The Ugly Side of Raising Meat to Eat

I am mostly a vegan, who also eats a bit of fish, mostly what I catch. I also strongly believe that eating a lot of meat is bad for you, and bad for our World.

Why? For starters, you can get the same nutrition from plants that you get from meat, at a cost of 1/10 of the water, energy, land area, and nutrients that eating animals costs.

Add to that all the studies (like the China Study) which show for us humans, eating only plants is far more healthy, than eating meat plus plants.

For a nice review by Marc Guenther, see Yet Another Reason to Eat Less Meat.

Changes in Antarctica May Cool Europe

Europe's climate in recent history has been warmed by the Gulf Stream. Plus some recent European cold periods have been attributed to a reduction in Gulf Stream flow, like the Little Ice Age from about 1350 to 1850.

So is this happening again? There is some solid evidence that it may be.

See this Smithsonian article about the shutdown of deep sea mixing in the Weddell Sea of Antarctica in Climate Change Felt in Deep Waters of Antarctica. There are also many good links in this article, such as the science behind Thermohaline Circulation, aka Ocean Conveyor Belt.

Since there is also a corresponding slow down of the deep water ocean circulation in the N. Atlantic due to increased fresh water influx from melting Greenland glaciers, the combined effect of Arctic and Antarctic changes on the Thermohaline Circulation may become especially significant in the future.

Above picture is my family in 1979, north of the Arctic Circle in Norway. Cold then, and now maybe getting colder (thermohaline changes)...or maybe getting warmer (greenhouse gas effects). They will probably see, and I believe in their lifetime, they will make positive efforts to benefit the health of our planet.