Seeking the Right Environmental Cause to Support?

Bakajin asks: "I have always been a passive environmentalist. I think that any intelligent person must have concern about our planet and the future of our species upon it and that the Slashdot crowd has many such people. I have increasingly become more concerned about global warming as more and more signs seem to point to its likely effects. I try to make changes in my personal habits but, like many Slashdotters, don't have much time to try and effect larger changes to policy and science. I do however have money. I want to know what organizations Slashdot members think are most worthy of contribution and will give me the most effect for my money, politically or scientifically. This question fits well within Slashdot because it seems to have many members who think critically about the world and their role within it. There also seems to be a willingness to openly express mistrust of the same large corporations that either ignore environmental issues or outright cause them. Please don't turn this into a debate about whether global warming is an actual threat or how bad other environmental issues actually are, but rather about which organizations are the most effective and trustworthy for me to give my hard earned cash."

Comments

stop eating meat.

[Anonymous Coward]

the reason "animal rights activists" don't like the meat industry is that it operates under the "black box" paradigm: here's a shed, you put in food, water, and electricity, and you get out meat and excrement. (Actually, a whole lot of excrement, which we'll get to later). The question is how to turn the most food into the most meat using the least square footage -- and the answer is one that treats animals in less than favorable conditions. But let's not consider whether animals live in painful conditions for the months before they die (who cares), but look only at the environmental impact of this scheme. Viz.
14-120 pounds of food, mostly human-edible, go into 1 pound of meat. The rest (what isn't burned away by the animals' metabolism), comes right back out as excrement. Ruminate on these link links for a bit.

If you're concerned not just about environmentalism, but human starvation, then consider that the reason many starving countries can't afford our harvests is that we're feeding them to our animals instead; i.e. becoming highest-bidder for that food. So when you eat a quarter-pound of meat, consider that the reason you're paying $1.28 for it is so you can have purchased the 5-8 pounds of human-edible food used to feed that quarter-pound. And if you weren't paying $1.00 for it, some third-world country would be paying $38 cents. Supply and demand.

For an alternative view (against the argument outlined above), see here .
Notice that it says "the world right now is producing more food than people could eat if they had it in front of them. The amount of
food produced is not the problem."
and yet we know that people are starving. Why? Because we're producing more non-meat food than all people in the world can eat, and we're feeding it to our animals. Notice later that the excremenet problem I listed above is turned around and said to be a positive source of manure. If only that were the case...

Of the admittedly small sample of people I've known who seemed to care about the environment and human starvation (can you imagine what it's like to *starve* *to* *death*), none concluded after looking into the meat industry that it is something worth supporting, except for "organic" meats grown really on pastures where only grass grows, and not within today's farming paradigm. The food they consume is not human-consumable, and the methods of rearing are much different, and result in a much smaller environmental impact, especially considering the number of animals / square foot that exist on a large open pasture versus today's typical meat industry.

You say you have money, so if you don't like the idea of giving up meat, you can boy elitist organic meat -- but the 99% of the meat industry (I dont' know what the actual number might be) that most arguments are aimed against is definitely something you do not want to be supporting.

Re:stop eating meat.

[lindsayt]

Even in 1848, Karl Marx already recognized that the problem isn't supply but rather distribution. This is more true now than ever before. It's not because our prices for grain are high - believe me, my wife's family are all farmers. The US burns enough grain every year as a result of overproduction to feed the entire world many times over. This is only one small part of the planet with high-efficiency fields. There is plenty of food currently being destroyed for nothing or nearly nothing.

The problem is distribution: all this destoyed grain is being destroyed so that it doesn't rot and simultaneously bring prices down. Now, if they could sell this grain instead of burning it, even if they were selling it at a loss, then the farmers and hence the US economy would be better offf than it currently is. The problem is that countries like Somalia (I have Somali neighbors so I know) get huge shipments of US grain that rot on the docks because the Somali "government" (I use the word loosely) lets the grain rot on the pier instead of distributing it, because it suits their political interests. So, if we stopped eating meat here in America and let all that grain we're currently feeding to animals go to other countries, guess what? The pile of grain rotting on piers in Somalia would be twice as big, the Somali people would still be starving, and US farmers would be in an even worse state, and the current agricultural depression would accelerate. Great...

Educatate youself; Start with Natural Capitalism

[km790816]

Educate yourself first. Learn the issues. Know the vested interests. Find something that really makes you mad and fight for it.

I have one suggestion: Natural Capitalism. The best book I have ever read on the subject. This book is totally infuriating and completely inspiring.

Did you know that the subsidies that go to coal mining in Germany, if paid to the miners directly, would give them an annual income of US$65,000? Crazy...

Start with this book. Support the authors who work everyday on these issues. Check out the web site: http://www.natcap.org

Warning

[leastsquares]

First an introduction. I consider myself extremely environmental conscious. I recycle as much as possible. I never drive to work. yadda yadda yadda. I keep myself upto date with environmental issues, so I think I have an idea about what I talk about. With that said...

Do NOT support greenpeace. They are a terrorist organisation... All around the world, they support groups with interfere with the oil companies business. They damage (and in at least one case sink) military and scientific ships. They promote the destruction of crops in GM trials.

If you don't believe me do a search on google.

They have a noble cause, but they are furthering it by the wrong means. The really annoying thing is that several of my friends and even some of my family support them financially. I've tried smacking them with a clue-bat, alas with little success.