How First world-choices and consumerism effect the exploitation of humans and animals, poverty, starvation

We live in an insane world where:

-"Aesthetics" is more important than the welfare and health of homeless people. E.g. some States in US have laws that prohibit homeless people from having their belonging on “public property”. See article in note 1.
-Consumerism and buying more stuff than what we need for our survival – more clothes than we need, entertainment, things, etc. – is more important than helping 40 000 people that daily die by starvation and 800 million people in the world are malnourished.
- “Tastebuds”/convenience/social acceptance is more important than to respect and not exploiting nonhuman animals. If we respect animals and want to stop exploit animals we go vegan.
-People choose to consume chocolate despite that it pays for both the exploitation of humans in slave factories and cows being exploited for milk [See The Dark Side of Chocolate].

-Our consumption of cheap garments is causing the exploitation and death of factory workers in Bangladesh, China and other countries: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/04/cause-of-injustices-in-bangladesh-eg-in.html
-Our use of many electronic devices is paying for the exploitation of people in Congo: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/03/slavery-involved-in-producing.html

I wish and work for a world where we don’t exacerbate the poverty, starvation, injustices, environmental destruction involved in/exacerbated by the production and consumption of animal foods, which involves breeding up, using, unnecessarily harming and killing animals for food; and giving them feed that could have been used to feed starving people; while taking their land, driving them out of their homes and growing feed and raising “cattle” on land that could have been used to feed the indigenous population [2]. The feed that feeds the animals only in USA could be used to feed 800 million people. At the same time several million people die of starvation and 870 million suffering from chronic undernourishment [4]. And we have no nutritional need for this (see below).
Learn more here (including notes 2/ and 4/): http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/12/happy-new-vegan-year-free-of-violence.html

I wish and work for a world where we all can live in nonviolent self-sustained vegan permaculture-community promoting veganism and human rights: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2014/04/vision-for-nonviolent-vegan.html

I understand that we in this damaged and violent world can’t escape to make choices that will harm someone else; but we shouldn’t directly exploit anyone and we should minimize the destructive impact we have to others, at the same time we maximize the positive impact we have by helping other human and nonhumans – both through stopping others from exploiting others and through helping others to become self-sustained and come out of poverty and other misery.

Do your best to be a part of the solution and not to perpetuate the problem. Go vegan. Oppose all discrimination. Live a minimalistic, non-consumerist, nonviolent lifestyle. Do your best to become self-sustained and not to be a part of the destructive monoculture-system that provides most of the food in the stores. Do your best to make this planet to a planet where justice, nonviolence and peace prevails!

Thanks for reading! Please share if you think this message is important!
Note 1. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2014/04/21/3428899/fort-lauderdale-criminalize-homelessness/

How capitalism is incompatible with ecological sustainability

How Ethiopia can become self-sustained on a vegan diet, and end starvation and poverty

Here is another example that I did just right now calculating how many that could be fed in Ethiopia if everyone ate a vegan diet and there wasn’t any animal agriculture.

Arable land (hectars): 13606000.0
Population: 86,613,986

“Only 400-480 pounds of meat can be produced by one acre of land [Of an animal that has the right to live, and shouldn’t be killed for someone’s taste], compared to 20,000 pounds of plant foods that could be grown on the same slot.” [1]

More specific of the current agriculture methods in Ethiopia:

“Ethiopia's potato area had grown to 160,000 hectares, with average yields around eight tons per hectare.” [2]

The average adult person would need about 1 ton of potatoes per year. Some of this would be replaced by vegetables and fruits in order to get all nutrition needed. Of course one can also grow other starches other than potatoes, this is just an example.

Plant foods that can be grown on the arable land:
13606000.0 * 8000 kgs of potatoes per year

People that could be fed = 13606000.0 hectars * 8000 kilograms per hectar / 1000 kilograms per person = 108 848 000 adults

Everyone could be fed on a vegan diet. Today because of that they also have domesticate, breed and kill animals for food, they don’t grow enough foods to sustain all the population.

Starvation in Ethiopia:“The U.N. World Food Program estimates that 2.7 million Ethiopians will need emergency food aid because of late rains — nearly double the number who needed help last year. An additional 5 million of Ethiopia's 80 million people receive aid each year because they never have enough food, whether harvests are good or not.”

“Samuel Akale, a nutritionist with the government's disaster prevention agency, said the hunger will get worse. "The number of severely malnourished will increase, and then they'll die."”

“Ethiopia is a country with a history of hunger. It's food problems drew international attention in 1984 when a famine compounded by communist policies killed some 1 million people. Pictures of stick-thin children like Bizunesh were broadcast onto television sets around the world.”
Quotes from: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/24731042/ns/world_news-africa/t/once-again-children-are-starving-ethiopia/
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Do you know how much of Ethiopias arable land that is used for animal agriculture?

"Of Ethiopia's total land area of 1,221,480 square kilometers, the government estimated in the late 1980s that 15 percent was under cultivation and 51 percent was pasture. It was also estimated that over 60 percent of the cultivated area was cropland. Forestland, most of it in the southwestern part of the country, accounted for 4 percent of the total land area, according to the government. These figures varied from those provided by the World Bank, which estimated that cropland, pasture, and forestland accounted for 13%, 41%, and 25%, respectively, of the total land area in 1987.[4]"

4.Wubne, Mulatu. "Agriculture" (and subsections). A Country Study: Ethiopia (Thomas P. Ofcansky and LaVerle Berry, eds.) Library of Congress Federal Research Division (1991). This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.[2].
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agriculture_in_Ethiopia
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I am advocating a vegan diet. All production of animal foods involves or indirectly causes unnecessary harm and death: http://abolitionistvegansociety.org/tavs-initiatives/tavs-articles/how-to-go-vegan/should-i-go-vegan-by-adopting-a-vegetarian-diet-first/

Footnotes:
1.http://www.belsandia.com/comfortably-unaware.html
2.https://research.cip.cgiar.org/confluence/display/wpa/Ethiopia

What about droughts???
Solution:
1.Permaculture.
2.With a plant-only agriculture they will be able to feed all the population and also save some of the harvest, which can be used when there are droughts, etc.

In any instance, a plant-only-agriculture is much more efficient compared to an animal agriculture - both in terms of plant protein required, water required (especially important in Ethiopia!!!), etc.:
According to Cornell University Professors David Pimental and Marcia Pimental, it takes 13 kilograms (2.2 pounds) of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce one kilogram of beef; 21 kilograms of grain and 30 kilograms of forage to produce kilogram of lamb; 5.9 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of pork; 3.8 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of turkey; 2.3 kilograms of grain to produce a kilogram of chicken, and 11 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of eggs. Livestock in the United States consume 7 times as much grain as is consumed by the entire U.S. human population and that the grains fed to livestock could feed 840 million humans who had a plant-based diet. One kilogram of animal protein requires about 100 times more water than does 1 kilogram of grain protein. It takes between 20 and 100 gallons of water to produce most vegetables or fruit. The Pimental study says it takes more than 2000,000 liters of water to produce one kilogram of pasture-raised beef. The estimates of water required for a pound of beef go from 2,000 to 12,000 gallons; it takes about 110 gallons of water to produce a pound of wheat. Most estimates vary between 1000 to 2000 gallons of water to produce a gallon of milk.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations states that animal agriculture contributes more greenhouse gases, which are linked directly to global warming, to the atmosphere than does burning fossil fuel for transportation. According to Worldwatch Institute, animal agriculture produces an estimated 51% of the worldwide total of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Moreover, a significant amount of fossil energy is required to yield an animal-based product. The average fossil energy input for all animal protein sources is 25 kcal of fossil energy input to 1 kcal of animal protein produced, which is more than 11 times greater than for grain
protein production.
Quote: https://www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach/posts/596843230335435

How does a vegan diet and permaculture help cease poverty and starvation?

Regarding poverty and starvation I recommend you to study:
http://comfortablyunaware.com/blog/the-world-hunger-food-choice-connection-a-summary/
http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/expert_testimonies_oppenlander.htm





I made a simple calculation here how Bangladesh could become self-sustained, and everyone in Bangladesh could be fed on the arable land that is available today, if everyone ate a vegan diet: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/04/cause-of-injustices-in-bangladesh-eg-in.html

It is very clear that we would be able to feed everyone on this planet if everyone ate a vegan diet.
We can also revive desert land, and make them arable, by permaculture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-CxP0Thljr4


As for when humans not any more use domesticated animals: We will stop all domestication and breeding of animals. That means in a vegan world we won’t breed, feed and kill about 58 billion domesticated animals per year.
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I think it is very easy:
1. It is wrong to inflict suffering and death on sentient beings (human or nonhuman) without any necessity.

2. Whatever necessity includes, it must, if it is to be meaningful, exclude the imposition of suffering and death for reasons of pleasure, amusement, or convenience.

3. Apart from life boat/desert island scenarios, there is no need to eat animal foods to be healthy.

4. Therefore, eating animal foods outside of extreme situations serves only pleasure, amusement, or convenience.

5. Therefore, it is morally wrong to inflict suffering and death on animals for food.

Quotes and subsequent discussion here: https://www.facebook.com/abolitionistapproach/posts/630709030282188

Great Britain, Europe and the world and sustainable vegan plantbased agriculture

Molly,
If we start with a completely plant-based agriculture, we will eliminate starvation and poverty. See e.g. this article that I wrote about Bangladesh: http://bloganders.blogspot.no/2013/04/cause-of-injustices-in-bangladesh-eg-in.html and this article [2].

You can choose to enslave, raise and kill an innocent cow on pasture to feed one person, or you can choose to use the same area (about at least 8000m^2 per cow) to feed 36 persons for one year [1]. Potatoes and nutrition: http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2008nl/may/potato.htm

Learn more here: http://comfortablyunaware.com/index.php/blog/be-aware-the-myth-1/

In a vegan just world, where everyone cares about everyone else – humans and nonhumans, feeding all of the population will not be a problem at all!!

Which would you choose???

1. http://www.ukagriculture.com/crops/potatoes_uk.cfm ; based on 45 ton yield for one hectar.
2. http://www.drmcdougall.com/video/expert_testimonies_oppenlander.htm

The connection of eating meat and starvation

My answer regarding plants to a person:
First of all, I recommend this post about plants: http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/a-frequently-asked-question-what-about-plants/

It shows that plants are not sentient and they don't feel pain and suffering.
If you still think that plants are consciousness, just like we are and all the other animals are, then avoid killing them. You don't need to. See the paragraph further down.

If you kill and eat cows - then you kill an innocent and conscious cow; and  in total you consume more than 10 times more plants are consumed (the food of the cow) compared to the amount of plants you would have had to consume if you ate a vegan diet. This is also why we will eliminate starvation and poverty if everyone eats a vegan diet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fws0f9s4Bas

To quote Philip Wollen: "Poor countries sell their grain to the West while their own children starve in their arms. And we feed it to livestock. So we can eat a steak? Am I the only one who sees this as a crime? Every morsel of meat we eat is slapping the tear-stained face of a starving child. When I look into her eyes, should I be silent?
The earth can produce enough for everyone’s need. But not enough for everyone’s greed."

Second of all, if you think that plants are sentient beings, think about the following [a quote from another person]:
First off you don't kill plants. (..) If you eat an apple does the apple tree die?
You throw the apple seeds into the ground another apple tree may sprout. Where is the killing?
Do you know that if you planted a carrot top into the soil it will start growing again. Although you won't get a full grown carrot but it does grow.
The only plants you actually "kill" are then ones you need to uproot the roots for.
Take a look at a grain or legume field a soy, rice or wheat field. They are brown when its ready to harvest.

Thats because the plant is dead. I was a part of a seed conservation project.
You cannot conserve seeds from a live plant. Lets take soy. If you plucked the edmame the green raw soy it will rot in some time. Very rarely does it become hard. You have to wait for the plant to die. During this process the seed/legume produces enough phytic acid to protect it and becomes dry natural. Such seeds/legumes stay for years without getting spoiled.
Then plants and humans/animal have a symbiotic relationship. Plants can't move. They need external
help. that is why they produce nectar so they can attract the bees and butterflies that help them cross pollinate the flowers so they can reproduce.

Seeds that fall to the ground from overripe fruits or other plants do not grow into a tree. Because the "parent" plant shade and roots does not allow it to grow.
A human or an animal has to eat that fruit and disperse it far enough so it can grow.
This is how all natural fruit groves have come into existence.
A study found that 80% of all trees were planted by squirrels. They store nuts for winter and then they forget where they have stored it, when monsoon comes these nuts grow into trees.
So that you are killing any plants is just a myth .
If you are concerned about carrots then you can follow Jain Philosophy, Manish Jain Can, help you more with this.
Donald Watson was inspired by Jain philosophy of Ahimsa and Veganism is based on it.
They don't eat carrots, potatoes, and other roots vegetables Manish can help you with what to avoid and what are the alternatives.

Loving an animal and to kill an animal - an oxymoron

I think in order to accomplish world peace we must stop using violence both towards other humans and towards other animals. If we sow violence, we reap violence. If we sow love and compassion, we reap love and compassion.

We should treat others as we want to be treated ourselves
All animals are conscious and they do value life as much as we do. If we love the, we must respect them, respect their relationsships with their family and respect their relationsships with the friends.

We love each other in this forum - I hope. We don't kill each other. Loving and killing are two oxymorons. In order to take someone else's life you need to sacrifice part of your innate love and empathy. This takes place everytime we put another animal on our plate for trivial reasons such as "taste", convenience or habit.

There are no humane ways of killing a human. There are no humane ways of killing another animal.

If we don't want to be killed, we shouldn't kill other animals (regardless of species - humans, dogs, cats, cows, chicken, etc.).
If we don't want someone else to steal our family, we shouldn't steal their family.
If we want to find our purpose in this world, we shouldn't steal others purpose.
If we don't want to be exploited and abused, we shouldn't abuse anyone else.
If we don't want to become enslaved, we shouldn't keep anyone else as a slave.
If we don't want to hurt any animals, we must become vegans (i.e. stop eating, wearing and using animal products, and in other ways do actions that are hurting and killing animals).
If we love animals, we don't kill animals. We don't kill and eat anyone that we love. If we love animals, we must support their want to not be oppressed, including not to be killed.

 I recommend this lecture: http://vimeo.com/17538152

All kind of animal products, including eggs and milk, are causing humans and other animals terrible suffering, oppression, starvation and death. Being vegan is the only way not to participate in the oppression.

If you claim to 'love' animals but you eat animal products, you need to think critically about how you understand love.

http://www.abolitionistapproach.com/a-thought-about-the-meaning-of-love/#.UY6rM404VD8

Reply to counter-argument to veganim: Vegan don't addres the environmental impact of their diet.

Destructive techniques is a problem of non-vegan farmers, so is GMO and pollution.I believe in small-scale farming without machines, pesticides and GMO, one can e.g. plant 6000 pounds of plant food on 1/10 acre in California. Animals are saved by becoming vegan and inspiring people to become vegan. If there were no vegan the suffering and death would happen to many, many more animals.

The plant-based foods that the more than 56 billion land animals (who have the sadly misfortune to grow up to become someones food) brutally slaughtered each year eats could feed more than 9 billion people.
15 million children are dieing of starvation in the world each year. Hundreds of millions don't get enough food. If we care of them we must let our eating habits reflect this. If everyone ate plant-based food, the food would suffice for everyone's need. Read Dr. Richard oppenlander

The enironmental impact of people eating animal products are much, much higher compared to the diet of a vegan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drS5hHdelR8

90% of all soy grown in the world are fed to livestock. I don't eat any soy, nor GMO, at all and do my best to minimize my environmental impact, including buying as much organic food that I can. In 2011, there was a record harvest of grain globally, with over 2.5 billion tons, but half of that was fed to animals in the meat and dairy industries. Please read The World Hunger-Food Choice Connection: A Summary by Dr. Richared A. Oppenlander and World Peace Diet by Will Tuttle.

Reply to:
"All the vegans ones cause Animal death too, its just that vegans are hypocritical and do not want to address the environmental impact of their diet, they would like to remain silent when it comes to addressing the destructive techniques used in modern agriculture, the pollution on a massive scale agriculture dose and the spread of GMO products. also the fact that not a single animal was ever saved by anyone becoming a vegan, there are more factory farms than ever, not less, it makes YOU happy"

There is a solution to poverty and starvation and the solution is a world where no people at animal products

I think that we should focus on what people can do. It is so easy for people to think what others can do, but then they forget their own potential and the difference that they can make; and how their decisions has a big effect on others poverty and starvation.
 
This is what I think we should make our friends understand:
The plant-based foods that the more than 56 billion land animals (who have the sadly misfortune to grow up to become someones food) brutally slaughtered each year eats could feed more than 9 billion people.
15 million children are dieing of starvation in the world each year. Hundreds of millions don't get enough food. If we care of them we must let our eating habits reflect this. If everyone ate plant-based food, the food would suffice for everyone's need.

This is not the only effect. By eating animal products 3 times a day we teach our children that it is okay to take the life of innocent sentient beings, and that some individuals are of less value than others; instead of increasing our children's love and compassion by loving all sentient beings for their different qualities (just as many parents teach their children to extend their love and compassion for some dogs). I became a vegan this autumn and notice how this also increases my love and compassion for other humans, and not only all other animals.

This articles shows how eating animal products effects the environment and effects poverty and starvation: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/22/quinoa-bolivian-farmers-meat-eaters-hunger

Research -see e.g. the research referred to here: http://www.adelicatebalance.com.au/ - has proven that animal products are unhealthy.

A very strong argument to eat a plant-based diet: A cow, or a horse, or a dog, or a cat -- is there any difference? They are all sentient beings, they all have feelings, they all want to live and they all love their family!!!!!
We all agree that it is morally wrong to cause unnecessary suffering and death to animals -- and condemn people who for example enjoy and promote killing innocent dogs just because they got tired of them. However, we must also acknowledge that all animal products-eating is unnecessary and is done merely for "taste" and "enjoyment". So if we want to be moral we must also act upon what we acknowledge -that causing unnecessary suffering and death to animals is unnecessary. And in order to not cause other beings unnecessary suffering we must become vegans: see www.vegankit.com

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The animal industry (all kind of farming), has a vast environmental impact and is causing poverty, starvation, a vast amount of greenhouse-gases and subsequent deaths to humans and other animals by droughts and floods because of climate change: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fws0f9s4Bas&feature=em-uploademail

15 million children are dieing of starvation in the world each year. Hundreds of millions don't get enough food. If we care of them we must let our eating habits reflect this. If everyone ate plant-based food, the food would suffice for everyone's need. More information: http://comfortablyunaware.com/blog/the-world-hunger-food-choice-connection-a-summary/
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Now, when it comes to "Feeding other humans nutrients," you may be surprised to learn this: "A global shift towards a vegan diet is vital to save the world from hunger, fuel poverty and the worst impacts of climate change, a UN report said today."

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/jun/02/un-report-meat-free-diet