In defense of Meat

An interesting viewpoint here. I say "interesting" I guess to be purposely milquetoast; I largely agree with what Harvey Ussery has to say, but of course, there are boatloads of critiques, glossed-over points, retorts to critiques and counter-critiques to be had, as seems to happen all the time with food. (This is my impression right now of what seems to be the "local-food-backlash", that is, a flurry of academic and popular articles on how local food actually may be worse, from energy efficiency, causing smugness and related moral turpitude, etc. etc. I was flabbergasted when a mathematician shook her head at me when I maintained that, ceteris paribus (all things being equal), local should be more efficient. I think it's pretty much definitionally true that local food is better, all things being equal; a separate question is whether and when they in fact are equal. But I feel like the local critique is as much founded in a backlash as it is in the fact that local is, of course, not an unconditional universally-good free panacea. I still think the science bears out that more local food systems are a better idea, on average, than a far-flung food system. But I digress.)

Worth a read; not necessarily a new argument but a passionately and clearly phrased one, and one that I think I'm on board with (but can't be sure because my mind has been quite hijacked by work for the past several days and is not all with me). Ussery seems like an interesting guy in the Joel Salatin mode (so much so that I was looking askance at his website to see if he shared some of Salatin's more, um, iconoclastic political views); worth looking more into.

Reasonable words on GM Foods

I'm rather skeptical of genetically modified foods myself, both on grounds of safety and efficacy in addressing hunger (and I realize these are heavily contested points and I'm just not going to venture back into them now), but an article at The Guardian maintains that the new synthesis is in, and it's one I largely agree with:

On Wednesday night a debate on GMOs at the illustrious Royal Society of Chemistry HQ in London suggested a breakthrough. Afterwards the feeling was that it was a win on points for the GM sceptics... But [GM proponents] can take heart: the debate was less a defeat for GM than for the way it has developed. The corollary is that if the government really believes that the only way to increase yields is through GM technology, it will have to fund this itself.

The winning argument on Wednesday was not really about science at all, but about the ethics of a method of increasing yields that delivers such power into the hands of the multinationals... GM may be a small part of the answer. But it has a mixed record in Asia, where it has tended to enrich the rich and impoverish the poor, and it is unlikely to be any part of the answer to food security in Africa for the foreseeable future. As the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation pointed out last year, there is enough food for everyone. It just isn't available in the right places... globally the need is for publicly funded science to investigate sustainable agriculture in the widest possible meaning of the word: better farming practices, a viable pricing system and, for the global north, a radical change in patterns of consumption.

The "consensus position" (of three or four people I've talked with) is that a reasonable position genetic modification includes a much larger public sector involvement and relative decrease in blockages from Intellectual Property Regimes (if not directly challenging established patents, then developing GM products in the public domain via universities and government funding; many have pointed out that whatever the pluses and minuses of the "first" Green Revolution, a key component of it was the public rather than proprietary nature of a significant portion of its technologies), AND most (of the three or four I've had an extended discussion with) agree as well that large-scale public epidemiology trials should be conducted. GM proponents often proclaim that it's the most widely tested, heavily regulated technology, yet there have been no systematic human feeding trials that I've ever heard of, and certainly no longitudinal ones. Since we're already eating them anyway, seems to me it only makes sense to do large-scale trials taking some people "off" GMs to the extent possible (this would pose a challenge but could be done in part using organic foods) and comparing to a paired sample of people maintaining a GM-diet (not hard since most corn and soybean in the US is already GM). Such trials would be complicated, but there seems little reasonable rationale for not doing them, and doing them would begin to settle much between proponents and opponents (not all, not by half, but much, and would be a substantial improvement on the status quo).

Of course, the thing about the consensus over making GMs:
a) publicly funded/public domain
b) widely, openly and long-term tested
is that it seems quite unlikely to happen, whatever we agree to. GM companies and most governments have no intention of vigorously supporting either position... making articles like that in the Guardian all the more important. If all those of good intent can agree on these two propositions (or something like them) and bridge the divide between people legitimately concerned with hunger and justice but with different evaluations of GM, we can force the hand of governments and companies. Arguing between ourselves has produced more heat than light; hopefully the event reported by the Guardian can be the foundation of a new direction?*




*Rather reminds me of an article a friend recently posted: Let's All Agree: Factory Farming is the Real Evil, Not Vegans. Which I can rather agree to, if one adds the corollary that "factory farms are the enemy, not meat-eaters. Even unconscientious meat-eaters aren't the enemy; we don't want to wipe them out, we want to convince them. Vegan/vegetarianism is threatening and foreign to many people, and trying to shock and shame them into better behavior seems to more commonly generate anger than conversion. Surely, vegans have as much a responsibility as small-farm omnivores to promote co-operation and reasonable discourse, and all of us have a responsibility to convince others. In looking to do so, we should evaluate what's most effective, not necessarily what seems most morally satisfying, most extreme, or most attention-getting. All of those have a time and a place, but it's not always the time and place for all of them. I don't read a lot of vegan writing, but it seems to me there's responsibility on both sides for toning down rhetoric and looking to work together against factory farming, rather than against each other. (Especially because I think consumer activism is severely limited and mainly symbolic by itself, without political agitation and structural change, anyway.)

Babbling, hopefully in an interesting way, about veganism

This responds to this article on the HuffPo by Ari Solomon.
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Despite agreeing with much behind what Solomon says, I think he undermines himself in this article that is, basically, a screed on vegan's rationality. Yet, he clearly has feelings about veganism that go beyond the rational or "logical." There is nothing inherently wrong about this, but from a rational/logical perspective, I find this sentiment ill-formulated:

"All animals deserve to be free from unnecessary pain, fear, and suffering at the hands of humans."

It may be morally hard to disagree with that, but it *is* a statement on morality, a value statement, not a logical proposition. I wouldn't argue that working to help fellow humans or, say, broad secular humanism are purely "logical" systems. For example, I myself choose to work in an area pertinent to social justice because of my relevant beliefs, not because it is in some unassailable way "logical." And of course, one cannot actually practice what Solomon is talking about literally, because the growing of vegetable crops takes an undoubtedly huge toll on animals as well, from their production (i.e. pest elimination, exploitation of pollinating bees) to their harvest (i.e. threshers killing field animals; tractors crushing soil fauna), their processing (even vegan and vegetarian processed foods tend to be made in plants, where there again will be pest control and likely "maximum allowable" animal parts from processing plant mishaps with resident rodents, say), and their transport (I'm sure we could cut down the number of insect deaths and roadkill if we demanded all food transport took place at low speeds, i.e. not interstate highway speeds.)

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-solomon/who-you-callin-vegangelic_b_290582.html

This is not to critique veganism as inherently flawed, and heaven forbid that someone think I'm defending careless or thoughtless eating. Local food, ethically produced food, organic food, food where you personally know the farmer, and yes, vegetarianism and veganism all help address numerous problems in our food system, that threaten our ecosystems and ourselves. But come on--addressing many of these issues is a moral choice, verging on a choice of "faith" in how the world should be run and for whom.

"...if we say we care about cruelty to animals then it's time we start caring about all animals. Yes, dogs and cats are companion animals but in terms of suffering our canine and feline friends feel the same as a pig, cow, chicken, lamb, or turkey. To pick and choose species in terms of whose pain we care about is incredibly hypocritical and inconsistent."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-solomon/who-you-callin-vegangelic_b_290582.html

There is much, *much* to agree with in veganism. But this article sets out to talk about its logical premises, and then leaves numerous logical holes, filled in with values. Values that may be noble, or righteous, or just, but nobility and righteousness verge on what one could call spiritual choices.

Solomon seems to aspire to the intellectual rigor of, say, a Peter Singer, but seems unwilling to fully embrace utilitarianism or a similar system where there is consistency, but as with any system, absolute consistency or certainty leads to counter-intuitive or extreme results. An absolutely consistent veganism along his lines would lead to conclusions way beyond what most would consider reasonable or, dare I say, "rational". For Singer's utilitarianism, this comes in often with his famous equating of animals with humans without higher reasoning/brain functions; in Solomon's case, the inescapable conclusion that "consistency" would demand could be, for example, not eating almost all crops in the US, considering the animals killed in the production of almost all plant-based products, especially those processed or transported for any significant distance. By the same consistency, one could similarly critique and therefore conditionally ban the use of, say, wind power, airline travel, and tall city buildings that, even with technological advances, will likely inevitably kill significant numbers of birds, etc.; one could conditionally ban non-emergency speeds above, say, 30 or 40 mph to avoid killing insects or inadvertent roadkill.

I don't disagree with the aspirations of veganism; but seeking to avoid the "exploitation" or unnecessary pain on all animals is a *value decision*. It must be discussed as such, especially if you wish to talk about all meat and all animal products; veganism has no special claim on logic, and to appeal to such a claim is not only inconsistent, verging on perhaps hypocritical, but also counterproductive. Just like telling religious people that they can't possibly be religious and care about logic, telling everyone that they can't possibly care about animals unless they follow vegan rules generates far more self-satisfaction and (illogical) righteousness than it does converts or reasoned discussion.