Salad Is Murder

I have long been perplexed by the greenies who refuse to eat meat because they believe they would be murdering the animal. This same group of people has lobbied for decades to prove that plants are living creatures. They then eat the plants, which they say are alive, while refusing to eat meat because the animal is alive. Hypocrisy, I know.

Furthermore, I remember hearing these people talk about how you are "hurting" or "torturing" trees and plants if you pull off a branch or leaf. They often equate it with pulling off one of your fingers, or limbs. With that logic ... eating a salad is far more cruel than eating meat. Think about it ... you go up to a living creature (plant), pull off a few limbs to add to your salad, eat it, and repeat over and over again. At least the cow only dies once, and doesn't have to face the torment of a death by a thousand cuts.

It's all very confusing.

Anyway, it now seems that there is another problem with salad ... it is destroying the planet. At least that's what a couple of scientists in Europe are saying.

Sunday Morning Herald:

HUMANS are just one of the millions of species on Earth, but we use up almost a quarter of the sun's energy captured by plants - the most of any species.

The human dominance of this natural resource is affecting other species, reducing the amount of energy available to them by almost 10 per cent, scientists report.

Researchers said the findings showed humans were using "a remarkable share" of the earth's plant productivity "to meet the needs and wants of one species".

There are actually a couple of directions we can take this so called "finding."

Obviously this is a "hate humans" piece. There seems to be an awful lot of those popping up lately, and it makes you wonder why there are so many people who hate themselves out there.

So humans are using an unfair amount of the sun eh? There goes the case for solar power. If we already use too much of the sun's energy then we can't in good conscience develop, and utilize, solar power. That isn't quite what these scientists are saying in this report, but it warrants mentioning.

What they are saying is that humans make too many salads.

This showed humans used 24 per cent of the energy that was captured by plants. More than half of this was due to the harvesting of crops or other plants.

An agriculture professor at the University of Melbourne, Snow Barlow, said the paper showed humans were taking up too much of an important natural resource.

"Here we are, just one species on the earth, and we're grabbing a quarter of the renewable resources … we're probably being a bit greedy."

They also warn all of us about biofuels, and the environmental impact of using them. That's something I've been telling you about for a long time now.

They also warned that the increased use of biofuels - such as ethanol and canola - should be viewed cautiously, given the potential for further pressure on ecosystems.

Looks like we're damned if we do, and damned if we don't. Either we use biofuels, and solar energy in order to reduce our "footprint" and destroy the planet, or we do nothing and destroy the planet.