From: young@clpd.kodak.com (Rich Young)
Subject: Re: Beyond Beef's Adopt-A-McDonald's Campaign
Originator: young@sasquatch
Reply-To: young@clpd.kodak.com
Organization: Clinical Diagnostics Division, Eastman Kodak Company
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 15:09:52 GMT

In article <1k43rhINNfos@cbl.umd.edu> tara@starburst.umd.edu (Tara McDermott) writes:

[...]

>THE real COST OF A HAMBURGER:
>
>World Hunger - At a time when nearly a billion people suffer from
>cronic hunger, more than one-third of all the grain grown in the world
>is fed to cattle and other livestock.  That's enough to give every
>child, woman and man a meal a day.

	All of which is a moot point, since the world already produces
	enough food to feed the people AND the cattle, and most of the
	world's hunger is due to politics, greed, war, corruption, and
	poor distribution, among other things.

>Human Health - Seventy percent of U.S. deaths are related to diet,
>particularly the overconsumption of beef and saturated animal fats.
>Red meat is directly linked to heart disease, strokes, and cancer of
>the colon and breast.

	The data are not conclusive, and in any case tend to implicate
	lack of fiber at least as much as presence of red meat.

>Destroying the Rain Forest - Cattle ranching is  aprimary cause of
>rain forest destruction in Central and South American.  Since 1960,
>more than 25 percent of the forests of Central America have been
>cleared to create pasture land for grazing cattle.  While some
>fast-food chains claim they no longer use South American beef, for
>every quarter pound hamburger still being exported from this region,
>55 square feet of rain forest is destroyed.

	If the fast-food places aren't using the beef, then they're not 
	destroying rain forest, are they?  It's been posted before that,
	according to the USDA, the U.S. imports less than 1% of its beef
	from Central and South America, and even that fraction of a percent
	is dropping steadily.  What is a protest against McDonalds going
	to accomplish in this regard?

>Creating Deserts - Cattle are major contributors to soil loss and
>destruction.  As much as 85 percent of U.S. western rangeland, nearly
>685 million acres, is being degraded by overgrazing and other
>problems.  The U.S. has already lost a third of its topsoil; more than
>80 percent of this erosion is directly attributed to grazing and
>unsustainable methods of producing feed crops for cattle and other
>livestock.

	There are really two problems here being made to sound like only
	one: First, there is overgrazing of western rangeland and second,
	there is loss of topsoil.  The rangeland in the west being over-
	grazed is, for the most part, utterly useless for any other type
	of agriculture unless irrigated heavily.  This is not an excuse
	for overgrazing, but it's also not the source of the lost topsoil.

	The topsoil loss takes place primarily in the "grain belt" of the
	midwest, and the methods used to produce feed for cattle are the
	same methods used to produce food for humans.

>Polluting our Water - Cattle produce a billion tons of organic waste
>each year.  Waste from livestock, and the pesticides and fertilizers
>used to grow feed, are the number one non-point source of water
>pollution in the U.S.

	The same methods used to produce feed grains for cattle are used to
	produce food for humans.  The use of pesticides and fertilizers
	in agriculture is a source of some concern, but it is a two-edged
	sword: it has made U.S. agriculture among the most productive in
	the world and is, in no small way, the reason that Americans spend
	a relatively small percentage of their income on food (and have
	the time and money to spend on one of Rifkin's wild-goose-chases).

>Depleting our Water - Almost half the water used in the U.S. each year
>goes to grow feed and provide drinking water for cattle and other
>livestock.  It takes 29 gallons of water to produce a pound of
>tomatoes; 139 gallons to produce a pound of bread; but 2,464 gallons
>to produce a pound of beef.

	And in California, 53% of all the water used in the state is used
	for the farming of products which are used exclusively by humans,
	like lettuce, cotton, oranges, etc.  In point of fact, over 73% of
	the water used in California is used for things OTHER than the
	raising of livestock.

	Not only that, but according to the World Watch Institute, it takes
	only an average of 360 gallons of water to produce a pound of trimmed
	beef in the U. S.  The number given above is totally bogus; Tara
	should know this, since she was the one who originally posted the
	World Watch number (originally given as 3000 liters/kilo of beef)!

>Global Warming - Cattle are a major source of greenhouse gases.  Tens
>of millions of tons of methane are released into the atmosphere by the
>world's 1.3 billion cattle.  In addition, hundreds of millions of tons
>of CO2 are released by burning forests to create cow pastures.

	Re: methane.  Termites and rice paddies produce twice as much
	methane as cattle and methane is only about 10% of the greenhouse
	gas.  All livestock produce only 15 to 20% of global methane, which
	means that cattle produce some fraction of that, say 10% of global
	methane, which works out to only 1% of total greenouse gas.  It is
	obvious that cattle are not a major source of methane.  This piece
	of propaganda is misleading, at best.

>CAMPAIGN GOALS:

[...deleted...]

	Perhaps an example of Rifkin's overblown and completely false
	prose in earlier books will lend some perspective to "Beyond Beef":

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
From <1992Jun13.130729.1@cubldr.colorado.edu> in sci.skeptic:

> In _Algeny_, Rifkin describes Darwin's trip to the Galapagos in terms that
> show clearly that he (a) knows nothing about the Galapagos (b) has
> never read Darwin in the original. He describes several animals that
> don't live there (including jaguars, I believe).

  Yup: vultures, condors, vampire bats, and jaguars. Let me quote from Gould
  since I could hardly do better:

  "Rifkin writes: 'It was a savage, primeval scene, menacing in every detail.
   Everywhere there was bloodletting, and the ferocious, unremitting battle for
   survival. The air was dank and foul, and the thick stench of volcanic ash
   veiled the islands with a kind of ghoulish drape.' Well, I guess Rifkin has
   never been there, and he obviously didn't bother to read anything about
   these fascinating islands. None of those animals live on the Galapagos.
   In fact, the Galapagos house no terrestrial predators at all; ...The
   Galapagos are unusual, as Darwin noted, precisely because they are _not_
   scenes of Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes...And, by the way, no thick
   stench of ghoulish drape either; the volcanic terrains are beautiful, calm
   and peaceful - not in eruption when Darwin visited, not now either."


>  Rifkin also tells some bizarre stories about Maxwell's and Boltzmann's
>  motivations in _Entropy_.

 Specifically, he claims that Maxwell, in devising his "demon", was trying 
 to refute or circumvent the Second Law of Thermo. I've read Maxwell,
 as well as biographies of Maxwell, and I can say that this interpretation
 is ridiculous. 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

	Now, I've BEEN to the Galapagos, and I can assure r.f.v. readers
	that Rifkin's description of these islands is pure fertilizer.  And
	Gould's review is spot on: the reason the animals of the Galapagos
	show so little fear of Man is precisely BECAUSE they evolved in
	a total absence of land-based predators, so not only do jaguars not
	live there now, they never HAVE lived there.

	I, personally, wouldn't believe Rifkin if he told me that the sun
	rises in the east...I would ask for all of his sources and verify
	them myself.  Your mileage may vary, of course.


-Rich Young (These are not Kodak's opinions.)
Newsgroups: rec.food.veg,misc.health.alternative,sci.med.nutrition