but he instead articulated stupidities like "the virus will disappear like magic in April with warmer weather". The list is too long for me to repeat here.

Whether the Chinese lied about CV19 (which they most certainly did) is actually irrelevant. Trump's stupidity, narcissism, arrogance, and failure to act was not caused by the Chinese, by WHO, or anyone else.
 
Since you think Trump has done wrong what do you think about Deblasio's March 11 speech?

I can't link anything you will believe, you will dismiss whatever source I link so please disprove any of these statements.

WHO ignored Taiwan's warnings on H2H transmission.
WHO supports reopening wet markets.
Chinese Communist Party jailed whistleblower doctors, last I heard one woman who ran a hospital is still missing.

If Trump listened to WHO and not restricted travel we would have had more ill travelers arrive which would have accelerated the spread here, can any of you agree with that lair of statements?

Far as blaming Trump for not protecting pangolins, get real, they don't live here, they aren't being trafficked in any quantity here. President of either party has a lot on his plate, pangolins can't be a priority.
 
Theory is that employees at the Chinese research lab that was working on this virus were selling wet lab test animals to the wet markets, instead of burning them after they were used for testing. Why throw away a prefectly tasty bat when people would pay good money for them.

Disease could transfer from one wild animal to another there, the way a bat bite could transfer rabies (another virus) to a family pet dog. Dog goes crazy and bites a human and that is the rabies is often spread.

Wet markets keep live wild animals in cages right next to others. Live cats, dogs, snakes, rats, bats, pangolins, birds all crammed together. Their feces and urine fall to the floor and are hosed into drains, while human customers in flip flops walk around on the wet floors, picking out the most tasty specimines to take home for the family dinner.
 
Far as blaming Trump for not protecting pangolins, get real, they don't live here, they aren't being trafficked in any quantity here. President of either party has a lot on his plate, pangolins can't be a priority.
Wow, didn't know that was a thing. Yes, the Media blames Trump on some interesting things.
Not even worth linking the article
upload_2020-4-15_12-16-37.png
 
Since you think Trump has done wrong what do you think about Deblasio's March 11 speech?

I can't link anything you will believe, you will dismiss whatever source I link so please disprove any of these statements.

WHO ignored Taiwan's warnings on H2H transmission.
WHO supports reopening wet markets.
Chinese Communist Party jailed whistleblower doctors, last I heard one woman who ran a hospital is still missing.

If Trump listened to WHO and not restricted travel we would have had more ill travelers arrive which would have accelerated the spread here, can any of you agree with that lair of statements?

Far as blaming Trump for not protecting pangolins, get real, they don't live here, they aren't being trafficked in any quantity here. President of either party has a lot on his plate, pangolins can't be a priority.
Pangolins aren't here but their disease is.
The world is connected and walls are useless.
 
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