General News

[SecretPro]

15 minutes ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I know you're only talking about Veganism as an example of taking control of the situation for yourself, but I wonder if anyone has seriously mapped out total consequence of everyone going vegan, the pros v cons.

 

For all the savings on cow flatulance, what happens to the now wild domestic cow left to fend for itself, the sheep, the chickens all left to roam the countryside untended. Bees without beekeepers might well die out. Wild boars would essentially return to the country..

 

Also, if you're hard-core vegan, you don't exploit animals in any way, so no horse riding, no pets, no swimming with dolphins, no alligator wrestling, no donkey rides at Skeg Vegas.

 

But seriously, a totally vegan society, without immense sacrifice (no just by humans giving up their practices, but also by huge culling of farm animals on a regular basis) is fraught with immense difficulty.

I am vegan, so I am against all of those things and I certainly wouldn't expect anybody else to adhere to that, so for the sake of this thread, rather than talking about veganism as a philosophy, let's assume I'm only really referring to a plant based diet (as that's the change I'm really on about)

 

As for the remaining farm animals - they all get culled eventually anyway, so let's just do it all at once and have one big **** off final banquet 

 

Jokes aside, of course with any huge landscape change there are going to be massive sacrifices and compromises, I'm fact the same can be said for any of the actions we need to undertake to actually tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, whether than be energy, economy - the reason we haven't done any of them is because they all require massive existential change and sacrifice. At some point we are going to need to accept, whichever routes we take, that we will need to make those sacrifices at some point otherwise we are doomed. 

 

As for wildboar by the way, I'm all for it. They are part of the native ecology in Britain and fantastic for biodiversity, as has been evidence in the forest of Dean! We could do with wholesale reintroduction of Boar, Beaver and Lynx (as native species) to help tackle a lot of the current issues. Of course Wolves and Bear were also UK natuves but I'm not sure the public are quite ready for that, especially being as they are struggling even with beavers! 

 

Every route from here on in is fraught with immense difficulty. Sadly that's the state we've let ourselves get in. 

[jgtuk]

1 minute ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I know you're only talking about Veganism as an example of taking control of the situation for yourself, but I wonder if anyone has seriously mapped out total consequence of everyone going vegan, the pros v cons.

 

For all the savings on cow flatulance, what happens to the now wild domestic cow left to fend for itself, the sheep, the chickens all left to roam the countryside untended. Bees without beekeepers might well die out. Wild boars would essentially return to the country..

 

Also, if you're hard-core vegan, you don't exploit animals in any way, so no horse riding, no pets, no swimming with dolphins, no alligator wrestling, no donkey rides at Skeg Vegas.

 

But seriously, a totally vegan society, without immense sacrifice (no just by humans giving up their practices, but also by huge culling of farm animals on a regular basis) is fraught with immense difficulty.

I think plant based diet is the general idea as the by products of animals would cease and be replaced entirely by other products (simplified version) eventually . 
It wouldn’t happen overnight and as people ate less meat/dairy then less breeding of livestock would occur and so on. If some of the land was then used for rewilding and natural predators reintroduced then we might find some natural balance. 
Honey bees would easily recolonise rewilded areas, as long as we stop using pesticides so readily (I’m looking at you, UK government) but don’t forget that the main pollinators are the other 249 species of bee plus wasps and flies etc. 

In 2023 there were approximately 130,000,000 chickens, 5,000,000 pigs and 10,000,000 cattle bred in the UK. By contrast, there are about 3000 wild boar, a native species! 

[jgtuk]

3 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

I am vegan, so I am against all of those things and I certainly wouldn't expect anybody else to adhere to that, so for the sake of this thread, rather than talking about veganism as a philosophy, let's assume I'm only really referring to a plant based diet (as that's the change I'm really on about)

 

As for the remaining farm animals - they all get culled eventually anyway, so let's just do it all at once and have one big **** off final banquet 

 

Jokes aside, of course with any huge landscape change there are going to be massive sacrifices and compromises, I'm fact the same can be said for any of the actions we need to undertake to actually tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, whether than be energy, economy - the reason we haven't done any of them is because they all require massive existential change and sacrifice. At some point we are going to need to accept, whichever routes we take, that we will need to make those sacrifices at some point otherwise we are doomed. 

 

As for wildboar by the way, I'm all for it. They are part of the native ecology in Britain and fantastic for biodiversity, as has been evidence in the forest of Dean! We could do with wholesale reintroduction of Boar, Beaver and Lynx (as native species) to help tackle a lot of the current issues. Of course Wolves and Bear were also UK natuves but I'm not sure the public are quite ready for that, especially being as they are struggling even with beavers! 

 

Every route from here on in is fraught with immense difficulty. Sadly that's the state we've let ourselves get in. 

Our posts crossed, sorry (and you are far more concise and eloquent than me 😂)

As for bears and wolves, there’s been several reintroduction/protection schemes in Europe which are deemed successful and although we currently don’t have the habitat, we could have in the future! 
Modern farming practices and so called guardians of the countryside have a lot to answer for. There are millions of acres of land to be returned to a native state if animal husbandry were to diminish. 

[Trav Le Bleu]

9 minutes ago, SecretPro said:

I am vegan, so I am against all of those things and I certainly wouldn't expect anybody else to adhere to that, so for the sake of this thread, rather than talking about veganism as a philosophy, let's assume I'm only really referring to a plant based diet (as that's the change I'm really on about)

 

As for the remaining farm animals - they all get culled eventually anyway, so let's just do it all at once and have one big **** off final banquet 

 

Jokes aside, of course with any huge landscape change there are going to be massive sacrifices and compromises, I'm fact the same can be said for any of the actions we need to undertake to actually tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, whether than be energy, economy - the reason we haven't done any of them is because they all require massive existential change and sacrifice. At some point we are going to need to accept, whichever routes we take, that we will need to make those sacrifices at some point otherwise we are doomed. 

 

As for wildboar by the way, I'm all for it. They are part of the native ecology in Britain and fantastic for biodiversity, as has been evidence in the forest of Dean! We could do with wholesale reintroduction of Boar, Beaver and Lynx (as native species) to help tackle a lot of the current issues. Of course Wolves and Bear were also UK natuves but I'm not sure the public are quite ready for that, especially being as they are struggling even with beavers! 

 

Every route from here on in is fraught with immense difficulty. Sadly that's the state we've let ourselves get in. 

I'm all for the reintroduction of beaver!

[Trav Le Bleu]

Just now, jgtuk said:

Our posts crossed, sorry (and you are far more concise and eloquent than me 😂)

As for bears and wolves, there’s been several reintroduction/protection schemes in Europe which are deemed successful and although we currently don’t have the habitat, we could have in the future! 
Modern farming practices and so called guardians of the countryside have a lot to answer for. There are millions of acres of land to be returned to a native state if animal husbandry were to diminish. 

From your guesthouse window in Torquay you could see herds of Fresians sweeping majestically across Dartmoor.

[leicsmac]

1 minute ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I'm all for the reintroduction of beaver!

[Daggers]

2 hours ago, SecretPro said:

I am vegan

You should tell people more.

[Parafox]

2 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I'm all for the reintroduction of beaver!

I've eaten one or two. Smelled too much like fish for my liking. 

 

Incidentally and sort of linked, how does a vegan "eat beaver" if you know what I mean? Does a vegan never "go south"?  

Edited 20 October 2024 by Parafox

[Dunge]

5 minutes ago, Parafox said:

I've eaten one or two. Smelled too much like fish for my liking. 

 

Incidentally and sort of linked, how does a vegan "eat beaver" if you know what I mean? Does a vegan never "go south"?  

Are you suggesting you can’t be a true vegan unless you also avoid even metaphorical animal husbandry? 

 

“No, I won’t flip the bird. That would be disrespectful of natural boundaries.”

[Jattdogg]

4 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I'm all for the reintroduction of beaver!

Endless supply of beaver over here....book your tickets lads.

[Tommy G]

5 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

From your guesthouse window in Torquay you could see herds of Fresians sweeping majestically across Dartmoor.

Is this a piece of your brain Mrs Richards 

[Lionator]

Bad results coming out the Moldovan election and EU referendum. I would put money on the Russians hacking or corrupting the counting. 

[Jon the Hat]

11 hours ago, SecretPro said:

Quite! Amazing how people so easily disconnect those two things. Why should we care so much about something as small as insects etc? Well, in the words of E O Wilson, 

 

If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos.

 

Basically, without nature, we die. Without even just Bees (a few species amongst millions) we Basically die. 

 

Oh but, its not important.

 

You can believe humans are top of the tree while understanding we are reliant on our ecosystem and need to look after it.

 

Insects are going nowhere.

[bovril]

13 hours ago, Lionator said:

Bad results coming out the Moldovan election and EU referendum. I would put money on the Russians hacking or corrupting the counting. 

Just scraped through. 

[Dunge]

19 minutes ago, bovril said:

Just scraped through. 

52% looking pretty decisive now…

[bovril]

Just now, Dunge said:

52% looking pretty decisive now…

If you discount the half a million voters Russia bribed it's probably a lot higher 

[Daggers]

19 hours ago, jgtuk said:

...there are about 3000 wild boar, a native species! 

As well as a few million domesticated bores.

[Wymsey]

 

 

 

[fox_up_north]

I doubt I'd ever go vegan or veggie fully but I try to do a minimum of 2-3 days a week without meat. Most of my meat eating is evening anyway and it's often fish. 

 

That feels a much more realistic ask for a lot of people. 

[bovril]

9 minutes ago, fox_up_north said:

I doubt I'd ever go vegan or veggie fully but I try to do a minimum of 2-3 days a week without meat. Most of my meat eating is evening anyway and it's often fish. 

 

That feels a much more realistic ask for a lot of people. 

Can't go wrong with fish. God's greatest gift to man.

[JonnyBoy]

cut down on red meat loads, I'm not veg or vegan by any means but i used to eat meat all the time purely out of habit. i don't reduce meat because it helps the environment I do it for my own health but also pleased it helps a wider cause. 

 

I don't think we are designed to eat meat all the time, you look at before introduction of UPF's the majority your diet was plant based and meat was seen as a "treat" when you managed to go out and hunt an antelope, or whatever animal it was that day. 

 

usually eat free range chicken once and a piece of oily fish Mon-Fri. 

[ithuriel]

Hmm another blunder by the government?

 

[urban.spaceman]

1 hour ago, ithuriel said:

Hmm another blunder by the government?

 

No.

[Dunge]

5 hours ago, fox_up_north said:

I doubt I'd ever go vegan or veggie fully but I try to do a minimum of 2-3 days a week without meat. Most of my meat eating is evening anyway and it's often fish. 

 

That feels a much more realistic ask for a lot of people. 

I really need to eat less meat as I eat a lot of it. As a notoriously picky eater though, I do struggle to find vegetarian meals that I like.

[Wymsey]

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/20/david-davis-lucy-letby-conviction-unsafe-innocent-retrial/