Uh, waitress???....I will have the filet mignon with a side order of veal parm, and a nice chicken chaser!....and send the bill to our friends at the Global Warming headquaters c/o A. Gore.....

This just shows how laughable all this GW hysteria is. It really is. I'm just entertained by it all. I guess I'll stop laughing when the government steps in and starts making us pay carbon taxes and places severe restrictions on our lifestyles, but until then...har-de-har-har!

There is nothing wrong with people who choose a vegan diet, but humans are higher on the food chain for a reason, so we can eat other animals. I do not agree with PETA tring for force their believes down my throat or anyone else for that matter. Do I think Al Gore will go for PETA's challenge? I would think and hope not.

This just goes to show the ridiculousness of the environmental left. Under the auspices of solving �climate change,� they want to radically change every aspect of civil society and send us back to the dark ages. The same groups that abhor eating meat, driving a car, owning a business, and just about every other human activity can also be heard griping about �over-population.� It seems they have slipped past having a genuine interest in solving global warming to something much more sinister. The policies they advocate (carbon caps, elimination of fossil fuels, etc) would have a devastating effect in America and abroad, condemning developing nations and emerging economies to yet more unimaginable poverty. Put together, all of this suggests that the environmental left just doesn�t like people.

At the same time, the cannibalization of the left is a new and interesting phenomenon. Get the popcorn, it�s about to get interesting.

Wow, way to go PETA!

If the GW cult want to minimize society's influence on global warming, than reducing animal consumption is definitely raising the bar!

If the GW omnivores became vegan's, than we could reduce the world's animal population & plant more vegetables. This would help to reduce greenhouse gases. Brilliant! You would also have to stop buying leather belts, shoes, coats, purses, etc, OK?

We should also limit pets of all kinds to one(1) per household. Sorry, it is only fair that we regulate all greenhouse emitters, not just industry.

O.k. well first I am not a red state meat eater, I am a liberal and even though I am not fully vegan or even vegitarian, I rarely and I mean RARELY ever eat meat, I am an animal lover also, but I think PETA as always is trying to convert everyone and that just isn't going to happen, in fact it only makes people laugh more at them. We need to take realistic steps in fighting global warming, and turning everyone into soy machines isn't one of them. One major reason is that soy is the alternative protein and many people have soy allergies, I have seen what happens to people who don't get enough protein and it isn't pretty. I do understand that the livestock sector causes more greenhouse emmisions than transportation, but so do the volcanoes in Hawaii, I don't see Al Gore adding plugging Kilauea into his speaches.

Uh, OK. So PETA doesn't want us to eat meat, but all the live animals that we aren't allowed to kill and eat create more greenhouse gases. Has PETA thought that far ahead? Not only that, but I have lived with a Vegan and they produce enough greenhouse gases by themselves eating vegetation.

I was speaking with my favorite grocer yesterday, and he mentioned that chicken & egg prices are going up. Come to find out that the big push to switch to ethanol is causing a corn shortage. Corn feed is what chickens eat, with the shortage of corn, prices of corn feed has gone sky rocketing causing farmers to start to kill off their chickens because they can't afford to feed them. Which has a direct effect on the consumer because this will cause a chicken shortage (I know they are a pain to deal with)...which will cause all chicken and egg prices to go up. So if you like eggs to go with your morning coffee get ready to pay out the wazoo for them.

This just shows how laughable all this GW hysteria is. It really is. I'm just entertained by it all. I guess I'll stop laughing when the government steps in and starts making us pay carbon taxes and places severe restrictions on our lifestyles, but until then...har-de-har-har!

I wonder if John will be laughing when the skyrocketing costs of property insurance destroys the housing markets of Florida, the entire gulf coast, and the low-lying areas of southern California. I wonder how many of the millions of refugees who will be fleeing the explosively-growing wildfires of the west will be laughing along with John. One category-3 (at landfall) hurricane has cost federal taxpayers at least tens of billions of dollars, and still counting. I wonder where John will want those federal dollars to come from. Or perhaps John will prefer to let the "invisible hand" of the "free market" decide what to do with millions of displaced American citizens, the hundreds of billions of dollars lost, and the resulting changes in the economy and culture of his state, the US, and the world.

Keep laughing, John. Har-de-har-har.

I am still waiting for someone objective to retrospectively evaluate the animals' (bison, wild sheep. deer, antelope, and other wild ruminants) contribution (of methane) back in the days when these herds were numerous. And then also to compare their numbers, say 200 years ago, with the current numbers of animals grown for steak. I'm just curious.

Hey Joe! In all probability, The Ozone Man probably eats expensive steaks at this Tennessee Mansion while consuming large amounts of energy to heat it! So I would not worry about the spewer of Ozone spew dealing with the PETA wackos.

Humans are the highest on the food chain, but only because of our intelligence, not because of biology. Case in point: a true carnivore, such as a lion or tiger, hunts its own food and is able to digest raw meat. Humans, on the other hand, are biologically unable to digest raw meat. We came up with a mechanism -- cooking -- to convert meat into a form that is digestable by our bodies. We came up with contraptions -- guns, weapons -- to kill animals that we never could with our bare hands. We also do not have carnivorous teeth; our teeth are similar to vegetarian species.

That being said, I do eat meat, but I'm not about to proclaim that we are "naturally" at the top of the food chain. Lions are naturally (biologically) at the top of the food chain. We are at the top because of intelligence.

Brandon:

I congratulate you on admitting that you are a liberal. It seems that very few are truly honest about their perspective. I am not a liberal but, contrary to popular belief, I am also an animal lover. Like you, I am a psuedo vegetarian.

I agree wholeheartedly that PETA often discredits themselves in their actions and statements. I also truly appreciate your recognition that the livestock industry and volcanoes contibute more greenhouse gases than does transportation. I do wonder what a more realistic solution to global warming is though. Most of the ones I have seen are scientifically accurate, but economically and realistically unfeasible. That being said, maybe not eating beef is as viable as anything else.

Well, you have to give PETA credit. If you buy into the man-made Global Warming hoax, then yes, you need to go vegatarian. That is, if you really believe in it, and arent just a poser environmentalist.

The PETA spokesman I saw the other night on the news made a great point - its far easier to reduce your 'carbon footprint' by changing eating habits than changing, say, your transportation choices. And the numbers are backed up, as you mention Laura - livestock are a huge contributor to CO2 and methane emissions.

Mark:
Humans are the highest on the food chain, but only because of our intelligence, not because of biology. Case in point: a true carnivore, such as a lion or tiger, hunts its own food and is able to digest raw meat. Humans, on the other hand, are biologically unable to digest raw meat. We came up with a mechanism -- cooking -- to convert meat into a form that is digestable by our bodies. We came up with contraptions -- guns, weapons -- to kill animals that we never could with our bare hands. We also do not have carnivorous teeth; our teeth are similar to vegetarian species.

That being said, I do eat meat, but I'm not about to proclaim that we are "naturally" at the top of the food chain. Lions are naturally (biologically) at the top of the food chain. We are at the top because of intelligence.

Posted by Mark | March 9, 2007 11:56 AM

Mark Mark Mark, we are at the top of the food chain because of our biology. Intelligence is part of our biology as much as a lions sharp teeth and claws. Hominids have been able to digest raw meat for millions of years. In fact our bodies have an easier time digesting and extracting nurishment from meat than from plant material. Our guts cannot break down cellulose but they can break down protine. It is true that cooking makes foods more digetsible, edible and thus helped humans evolve into what we are today. We are omnivores capable of eating both plant and animals. Our dentition and gastrointestinal system proves this.

Nobody's even mentioned what we'll do with all the remaining live cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, fish and so on if our wonderful government in our wonderful "free country" ever made eating these a federal felony....let all these "evil CO2 emitters" freely reproduce & roam the earth so their CO2 output can multiply(no, SKYROCKET) rather than just increase to meet the current demand? Sure, that's going to solve anything...........

Joe writes:
but humans are higher on the food chain for a reason, so we can eat other animals

Mark already pointed out why it's erroneous necessarily to say humans are "on top of the food chain".

The way your statement is phrased however, it sounds more like you are saying the food chain gives humans the moral authority to eat animals (as opposed to simply saying eating animals places us at the top of the food chain). Or to put it another way, we can eat other animals because we've done it in recent history enough to be considered by some as "at the top of the food chain". Sounds like circular logic to me.

Rose writes:
So PETA doesn't want us to eat meat, but all the live animals that we aren't allowed to kill and eat create more greenhouse gases

I'm pretty sure the reason why there is an estimated 1.6 billion cattle in the world today is precisely because of increased dairy/meat production. Gray wolves were nearly hunted to extinction in order to protect cattle. Of all agricultural land in the world, 70% of it is devoted to animal agriculture. The majority of soybean production from the rain forest is for consumption by cattle. This is because of the inherit general rule of 90% energy loss at each level of consumption (trophic level). The result is that 16-20 pounds of grain are necessary to produce 1 pound of meat.

my o my brookline u need to chill...i think your perception of manmade global warming is overcooking your reasoning...i have something i would like you to ponder so that you can sleep at night and not worry about all those people...insurance costs will not skyrocket due to manmade global warming because there is no appreciable effect...the sea is not going to rise and flood those low areas because of manmade global warming because there is none...the west is not going to burn because of manmade global warming because there is none...if you are really concerned about those folks, help them by telling them not to build in canyons that are susceptible to seasonal fire dangers and coastlines exposed to seasonal hurricanes all of which are recurring natural phenomen...these catastrophies will happen again, its only a matter of time...if you cant convinced them to do that, then at least you can rest at night knowing that you spent all your energy, not an some fake global warming idea, but something that just made commmon sense...have a nice day, get outside and feel the warm sunshine on your shoulders, its a good thing especially this year in the great ole usa, its been cold lately!

I think the point is humans CAN survive without meat, however they are also able to eat meat, so nobody should push there beliefs on anyone on this subject, just feel good about what you choose either way. Thanks for your comment Darren, I really respect it when someone even on the other side of the political spectrum can at least act in a mature manner about it and take the time to read my post. As I said before, we are all in this together, I DO believe humans are somewhat to blame on the faster onset of Global Warming and I DO believe we can slow it down, but we need to be rational and realistic about it, and PETA just isn't.

Insurance will always be more expensive in hurricane prone areas of the country. The AWG hoax will just give them carte blanche to raise the rates willy-nilly with their brainwashed customers not whining too much about it.
Katrina cost the taxpayers billions because New Orleans being below sea level was an accident waiting to happen. This storm wasn't any stronger than than a cat. 3 when it hit the city and the sea level is the same basically that it has been this century. The city itself is sinking as a matter of fact. AWG had nothing to do with Katrina, as much as the AWG proponents and misguided media people would have us believe. To state otherwise is simply false and misleading.
Oh, and I eat raw hamburger from my butchered steers all the time and digest it quite nicely.

SM,

Try eating some raw bacon, or raw chicken, or even raw beef. After you have your near-death experience in the emergency room, come back here and tell me how 'natural' it is for humans to eat meat.

It's not.

-Mark

Tommy,

Oh oh, the boogie man is back.

For someone that wants peer-reviewed data on anything and everything that opposes your viewpoint, I find it amusing that you run to the shelter of the future and predictions that are totally without merit and of course, cannot be challenged because it is the FUTURE.

Please provide me with peer-reviewed weather models and their percentage of accuracy in the time period you're stating. The reason why you won't go there is because the current models that you are using, utilize fixed data and human assumptions (SWAG) to fill in voids because current computing power doesn't exist to handle the dynamics of the earth's atmosphere. ...period...dot. That is one reason why the IPCC lowered it's sea rise estimated in the last 5 years from 20+ feet to 17 inches. One tenth of one degree difference in input of data causes wild swings in model-based predictions.

Go ahead and tell me more about this crystal ball that you have, it sounds interesting.

Good Luck,

Dave

Try eating some raw bacon, or raw chicken, or even raw beef. After you have your near-death experience in the emergency room, come back here and tell me how 'natural' it is for humans to eat meat.

It's not.

REPLY: Mark, after reading this comment three times to verify it's absurdity, I feel that I must inform you...YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO COOK THESE ITEMS!......

lol... good one Ozi... =)

Speaking of eating raw meat. I saw an episode of wife swap the other day....and there was a family on there that ate nothing but raw meat. When forced to eat cooked meat they thought it was good, but it did make them sick. How did cavemen eat meat before discovering fire? My guess...they ate it raw. After awhile, your body builds up a tolerance to the bacteria. So theoretically (not advisable) you could eta it raw then. SO that would make it natural for us too. Poor little Fido you won't be able to keep him as a pet at the rate we're going.

I have actually eaten raw beef since I was little. I prefer it that way. I can't stand well done, or even medium cooked meat. It has never made me sick, nor have I ever thought it bad or odd. I won't eat raw chicken or pork, but I find nothing wrong with beef. And yes, I do follow a Paleolithic diet.

Apparently Ponzi missed the earlier part of the discussion.

The issue isn't raw meat in those examples it's bacteria such as Staphylococcus aureus, Salmonella, Clostridium perfringens, Campylobacter, Listeria monocytogenes, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, Bacillus cereus, and Escherichia coli. Inuit peoples have had no problem eating a raw meat diet. When you've studied anatomy, physiology, and biology as long as I have get back to me.

Good for them. Meat eating environmentalist = hypocrite. Unless of course you're eating it out of a dumpster or scraping up roadkill.
Where are half of all antibiotics used? - The petri dishes we call slaughter houses.