Friday, April 17, 2009

I Don't Like To Rant And Rave, But Give Me A Break!

I'm sorry, but this whole "Go Green" thing has finally pushed me over the edge! I'm all for being good stewards of this earth which the good Lord created. There's no room for abuse when you're taking care of something that doesn't belong to you. Though God did put man here and told him to take charge over the place.

But a good thing can be overdone, and, like that big red dot on those insurance ads, we're there!

I was wasting time reading the Yahoo headlines and came across a story about picking our green battles. It talked about the paper vs. plastic (bag) dilemma and how it really doesn't matter that much. (I've been saying that for years.)

And it mentioned the choice between cloth and disposable diapers. Apparently either choice is equally bad for the environment, so short of disallowing bodily excretion from your baby, there's not much you can do to save the planet from poop. (That was my opinion twenty-five years ago before big bucks were spent on government studies that concluded "it" happens and we can't do anything about it.)

Next the article mentioned the choice of drinking your coffee from a throw-away cup or a ceramic mug. I'm glad that the official call on that one is that it is no big deal either way, because honestly, I've never given it much thought. And I don't care to.

All these little arguments aren't worth our time and effort according to the article's author. But there are things, says this promoter of green living, that we should do to make more of a difference.

(Grab a cat by the tail, rub its fur the wrong way all the way to its head, and you'll get an idea what this bit of stupidity did to me!)

"Eat less meat."

It seems..."Raising livestock is one of the most significant contributors to a long list of environmental problems from climate change to deforestation to water pollution."

OH PA-LEEZE! (I'm slapin' my forehead.) God created the earth, He created the cow, a cow is biodegradable, her poop is organic matter, (unless she eats a plastic Wal-Mart bag, a disposable diaper, or a styrofoam cup) yet bovine is one of the biggest threats to our planet? (Are you picturing the furred up cat here?)

I come from a family of cattle raisers. Rifle totin', hat wearin', horse ridin', steer ropin', slow talkin' full of common sense, Texas cattle raisers. Yeah, my fur is standin' on end!

But what really popped my cork was the stupidity, the idiotic idea, (sorry) the method in which the climate conscientious human should go about cutting down on his or her meat intake. "Start by trimming down your portion size to about three ounces (the size of a deck of playing cards)."

Now what kind of a difference is that going to make? If I eat a three-ounce steak, or an eight-ounce steak, or a four-pound roast, I still slaughter a one-thousand pound animal to get it. It's not like I go out in the pasture and whittle three ounces off a cow at a time until she's gone. How much sense does it make to go to a steakhouse, order up their 6 oz. sirloin, eat half for the sake of going green, then throw the rest away? I guess if I gave the other half of the steak to the guy in the booth behind me and he didn't order a steak at all...but still the one whole cow was needed to produce that "deck-size" piece of meat.

Honesty, I wish some people would stop and think before they open their mouths or put their pen to the paper.

As for the cow being responsible for deforestation--I don't buy it. As I see it, trees need carbon dioxide and some good fertilizer to grow strong and healthy. A cow provides both. The cowman and the tree hugger may not be able to live peaceably among one another, but I think the cows and the trees do a pretty good job of it. I've never yet seen a cow chop down a tree. And unless you're in the habit of drinking out of an earth tank where A cow has crawled in to cool down, I'd not worry too much about her polluting your water. She's got better things to do, like munching grass, chewing cud, and giving milk. Which, by the way, is safe for human consumption.

Now that I've got that off my chest, I think I'll go fire up the grill and leave a big ol' footprint on the planet!

EAT MORE BEEF!

12 comments:

Karen said...

Ha ha!! I love it! Will share this with my dad....

Girl, you need a talk show...

Lavonda Pflug said...

Thanks Karen,
Care to split a 10 oz. Rib Eye with me? I usually take mine medium, but I'm riled enough to eat one rare! LOL
(We can eat if after the show!) LOL
You are great for my ego...love ya!

IdaR said...

My job is 100% tied into the cattle industry, and you wouldn't BELIEVE the stuff that comes from the tree huggers. They'd have you believe that it is cruel to milk a cow. ??!!!??? They obviously know NOTHING about dairy cattle. Tree huggers are really good at anthropomorphizing food animals. I agree, it goes against my grain real fast. So, preach on sister, preach on.

Anonymous said...

You can get twice as many 5 oz steaks from a cow as 10 oz steaks. AFAIK they don't slaughter a whole cow for 1 steak.

Lavonda Pflug said...

Hey Anonymous,
I passed math class and understand you can get twice as many 5 ounce-ers as ten...but my point is, it's not going to make any more of a difference than choosing paper over plastic or the other way around. Man has been raising cattle since time began and cattle is not the cause of climate change or water pollution. Think about it! If so, then polluted water and greenhouse gasses are part of the "natural state" of the earth. God created the cow before he created the man. So global warming (if it is real) is God's fault? Let's not get crazy here!

Anonymous said...

The theory is each cow puts out a certain amount of methane. Cows as a population produce more greenhouse gas emissions than humans do, with our cars and factories and everything. If each person ate half as much cow meat, then the demand for cow meat would cut in half, and then less cows would be bred. Also, as far as the deforestation goes, I doubt anyone is blaming the cow. It is the rancher or land developer or whoever that clears the forest to create open areas that the cows can graze in.
It doesn't matter anyway. Global climate change is a good thing, a natural cycle, and caused by that giant thermonuclear ball 93 million miles away.

:)

Lavonda Pflug said...

Anonymous... do you ever wish you had a different name? LOL (just teasing)

You are right about one thing...It's a THEORY. I'm not stupid and I get the "theory." But I have my doubts about cows producing more greenhouse gas than cars, factories, etc. I know reports can be falsified to push an agenda. Our country (and government) is stuffed full of people with big agendas. And we've got a lot of folks that have no problem telling any kind of a lie if it will benefit them in some way.

But mostly, it's just that this theory is the most ridiculous I've heard in the whole green living scheme.

The truth about the forest is...people have to eat something. If we all become vegans something tells me that vegetable production will have to increase. I've done plenty of gardening and I know you can't grow a garden on a forest floor (unless all you eat are mushrooms) So I'm sorry, we can't allow trees to take over every square inch of the planet. Somebody somewhere has to cut down a tree. We used to live in an area that we had to mow sprouting trees down with the grass to keep them from pushing our house off the foundation, choking out the garden, and completely taking over.

And yes, if I had a cow that produced natural fertilizer for my garden, meat for my table, and milk for my cup I'd cut down a tree to give her grass to eat.

I find it interesting that the same people who scream about cows and greenhouse gas also want us all to use natural fertilizer and will pay more at the store for something labeled "organic." Where in the world do they think natural fertilizer comes from? It comes from those huge smelly piles of cow poop gathered from feed yards. You cut down on cow production, you cut down on cow poop. You don't have enough cow poop to nourish the vegetable fields (because we are all now vegans) you will have to depend on chemical fertilizers...

I just believe that doing away with a human food source is a dumb place to start trying to save the planet. Personally, I have a hard time keeping enough iron in my blood to keep me going. And where can I get that iron? Good ol' red meat.

I can't eat a pine tree, I can't use it's bark to make my shoes, my dog would turn her nose up to kibbles of acorns and pine nuts, and I'll never try to get my granddaughters to get their nourishment from tree sap. Shall I go on? See, the cow is so important to our survival and our way of life--she is used for so much more--that just cutting your small steak in half will make little or no difference in the big picture.

So do me a favor. Don't use paper or plastic. Carry your groceries home in a little red wagon, (you'll be cutting down on greenhouse gasses by not driving your car). Don't drink coffee out of a cup at all, just slurp it right out of the pot. Then, grill yourself up a big thick steak for dinner and know that you've done what you can to save the planet! :)

May God give us ALL wisdom and sound judgment!

Anonymous said...

my three kids probably produce as much gas a a herd of cattle. should i do away with them?

Lavonda Pflug said...

Anonymous #2--[I know you are not #1 because #1 is a person I love very much who just loves to give me a hard time whenever he can, and he has two kids.;)]

I'd hang on to my kids if I were you. Smelly gas emissions give environmentalists a reason to get out of bed in the morning.

The real problem, or "stink" if you will, is when a land developer puts a pricey suburb down-wind from a feed lot, or the lot goes in up-wind of an existing such neighborhood. Property drops in value and some people get upset. So rather than say, "such is life" and play the hand life deals them, they decide to create a bigger stink and get the government and some activists all stirred up by screaming "greenhouse gas!" (These days those words put people in motion faster than if someone yells "FIRE!" I guess they think the "biggest stinkers" win.
So on a day after you've fed those kids of yours some beans, just keep them out of affluent neighborhoods and you should be okay.
Thanks for commenting!

sharilyn said...

i still think that one answer would be to bottle all that natural gas all of your kids and men are producing!! i'm sure we could use it to fuel the entire city of los angeles (including suburbs!)! : )

i, too, am weary of the 'green talk'...especially since so much of it is based on lies... yes, let's call them what they are--not just "misinformation" but outright lies.

one that is absolutely killing me right now is the 'no more incandescent lightbulbs' theory... that will soon affect us all. fluourescent lights suck the life out of office workers (including myself!)all over the nation, and yet, that's what we're all in store for very soon--as they ("they") will be outlawing production of incandescent lights due to supposed energy savings by use of fluourescents. they don't talk about the toxic mercury inside those bulbs that cause one to clear one's home of all living creatures if one is broken! but i guess, it doesn't really matter if a few humans die... as long as we're saving the planet... (yes, my cat is being rubbed ferociously in the wrong direction!!)

thank you for your very un-PC post! it is MOST refreshing!!

Anonymous said...

http://www.themercury.com/features/letterstotheeditor/article.aspx?articleId=7f49493c53ec456f91d038abe5a9d8cb

Thought you would find this relevant. Happy Earth Day!

Travis said...

Beef-
It's what's for dinner!