NOT CURRENTLY A MEMBER?
If you`re not currently a member of your local FOE group, it`s easy to sign up! Joining doesn`t mean that you`re obliged to attend meetings & other events(although that`s a great way of networking!), it simply means you`ll be able to contribute your thoughts about FOE`s future campaigns. There are over 200 local FOE groups across the UK, so there`s bound to be a group near you, and you can become a member for as little as £2-3 a year. You can find your local group here
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HOW YOU CAN INPUT YOUR THOUGHTS
JANUARY 2007 - Regional Five Year Plan Consultation Meetings
During January 2007, every region across the country will host a Five Year Plan Consultation Meeting. Local group members are being encouraged to attend their regional meeting. The West Midlands meeting takes place on Sat 13 Jan in Birmingham City Centre. You can find details of your regional meeting here
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APRIL - MAY 2007 - More Online/Written Consultation
More communication and small scale consultation on the key strategic decisions so far.
AUTUMN 2007 - Developing and Deciding on Specific Campaigns
This will be about specific campaigns, resulting in the `campaigns package` that Friends of the Earth will take forward over the first period of the next plan. There will be more online/written consultation, possibly further regional face-to-face discussions and finally, there`ll be more consultation at the FOE Conference 2007, to be held at Reading University from 7th - 9th September.
For further details and for updates throughout 2007, bookmark this page
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WHY SHOULD FOE PROMOTE PLANT BASED DIETS?
Ditching animal products in favour of vegetarian/vegan diets is the single most effective action that any individual can take to reduce their personal impact on the planet. The evidence for this is indisputable, so much so that organisations whom you may not expect to speak out, are beginning to do so. For instance, take a look at this quote:
"The livestock sector accounts for 18% of global greenhouse gas emissions - more than transport, which emits 13.5%."
This quote is taken from a report titled - Livestock’s Long Shadow, by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
The report goes on to say that livestock production is at the heart of almost every other environmental catastrophe confronting the planet - rainforest destruction, spreading deserts, loss of fresh water, air and water pollution, acid rain and soil erosion. You can read the report in full here
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We would urge you to read this report and familiarise yourself with the facts before attending one of the consultation meetings or filling in the online forms. Much more information can be found in Viva!`s excellent and fully referenced report Planet on a Plate
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With enough pressure from compassionate, environmentally minded people, we have no doubt that FOE can be persuaded to include the promotion of plant based diets in their five year plan. And other organisations will then surely follow suit!
# Please Note # - The above article can also be found on Redditch Vegetarians & Vegans website here
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Comments
Hide the following 10 comments
Well done
31.12.2006 00:12
Ritchie
Liar
31.12.2006 08:48
Steve Mclean
Depopulation is the answer, not vegan/vegetarianism
31.12.2006 22:04
What happens to all those animals and insects that start to live off all those plants you'd be growing only to have their homes destroyed or worse still, killed themselves, just so you could eat the plants?
Ethical and sustainable eating is the only way forward, and that is only going to happen once the population has been decreased.
The only true way of getting the earth back into equalibrium is to lower the populations of the thing that is hurting it the most ... that is us, the humans, meat eaters or plant eaters.
If there were less of us, we could all live ethically and sustainably with the land, eating plants and animals as we came across them naturally, like hunter-gathers, and not forcing the land to give us something that isn't naturally occuring.
Next you'll be telling me that we should go around the world and tell the lions and tigers etc to start eating plants!!
Silver Satori
Confused Satori?
01.01.2007 04:35
As for your comments about the insects - there is something called nature involved. I'm sure you care so much about the flies that live of cow excrement, or the birds that then in turn live of those bugs. When these animals are taken off to slaughter, how do the little insects survive? Evolution has solved this!
Crops are obviously going to be grown all year long and because of that there is always somewhere for insects to live.
Emo Kid
Killing a plant or an animal?
01.01.2007 17:22
How is killing a plant any different to killing an animal? ... surely plants are alive too?
I am thinking along the lines of what is best for the earth, not for one human or animal. There are many animals and humans on this planet, but only 1 earth, therefore we need to do what is best for it and not us or the animals.
Living by eating animals or even plants is not good for the earth, if we force it to grow animals or plants for us.
The best thing for the earth is to live off of what it gives us naturally as and when it wants to, throughout the seasons.
This can only be done through living off of what the earth gives us at various times of the year, and not forcing the land to grow certain plants or animals just so that we can eat them whenever we like.
And to top it off, we cannot live like this with the number of people on this planet, therefore before we can even ever think about living as one with the earth we have to decrease the amount of people who live on it.
Silver Satori
The Pretenced Care For Rooted Plants
02.01.2007 07:29
The victims of the slaughterhouses,namely,individual cows,pigs,birds,sheep etc all have a BRAIN,central NERVOUS system,internal ORGANS & pulsating HEART beat. And therefore are sentient and do have a physical and mental world to consciously experience.
It's really quite laughable when acclaimed "carnivore's" show a pretenced care for rooted plants by typing-- "plants are alive too!"--in order to becoming the "defender of life" and to recycle their existing guilt to the veggie/vegan who then becomes "the killer of life".It shows the low depths of self deception that the irrational flesh eating anthropocentric will go to.Ironically though, the same flesh eater,showing a pretenced care for rooted plants,consumes lots of plants through the animal flesh that the animal slaughtered previously ate and digested.
"What about bacteria and microbes there alive too"?
Tim
Civilization is the problem, not meat eaters...
03.01.2007 00:05
Do plants matter the most, or perhaps animals matter the most, or even perhaps us humans matter the most .... or.... perhaps what is best for the earth as a whole is what matters the most .... and neither vegan/vegetarians nor canivores; all in their billions, are what matters the most for the earth ...
Sure being a vegetarian is good for the animals, they can all go live natural lives ..... but lets go one step further and stop the suffering of animals from domestication too ... all the cats, dogs, birds and insects etc that we have forced into servitude, just so we can have a plaything at home, or something to go walkies with .... we have taken these animals from nature and forced them to be something they are not supposed to be ... lets focus on this too.
If we do stop eating animals, what would happen to all the free animals that we no longer eat ... what are they now going to do?? .... live in this amazing big old world all us billions of humans live in??
What about the effect all these new plants would have on the world and it's ecosystem if we all decided to eat only plants? .... have we really studied enough to know what feeding 6+billion people with these plants would do to the world, what effect would it have on the earth and the animals?? ... would the animals not see all this abundance of free food and want some of it for themselves?? ...... oh right, we have ways of stopping the animals from eating all these lovely plants of ours .... and that would be sustainable and ethical would it?
Far too many people think an answer to our 'supposed' affect on global warming is to stop eating meat the way we do ... and sure it might do something, but it is not the answer that is best for the earth ...
Civilization as a whole is the most destructive force on this planet ... and eating animals in their billions as we do now is only a tiny tiny part of it ...... please offer me some future by telling me what your world of no meat eaters would look like ... I am interested to know.... because no vegan/vegetarian from civilization has ever told me .... but .... lets say I go see some aborigines or maybe some native indians or maybe some inuits .... perhaps they can offer me what their world looks like ... perhaps they would say the best world is one of less people ..... and these people should live with the natural cycles of the earth, live off of what the earth offers naturally, throughout each season ... with plants and animals, eating plants and animals ...... so perhaps they are right and having less people on this planet has the best hope for having a sustainable earth?
And is that not your ultimate goal as a vegan/vegetarian?? ... to set the animals free yes, but yet to ultimate live on a sustainable earth??
For your information, I am moved that I have made you laugh, even brought a smile to your face, in these most testing of times.
I do not hold any guilt for eating animals, I enjoy eating animals flesh that I have hunted fairly, that I have spent time getting to know, getting to understand, this is my choosing. I also enjoy eating plants too, wandering over the land, looking for signs of natures offerings of plant sustenance, and when the times call for it, forcing the land to grow me something.
All this I believe is not self deception, nor irrational, this is just me and the way I see best I should live ... I am allowed to do this because I live on land that is less populated than most .... land that should be available all around the world, but yet is not, because of civilization...
I do not seek to push my ways onto you or anyone else, I only offer what is for me, and what should be for all too, yet is not attainable as long as we allow the billions of civilization, and civilization itself to still continue....
Being a meat eater or indeed a plant eater has bearing on this as a whole .....
Silver Satori
Silver Satori
More Pretenced Cares...
03.01.2007 01:57
It's amazing the pretenced cares for so called animals from the acclaimed "carnivores" that fund their enslavement,castration,branding and slaughter and then come out with inane perspectives of parading cares with "if we don't eat 'meat' what will happen to the animals"!
How do you think individual cows,pigs,sheep and birds(ducks,chickens) come into existence? The euphemistically called "farmer",firstly,molests(rape) the penis of a male bull or pig (to obtain semen) and then implants that into the genitallia of a female cow or female pig which is also euphemistically called "artificial insemination"(rape). This then results in billions upon billions of births,and then later subsequent slaughters,with the same cycle continued financially --and eternally--by flesh eating(butcher going) anthropocentrics!
I listened to a similar inane sick verbalence from a Talksport presenter who said,"If it wasn't for us meat eaters,animals wouldn't even exist.So the vegetarians are really being anti animals." Oh, the caring animal lover just like the previous messenger.
Tim
Crops won't grow where animals graze
03.01.2007 12:59
For example in Wales and Scotland, sheep are dominant largely because the land is not suitable for growing crops because the land is too steep to plough (without causing huge amounts of soil erosion) or because the soils are too wet or acidic (ie too nutirent poor) for anything but grasses and heather (plants that have evolved to grow in wet, acidic soils) to grow but which sheep can graze on.
Similarly many soils in the UK are only suitable for certain crops which would mean a very restricted diet like potatoes. Crucially these crops would be dependent on leaving land fallow so that there is a green manure added and the addition of fertilisers including manure. When the field is left fallow you might as well graze animals on it to allow the addition of animal manure, plus getting the useful dietary addition of milk and meat.
In reality modern agriculture is totally dependent on the use of animal wastes to fertilise soils.
In theory more intensive farming - such as crofting (I use the word intensive to mean high labour inputs, not high fertiliser, chemical inputs which is often meant by the phrase 'intensive farming') with a great deal of input to the land could increase the returns from land that is generally regarded as being more unproductive by modern agriculture.
Eg a Highland croft with a polytunnel, some sheep and chickens, and an organic vegetable patch will produce more and a wider range of crops from the same bit of land if it was just used for eg grazing sheep. But the labour involved would mean this wouldn't be economic unless people where doing it for themselves (requiring a change in many many thiings and a revolution in land ownership patterns...)
And excluding animals from that mix would greatly reduce the productivity.
As a generalisation the more you move into marginal agricultural areas - whether that is where the land gets cold and wet like in Scotland and Wales or where the land gets too warm and dry (desertification) you become more dependent on food from animal sources. (Just think of the Iniut who only eat animal products and no vegetables...)
Animal rights and enviromental ethics don't necessarily mix.
Omnivore
vegan diet is also healthier
25.01.2007 19:37
philb
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