TV turnoff week
Time to unplug.
TV Turn off Week - April 24-30th.
TV Turnoff is no ordinary social ritual. Sure, it’s a statement against the dead-end couch culture but when millions of people let the screen fade to black, they also help build the Media Carta Movement – the human rights battle of our information age.
No meat
I was pretty excited to hear that Sam Neil was fronting a campaign for Meat and Livestock Australia. Haven’t seen the TVC but here’s my take on the press ad I saw in the Good Weekend the other day.
NO MEAT.
Feel even better.
The next small step.
The next giant leap.
What will be the next stage in our evolution? Just because people have eaten meat for thousands of years doesn’t mean it’s a good reason for us to continue.
If we stopped eating meat we could put an end to world hunger and environmental degradation.
Keeping livestock is an incredibly wasteful way of producing food; only 7-10% of the food energy of grains and other food fed to intensively farmed animals is converted to the food energy available from meat.
Sustainable population growth would be achievable and world hunger eliminated if we were less focused on a meat-eating diet. The US Population Reference Bureau found, “If everyone adopted a vegetarian diet and no food were wasted, current [food] production would theoretically feed 10 billion people, more than the projected population for the year 2050.”
Environmental impacts of the meat industry are massive. Throughout the world vast areas of natural habitats are being destroyed to create grazing land for livestock. There are also issues of erosion, salinity, effluent disposal, methane production and wildlife extinction (due to habitat destruction) associated with livestock production.
A balanced vegetarian diet meets all our nutritional requirements and has many health benefits.
The American Dietetic Association and Dietitians of Canada found that vegetarians have lower body mass indices than non-vegetarians, as well as lower rates of death from ischaemic heart disease, lower blood cholesterol levels, lower blood pressure, lower rates of hypertension, type 2 diabetes, and prostate and colon cancer.
Then of course there are ethical issues. Hidden from public view is the death-driven meat industry that treats sentient life forms as an economic production commodity where appalling, artificial and cruel conditions and practices completely debase animal life. This, in turn, debases our own lives.
Traditionally, societies have also had slaves and women have been oppressed by men but most people are happy to have seen a change in our value systems and for us to move beyond this.
Education, awareness and understanding make us better human beings. And it is exactly this ability to adapt that has pushed us to explore and to make changes in our societies. So given all the detrimental impacts and suffering associated with meat production, is there any reason for it to continue?
As Albert Einstein said “Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
No meat. Feel even better.
[I have borrowed heavily from a range of websites for much of this material, but if you use more than one source it's not plagiarism, right?]
April fools
On Saturday April 1st Ben and I were among 55 teams of cyclists who departed Mildura as part of the 20th edition of Woody’s Murray to Moyne.
For those who can’t be bothered with the link, the aim is to start at one of three points along the Murray (Echuca, Swan Hill or Mildura) and ride in a relay, arriving in Port Fairy within 24 hours with a mandatory rest stop in Hamilton.
Here are some general thoughts about the experience:
Riding into a headwind is one of the most demoralising experiences a cyclist can have
The best things about country cooking are also the best attributes of the people who live there
Cycling in the darkness beneath the pin-holed blanket of the milky way is a memorable experience
The human spirit is an amazing thing
Paying tribute to volunteers is not a cliche
The human anatomy would be completely different if bicycles existed before the evolution process
Writing a blog the day after will take approximately 11 times the time required for a normal post
Stars and Silence: Great Alpine Road trip
When I was climbing regularly one of the things I would look forward to most was getting out of the car late on a Friday night at a campsite near the crag and savouring the stars, silence and fresh air. Such great soul food so absent in my usual city diet.
Just back from a weeklong circuit of the Great Alpine Road. Two nights in the ti-tree scrub on Ninety Mile Beach, two under the snow gums by JB Plain (between Dinner Plain and Hotham) and one night each on the banks of Lake Catani (Mt Buffalo) and the Ovens River.
Plenty of stars, silence and fresh air; enhanced with good company, spectacular surrounds, crisp autumn weather and open fires. And the inestimable pleasure of snuggling in my sleeping bag in the family tent, holding my daughters’ hands.