Is Modern-Day Environmentalism Barking Up the Wrong Tree?
Reader “Ben” writes: Hi Craig, Have you seen this? If it’s true it’s a real eye-opener! (The narrator seems kind of annoying at first but stick with it, you’ll probably get used to her. What she says is pretty stunning.)
No, I hadn’t seen it. There is a ton of truth here, but I would offer the following four comments:
1) To say that environmental groups have completely ignored the issue of the eco-damage caused by raising animals for food is incorrect. How can I be so cavalier? For one, because 2GreenEnergy is one such group, and I’ve written many dozens of pieces on this, spoken about it several times at conferences, and conducted a webinar on the subject. More to the point, just Google the subject and check out the millions of pages in which environmental groups are up in arms about this tragedy. I just checked out a few of the 167,000 sites of environmental groups including WWF, Greenpeace, and OneGreenPlanet that came up when I Googled: “cow farming amazon rain forest.”
2) To say that the only focus of environmental groups vis-à-vis water conservation is home use (like showers and lawn irrigation) is also incorrect. It is true that the disproportionate amount of the burden is placed on home-owners vs. agriculture as a tool to deal with the drought here in California right now— a terrible mistake that numerous environmental groups are trying hard to rectify; in fact, we’re ^&*&*^ furious about this. Here’s one of 20.5 million pages on how California Governor Jerry Brown unfairly exempted agriculture (80% of the state’s water use) from mandated reductions in consumption.
3) To mock the whole sustainable fishing movement and dismiss it without another word is….pick a disparaging word….say, irresponsible. The concept of sustainable fishing has many dozens of different touch-points, and they are all good ideas that are already delivering terrifically positive results, as anyone would attest who has honestly studied the subject. Here’s a piece I wrote on the topic. Now, would the world be better off if it went vegan? Of course. But why make fun of ideas that are actively protecting entire populations of aquatic animals from reckless practices?
4) Conflating the energy we use in transportation with our total energy consumption is an error. (Transportation is about 30% of the total.)
Btw, I don’t find her annoying; in fact, I thought it was a pretty cool presentation, and she is certainly an intelligent and self-possessed human being. Overall this is a powerful and important message, and, other than what I have pointed out above, most of the math and subsequent reasoning in it is spot on.
