http://www.planetizen.com/news/item.php?id=5357
I found this special report by E/The Environmental Magazine disturbing to read.
Last year, PLANetizen posted an interview with Eric Schlosser, the author of "Fast Food Nation" who suggests that fast food contributes to sprawl.
How The Fast Food Industry Spread Sprawl
http://www.planetizen.com/news/item.php?id=2272
In an editorial "How To Combat Our Obesity Epidemic?" (http://www.planetizen.com/news/item.php?id=5297) Neal Pierce points out that there is a "national obesity epidemic." Healthier diets, walkable communities(Smart Growth), and other potential solutions experience resistance from the fast food industry, developers, and the auto industry.
You think that McDonalds has it bad? I have to maintain a stockpile of arms and ammunition, purchase copious amounts of petrochemicals to fuel my out-of-tune, pre-catalytic converter, four-wheel drive SUV with oversized tires that often cause needless road kill on the way to the pristine forest. Once there, I climb a tree by using spikes and a chain.
Once up there I carve quotes from Ronald Reagan into the bark as a way to kill time while I wait for any thing to move. I have to do all of this for maybe 50 to 100 lbs of meat after I gut and clean little Bamby. Lately I have been traveling to another part of the state to fetch my meat. This causes me to burn three to four times as much fuel. That’s a load of fuel burnt per ounce of meat.
Last edited by el Guapo; 07 Feb 2002 at 10:18 AM.
Nice piece of PETA propaganda. I wish I had time to argue many of the points made in it. I'm sure much of the statistics cited could be suspect. Usually how they make these cases is they use the impacts of meat production in the rain forest, ignoring the costs of production in other areas. Any article that I read that quotes both PETA and Paul Ehrlich I label as propaganda.
Don't get me wrong, I'm more environmental than most. My undergraduate degree is Wildlife Biology. These fringe groups spouting their "junk science" give true environmentalists a bad name. I live in Iowa, and while there are examples of animals treated badly, most of the family farmers treat their animals with great care. I never see the 4H kids brushing and pampering their animals in any of these articles, yet in an Iowa summer this is the norm.
Do a search at http://www.junkscience.org look up the Ehrlichs and PETA for the other side of the story.
Gotta love ya, El Guapo. Here in Wisconsin the gun deer season is known as Holy Week. Factories shut down. I woke up 20 minutes after the start of the season and two does were nibbling the shrubs outside my bedroom window. Sure, I grow fruit and vegetables. They taste great with meat.
Gas station/fast food impacts
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