>> Want to be the next face of eco-fashion? Then enter Project Green Search for a chance to become a green model.
>> Meat eating is not the big enviro-problem; the real problem’s factory farms, according to Eliot Coleman in Grist:
If I butcher a steer for my food, and that steer has been raised on grass on my farm, I am not responsible for any increased CO2. The pasture-raised animal eating grass in my field is not producing CO2, merely recycling it (short term carbon cycle) as grazing animals (and human beings) have since they evolved. It is not meat eating that is responsible for increased greenhouse gasses; it is the corn/ soybean/ chemical fertilizer/ feedlot/ transportation system under which industrial animals are raised.
Earlier: “Chickin” or the egg.
>> Our wasteful consumer culture requires deskilling — both of the labor force and of the consumer. So how do we reskill ourselves? Writes Rob Horning in Generation Bubble: (via murketing)
Resisting the deskilling process means giving up pleasure that we experience as real — the pleasure of eating Doritos is no less real than the pleasure of making enchiladas from scratch. There are many reasons to prefer the latter form of pleasure, but those reasons are not necessary hedonic — it may not be more intensely pleasurable to exhibit our skills than to passively engorge ourselves on consumer goods….
Reskilling consumption cannot be about teaching people to strive for the “good things” in life. Rather, it will probably have to champion a different form of identity altogether that supplants connoisseurship and the curatorial identity with that of the craftsperson, wholly engrossed in their work and more or less indifferent to the world.
Image via Project Green Search
I thought that animals had to travel very long distances to be butchered. Do you know if that is true? I read a bit of the article, but I was mostly skimming. I would think the transport issue would be a factor in the environmental footprint of eating meat.
My family in Ohio balks at the cost of grass-fed beef, so I am still guiding them to eating lower cost vegetarian meals.
None of it would matter for me since I don’t eat meat, but I like to have facts in my mind for when I’m discussing this topic with others.
Comment by Erica — August 10, 2009 @ 2:50 pm
About the deskilling, this is honestly one of the things that drives me nuts about how things are done now. In general, I find doing things myself or someone I know to be infinitely more satisfying than spending money. I don’t have to spend (or as much) money either as a side effect or else I can actually end up with what I wanted/needed, not what I could find in the store. Along the way, I probably learned something that is somewhat useful in the same or slightly different context (this isn’t always the case with technology and fashion). I think it is also way more satisfying to my brain. After spending all day at work in front of the computer, I find myself trying to minimize my time in front of screens at home. I want to move my hands, I want to learn completely different things, I want room to explore and be creative. It makes me so much more excited about life! The thing that sucks is that I don’t think there is as much money to be made, or not by the same people that make the money now, which makes it a difficult sell in some ways.
Comment by M — August 10, 2009 @ 7:24 pm
Erica — Yes, it is true. A handy graphic shows you just how fossil-fuel intensive the butchering process is.
M — I am with you re: the deskilling. A lot of my frustration’s not so much that I don’t have the specific skills for things, but that no one else does either (i.e. I don’t necessarily feel I should be able to fix my own electric kettle, but I’d like it if there was a local fix-it shop where I’d know to take such things if they break). L.A. mag’s little list of fix it spots did help me a bit –
Comment by Siel — August 13, 2009 @ 12:42 am
Erica — another good reference on food and greenhouse gases (GHG) is a scientific paper by two people from Carnegie Mellon in Environmental Science and Technology (full text). In the article, they estimate the GHG emissions from the different segments of the average American households’ diet. Figure 1a shows the transport-related GHG emissions, with red meat and grains having the highest transport emissions. However, cows emit GHGs during digestion and a lot of GHGs are emitted during feed production, so in the end, transportation emissions are fairly low. Figure 1c shows this. Note that the transport emissions are dwarfed by the production emissions (i.e., methane from digestion, nitrous oxide from fertilizer, CO2 from electricity and fuel use during production). For the chicken/fish/eggs category transport is still a small portion of the overall GHG emissions, but there are far fewer production-related emissions. It’s quite an interesting work. Soon after it was published, I wrote a commentary about it at The Ethicurean.
Comment by Marc — August 15, 2009 @ 9:09 am
Marc — I’m so flattered that you dropped by! I heart The Ethicurean. Thanks for the link to the Carnegie Mellon paper!
Comment by Siel — August 18, 2009 @ 11:13 pm