How can you resist the appeal of a group with a name like that? Well, The Great Old Broads teamed up with four other environmental groups and sued the US Department of Interior for ignoring their 2005 petition to protect public land. Here’s the danger: Did you know that ranchers can graze their cattle on public lands for almost no cost? $1.35 a month each doesn’t even pay to run the program’s administrative costs. This wouldn’t be so objectionable – except that the herds of cattle cause incredible environmental damage: soil compaction, erosion, degrading of watersheds, spread of introduced species. 258 MILLION acres of public land are involved. The lawsuit asks the government to conduct environmental impact studies, charge proper fees to ranchers, and use the funds to repair the damage caused by cattle. Read more of the original article at the Center for Biological Diversity.

Farmers, ranchers, commercial fishermen, and Native Americans had been contending, sometimes bitterly, over the Klamath River and its dams for years. But during the last few years, courageous individuals from these groups have reached out to each other to find ways to cooperate. The Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was reached in 2008, and an agreement to take down four dams was reached a few months ago. To anyone who thinks adversaries can never get along, I strongly encourage you to read this story. For the full article (by Jacques Leslie in the Spring, 2010 issue of Earth Island Institute), go to www.earthislandinstitute.net.

A renowned and widely quoted United Nations report from 2006 identified meat production as causing 18% of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Lately an air quality specialist at UC Davis claimed that in the US, it amounts to only 3% and that cutting back on meat is a distraction from the search for solutions to climate change.

To read the article from UCDavis click here… and to read Veggies are Wrong and Eating Less Meat will NOT Save the Planet click here.

But just days later, another report came out affirming the danger of meat to planet earth.

To read the article Major Report Explores Staggering Impact of Meat Production click this link.
I’m no climate scientist, but I can see many reasons meat is harming the earth. Producing the food to feed the animals uses a third of earth’s arable land – which could be used to feed people. Rainforests are being cut down at an alarming rate to grow soybeans to turn into animal food. Manure and liquid and methane waste from the animals pollutes air, water, and soil. The oceans are being emptied of fish that are also turned into animal feed.

What do you think?